When I was a child, I spent long hours alone. My older siblings were 15, 13, and 8 years old than me; I was, as my parents always said, unplanned, not unwanted. Mom also always said I was what happened when you both don’t keep one foot off the side of the bed, but that’s another story. This is the tale of a little girl who filled her days with books and toys and climbing cherry trees and riding her bike for hours outside. A creative soul who played teacher and listened to the same album on endless repeat while making up increasingly intricate dances to go with the songs. A dreamer who wrote stories, spun fantasies, and walked between worlds with the ease of an old soul. So often, I remember, my mother’s exasperated sigh when she’d inevitably find me.
“I’ve been calling to you forever?” she’d complain. “Didn’t you hear me?”
At some point, those deliciously long spans of time in my head became fewer and fewer, harder to come by, and all the more precious. There was school and homework and housework and going out with friends and dealing with family drama. Then college and loss and so much sadness and a future that wasn’t what I had planned. Crappy first jobs and difficult friendships and heartbreak. Marriage and kids and a career that seemed so promising but ate up all my energy and left nothing to spare. Any chance to be alone became a pool of anxiety about what I wasn’t getting done and what new trouble was coming next. Worries about my kids being happy and healthy. Watching my husband get laid off then fired and now go through a terrible takeover that has left him working 80 hours a week and unable to catch up. Slowly coming to hate the thing I used to love and want to quit or retire because I don’t want to work in these conditions.Spending a summer moving my kids to new cities and facing the very real fact that soon I will be alone.
I no longer know how to be alone.
The world has pummeled it out of me.
I need to find it again, the joy of world walking, of doing nothing with only myself to entertain.
Or it’s not going to be pretty, the downward spiral.
As Endgame recedes in the rearview mirror and we wait for the next phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I'm starting to take a long view and think about the evolution of characters throughout the first 10 years. In a series of movies with different directors and writers, our favorite superheros have had room to grow ... or not ... from their beginnings to their, for some, final act. Here’s my list of the top 5 best and worst character arcs in the MCU.
As always, this is just my opinion. Feel free to disagree.
First, I have to recognize the large number of characters who virtually didn’t change at all. Has Maria Hill done anything but be Fury’s second in command? Sure Rhodey changed actors and had things happen to him, but he’s as much Tony’s right hand as Sam Wilson is Steve’s left. Having something happen to a character isn’t enough to make this list; there has to be noticeable changes in their outlooks, roles, or emotional beats to constitute an arc. With that said, here’s a non-exhaustive list of what I think worked and what didn’t.
5. BEST: Nebula (Learning)
Originally slated to die in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie , Nebula has emerged as a sympathetic abuse survivor who wrestles with her father’s sadistic manipulation of her body and her feelings to become one of the heroes who ultimately take him down. A foil for Gamora in GOTG, Karen Gillian’s Nebula is filled with hatred and a desire to destroy her sister that doesn’t just go away overnight. GOTG 2 gives us a nice shifting arc of Nebula coming to terms with the fact that her rivalry with Gamora is yet another piece of damage done by Thanos; all the way up to when she crashes the ship on Ego, she’s still driven by that desire. But she’s started to change, with Yondo and Rocket and, finally, Gamora’s acceptance. But it’s in those opening moments of Endgame, when Tony Stark treats her like an equal and a person, that she truly blossoms into something else. Nebula demands a place on the list by virtue of the long way she’s come from that woman who appeared in Nowhere to kill her sister.
5. WORST: Vision (Fridging)
When Vision picked up Mjolnir in AOU, a gasp ran through the theater. Here was a character who was not only worthy of that honor, but also embodied the best of Tony Stark’s vision. He was, after all, patterned on Jarvis -- both human and A.I. -- and the only one powerful enough to shut down Ultron. With so much potential, he ended that movie with a possible love interest (one of the great love stories of the comics, IMHO) and as a superhero with amazing abilities that complimented the rest of the Avengers.
But then the story line shifted to a man/A.I. in love who got distracted by Wanda, who served as her jailer (slightly creepy? Yeah), and ultimately became downgraded to begging to be killed to save the world. He spends almost all of Infinity War as a plot device, the stone he carries more important than him. Sacrifice is a well-worn turn and can be very satisfying, but Vision’s end felt more like a way to take two very powerful heroes off the playing board so they wouldn’t cut swaths through Thanos’ army. Vision becomes the fridged significant other that spurs Wanda on to her next storyline and that’s a real loss for the MCU..
