Women Of The MCU

. . .in what way of Wanda "visibly corrupted by a demon"? Like, what?

She was using her powers in the same manner she's always used them.
 
It was awful because it so clearly resembled a "Harem scene" where the implication was that the women were all there because of Peter Parker, who got more dialogue than the women, most of whom stood around him silently as if thet were his wives. Creepy male fantasy.

Why would Wanda, visibly corrupted by her magic and literally turning into a demon, on a mission to avenge Vision and kill Thanos, suddenly lose her bloodlust?

Why would Hope so casually abandon Scott who she was supposed to be helping?

Are these characters, or robots who can be moved anywhere without concern for characterization?

What the hell are you talking about? The clear implication was that they were all there to help *Captain Marvel* transport the gauntlet. Peter Parker had nothing to do with it. And while I can't find a picture of the scene to check, I'm pretty sure he isn't even in the shot at all. Wanda isn't in any way 'visibly corrupted' or 'turning into a demon', she's just pissed off and angry. And I'm pretty sure the van is already up and running before Hope shows up in this scene, which means she isn't needed there anyway.
 
I had no problem whatsoever with that scene (it just made me want an A-Force movie even more), but I've seen quite a few women critics whose opinions I respect criticize it. There are legitimate reasons to dislike that moment.

That doesn't change that many of the people upset by it are cretins, but still...
 
Her eyes have had that red glow during use of her powers over a certain level going back to Age Of Ultron. They are clearly seen to glow in IW during the Wakanda battle as well.

As for the moment being a "harem" fantasy... I'm sorry but that is so stretched as a criticism it is laughable. None in that scene are acting in some subservient way to Spidey any more than Cap was subservient to Thor when he came saved him from being impaled by Stormbreaker. Harem fantasy? Pure silliness.

What are all of these heroes? Fictional characters placed around the chess board within the script. The placement of the female supers is no different than say, how it just so happened that after the bombardment of the Avengers' base that Cap, Iron Man and Thor found each other, linked up and were the first to engage Thanos. There's a contrivance of the story if there ever was one... And that's fine. But it is a contrivance. It's just one no one feels the need to make a stink about. But if contrivance is even part of the criticism of the super heroine moment, well in this type of film I think no one really wants to start pulling on that thread because by that standard the sweater that is every super hero movie ever made is gonna come unraveled.
 
the heat vision eyes, that's new.

Her eyes only turn red when she is feeling negative, dark, "evil" emotions. This was first shown in Age of Ultron with faint, dark reds, then briefly in Infinity War when she attacked the giant saws, prior to the full glow of hatred in Endgame.
 
Once again, where in the movies did they actually say or show that she is drawing on "dark, evil" anything? Her eyes turn red when she uses her powers heavily. This is usually when she is angry, because that's when she wants to obliterate someone.

You need to stop confusing your own fanon with the actual text of the movie.
 
Once again, where in the movies did they actually say or show that she is drawing on "dark, evil" anything? Her eyes turn red when she uses her powers heavily. This is usually when she is angry, because that's when she wants to obliterate someone.

You need to stop confusing your own fanon with the actual text of the movie.

Her eyes turned red when Pietro mentioned the Stark bomb, and she wasn't using her powers there.

In Civil War, her eyes never turn red. When she is destroying the Mind Stone and subduing the Space Stone, her eyes don't glow red at all despite using alot of power.

Then there's Vision somehow returning, not really achievable by any other means than magic.

This now leads me back to the vexing question of why Markus and McFeely would want to adapt a story as hugely problematic, as alienating to female audiences, as House of M.

It's like Markus and McFeely are saying, "We have all these great female characters, so let's destroy all that by turning one of them into a silent plot device who does nothing and says nothing, and use her to further the arcs of the male characters then fridge her."
 
That isn't even close to an answer to me question. So, I'm going to ask it again:

Where, *in the movie*, does it say that Wanda draws on dark power?
 
