This week, we’re returning to the topic of masculinity and how to be a good man in an era when what it means to be a man is changing. And to look at modern masculinity, we’re going to take a look at a character from the past. A man out of time, even; dropped from his time into the present day. It’s a surprisingly common trope in fiction – using a character from the past to comment on the cultural and social mores of the present. It often ties into a belief that previous generations had it right and that ours has lost its way, as well as providing comfortable, distinct sign posts and guides for behavior.
Ironically enough, however, this man from the past is a beacon for being a man today, rather than in his own time. I’m speaking of course of Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America.
For a man born in the 20s and raised in the 30s, Rogers is actually an excellent example of what non-toxic masculinity in the modern day.
The Moral Core of Non-Toxic Masculinity
Steve Rodgers is an interesting exercise in contrasts. By any stretch of the imagination, Rogers is someone who benefits from the traditional ideas of masculinity. He’s a bad-ass soldier, a leader of men, a 6’2 blonde ubermensch with abs like whoah and a butt like phwoar. His upper torso looks like a damn Dorito standing on its point.
But while it’s easy to think of Rogers as someone who looks like this:
we tend to forget that he’s spent most of his life looking like this:
… and that has informed everything about his character. He’s someone who was weak who gained power but still remembers what it was like to be weak. Pre-serum Rogers was someone who recognized that he was hardly the epitome of manly perfection. But rather than becoming a ball of resentment or looking for a magic fix that would let him become an “alpha” like his best friend Bucky, he simply kept trying to move forward. His greatest strengths were his moral core and the optimism that he’d make it through eventually, no matter how much work it’d take. He’d do what was right1 regardless of the consequences to him. Would standing up to a bully end with his getting a muddy hole stomped into his spine? Probably… but he had to do it anyway. You could knock him down, but he’d get right back up again because someone had to stand up to bullies and by God he was gonna be that someone. Would the military not take him because he was 90 lbs sopping wet? Fine, he’ll keep applying until he gets in… not because he’s trying to be a badass but because he wants to help people who can’t help themselves.
It’s that moral clarity that makes Rogers, even when he’s a scrawny weakling, so compelling. When he’s given what many people would see as the dream – a body that’s literally the peak of human performance – he maintains that moral stance. Instead of leaping at the chance to make up for lost time – wrecking shit, banging chicks etc. – he focuses on doing what he always intended to do in the first place: helping others in need.
Speaking of…
The Purposes of Strength
Physical strength, a capacity for violence and the willingness to use it are among of the core tenets of toxic masculinity. Poke around forums and subreddits devoted to manliness and you’ll see the subject come up over and over again: threatening violent revenge against people who’ve wronged you, intimidating people in order to show how bad-ass you are, “bro, do you even lift?”
That is part of what makes Steve Rogers an interesting example of non-toxic masculinity. By all rights, he meets almost anyone’s definition of being an alpha male. He’s a physical beast of a man with a body like a Greek god. He’s the ultimate athlete, strong enough to rip doors off cars and shred logs with his bare hands.
His career, even purpose, is defined by violence. He’s a super-soldier, with the emphasis on “soldier”, having been at the forefront of America’s war against the Nazis in World War II. But what’s significant is that despite his capability to perform violence, Steve isn’t Ass-Kick McGee. He’s defined less by his strength and more by the way he uses it and why.
Steve Rogers isn’t a warrior so much as he is a guardian. His first instinct is to throw himself into harm’s way in order to save others, regardless of whether he’ll survive or not. He quite literally threw himself on a grenade in order to save his unit during basic training. When it became clear that the only way to save the US from the Red Skull’s super-weapon, he rode that sucker into the ground in order to make sure that nobody else would get hurt. In fact, it’s pretty significant that Cap’s’ signature weapon is a shield, an inherently defensive tool. Unlike Iron Man’s laser-ejaculating hands, Thor’s enchanted hammer with its long hard handle2, Hawkeye’s flying phalloi and Banner’s rampaging Id, Steve has a disc. It’s not lingam, it’s not a yoni. It doesn’t cut, it doesn’t thrust, it doesn’t penetrate, it blocks. It’s there to protect, not to destroy. And that shield is the symbol of Steve’s rejection of violence qua violence.