4. BEST: Wanda Maximoff (From villain to hero)
Of all the women in the MCU, Wanda gets some of the best storylines and most character development. From her origin as an experimental subject for Von Strucker, working for HYDRA then Ultron, shifting sides, losing her brother, losing Vision ... there’s so much that propels her on her way. In AOU, it’s Clint who kicks her ass, tells her to either fight or hide, and pushes her to make her decision about being a hero or a villain. Then, her mistake at the beginning of CACW is a moment that crystalizes the question of constraining heroes; that it’s Wanda who loses control, one of the most powerful of all of them, makes the decisions/fall out that comes later weigh heavily on her. She goes from angry young woman who volunteers to be genetically manipulated to one of the leaders of the Avengers.
She’d be higher on the list if Infinity War and Endgame had furthered her story beyond the death of Vision, but, instead, they took her back to the loss of a loved one and revenge plot that she’d already played twice before (her parents and Pietro).
4.WORST: Peggy Carter (Wasted potential)
I have no problem with Peggy Carter and Daniel Sousa; Peggy deserves all the love. My issue is with the way Peggy’s character was basically neutered and turned into pop-up shorthand in Steve Rogers’ plot land. That woman in First Avenger, the one who punched soldiers, talked Howard into flying the plane so Steve could rescue Bucky, cried as Steve went into the water? I was so fucking happy when she got her own tv show and was “I know my value” kick ass. But then season 2 comes along and for some unfathomable reason, those behind the scenes change everything and end on a “and she got a man!” note which, ultimately, is better than what happens to Peggy in the movies where she slowly devolves into short appearances to remind Steve they never got their dance. This is Margaret Fucking Carter who founded SHIELD ... that her story ends, after such a wonderful beginning, with her silently dancing as Mrs. Rogers, is a travesty.
3. BEST: James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes (Complex layers)
This, my friends is what a story arc looks like. Within CAFA itself, Bucky goes from Steve’s ‘end of the line’ friend to tortured prisoner to Howling Commando and Sebastian Stan acts the hell out of those changes. Then, then, we get the darkness of the Winter Soldier but with glimmers of a good man’s tormented soul. The Bucky who just wanted to buy some plums, damn it, in Civil War and the Bucky who decides to go back into cryo because he’s a danger. Now we’re going to get a Falcon and Winter Soldier with Bucky sans Steve and I damn well can’t wait.
His arc isn’t perfect; he has next to nothing to do in Infinity War and we know how Endgame ends. But between some good writing and a talented actor like Stan, we see Bucky grow and change as we root for him.
3. WORST: Jasper Sitwell (Plot over Character)
Jasper stands for all the second string characters who were given promise then yanked around by writers who forced them into plot holes that needed filling. That includes Cameron Klein, the “I won’t launch the helicarriers” guy from CAWS who get a brief appearance in AOU because they need someone on the bridge and then is promptly forgotten. Sharon Carter who got a pretty damn decent moment in CAWS where she went up against Rumlow only to be reduced to Peggy Carter’s niece who gets Steve and friends their weapons in CACW (and don’t get me started on that kiss). Pietro Maximoff who died because Joss Whedon wanted to play bait and switch with Hawkeye and needed someone to kill for maximum manipulated pain.
Sitwell is an especially egregious case; he appears in Thor and two of the marvel one shots where his role is fellow SHIELD agent to Phil Coulson (and clearly implied friends) only to be chosen by the powers that be to turn HYDRA insider in CAWS. Here’s the thing -- someone has to be HYDRA and, yes, it needed to be a recognizable character. But Sitwell was the only Latino with a name and more than five lines. To pick him points to the inherent whiteness of the MCU; privilege much?
2. BEST: Tony Stark (Living up to the Promise)
So we come to Tony Stark, billionaire, philanthropist, playboy, genius who, with fits and starts, kicking and screaming, grows to become the father of the MCU. Think back to the Tony who didn’t know Obadiah was building weapons, who probably didn’t care to know. Who built the Jericho missile and lived because Yinsen sacrificed his life to save him. The Tony who almost died of palladium poisoning because he still hadn’t learned to play well with others. Who argued with Steve, built Ultron, signed the Accords. Tony makes mistakes ... lots of them ... he acts out of anger and fear and other emotions. He struggles with PTSD, messes up over and over again.