The problem with the "girl power" scene is that it's force, and obviously caters to today's #MeToo and SJW crowd.
I don't think that Marvel are doing the 'woman thing' very well. It's never been a secret to me that women can kick ass. I grew up with Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley, and Charlize Theron kicked legitimate ass in both "Mad Max: Fury Road" and "Atomic Blonde".
With this scene Marvel Studios are, in my opinion, taking the easy road by trying to shout their #MeToo support in your face.
I AM a feminist, I believe that women deserve equal rights. Everyone does. But trying to force an agenda is no better than the endless preaching in "Seventh Heaven."
Do it like George Miller. You cared about the women in "Mad Max: Fury Road." They were strong, they had character. Some were wise, others were fragile. But they never felt like they belonged to a PSA or were trying to impress the Twitter crowd.
And the irony of it all is that the movie was already featuring strong, interesting female characters, without them having to spell it out with that short bit.
 
The problem with the "girl power" scene is that it's force, and obviously caters to today's #MeToo and SJW crowd.
I don't think that Marvel are doing the 'woman thing' very well. It's never been a secret to me that women can kick ass. I grew up with Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley, and Charlize Theron kicked legitimate ass in both "Mad Max: Fury Road" and "Atomic Blonde".
With this scene Marvel Studios are, in my opinion, taking the easy road by trying to shout their #MeToo support in your face.
I AM a feminist, I believe that women deserve equal rights. Everyone does. But trying to force an agenda is no better than the endless preaching in "Seventh Heaven."
Do it like George Miller. You cared about the women in "Mad Max: Fury Road." They were strong, they had character. Some were wise, others were fragile. But they never felt like they belonged to a PSA or were trying to impress the Twitter crowd.
And the irony of it all is that the movie was already featuring strong, interesting female characters, without them having to spell it out with that short bit.

The scene did feel a little forced I'd say perhaps as a response to previous criticism but as with Captain Marvel's introduction I felt it was done in such a way that it didn't have much negative impact on the film as a whole.

I mean its been publicised that early on in the MCU there was a bias against female characters but I think since Feige gained fuller control that's shifted. That there wasn't a "female led" film before this year is I think partly the result of how the characters have been used in the larger plot. I mean theres been no Ironman films since 2013 yet that wasn't a sign that Marvel weren't interesting in Stark was it? rather they didn't want to disrupt his larger story and I suspect the same is true with a lack of say Black Widow or Scarlett Witch films.

I am in agreement with you though that we have two kinds of "inclusive" film making. The move towards creating more female blockbuster characters of depth going back to the 70's and 80's and then then more tokenistic "strong female character" push of recent years. I think the latter is more an outgrowth of modern politics personally were tokenism has become the dominant idealogy, a female character judged by her gender and by her competence and moral rightness not by quality of her characterisation and the drama/depth of her story.
 
The problem with the "girl power" scene is that it's force, and obviously caters to today's #MeToo and SJW crowd.
I don't think that Marvel are doing the 'woman thing' very well. It's never been a secret to me that women can kick ass. I grew up with Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley, and Charlize Theron kicked legitimate ass in both "Mad Max: Fury Road" and "Atomic Blonde".
With this scene Marvel Studios are, in my opinion, taking the easy road by trying to shout their #MeToo support in your face.
I AM a feminist, I believe that women deserve equal rights. Everyone does. But trying to force an agenda is no better than the endless preaching in "Seventh Heaven."
Do it like George Miller. You cared about the women in "Mad Max: Fury Road." They were strong, they had character. Some were wise, others were fragile. But they never felt like they belonged to a PSA or were trying to impress the Twitter crowd.
And the irony of it all is that the movie was already featuring strong, interesting female characters, without them having to spell it out with that short bit.

So if they were already showcasing good female characters... What's the issue with the group moment? And why is that different enough from say, Cap Iron Man and Thor just happening to be the first three to meet Thanos and engage him in battle during the start of the third act?
 
It's different because it's not really earned, and doesn't have ANY pathos behind it beyond being a "girl power" thing. It feels forced. Look at "Mad Max: Fury Road" to see how it's properly done.
it's just a small moment in a great movie. It sure doesn't break it, FAR FROM IT, but it's one of its (very few) weak spots.
And while there haven't been any female-driven Marvel Studios solo films prior to "Captain Marvel," you can't deny that the movies have featured strong, female characters kicking butts: Black Widow, Gamora, Nebula, Hope van Dyne --- even before she donned the Wasp suit.

The scene did feel a little forced I'd say perhaps as a response to previous criticism but as with Captain Marvel's introduction I felt it was done in such a way that it didn't have much negative impact on the film as a whole.