In fact, he’s far more likely to try to avoid fighting if it isn’t absolutely necessary. Much like Raleigh Becket, Steve prefers to fight when it’s actually important. Consider this moment in Captain America: Winter Soldier –
Knowing that he’s been betrayed, that he’s boxed in and that his life is in danger, he still tries to give his opponents an out. He doesn’t have any interest in hurting his opponents if he doesn’t absolutely have to. It’s only when they attack him that he responds. He gave them the choice, they chose not to take it and now it’s on.
Similarly, in The Avengers, his introduction to Tony Stark and Thor is to try to stop the fight, attempting to disarm the both of them rather than attacking directly. During the invasion of New York, Steve’s first orders are to protect and evacuate the civilians in the area. In the midst of an alien-fucking-invasion, his first instinct is to ensure the protection of the most vulnerable people around him.
Steve didn’t earn his body; it was given to him. But his strength isn’t the strength of his muscles, it’s the strength of his soul and his core. He was given that power and like a certain web-head, he understands that with great power comes great responsibility. And that responsibility is to help those who can’t help themselves, not to prove how butch he is by pounding some dude’s face into goo.
But it’s not Steve’s restraint or resistance to violence that makes him an example of positive masculinity. As a matter of fact, it’s an area where, in the terms of traditional, toxic masculinity, Steve falls far short of true manliness. Ready for it?
Sex Doesn’t Make The Man
Steve Rogers is a 98-year old virgin.
In fact, we know exactly how much sexual experience Steve’s had. We’ve seen all of it. He’s been kissed three times. Once by Private Lorraine, once by Peggy Carter and once by Natasha Romanova. And that’s… pretty much it.
And yet, nobody would question Cap’s status as a man, no? I mean, are you seriously going to look at someone who can quite literally command a god and say that because he’s never entered the holiest of holies (or ridden the baloney pony, for that matter) he’s less of a man for it? It’s almost as though his sexual experience has absolutely nothing to do with his masculinity…
Of course, it seems a little ridiculous that Captain fucking America couldn’t get a date, no? I mean, sure he’s got no game to speak of…
But come on, just look at him. He looks like Chris Evans! Except… Cap’s not interested in just getting his dick wet. In fact, in Winter Soldier, we learn that Steve’s been actively avoiding any intimate relationships. Natasha’s been trying to set him up with various women, and each time he’s refused – even when he’s assured that some of these women would love to date him. But that’s not what he wants. So what’s he waiting for?
The right partner.
It’s not that sex isn’t important to him, it’s that it’s not important for its own sake. It doesn’t define him. It doesn’t mean that he’s any less of a man because you can count the number of girlfriend’s he’s had on the fingers of one foot because it’s not a measure of his worth… and that’s something that’s been part of his personality since the beginning. Even back when he was Skinny Steve, he didn’t define himself by his lack of luck with the ladies. It was just a fact, like being blonde or living in Brooklyn.
But now that he’s got that body, he’s got the chance to make up for lost time, right?
Actually, let’s talk about that body for a moment.
Looks Vs. Personality
Sure, now that he has his post-serum bod and the prestige of being, y’know, Captain America, he could rack up lay after lay if that’s what he wanted. But despite the fact that his body looks like it should be carved out of marble, Steve Rogers is actually evidence of the appeal of personality over looks.
OK, let’s take a moment to stop laughing before we continue.
As absurd as it may sound, it’s Steve’s personality that makes him so appealing to women. Yes, the body certainly helps, nobody’s going to deny that. But at the end of the day, Steve came thisclose to getting his v-card punched by Peggy Carter3.
Before he became Studly Good Night.
See, while Steve may have a smoking body, he still has the personality he did when he was a scrawny kid from Brooklyn who was busy trying to defraud the US government. His body may not have been spectacular, but you couldn’t deny his heart, spirit or brains. And that’s exactly what appealed to Peggy. He was literally unfit for war, yet his sole goal was to find some way to serve his country… to the point of signing up for a potentially lethal medical experiment. But while he may have been a grunt, he didn’t define himself by his physicality. He was a problem-solver; give him an impossible task and he’ll find a way to come through… in often unexpected and unorthodox ways.
