DarkBluePhoenix wrote:
But in all seriousness, they focus on the younger demographic where the good guys always win and complex themes are toned down for accessibility. In addition to that Disney wants to make fuckloads of money. To do that they stick with a formula that works, that makes money, a cookie cutter format as many people call it. They are fun to watch, but are all basically the same, with exceptions of course.
Iron Man 3, Civil War, and Black Panther definitely have heavier themes and I'd argue Infinity War does, too. It simply can't be judged for its merits as a character study because it's meaningless to criticize something for not being something else.
Yeah, that would have been really stupid if them to do... but Chuckman, what's the "waf fu" uterus thing you're talking about, I'm a bit lost
In AoU, part of the Hulk/Widow bonding was a touching scene where she mentions that she can't have children. Because being taken in and trained from youth to be a killer and having murders on her conscience isn't adequate, in order to be truly monstrous a woman has to be unable to bear children.
Whedon advanced feminism in media something like 20 years ago but the world has moved far past him and he hasn't evolved. His rough tough girl Buffy/River Tam feminism is outmoded.
A truly feminist Black Widow in that scene would see herself as a monster because she has done monstrous things, not because she has some defect that is intrinsically tied to her womanhood (and, additionally, that aspect of womanhood that men are most interested in dominating, controlling, and defining women by).
It's even more jarring when watching AoU beside the Captain America films where her gender is essentially incidental to the character and they don't have any scenes fetishizing her as a bondgirlesque slutmaster spy (ala Avengers) or centralizing her character around her womanhood (AoU) and she's just competent at her job and a platonic friend to the protagonist. Whedon's approach to the character is male gaze masquerading as feminism. At least the scenes in Iron Man 2 that were all about ScarJo's ass are honest about what they are.
I find it irritating that all of her other movie appearances are more rounded (or, at least, don't pretend to be rounded) and in Whedon's movies she's there to look hot, wear lingerie, display her feet, demand sympathy in accordance with his fetishes, get kidnapped by the bad guy like an 80's cartoon girl sidekick, and I guess run around shooting at aliens with a pair of freaking glocks. Whedon's movies aggressively minimize her to the point where it's astoundingly blatant that she's there to be objectified. The movies almost seem annoyed that they have to find something for her to do during the fight scenes.
Plus the whole Hulk/Natasha thing is just oozing rape fantasy vibes, especially in the first Avengers movie, even without thatgif.gif.