Now think about the Tony Stark who flew that nuke through a wormhole. Blew up all the suits for Pepper. Wants to protect the Earth. Mentored Peter Parker. Jumped on Thanos’ ship to save Stephen Strange. Loved his daughter. Forgave his father. Put aside his differences with Steve to bring the others back. Took the Infinity Stones and snapped his fingers. Is he perfect? Hell, no. That’s what makes him a great character
It’s no coincidence that the first 10 years of the MCU are bookended with one phrase said by the same person. The potential laid out in the first movie comes to fruition in the last; Tony Stark becomes more than Iron Man, he becomes the hero Yinsen knew he could be.
2. WORST: Clint Barton (Sin of Omission)
Yep, you knew we were going here. Of the original six, Clint’s character is the least developed and the one most cut & pasted into the needs of the script. With each new director/writer, Clint’s backstory was changed and modified. His is a crime of omission, being excluded. Whedon literally made Clint possessed by Loki so late in the process that he was still editing Clint’s eyes to be blue right before the film premiered. Then Whedon makes him a family man because someone needs to be normal and have it together. Never mind the whole Loki mind wipe thing ... did we see more than a couple throw away lines about how that affected him? Nope. And for God’s sake, the Ronin plot line in Endgame? “I don’t want him back,” Rhodey says, “he’s done terrible things.” Cue the music and thirty minutes later Rhodey and Clint are joking about time travel in the compound.
Sometimes I think about what the MCU could have been with a sassy tire fire Matt Fraction Clint Barton ... and I get really, really sad.
1. BEST: Thor Odinson (Surprise Twists that Make Sense)
It was a hard choice between Tony and Thor for the top spot. For me, Thor edges out Tony because Tony’s is a story of a man living up to his potential, one we saw coming from the beginning. Thor’s is one with twists and turns that sends hims spinning into new and fascinating directions. It starts the same as Tony’s: wastrel son doesn’t live up to expectations and learns to think of others. Future king comes to Earth and makes friends. Whatever Dark World was. Comes back to Earth and fights robots.
But then Taika Waititi comes along and explodes that mold with a Thor who is a smart mouthed dumb ass who gets lost and loses almost everything. In short order in the next movies we get a Thor who watches his father, his brother, his best friend die. Who literally destroys his own home to kill his sister and fails to stop Thanos from snapping his fingers.
And he doesn’t bounce back, doesn’t get over it between movies. Thor drops into a deep depression, eats his feelings, isolates himself, cries, becomes a mess. Yeah, the fat jokes cross a line for me in Endgame, but they don’t make him suddenly skinny or back to his original body. The Thor that strides out on that battlefield with Thanos’ army is still fat and doubts himself. The Thor that hands the throne to Valkyrie sets off looking for answers he still doesn’t have. Chris Hemsworth embraced Thor’s changes, acted the hell out of them ... and re-energized what had become a stereotype by taking him in a whole new direction.
1. WORST: Steve Rogers (Contradictions and Inconsistent)
Sigh. Gods above, I love Steven Grant Rogers. Little “I could do this all day” Stevie. Big bulky Cap Steve Rogers. Your buddy, your pal, your Bucky Steve Rogers. Steve my way or the highway Rogers. But I’ll be the first to admit that, between writers and directors, the character of Steve Rogers has Yo-Yoed between the comical “So you’re changing” Rogers of the school videos in Spiderman to the “No I don’t think I will” old man Rogers of Endgame.
Is Steve a by the book, lay on a wire type of guy we see in Whedon’s versions? The guy with the strong jawline who issues orders and calls out “language!”? Is he the soldier who hasn’t come home from war, who wants a life without battle and fighting? Is he the guy who is going to stick with Bucky to the end of the line, is willing to throw aside all others to stand by James Barnes? Is he the guy who pines forever over his lost love Peggy (while kissing her great niece)? With some good writing and consistent oversight, he could be all this ... but he’s not.
I could make this all about Endgame and that final decision, but the truth is, Steve Rogers is a cipher for whatever the writers needed him to be. He’s all those things, even when they’re contradictory, everything and therefore nothing at all. HIs is the worst sin of character development; to offer us great moments, possibilities, to pour time and effort in and to make use care then yank the rug out from under us. He is inconsistent because that’s how he’s written and it is the worst kind of character assassination.