To Peggy, a woman who’s faced and overcome many barriers towards becoming a special agent of His Majesty’s Government, he’s a kindred spirt. He thinks outside the box, he sympathizes with the underdog and he never, ever gives up. And despite the fact that he’s been beaten and spit on, he has no callus on his soul. He’s not bitter about his lack of success – either in trying to become a soldier or with the ladies. He’s as genuine and good as he ever was. And when be became the manliest man of man town? He was still the same good person he was before. He didn’t become arrogant or cruel or conceited. He was the same kid from Brooklyn that caught her eye. Just a little taller. Even years down the line, Steve’s a good guy. Despite being a prime cut of beef, he’s careful and respectful around women. In Winter Soldier, he’s quick to recognize Sharon’s refusal of the use of his washing machine as a soft “no” and respects it. It’s that understanding and willingness to prioritize her comfort over his trying to get a date.
It’s significant that, in Agent Carter, we see that Peggy’s photo of Steve – the one she’s kept with her for years after his death – is of Rogers before he got swole. Big Steve may have been hot as a four-alarm fire, but it was Skinny Steve she fell in love with.
And while we’re on the subject of love…
The Need for Brotherhood
It’s significant that the other most important relationship in Steve Rogers’ life is his relationship with Bucky Barnes. In fact, the overall arc of Steve’s relationship with Bucky is one that is frequently reserved for romantic partners.
But as much as Tumblr may lurve #Stucky, it actually ends up making the same mistake that isolates so many men: it conflates emotional intimacy with romance and becomes part of why so many men are starved for an emotional connection with others. Ignoring the shipping aspect4 Steve’s deep bond with Bucky is another example of non-toxic masculinity. Steve doesn’t worry about how his relationship with Bucky might be perceived – either by the world at large, by his teammates5 or even by the fellow members of his platoon. They’re not bros, they’re brothers in every way but blood and Steve doesn’t give two shits how it might come across.
Ironically, it’s the fact that Cap’s a man out of time that allows for him to have this tight connection with his childhood friend – in the 1920s and 30s the idea of men having a close, even intimate relationship wasn’t seen as a sign that one or both of them might be queer. It was just part of how men related to the people who were important to them.
In fact, it could be argued that Steve Rogers’ most important relationship isn’t with Peggy Carter but James Buchanan Barnes – his best friend since childhood and the single most important person in Captain America’s life. When Steve hears that Bucky’s platoon is captured and presumed lost, he moves Heaven and Earth in order to get them back and is apparently willing to take on the United States government (as well as his former teammates in The Avengers) to help him out. Bucky was there for Steve when Steve’s mother died. He pulled Steve’s bacon out of the fire more times than either of them could count and was always trying to look out for his friend. And ultimately, it was that intense connection that made Captain America an actual hero instead of a USO touring attraction and shiller of war bonds.
That connection couldn’t exist under the tenets of toxic masculinity.
Steve Rogers may be a man from the past. But he stands as a sterling example of positive, modern masculinity – and a role model for those who want to be better men… even without the Super Soldier Serum6 .
- This, incidentally is why Captain America is a classic example of Neutral Good instead of Lawful Good. Dude’ll break the law if the law is unjust. [↩]
[↩]- Confirmed by Haley Atwell, BTW [↩]
- and believe me, I get the appeal of seeing oneself represented in one of Marvel’s biggest heroes [↩]
- which actually gets him in trouble in the upcoming Captain America: Civil War [↩]
- Or in the words of Sam Wilson: “I do what he does, only slower. [↩]
This is the reason Cap is my second favorite hero (first is Deadpool, because FUCKING DEADPOOL).
I think a lot of nerds see a bit of themselves in the Captain, or at least they'd like to, and for me it's almost comforting to see a nerd-turned-Beefcake McWonderabs that didn't get an ego to go along with it. Aside from being a worn out old trope that athletes are all dudebro jocks the fact taht Cap is so popular makes me think that maybe, just maybe, a few people will pick up on the stuff mentioned in the article and change for the better. I've never really been a person that's actively chosen role models and patterned myself after them, but if I was the good Captain would be mine.
Also, did anyone else get a kick out of the similarities between the Captain America flagpole scene and the Make a Man out of You training montage in Mulan?
I am not meaning to pick on you with this, but you pushed one of my buttons a bit:
I think a lot of nerds see a bit of themselves in the Captain, or at least they'd like to
This DRIVES ME UP A WALL.
Because the story of Steve Rogers isn't the story of the nerd who got superpowers and stayed humble and became an awesome hero.