I mean its been publicised that early on in the MCU there was a bias against female characters but I think since Feige gained fuller control that's shifted. That there wasn't a "female led" film before this year is I think partly the result of how the characters have been used in the larger plot. I mean theres been no Ironman films since 2013 yet that wasn't a sign that Marvel weren't interesting in Stark was it? rather they didn't want to disrupt his larger story and I suspect the same is true with a lack of say Black Widow or Scarlett Witch films.

I am in agreement with you though that we have two kinds of "inclusive" film making. The move towards creating more female blockbuster characters of depth going back to the 70's and 80's and then then more tokenistic "strong female character" push of recent years. I think the latter is more an outgrowth of modern politics personally were tokenism has become the dominant idealogy, a female character judged by her gender and by her competence and moral rightness not by quality of her characterisation and the drama/depth of her story.

Yes, inclusive filmmaking should be based on character and story, not on tokenism and political agenda. They are slowly turning inclusivity into a calculation game in these kinds of movies. Which might soon become as ridiculous as the black guy dying first in old horror movies (it has already reached ridiculous heights in network television).
 
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Yes, inclusive filmmaking should be based on character and story, not on tokenism and political agenda. They are slowly turning inclusivity into a calculation game in these kinds of movies. Which might soon become as ridiculous as the black guy dying first in old horror movies (it has already reached ridiculous heights in network television).

Again I think the problem is that as in politics tokenism and "empowerment" has replaced substance, the idea that the race/gender/etc of a politician is what matters rather than their politics is being used as a tool to try and prop up a status quo in danger of collapse post 2008(with decreasing success).

I mean something like Fury Road is I think a much more political film than say the Starwars sequels, Immortan Joe's society is pretty much toxic masculinity incarnate. It doesn't do this simply by having a female character "get the best of men" though, rather it shows that she has been morally compromised by it just as his "warboys" have and that both are chewed up by his war machine. Indeed we even see the heroine's dreams of redemption by a "female society" ultimately undermined and instead its simply the drive to a more moral society in general that succeeds.

The MCU generally tends to focus more on personal morality but I think its done a good job there with many female characters and actually Captain Marvel ended up being one of the weakest lacking in much moral quandary(her arc basically being realising she's been tricked). I think the Russo's especially took a character like Black Widow and shifted her from a more standard "hero with a dark past" into someone who really feels the weight guilt of that past as much as family blockbuster allows. Yet the latter seems to draw more criticism than the former despite IMHO having vastly more dramatic depth to it.
 
I also liked Black Widow's plot and characterisation in "Avengers: Age of Ultron." Many people found her line about feeling like a monster to be offensive, but I wonder how women would feel if their employer forced them to get rid of their reproductive system. They might have similar insecurities and misconceptions abour their own existence.

And I'm glad that the Russos gave Scarlett Johansson something to chew on in "Avengers: Endgame," because in "Infinity War" she looked waaaay more ****ing bored than me watching her (and Cap's) scenes in the movie.
 
I also liked Black Widow's plot and characterisation in "Avengers: Age of Ultron." Many people found her line about feeling like a monster to be offensive, but I wonder how women would feel if their employer forced them to get rid of their reproductive system. They might have similar insecurities and misconceptions abour their own existence.

And I'm glad that the Russos gave Scarlett Johansson something to chew on in "Avengers: Endgame," because in "Infinity War" she looked waaaay more ****ing bored than me watching her (and Cap's) scenes in the movie.

I mean I can see a bit of a problem with the line itself characterising infertile women as "monsters" but I think it works within the context of the character both talking to Banner and about herself being turned into a callous killer by the same environment plus Johansson herself had just become a mother when filming that.

In retrospect I think its clear that Infinity War was focused more on Thanos, Thor and Wanda/VIsion dramatically, the first two especially ends up being a similar kind of inversion of the expected heroic revenge plot we see in Empire Strikes Back. That left End Game more room to focus on the original Avengers as well obviously giving them something to chew on dramatically. It was nice to see actually that a lot of the dramatic heart of the film was just Downey Jnr, Evans and Johansson interacting early on with no action/tension, I think a credit to the characterisations and performances.
 
I also liked Black Widow's plot and characterisation in "Avengers: Age of Ultron." Many people found her line about feeling like a monster to be offensive, but I wonder how women would feel if their employer forced them to get rid of their reproductive system. They might have similar insecurities and misconceptions abour their own existence.