As everyone knows, I freakin’ love the Marvel Cinematic Universe and will gladly gush about my babies to any and all who will listen. That doesn’t mean, however, that I won’t call Feige and Marvel on the carpet when they do stupid stuff ... and in a universe that spans over a decade with so many movies and writers and actors and directors, mistakes are bound to happen.
So here’s my off-the-top-of-my-head-list of things the MCU has fucked up. As always, these are my opinions and you are free to disagree with me. Some of these are very personal (*cough* Clint *cough*) while others are fairly universal. Enjoy at your own leisure!
10. The Five Year “Blip” that deprived the audience
I get it. They wanted to show the Avengers dealing with loss, make some changes to characters, and really ratchet up the emotional stakes of the plot. To give us an older Steve Rogers, Tony with a family, and Hulk/Bruce who’s come to terms with himself. But the five-year gap between the snap and the return of the “blipped” creates more problems than it solves. All of Spiderman’s friends blipped except the new M.J. love interest dude? What are the odds? People didn’t move on with new lovers/spouses? Awkward. The sudden influx of 50% more people didn’t throw the whole world into chaos? (a mention about fundraisers in Far from Home isn’t enough, folks)
And let’s talk about rushed storytelling in those five years. If you jump the plot forward, we miss a satisfactory conclusion of Bruce’s story (oh, yeah, he’s both now!), a lovely completion of Tony’s growth into content father & husband, a serious look into Thor and Steve and Natasha’s different depression arcs. There were so many other ways to do the same thing (I mean, six months would work, honestly); the blip deprived us of way too much.
9. Killing off Pietro and keeping him dead
Of all the characters who’ve died and stayed dead (and there are not that many main ones; they even figured out how to get Gamora back), Whedon’s decision to kill Pietro rankles, especially now that Wandavision is on the horizon. As a central comic book character in both the Avengers and X-men series, Pietro serves as a balance for his sister’s excesses (which I certainly hope to see in the Disney+ show) and as a bridge between the two franchises. Now that Marvel has the X-men in hand again, Pietro would make a great way to bring them together, draw Magneto into the Avengers’ sphere and the Avengers into the X-men’s bubble of influence. He’d also be a touchstone for Wanda as she goes through the loss of Vision and what will surely be her own descent into madness with the upcoming Dr. Strange movie. It’s also a waste of talent (Aaron Taylor Johnson’s got some serious acting chops) as well as a missing link to the Young Avengers through his nephews Billy and Tommy (the latter another speedster).
8. The Villian-A-Movie formula for most flicks
Thanos and Loki aside, most of the MCU movies use a formula where the villain dies and/or is brought to justice at the end. Sometimes, it doesn’t bother me ...honestly, Vanko in Iron Man 2? The Dark Elves in Thor 2? Darren Cross in Antman? Were they fleshed out enough to really be a threat to our heroes or just cyphers thrown in to give the heroes something to react against? ... but for a really fascinating, well-drawn villain like Killmonger or Vulture, it’s a crime to cut short their development because the hero has to win. Don’t get me wrong; I love Killmonger’s final lines ... I cry every damn time ... and I like the prison tag scene in Homecoming, but those characters are wasted by only being on our screens for such a small time. It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t formula ... either we seem to get flat, one-dimensional bad guys or we get too little time with the fascinating ones ... which brings us to ...
7. The Humanization and Tragic Backstory of Thanos
I’m going political here, so be warned. Why, of all the possible villains to give a daughter he appears to love and a tragic “my planet didn’t listen to me” spiel, did they pick Thanos? Mr. Despot, Genocidal Dictator who kills millions without hesitation? Who spouts absurd theories that sound like something Jordan Peterson or Richard Spenser would say? A guy who believes it’s his way or the highway and by highway, he means mass murder?
Are we supposed to feel sorry for him? I don’t. Are we supposed to believe he loves Gamora, the little girl whose mother he killed in front of her then later sacrificed for his own desires? I don’t. Is he supposed to invoke any of those Old European White Guys we’ve been force-fed in history classes, the ones that cared only about their own power as they raped and pillaged their way across other people’s lands? ‘Cause that only makes me hate him more.
I could say I wonder how they got this so wrong, why Killmonger dies and Thanos gets a huge story arc, but I know exactly why. Representation at all levels of the movie biz matters, folks.