It's the story of a guy who was ALWAYS a hero. And if you are a nerd who says that you see yourself in Captain America, you had better be speaking up NOW. You'd better be entering fights that you'll lose when it's necessary to help others. You'd better be doing your best to make the world a better place every minute of your life, and not waiting until you have superpowers to do it, because Steve Rogers sure didn't wait.
Because I've heard people be like, "Yeah, Cap is awesome because he was a nerd who became buff and didn't become all assholish, I totally identify with that," and I'm like, "Until you have been there, you have NO IDEA what it would do to you. Don't say you identify with Cap because he's what you like to think you'd be if you got superpowers.
If you want to be Cap, be pre-serum Steve Rogers. You're going to get hit a lot. And you're going to get rejected a lot. And you're going to get hurt a lot. That's the price of being Steve Rogers.
Sorry. Rant over.
Good shit, awesome post.
I may have an unhealthy love of Steve Rogers and a particular frustration with people who "totally identify with him" while missing the whole thing that makes him special. *angryface*
I also have a deep-seated disdain for people who want superpowers "to help people" or to win the lottery "to give to charity" who are doing jack-all now. If you're not going to be a good person until it's not going to inconvenience you, you're never going to be a good person.
This is, in case it was not clear, one of my pet peeves. 😉
It's like a study they did where they had people playing a video game be given "heroic/good" options like helping homeless people, and most people chose those options and described themselves as good guys.
They ignored the actual homeless people who were just outside.
A lot of people want to THINK they are good people if they'd just be given a chance, but the truth is you're given that chance pretty much every minute of every day.
Holy crap this was gold. I really wish this could be added as an addendum to the original post itself. This needs to be so much more than "just" a comment. Like can we turn this into a meme somehow . . .
If so, can we get someone more inspiring than Shia LaBoeuf to just do it?
If you want to be Cap, be pre-serum Steve Rogers
1. This!
2. Challenge Accepted!
😀
Okay I made one. It's a bit wordy but how could I cut any of your brilliance???
http://i1053.photobucket.com/albums/s461/cab6/101…
OMG I'M A MEME.
Do you approve? I could make it a public one with the meme generator, I just didn't want to do that without your permission.
Sure! I generally say things because I want to share them, and a broader audience is always A-OK by me.
(If I were looking to hoard my thoughts for credit, I wouldn't be posting under a pseudonym here. 😉 )
Okay cool!
Here you go! I tried to make it a little easier to read. What do you think?
https://imgflip.com/i/1015ec
Well that's going on Twitter…
That's going on Facebook right now!
(meme link in case: https://imgflip.com/i/1015ec)
Link is broken
Oh bloody heck. The blog included the last bracket as part of the address. Why did it do that?
Here you go: https://imgflip.com/i/1015ec
Because computers?
Nah not always. On twitter it doesn't include brackets as part of the link. Not on Facebook either I don't think. There are other platforms that understand that brackets never appear in addresses therefore they oughtn't be included. But yeah. I guess this is not one of those 🙂 . Duly noted for next time.
EXACTLY.
Amen, Sister! *standing ovation*
It's fine, you have a good point.
That was an awesome article, and one I was very happy to see pop on my Facebook feed. Whenever I think about the concept of non toxic masculinity it's always Steve I think about, because he's such a perfect exemple of that, it's not even funny. Some people find him boring but I find him really refreshing among flashy superheroes like Iron Man or darker brooding ones like Batman… Steve's qualities shine through him and his personality is a bit subdued oftentimes because he's so damn selfless but Chris Evans is really good at adding subtle layers that betray Steve's deeper motivations and hidden feelings…
And thanks for talking about his relationships with Peggy (BTW, miss Atwell's name is Hayley, not Haley) and Bucky, because those characters are awesome on their own and they offer such a good insight about who Steve really is behind the Captain America persona.
People who think of him as "boring" are the sort of people who don't really know the character, but dismiss him as being a paladin-type. Brooding or angsty or anti-hero stuff is interesting, but I think after a few decades of that, what's really interesting is seeing a character who is a genuinely good person try to hold onto that goodness in a world that tries to smother it.
It's not just "boy scout" easiness the way it was in the 50's and all. And yeah, Chris Evans brought a lot to the role. He really is the perfect Cap.
I'll admit I didn't find him exceptionally interesting in the first movie, where the lines of right and wrong were a little more clear cut. In the second movie, where he had to deal with ambiguity and competing loyalties, he became pretty fascinating to me, though.
