#villain coding

[taigan-hse]

Matangi said “hold my okolehao.”

[that-gay-jedi]

Pals I'm trying to untangle the weirdly specific disability mixed-feels I have (layered in with all the broader metatextual feelings) about an immobilized Vader screaming for Obi-Wan not to leave him behind for the second time in his life but I seriously don't know if I can parse it myself, let alone put it into words.

Idk. There's a lot in Star Wars that gives me mixed disability feels but these are some of the mixed-est.

Did anyone else have Thoughts about wtf it means that his cybernetics are busted in that moment, that his side of their relationship is still 110% unhealthy and codependent except for one very extreme exception, that we know for sure he'd get up and follow Obi-Wan if he could, etc? Like idk it's turning my brain into heart stew.

[lucianalight]

Is it just me or is it kind of weird how many people didn't really have a problem with how Thor straight up slaughtered dozens of Jotuns for the actions of two (dead) ones...

Especially considering in doing so he, Heimdall, and the W4 [Loki too, but I'm focusing on the "good guys"] committed treason [for going against Odin] and also rekindled a war over a petty insult.

... and they still like him, yet at the same time will hate on Loki for trying to gen0cide them?

So is their problem that it's Loki doing it?

Or am I just seeing things that aren't there?

No, you're completely right. The problem is Loki and his villain coding. Those people would tell you "but Thor has changed and Loki hasn't" while ignoring the fact that Thor basically did the same thing to Fire Demons again over a bad dream. They say Thor was redeemed but Loki never did, while in fact Loki redeemed himself over and over again. I have written "Spot the Hypocrisy" series because of how the fandom treats Loki with double standards compare to other characters.

[musclesandhammering]

I think my dislike for Wanda Maximoff can be boiled down to the consistent theme of “heroes” doing things equally as terrible as the villains and facing little to no consequences for their actions- they’re just written off as “tragic mistakes”- while “villains” receive the least amount of sympathy and the harshest condemnation possible.

[mother-of-felines]

So according to What If…?, even without Thanos’ influence, Loki still wants to conquer the earth?

And Erik is still a bad guy who betrays everyone?

I’m so done with this villain coding sh*t. 😒

[iamnmbr3]

I thought this trailer was definitely better than the first one in that it felt more like loki and I was super happy to see him use magic and also snark at people instead of just get mocked. I also liked his snarky lines. esp him being all ‘it’s adorable you think you can manipulate me.’ like yeah. you go loki. burn the TVA. both figuratively and literally. lmao I hope he double crosses them and escapes in the end. 

 I was also glad to see more moments in the trailer when he had his more reserved, subtle air and expressions. tho there were still moments like the over-exaggerated startle at the cat still felt a bit ooc to me. some of his dialogue still felt a little too casual and different from his usual rhetorical style. this is picking up after Avengers so Loki should be in the same mindset he was in at the beginning of Thor: The Dark World. He’s just been tortured and now he’s been captured by an organization he doesn’t trust and that doesn’t trust him or have his best interests at heart. 

also from a narrative perspective I'm not sure that the ‘I know everything about you’ thing really works as a storytelling device. if they’re trying to do a buddy cop dynamic between them, how is that supposed to work if he already supposedly knows everything about loki and has made up his mind about him? like then they can’t get to know each other and he can’t learn about loki or change his opinion on him.

also if he knows everything about him already why doesn’t he care the took was tortured and mind controlled into invading NYC by Thanos?? also why does he think Loki constantly betrays people? In Thor 2011 he spent centuries watching the others’ backs before he finally snaps early on in the film. And even then he doesn’t actually betray anyone that often. Like sure he FIGHTS Thor but he doesn’t often outright betray him. 

I feel like it would make more sense for the TVA to know less about Loki if they’re going to distrust him so much. I mean if they just knew him as the person who attacked a town in thor 2011, invaded New York, and stole the tesseract their attitude would make more sense imho. OR it would also work if they had the TVA to just be evil and want to use Loki and not really care that he was tortured. 

My issue isn’t ‘oh they’re not being nice to him.’ It's that despite the fact that they apparently know all about his life the TVA’s characterization of Loki as fundamentally untrustworthy and their complete lack of empathy for the fact that he has literally just escaped being tortured and mind controlled, and their lack of interest in the fact that he didn’t invade NYC of his own volition, are all framed by the narrative as justified. So it again feels like unfair villain coding of Loki. Though of course it’s hard to completely judge from the trailer. this was however a huge improvement from the first trailer so I am somewhat hopeful.

[queerthoughts-gaybrainrot]

im sorry that every cishet white y/a author decided to villain-code every mentally ill and/or queer and/or abused character with any depth to them so i can only relate to villains now

[dr-archeville]

Hollywood’s Disfigured Villain Trope Does Major Harm to Disabled People

Dr. Poison from "Wonder Woman" is one of the latest.

[Doktor’s Note: This article contains spoilers for Wonder Woman.]

Darth Vader, Freddy Krueger, and Voldemort all have one thing in common — they’re villains with disfigured faces.  In Wonder Woman, Dr. Poison (played by Elena Anaya, who is not facially-disfigured herself) plays a similar role as one of the film's main villains as a character who wears a prosthetic mask to cover her visibly scarred face.