And I'm glad that the Russos gave Scarlett Johansson something to chew on in "Avengers: Endgame," because in "Infinity War" she looked waaaay more ****ing bored than me watching her (and Cap's) scenes in the movie.

I think it plays even better because its right after Banner says he could never have kids with her You sure? "Even if I didn't just...there's no future with me. I can't ever...I can't have this, kids, do the math, I physically can't."

Which tbh made me feel really sorry for them both.

As Banner assumes that above all else the thing Natasha would find most off-putting about being with him would not be the ever present danger or the Hulk himself but that he could never give her a family.

This I think is meant to be a obviously a huge moment for Natasha also but I always took it as her partly saying that to him to sort of be like "neither can I, does that make me a monster?" its her comparing herself to him.
 
I always read it as Natasha is not a monster because she cannot have children. She sees herself as a monster because she allowed herself to be warped and manipulated in ways that killing people and harming others became easier for her. Both physically and mentally. Now, I imagine that much of what was done to Natasha was very heavily not her fault, but I read her as the type to not see it that way herself.
 
I always read it as Natasha is not a monster because she cannot have children. She sees herself as a monster because she allowed herself to be warped and manipulated in ways that killing people and harming others became easier for her. Both physically and mentally. Now, I imagine that much of what was done to Natasha was very heavily not her fault, but I read her as the type to not see it that way herself.

I think it was ment both as a reference to her wider training and relating herself to the Hulk. The idea that behind arguably the most confident exterior of the human characters you had the most mentally damaged one.

I think the films treat her past rather differently to Buckey's, he carries some guilt but its more fear at what he "could" still do. In her case it wasn't an existing moral personality being controlled but rather a personality warped towards immorality in childhood. I think you see that push her as the character most driven towards the need for redemption by guilt. Used to show her devotion to the ideal of Shield and her willingness to sign the accords at first.

It also I think makes her story in End Game feel very much a natural progression. You have someone weighed down by even greater guilt at her own failure having driven the man who saved her from immorality into it himself.
 
I do like that the MCU has recently cast black women in significant roles in the MCU: Tessa Thompson, Lupita Nyong'o, Letitia Wright, Danai Gurira and Angela Bassett. I don't know if Hannah John Kamen will be back.

Let's hope they do the same with Asian women.
 
I do like that the MCU has recently cast black women in significant roles in the MCU: Tessa Thompson, Lupita Nyong'o, Letitia Wright, Danai Gurira and Angela Bassett. I don't know if Hannah John Kamen will be back.

Let's hope they do the same with Asian women.

Well, aside from Chloe Zhao becoming the first Asian woman to direct a Marvel film (and the first woman of color in general), there’s been lots of rumors that Eternals will have an Asian female lead. Also that Doctor Strange 2 might too.
 
I'd love to see a Liberators movie. I personally prefer "Liberators" to "A-Force" but that's just me.

Valkyrie
Captain Marvel
Gamora
Nebula
Mantis
Wasp
Rescue

As most of these characters are Cosmic, particularly the ones who would probably be interested in signing on for this film (i.e. not Paltrow) they will most likely go up against a cosmic threat. In my opinion a vastly untapped potential antagonist would be these smarmy spoiled patriarchal figures:
Grandmaster-Collector-700x300.jpg


Beyond just both sitting gathering dust so to speak in the MCU, the two have also never interacted. It would be a lot of fun to see the Liberators attempt to Liberate Sakaar and Knowhere from these two men's weirdly oppressive rule.

carina-guardians-of-the-galaxy-600x338.jpg


624246174001_5521790572001_5519260875001-vs.jpg
 
I'd love to see a Liberators movie. I personally prefer "Liberators" to "A-Force" but that's just me.

Valkyrie
Captain Marvel
Gamora
Nebula
Mantis
Wasp
Rescue

As most of these characters are Cosmic, particularly the ones who would probably be interested in signing on for this film (i.e. not Paltrow) they will most likely go up against a cosmic threat. In my opinion a vastly untapped potential antagonist would be these smarmy spoiled patriarchal figures:
Grandmaster-Collector-700x300.jpg


Beyond just both sitting gathering dust so to speak in the MCU, the two have also never interacted. It would be a lot of fun to see the Liberators attempt to Liberate Sakaar and Knowhere from these two men's weirdly oppressive rule.

carina-guardians-of-the-galaxy-600x338.jpg


624246174001_5521790572001_5519260875001-vs.jpg

I love this idea.
 

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