Yeah, I'm kinda the same. (It doesn't help that I am shipper trash, and narratively the movie really does play up the Steve/Bucky thing–the song playing when they first see each other is a torchsong about lovers reuniting after WWII FOR PITY'S SAKE.)
But yeah. When there's Nazis and oh, you've got to break the rules a bit, but it's to punch Nazis, well, that's a plucky underdog hero. When the hero who's already so out of depth in this new world finds out that the organization he's been trusting is completely rotted from within…well, that just made for an incredibly compelling thriller with great characters.
(Though I will forever believe that Sitwell was a triple agent the whole time, and just got gently pushed off-screen before this could become obvious.)
Yup, it's pretty much canon if you ask the Russo brothers…….!!! http://www.mtv.com/news/2718101/captain-america-s…
*sigh* canon except that it'll never actually get to be canon. Which is just so frustrating to me, even from just a pure storytelling level (don't set up payoff you're not going to deliver, dangit!).
I'll settle for Steve maybe just…not having a romantic interest at all? I mean, that would be novel too.
(I really, really don't want him to get with Sharon. I'm sorry, maybe it's cute in the comics, but the whole "date the niece of your first girlfriend" thing is just…icky. There's plenty of other people out there, Steve.)
Yeah, a Sharon romance would be strange. I mean, there are settings where I can sort of tolerate everyone dating everyone else because the characters are so isolated that there aren't many people to choose from. Steve seems to socialize pretty easily with people who don't have superpowers, though. In his case, it would be hard to see dating Sharon as anything but clinging to the past.
Yeah and I love that actress too, but…ick
Comics are pretty incestuous :/
And I agree that it's practically queerbaiting
She is cute af, seriously. I'd like to see her stick around, but maybe have a quick moment early on where she's pretty firmly like, "Yeeeeah, not really gonna date my Aunt's ex, sorry." And Steve would be all like, "Oh, no, yeah, no." And it would be cute and adorable.
Holy crap, then Steve would have two platonic female friends.
What? Don't be silly! No guy has two platonic female friends.
two?! does that mean this video is now relevant because here they are https://youtu.be/aV_nv83e0yY?t=49
I'd like to see a hero without a romantic interest as well. I get a bit annoyed by the subtext that every lead character must have a romantic partner.
And you're 1000% right about him and Sharon…ew.
Yeah, at this point, I think I'd take a leading role in any movie without a romantic interest.
Like, OK, I get it, romantic relationships are totally freakin' awesome for reasons. There's a skajillion movies and TV shows and books and stuff that practically tell us so already. Do we really need more movies and TV shows and books and stuff telling us so? Do you really think we haven't gotten the message by now? Why do y'all media types keep pushing them?
"Why do y'all media types keep pushing them?"
Same reason so many movies fail the Bechdel test (and have so pitifully few leads of color, to reference the Big Conversations going on today).
That's their narrative, and they'll stick to it till they're literally forced to change it, by generated popular demand.
(And sometimes not even then. As much dosh as Thelma & Louise made, there wasn't another action movie like it with two female leads till Heat, with Bullock & McCarthy, over a decade later (possibly closer to two?). And even though that had an Oscar winner in one of the lead roles, it still didn't get proportional marketing dollars allocated to something like … 22 Jump Street ( / don't get me started), so it sank out of sight too early. Never underestimate the lengths to which the power-holding minority will go to keep a grip on what they think they've got, nor the implicit-bias riddled tools they'll try to use to keep it.)
I was so thrilled that Fury Road got so much recognition this year by deliberately NOT filming with male gaze — that's having to work AGAINST decades of habit and accepted/encouraged techniques, and yet it made such a difference to that film.
I mean it rocked in so, so many ways, but this was one of them, and it was a very deliberate thing that likely was pushed back against most of the way through.
It's why some companies like our studio are huge on diverse publishing and creation — people have viewpoints and stories that aren't white-hetero-dude! They are interesting! They are recognizable to people who've had to deal with only white-hetero-dude as their fill-in until now!
Actually, Splinter Cell got a lot of pushback because we don't have a romantic interest for the main character, despite a totally rockin' woman being on his team. They even dislike each other, which is a beloved romance trope in the making. But instead they're partners and professionals.