There's no doubting Wonder Woman's importance for representation of women both in front and behind the camera, especially considering that it smashed records at the box office.  But along with the good, there's some aspects of the film that could have been better.  Wonder Woman has already been criticized for its lack of representation for women of color, and with the character of Dr. Poison the film also handles disability representation equally poorly.  Dr. Poison falls into the easy trope that suggests disability — and in this case, specifically facial disfigurement — means that a character is evil.  We never find out Dr. Poison’s backstory and whether her facial scarring caused her to become a villain or happened after she already was one, but the message is the same: We should be afraid of people whose faces and bodies are different from our own.

Ariel Henley, a writer with Crouzon Syndrome, tells Teen Vogue, “The idea that to be beautiful means to be good and to be disfigured means to be evil is not new.  It’s a really tired, unoriginal trend in the movie industry, and only perpetuates damaging beliefs about individuals with facial differences.”

That trope is exactly what plays out in Wonder Woman.  The film’s hero and titular Wonder Woman, Diana (played by Gal Gadot), is physically fit, able, and beautiful.  Her romantic love interest who also acts as a sidekick, Steve Trevor (portrayed by Chris Pine), is equally attractive and able-bodied.

Showing facial disfigurement as a signifier for evil has consequences for real people with facial disfigurements.  “People with facial differences are often discriminated against because of our appearance, and rarely given a voice and accurate representation in mainstream media,” says Henley.

However, this is far from the first time this trope has appeared.  The Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz has a green face and a noticeable wart.  Darth Vader has a scarred body that he hides underneath a black cloak and mask.  Bruce Banner literally turns into a green monster when he becomes The Hulk, and although he’s not a villain, he struggles with the urge to destroy every time he undergoes the transformation.  Tom Riddle is attractive when he begins learning about dark magic at Hogwarts, but his journey to becoming Voldemort also makes him facially disfigured; many online memes poke fun at the fact that he has snake-like nostrils.

In terms of Wonder Woman, toward the end we see Dr. Poison without her mask for the first time.  In the scene, she’s in a state of vulnerability that we haven’t previously experienced with her character.  Ares, the god of war who has spent centuries trying to rid the world of humans, is prompting Diana to turn her back on humanity and offers Diana the opportunity to kill Dr. Poison and join him as a god.  As Diana considers her decision, Dr. Poison’s mask falls from her face in the wind, revealing her scarred and disfigured face.  We’re meant to feel sympathy for the character and reconsider her villainy, and it’s clear that Diana does as well, since she lets Dr. Poison live.

These kinds of “facial reveal” moments are common in visual media where a character has a facial disfigurement or other disability.  In Wonder Woman, the scene is meant to encourage sympathy, but it’s clear that audience is still supposed to be shocked by the sight of Dr. Poison’s face, since earlier in the film, we see a photograph of her before she was scarred.  The movie sets us up to spend time wondering how she became disfigured, as if disability is an exciting or terrifying mystery and not a facet of a person’s lived experiences.

Diana ultimately says that she stands by humanity because she believes in love — something that’s visually shown when she’s looking at a photograph of Steve in present time — but the physical removal of Dr. Poison’s mask, and her disfigurement in general, isn’t necessary for this character development.  It gives the audience the impression that if we don’t see disability and disfigurement as inherently evil, we must see it as something worth pitying, even when the disabled person has been nothing but villainous.  We aren’t supposed to come to conclusions about Dr. Poison based on her actions in the film, but instead based on the way her face appears.

Henley adds, “There were so many opportunities for Dr. Poison’s story to be interesting, for her role to be about more than her facial difference, but these threads simply weren't explored.”

Even when the media chooses to tackle facial disfigurement in a positive way, as with the upcoming movie Wonder (based on the book by the same name), people with facial disfigurements are left out of the conversation.  Wonder follows the story of Auggie, a ten-year-old boy with a craniofacial condition who starts mainstream school for the first time.  The creators of Wonder chose to cast Jacob Tremblay, an actor without a facial difference, in the role of Auggie, and instead prosthetics and makeup will be used to make Tremblay appear to be disfigured.  The film would have been the perfect opportunity to cast a facially disfigured actor and break down the problematic trope that disability is a negative experience.  Shows like ABC’s Speechless have been hailed for casting a disabled actor in a disabled role (Micah Fowler, who plays JJ DiMeo, has cerebral palsy just like his character does) instead of “Cripping Up” actors and erasing opportunities for disabled actors.

When we pigeonhole disabled characters into basic roles that are easily defined, such as sympathetic and pitiable or villainous and evil, we’re reinforcing the idea that disabled people don’t live full, meaningful lives the same way non-disabled people do.  We need more media that offers a diverse perspective on disability and facial disfigurement, and doesn’t just boil our vast experiences down to a plot point.

“The idea that to be beautiful means to be good and to be disfigured means to be evil is not new. It’s a really tired, unoriginal trend in the movie industry, and only perpetuates damaging beliefs about individuals with facial differences.“