Welcome to the main discussion thread for the Marvel Cinematic Universe! This pinned post is here to establish some basic guidelines. All of the Media Forum rules
still apply.
- This thread is for talking about the live-action films, TV shows, animated works, and related content that use the Marvel brand, currently owned by Disney.
- While mild digressions are okay, discussion of the comic books should go in this thread
. Extended digressions may be thumped as off-topic.
- Spoilers for new releases should not be discussed without spoiler tagging for at least two weeks. Rather, each title should have a dedicated thread where that sort of conversation is held. We can mention new releases in a general sense, but please be courteous to people who don't want to be spoiled.
If you're posting tagged spoilers, make sure that the film or series is clearly identified outside the spoiler tagging. People need to know what will be spoiled before they choose to read the post.
Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Isn't that true?
![]()
![]()
Agreed.
Edited by Lymantria on Mar 13th 2019 at 10:48:23 AM
Join the Five-Man Band cleanup project!Here is the exact quote from a Marie Claire
interview:
Edited by alliterator on Mar 13th 2019 at 7:51:28 AM
And then there were her comments
about A Wrinkle in Time:
Larson continued, “[Audiences] are not allowed enough chances to read public discourse on these films by the people that the films were made for. I do not need a 40-year-old white dude to tell me what didn’t work for him about ‘[A] Wrinkle in Time.’ It wasn’t made for him. I want to know what it meant to women of color, to biracial women, to teen women of color, to teens that are biracial.”
Of course, people took the "40 year white dude" out of context and then said that she said that about Captain Marvel, which was blatantly untrue.
I mean, it is political but that doesn't make it bad or that it was wrong. And even just talking about the film itself, from what I have heard, CM definitely does have a feminist subtext to it in that Carol gets told a lot by men that she can't do this or do that, or she isn't good or strong enough, but in the end she doesn't give a fuck because they're wrong and she proves it.
That's kinda the thing about people who complain about things being "too political": too often, it's either a sign of a lack of self-awareness, or the person being totally disingenuous. They complain about the film having politics, instead of being more honest and saying they don't like the film's specific brand of politics. And you know, it's fine in principle to dislike a film because of that, but if that's the case you should be upfront about it instead of trying to cloak that in order to make yourself look more "objective".
One criticism that especially stuck out to me in that regards was that the movie "injected politics" by making the Skrulls a refugee metaphor. Then, in the same breath the person says that they were supposed to be a communism analog, as though that isn't just as political in its own way. They just updated the characters to be a more modern commentary.
Does anyone actually read these?Maybe I should start responding to people saying something they don't feel like listening to is "too political" by asking "Who did they tell you to vote for?" Or "Did it support anarchy, oligarchy, representative democracy, or what?"
Make them defend why it's "political" and not just "something they don't want to hear".
I don't know if it's been said yet, but the threat rating joke was hilarious and accurate to the movie itself.
Edited by wanderlustwarrior on Mar 13th 2019 at 10:13:28 AM
Oh man...let's take this from the top:
I think that we shouldn't even buy into the idea that Brie Larson's comments were "clumsy". I think it was very clear what she meant, and by saying that she should have worded it differently, we imply that there was some honest misunderstanding which lead to the controversy. There wasn't. She was under attack before the comments even happened, and she was deliberately taken out of context.
Brie Larson is absolutely right when she points out the lack of diversity in film criticism, and Captain Marvel is actually a good example to explain why she is right. I commented before that it sometimes sound as if the reviewers saw a different movie, so over the place where the judgements regarding it, and after having seen it, I know get a little bit more why this is the place. One example: I left the theatre thinking "wow, this was practically feminism the movie". The first thing my male friends said was "they barely made a deal out of her gender". That is not because my friends are somehow sexist (they are in fact very open-minded), but because there are some references which some people might pick up on and other don't. And females have a better chance to see it, because they are more likely to experience what the main theme of the movie and the core of Carol's character arc is (and if you don't pick up on it, you might end up with the conclusion that she doesn't have a character arc at all). Anyway, Brie Larson's point is that you need diverse voices in film criticism because you can't expect of every critic to understand every cultural context on earth. Different people pick up on different things, and if all film critics are white male, it can lead to them dismissing movies off-hand because some aspects might go right over their head.
And about the question if actors are allowed to be political: Naturally they are, just like everyone else, and it is a strange double standard to act as if Brie Larson shouldn't be. Especially since she isn't a keyboard warrior but an actual activist.
And Marvel movies themselves have been political since Tony held his speech about a system with "zero accountability" in Iron Man.
Stupid people are fine if they're at least willing to learn from mistakes and/or admit when they fuck up. Let's face it, we all fuck up and do and say stupid shit in our lives.
The real problem are people who are willfully ignorant and stupid and completely unwilling to learn or even admit their mistakes.
One thing to remember is that the people who spread this kind of bullshit aren't even necessarily stupid in a general sense. A lot of them may be fairly well off and educated. You don't necessarily need to be a stupid person in general to do or say stupid things. There's a reason a lot of anti-vaxxers (for example) are educated and financially secure suburbanites.
Edited by M84 on Mar 14th 2019 at 5:29:38 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedHold on. Is that post-title scene with Carol in civvies and Mjolnir? WTF? Or is that just a weird angle on Stormbreaker?
Edit: Okay, it's Stormbreaker. Just looked odd for a minute.
Edited by Fighteer on Mar 14th 2019 at 8:46:04 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

What did she say again?
Join the Five-Man Band cleanup project!