We didn't want our main character to get a love interest as a "reward" for winning the game, killing the bad guys, etc. The closest we came was during a co-op review where (spoilers) the lead director said "And then Sam lifts Kestrel (a dude from the previous SC game) into his arms and gives him a big kiss, and carries him off into the sunset!". Sadly that wound up cut and you just fireman-carry Kestrel back while being shot at.
I can't see Sam and Grim together. I just can't. Also, in one of the earlier novelizations (they rebooted partway through, both sets are good though, if that's you're thing) he did have one but any more than that gets spoilery so I won't go further.
One of the things I like about the new Splinter Cell game is that it doesn't focus on Sam getting any. I absolutely HATE tacked on romance subplots (I'm looking at YOU, third hobbit movie…and most recent Wolverine movie…and too many more to list) so the fact that you don't get a shitty 'will they/won't they' plot shoved down your esophagus constantly is a breath of fresh air.
Poor Tauriel. She did not deserve the romantic plot tumors affixed to her (that the actress was ASSURED would not exist in the first place).
Agreed. Poor Evangeline Lilly.
And as a Tolkien purist who was not a fan of the creation of Tauriel from the first moment I heard of her, I can say that I *loved* her character and what they did with her, except for the love plot.
Oh, wait, that was her whole arc from about 7 seconds after she came onscreen. 🙁
Yep, my fanfiction fixits include her, but with a very different plot arc.
I actually…kinda didn't mind the Tauriel/Kili thing.
I just hated that it turned into a triangle.
I've long gotten into the habit of viewing the movies as completely separate entities from the book, especially the Hobbit itself, because the very feel and theme of the movie was so drastically different.
In addition to my Tolkien reasons for hating the romance, I hated that one of only two female characters, one they specifically created, was created seemingly just for a romance.
Jackson seems to think all Tolkien female characters need to be 1) Xena and 2) pining.
There was one female character in the stories like that. Her name was Eowyn. Show some depth of female character creation/alteration, Jackson. Oh, wait. You don't know how.
Galadriel's the only one who escapes this, though he does Xena-fy her in The Hobbit. She's already married, though, so the pining isn't there.
As a tolkien fanboy I despise that film. The first two were alright, but that one blows all kinds of goat. I don't mind Tauriel though, I think she could've been very interesting, but they fucked with Tolkien cannon and had the AUDACITY to turn her from elven badass to whimpering damsel in distress in the big fight between her, dwarfboy, and Evil Orc Dude…the same fight that had all the realism of a professional wrestling match and twice the overacting
I just…skipped the entire last half hour of the film when I showed it for a library program. Too much anger on the behalf of physics and plot coherency.
I knew it was going to go to shit when Smaug was killed the way he was. I spent ninety percent of my time in the theater with face firmly planted in palm. I wish I would've walked out. The only two parts about that movie I like are Billy Connolly shouting 'sod off' and finally seeing Lobelia Sackville-Baggins. I always loved the parts of the books in the shire that dealt with Bilbo's family, so I was looking forward to seeing them ever since I first found out about the Fellowship of the Ring being made into a movie.
Physics, again, not a strong suit…
The CG on Billy Connolly was a bit eh, unfortunately. Lobelia, bless her horrible personality, should have gotten her moment in RotK, but we didn't get the Cleansing of the Shire, sadly.
Yeah, apparently Jackson didn't like that part of the book. It's one of my favorites. I was also sad that they didn't do the field or cormallen, but they made up for it wih 'my friends, you bow to no one'. That still gets me misty eyed whenever I see it.
Ughghhhg. That was such an important part of the books. I'm still mad he cut it.
Yeah, that was pretty well done.
It's one of my favorite bits too, but honestly, RotK has, like, four freaking endings, and while that works in prose, it was already getting tedious in the movie. So…yeah, I get why they didn't do it.
I think they could have done what they did in the movie better, but I'm not a screenwriter, so no idea if it'd work in practice.
I think you could do in in a miniseries, but it's a lot to ask the audience to sit around for another thirty minutes or so of a lesser crisis and denouement after the really big action has already wrapped up.
Both time wise and emotionally. In screenwriting, you always have to escalate. And while in the book, the whole "Shire in danger" comes home hard, it's a lot less likely that folks who have sat through a few hours of literal epic battles on a grand visual scale will be able to bring themselves to care *as much.*
When my friend and I went to see it, we were all, "Ah, that ending- wait, not done?" at least twice.
I just realized I haven't seen the third Hobbit movie.
Huh.