6. Ronin: A Case of Too Quick and Too Little
Dealing with a massive undertaking like the MCU, there’s bound to be plots & characters from the comics that people love and want to include but there’s just not enough time to do well (see villain point made above). Ronin is an example of a name that got lots of fans excited but failed to materialize as anything more than a couple of quick but cool fight scenes, a blink and you’ll miss it scenario that left a lot of us feeling unsatisfied. After those first glimpses in Endgame trailers, the quotes from the Russos and others about how much they love Clint Barton as the ninja assassin, the follow-through was ... well, let’s just say it didn’t live up to the hype, shall we?
The problem with tossing in characters and details like Ronin is that it takes them off the playing board for future movies/shows, constraining the portrayals from now on as “Clint’s blip breakdown” rather than the rich history of Ronin could have had.
5. Where Have All the Women Gone? -- Peggy Carter, Sharon Carter, Jane Foster, Pepper Potts, Janet Van Dyne, et al
Let’s see if I’ve got this.
Introduce a female character as a love interest for hot male superhero. Maybe play up her strengths, make her a badass, intelligent, and hot too. Don’t give her a lead role ... and if you do, put her in a network show without any support and let the network effectively kill it ... but do make her attractive enough that guys want to fuck her and women want to be her. Then drop her as if she never existed, just don’t bring her back at all (Darcy) or toss of a line about them breaking up (Jane) or let her die so there can be man pain at the funeral (Peggy).
Numerous sources say that the only reason we had Pepper Potts in Avengers was at Robert Downey Jr’s insistence. Hell, they killed off Natasha as a sacrifice play, so why would we expect them to care about Janet Van Dyne who literally is a founding team member in the comic books?
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
4. LGBTQIA Bait and Switch by Disney et al
First thing queer fans of Marvel need to know is that those headlines you see mean jack shit. Oh yeah, we have gay people in our movies, Disney touts. Gonna be a bisexual in an MCU film real soon! Right there, see him? Third bystander on the left? He’s trans!
Look, I probably have a deeper understanding of what Feige and the Russos and Taiki are facing when it comes to getting a queer character past Disney execs because I study pop culture. The notion that putting a homosexual character in a film will make homosexuality more prevalent is an old, old, old evil that is deeply wound around our Western ideals of childhood, repressed sexuality, and puritanical roots. It’s fucking wrong, and the face it was so damn difficult to let Joe Russo use a male pronoun for his snapped spouse in Endgame needs to change. This shitty bait-n-switch where they promise and promote it only to be a tiny flicker of celluloid moment is the worse kind of pandering and condescending garbage. It’s high fucking time we got off this hobby horse that’s destroyed so many lives and psyches, and we’re beyond ready to hold these executives and others accountable when they pretend to care but only really want to make boatloads of money kowtowing to outdated racist and sexist beliefs.
3. The Character Assassination of Clint Barton
Speaking of hobby horses, as a fan of Hawkeye, the denuding of Clint’s comic personality to make him the stable family man of the group is one of the worst writing decisions of the MCU. Yes, I know they went more with the Ultimates universe, but even there Clint is a smart-mouthed asshole who jumps off buildings and likes being the center of attention. From Whedon’s choice to put Clint under Loki’s thrall (he appears in the first Avengers movie for just under 13 minutes) to the Russos dropping his part in CA:WS to Whedon giving him a family in AOU for his main storyline to being absent entirely in Infinity War and the shitty short Ronin stint in Endgame, we were robbed of the funny, sarcastic little shit who could have been so much more.
And speaking of AOU ...
2. Bruce and Natasha’s Ill-fated Romantic Arc
Look, I want Bruce and Natasha to be happy as much as the next person and they damn well deserve to be loved. But shoehorning in a romance that seemingly comes from nowhere and even contradicts some chemistry/hints of pairings from other movies (Clintasha, I’m talking about you) isn’t the way to do it. Add to the sudden appearance of the romance the ham-handed writing ... he falls face first in her boobs, for God’s sake, Joss ... and the sun’s going down “Natasha civilizes the beast” repetition, and it’s fast on its way to squicky territory.
But that cringeworthy, gender-stereotyped discussion about how they’re both monsters? Sure, it can be read as Nat saying she’s a monster because of being the Black Widow and all the terrible things she’s done over the years, but Whedon had to go and add the part about forced sterilization (forced being the imperative word there, the part of Nat’s story that makes her NOT a monster but a terrified girl not given a choice over her own body). That one conversation takes us into “Oh, hell, no, we are NOT going there” anger. Poorly written and conceived, it’s one of the worst, head-scratching decisions anyone made in the MCU.
