The Avengers
Nov. 22nd, 2013 01:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI have finally seen Avengers! I was worried that I would feel as lukewarmly positive about it as I did about most of the other Marvel movies - I felt many of them were a little too aware of their status as prequels, which made their plots unsatisfying - but I can conclusively say that Avengers is still pretty awesome even if you've been spoiled for basically everything by the internet.
Although the fact that Coulson now has his own post-Avengers TV show kind of undercuts the effect of his death.
Captain America and Black Widow are still my favorites. (Obviously this means that I am way excited about The Winter Soldier.) I was impressed by the subtle way the movie dealt with Captain America's temporal displacement: it's not just a series of gags about his difficulty with technology/pop culture references (how cute was it when he's all "Flying monkeys! I got that one!"), but there's a real sense that he still thinks like a man from the 1940s.
I'm thinking of his comment that there's only one God - not the fact that he believes it, but the fact that he asserts it as common knowledge, as if it's not at all ethnocentric. Also, even more, the fact that when Agent Coulson dies, Cap's the one who asks, "Was he married?"
Obviously Black Widow's scenes have been discussed up and down the internet. I don't have much to add about her scenes specifically, but as a wider comment on Whedon's work - Whedon really likes the whole "feminist judo" schtick, where his female characters use other people's misogynistic underestimation of their abilities to win. It's so overused in Whedon's work - he uses it twice in this one movie, in both of Natasha's interrogation scenes - that it's not only predictable, but also suggests that his heroines can only win because their enemies underestimate them.
I think often Whedon's work is more feminist when he's not trying so hard at it.
Having said all that - it amused me that Natasha has the sensible superhero suit, while Hawkeye is running around wearing the outfit clearly designed to show off his attributes - his magnificent arms, in this case - at the expense of actually protecting him. Oh, Hawkeye. It's hard out there for the eye candy.
Although the fact that Coulson now has his own post-Avengers TV show kind of undercuts the effect of his death.
Captain America and Black Widow are still my favorites. (Obviously this means that I am way excited about The Winter Soldier.) I was impressed by the subtle way the movie dealt with Captain America's temporal displacement: it's not just a series of gags about his difficulty with technology/pop culture references (how cute was it when he's all "Flying monkeys! I got that one!"), but there's a real sense that he still thinks like a man from the 1940s.
I'm thinking of his comment that there's only one God - not the fact that he believes it, but the fact that he asserts it as common knowledge, as if it's not at all ethnocentric. Also, even more, the fact that when Agent Coulson dies, Cap's the one who asks, "Was he married?"
Obviously Black Widow's scenes have been discussed up and down the internet. I don't have much to add about her scenes specifically, but as a wider comment on Whedon's work - Whedon really likes the whole "feminist judo" schtick, where his female characters use other people's misogynistic underestimation of their abilities to win. It's so overused in Whedon's work - he uses it twice in this one movie, in both of Natasha's interrogation scenes - that it's not only predictable, but also suggests that his heroines can only win because their enemies underestimate them.
I think often Whedon's work is more feminist when he's not trying so hard at it.
Having said all that - it amused me that Natasha has the sensible superhero suit, while Hawkeye is running around wearing the outfit clearly designed to show off his attributes - his magnificent arms, in this case - at the expense of actually protecting him. Oh, Hawkeye. It's hard out there for the eye candy.
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Date: 2013-11-25 04:09 am (UTC)Yes, this. The overexcited tone is right on the money. He just seems so stunned by this realization that he can't see past it to realize that "kickass woman" can become just as much a problematic box as "sweet damsel in distress" or whatever else. Because the problem is not the description, but the existence of the box.
(Although thinking about it more, I may be unfair to Whedon here - no one could describe Kaylee from Firefly as kickass.)
I remember thinking about this when watching Whedon's Much Ado about Nothing. He followed Shakespeare's script - with some cuts, but I don't think he added anything - and the scene where Beatrice rages about her inability to protect her cousin Hero is a much stronger indictment of sexism than much of Whedon's work. Because she can't do anything. Unlike Buffy or River, the narrative can't give her special powers to overcome the fact that she's a) not allowed to challenge Claudio to a duel and b) would lose if she did, because she lacks the intensive fighting training that he surely has.