1. Old Man Steve Rogers
I want to state for the record that I fucking adore Steve and Peggy. Yes, I can easily see her as the love of his life and understand his utter loss at not spending his life with her. Peggy Carter deserves all the good things. If Steve had been stranded in the past, only enough PYM particles to send Tony back to his family, I would have been fine ... nay ... I would have rejoiced to think of Steve and Peggy together and thought the whole “we never saw her husband” a clever twist.
Alas, it was not so. Instead, we get a convoluted mess of time travel (don’t get me started. I have flow charts and diagrams to explain why we can’t have BOTH Loki disappearing with the tesseract not affecting the main timeline AND Steve going back and reappearing in the main timeline because te two contradict each other) and dangling threads everywhere. Did Steve watch Sharon grow up? Did Steve get squicked out watching her grow up? Did Steve warn Peggy about HYDRA? About the importance of Hank Pym’s work? About not trusting Obediah Stane? Did he look up Nick Fury?
But I’ll argue the biggest of all fuck-ups is the absolute negation of the Steve/Bucky plotline that had developed over the course of three Cap movies and Infinity War. Can the Russos and Feige and the others involved have not noticed the deep and abiding connection between the two men that they themselves put on the screen? ‘Til the end of the line? Oh, did you really mean until I have a time machine and can go back to change my life? Even if we take the latent homoerotic subtones that may or may not be present out of the equation, going back in time and leaving his best pal, his buddy, his Bucky, the guy he had when he had nothing makes no freakin’ sense. Somewhere, in their rush to bring the era to a close and decide how to send Chris Evans off in the sunset, they fell back into the stereotype of “man marries and that’s the end of anything interesting in his life to write about.”
Excuse me while I go bang my head against the wall for a while and reread Fraction’s Hawkeye run.
The first of the “best of” movie lists are starting to come out and once again, I have seen virtually none of the ones on the lists. This year, especially when Black Panther is the favored “oh look, I’m in touch with the audience, let me put this one superhero on my list way to prove it”, I have a few things to say to Hollywood and the critics.
1. On most of the lists, NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THE MOVIES ARE PLAYING ANYWHERE NEAR ME. Honest-to-god, quit bitching about how no one watches the Oscars, Golden Globes, SAG awards when you keep nominating movies 95% of Americans have NO WAY TO SEE.
2. We know what a pity fuck is. Stop it. You have absolutely no intention of giving Black Panther any award but special effects. It makes you look even more out-of-touch than the Emmys so white and all white male director nominations.
3. Good God is there any reason why a sunny, happy movie can’t be nominated? Does the majority have to be dark, gloomy, the world is trash and people are terrible exploitations of suffering? Some of us live in a world where bad shit happens and can appreciate a feel good movie now and then.
4. Yes. You’re hip and with it when it comes to social issues. We get it. If there’s a trans part (played by a straight actor) or the plot involves AIDS (with a straight actor playing gay) or a gay love story (played by two straight actors), we know you’re going to give it all the awards whether it deserves it or not. I mean, if you actually CARED about this shit, you’d clean up the sexual predators and let gay/lesbian/bi actors come out of the closet and put your money where your mouth is and hire a trans actor, but NOPE. You just want to look sensitive, not be sensitive.
5. When I can predict which film will win using a checklist of politics and causes without ever watching one of the movies, something is wrong with the system. Make a movie about Dick Cheney? Oh, hell, yeah, that’s going to be the number one pick. Make a movie about murdered/raped Native American women that doesn’t show rural people as dumb/stupid? No way in hell that one’s getting a nomination (and yes, I’m still smarting over Wind River being ignored).
Okay elitist movie critics and Hollywood nabobs who think that you’re far too erudite to enjoy a Marvel movie, listen the fuck up. I’m going to explain to you why the MCU movies continue to make money despite all your nattering about superhero fatigue and boilerplate plots. Living in your upside down little world where only the only good films are ones from auteurs who make disjointed, violent filled masterpieces with “real” actors and graphic images of rape, you are so removed from the average movie goer that you can no longer gauge what is good or bad.
First, let’s talk about the death of postmodernism and the fact that the majority of Hollywood’s audience has NEVER been postmodern. Fragmented images, a collection of flotsam and jetsam, missing connective tissue ... there’s a reason Thomas Pynchon books don’t sell well.
Now, I’m not saying that There Will Be Blood isn’t a great movie, but the truth remains that, for most audiences, the stylings of a director like Paul Thomas Anderson aren’t their first choice when they buy tickets. There’s nothing wrong with a cohesive plot that follows an act structure; in fact, lots of people like knowing what they’re going to get and being able to understand/predict where the story is going. Yes, the hero is going to win over the villain; that’s how we like it. Don’t forget, William Shakespeare was trashed for being too formulaic, too popular during his time. He wrote plays that packed the Globe, i.e. sold lots and lots of tickets, just like MCU movies.
Second, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a movie whose main goal is to entertain. This is where critics snobby privilege comes in. “Captain America: The Winter Soldier isn’t bad for a superhero flick,” they write, laying bare their scorn for something so many people enjoy. Yes, movies can also edify, educate, challenge, be subversive ... some can do all at the same time ... but denying a film the credit it deserves simply because it aims to make people want to go to the theater, well, that’s a twisted view of humanity if you ask me.
Third, for fuck’s sake, we aren’t getting tired of MCU movies BECAUSE EACH ONE IS DIFFERENT! Critics act like Marvel is copying the Harlequin Romance strategy of cut and paste. Hero? Check. Villain? Check. Silly spandex costume? check. Big bada boom battle? Check. What Marvel is doing is taking the superhero formula and transforming it with each movie. CA:WS is a political thriller. Antman was a heist caper. Black Panther brought Afrofuturism onto film. Thor:Ragnarok was bat shit funny. Infinity War broke a ton of rules of superhero movies in its last ten minutes. If all they can’t look past SUPERHERO to see the variety of plots and characters, that’s a problem with their narrow worldview.
Fourth, it’s called the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a fucking reason. Bless the heart of that New Yorker reviewer who said, “ Avengers: Infinity War would make little sense in the absence of its pack of predecessors. Its characters aren’t introduced; they just show up, and their behavior is entirely defined by the template set for them in other movies. Not only does Avengers: Infinity War presume that viewers have seen all the preceding films in the Marvel series but, worse, it presumes that they’ve thought about them afterward.” A perfect example of missing the point, Richard Brody lands upon exactly why there’s no superhero fatigue for the MCU. If you see the all the films, follow the characters, think about them afterwards (does he seriously not think about movies after he sees them? What a dismissive attitude!), then each movie builds upon the others to become something different.
Finally, the failure of critics to separate the MCU from other superhero movies, including Marvel ones done by other studios, shows that they’re not really interested in understanding why Avengers:Infinity War is blowing up the box office. They lump the Fantastic Four reboot with Thor: Ragnarok because THEY DON’T LIKE GENRE MOVIES THAT ENTERTAIN AUDIENCES. Let’s face it; a lot of critics are going to dislike every movie that’s not an indie, auteur director flick. One of the New York Times reviewers routinely starts his review with “I don’t like superhero movies.” Then why is he writing about it? Yes, there are a lot of superhero movies because Hollywood has the worst bandwagon mentality. Oh, a superhero movie did well? Let’s make seven hundred more! White guy’s family member dies and they go on a revenge spree? Let’s make seven hundred more!
Sure, audiences may stop going to some of the superhero movies, but they’re still going to the MCU ones because they are 1)good movies, 2)entertaining, 3)don’t have to reintroduce the characters over and over, 4)keep doing new things, and 5) give us a traditional plot that’s been transformed. It’s actually pretty simple ... if the critics could see past their privilege and blinders.
Here I sit in the US on the Sunday night of the Emmy Awards. Now, normally, I’d be watching the awards, starting with the red carpet arrivals and the opening monologue. But this year, I’m not. As I watch a cooking show instead, I’m asking myself what happened to the girl who used to have at least one show every night that was appointment television, who read Entertainment Weekly and Variety for fun, who poured over the TV Guide Fall Preview issues to see what was new and when it premiered. I’ve come to the realization that Hollywood needs to get its shit together or there will be more and more people like me who feel alienated and tune out.
First, TV bigwigs need to get their heads out of their asses and join the 21st century. Audiences are tired of the same old sexist and racist crap storylines. How many of the “new” fall shows are just tired retreads of the same old “white guy is a detective/doctor/fire fighter/superhero/lawyer who’s misunderstood while being brilliant” trope. Good God, we don’t need another show about nerdy genuises or a team that shouldn’t work but does (with the one woman and one black guy for “balance”).
But don’t go the opposite way and give us shows that are so narrowly defined that the only reason they stay on air is because the Emmy voters LOVE to award risky shows whether they deserve them or not. Trans people, gay people, Asians ... the point is to create shows that are funny, touching, exciting, entertaining not check a box and pat yourself on the back. I want plots where the trans character is the hero or the Asian woman is the computer geek or the nerd is a bisexual. Stop thinking of it as a “show about an asexual” and think of it as a science fiction show.
And while we’re on that note, for GOD’S SAKE, stop with the dark themes of drugs, prostitution, death, gangs, murder, and serial killers. Enough is enough. No more cops/FBI/Pscyhologist/whatever who track down men who kill women they think are bad/evil/slutty. No more drug dealers who kill their rival’s girlfriend while self-destructing. No more bleak future sci-fi where evil old white men torture and kill women and get away with it. I just want some balance with fun shows, fluffy shows, funny shows. And all those superheroes shows? There’s something to be said for the cheesy goodness of comic books. I’m happy that the best writers and actors have moved to cable/pay TV, but that doesn’t mean I want all my shows to be deeply introspective and artistic. Take chances, sure, but give me more of The Tick or Lucifer or Lethal Weapon that I can just enjoy and not feel preached to or have to warp my brain to understand.
Since it’s the Emmy’s that occasioned this rant, can the Emmy votes get a clue and stop giving the awards to the same actors and shows. I can predict who’s going to win in 95% of the catagories without ever seeing the shows. Is it the show that gets written up in all the daily publications? Does it tackle a “social issue”? Is the actor/star well-liked in Hollywood? Despite all the efforts to diversify the academy voters, I highly doubt they watch everything nominated. They vote for their friends (or against those they don’t like) and want to seem “with it.” Look, I’ve watched Modern Family once or twice. It seems nice enough, but seven years running? Julia Louie Dryfus is funny but is she the only comedian out there who deserves an award? Yeah, yeah, Westworld was ... edgy, dark with lots of violence against women, but ...
I just want shows that make me fall in love with characters, that integrate a diverse cast, and entertain me. Is that so much to ask?
at this article in general. So, if you don't want to read the article, two men were on a plane leaving Boston for Chicago. Now, before they were removed from said plane by officials, those sitting around them said they were, and I quote (seriously, check the article), "acting like average citizens." Now, after they came back, they were suddenly acting suspicious, "jittery" and such.
Now, shortly before the plane took off, the two passengers began talking to each other in a foreign language. Not only that, but they were using their hands to accentuate their speech. Oh gods be good, not hand motion. Nothing's worse than hand motion. I don't know if anyone noticed it or not, but in the Portuguese/Italian/Vietnamese neighborhood I grew up in, whenever someone was talking in a foreign language (and even often when talking in english), people use their hands a lot. A LOT of a lot.
So as this is going down, some of the other passengers start to feel disturbed/unsafe. I can understand that - a bomb just went off that killed 3 and injured hundreds, and many of them had been in close vicinity to this event. But what I can't understand was the fact that people were so uncomfortable that these two passengers (who had already been checked at least once while they were on the plane) were forced to leave the plane slightly before takeoff. By the FBI. The fucking Federal Bureau of Investigation was called in to take these two people off the plane. Now, I don't condone acts of terror against people. I don't condone violence, and I sure as hell don't condone murder of the innocent. But I also don't condone racism. And that's what this was, plain and simple. Racism. Whether intentional or not, these two people were discriminated against for being born into a certain nationality, and were removed from the plane after speaking in their native tongue, after it was announced that no one was sure whether or not this was even a terrorist act.
Now, a lot of people will say that these two being removed makes perfect sense. "well, how would you feel if something like this happened near you, and then you got on a plane and there were two people like this?" Well, how would you like it if you went through something like, say, a bombing happening in a city you were staying in, and you were flying somewhere far away from it, and then you were forced off of your plane because you were fitting into the racial category of "those terrorists"?
We've come so far since 9/11, and now we're doing nothing but proving to ourselves that we haven't actually changed at all; we're still just as bad as we were after it happened, removing people from places that they paid to be just because they're different.
Now, if you happen to have different opinions on this, feel free to message me them. Honestly, my opinion on this is biased as hell, as it's the only one I've heard so far. And if you don't like my opinion, well, the unfollow button should be in the top right hand corner of the screen. Go ahead and click it if I bother you that much.