I do own this on a shirt: https://40.media.tumblr.com/0a7872206bfc724ede3e2…
Want!
I can direct you to some fanfic that tells the story much better.
If you have any love for the books, first three movies, or first two hobbit movies, don't. You'll only come away angry. Also, that shirt is a thing I will need to look into buying.
But adam! The constant repeated plot point of that weird creepy dude who everyone keeps trusting for no good reason, despite the fact that he repeatedly proves himself untrustworthy has such excellent payoff!
That is…he runs away wearing a dress? I think?
Because we needed more transmisogyny in media.
And people teleporting all over the place as the 'plot' demands. And stopping in the middle of Kill-bill level theatrical fight scenes to have long-winded conversations. AndI'MFUCKINGANGRYNOW
"And stopping in the middle of Kill-bill level theatrical fight scenes to have long-winded conversations."
i.e. every Gundam series ever made.
Gundam conversations, as I recall, were more philosophical than the crap in the hobbit. But otherwise yes.Also, most other shonen anime that I've seen (not that I've seen much). Dragon Ball Z was particularly bad about that as I remember, which is why I prefer the abridged series.
Also if you have any appreciation for the value of your own time.
*was mildly amused by the first one but fell asleep during the second one…twice…and decided these movies were not for me*
I get the feeling these movies weren't "for" anyone so much as "for" making sure no one in Hollywood ever asked Jackson to do a Tolkein franchise again.
I watched the first Hobbit movie and it felt like a ripoff of LOTR in the good scenes, plus it seriously dragged. Haven't seen the other ones.
Honestly, you're not missing much.
I like it more for the fandom that comes out of it, and because Adrian Turner, Richard Armitage, and Martin Freeman are pretty.
But beyond that it's just…as much as LotR felt like it was a proper movie of the book, the Hobbit does not. It's completely wrong in tone and concept, and they padded it entirely too much to make it drag out for three movies.
I will say this–at the very least they managed to give all the dwarves different looks and even personalities. Whereas Tolkien's dwarves sort of…well, they were copy-pastes of each other except for Bombur–the Fat One, and Fili-and-Kili–the interchangeable young ones. The movie doesn't always do this well, but it made an effort. Part of me enjoys the tragic gravitas that the movie's Thorin has, but the rest of me is kind of frustrated because that's really not what the movie is supposed to be about. It's not supposed to be an epic about WAR. It's about a small person being caught up in a big adventure.
That's what I thought.
http://starecat.com/i-feel-thin-sort-of-stretched…
Also, Tolkien canon does not allow Elf + Dwarf romances. That was what annoyed me most about it, actually.
So much canon destruction in those movies. Apparently everyone has Morgul blades. And all elves can use athelas. And the Ringwraiths died. And Galadriel can disapparate.
Must stop now. Getting cranky.
But Gimli/Legolas! Sailed off to the Undying Lands! Happily ever after! (Boning optional.)
Ohhhh god, the Morgul Blade. So much rage.
I almost shouted when I saw that Tauriel/dwarfy was going to be a thing. I restrained myself by shoving popcorn into my mouth like a motherfucker. Tolkien was rolling in his grave when these movies came out. The second two anyway, I think the first one was alright. So much promise ruined so badly….
Hahaha they do not get along in the slightest, but a lot of people get very upset by the idea of the hero not getting a girlprize!
Meanwhile Blacklist is a game about a white American who goes all over the world killing brown people, made by a studio of Canadians that is maybe 50% white at most.
THE IRONY WAS NOT LOST ON US AT ANY POINT.
I liked Blacklist mechanically and aesthetically, and the novelization is one of the better ones in my opinion, but I thought the plot was meh at best. I'm hoping they let Sam retire soon (he's had enough shit kicked out of him, he deserves a nice quiet retirement) and let Isaac take over as the hero. I liked him and I think he's a worthy sucessor.
Eee, I am full of joy over here, even having worked on the scripting and narrative team. It's HARD to cram a story into a game when you know everyone skips all the cutscenes, you know? There's a reason the department is named "Skippable Events", tongue-in-cheek.
Briggs is awesome, I am 100% on board with Briggs being the new 4th Echelon. We DID manage to make it so that you can play the entire game without SAM killing anyone, however, so stayed true to that aspect.
Reminds me of one of the Metal Gears where you walk along and see the ghosts of everyone you killed. That was a super empty walk for me!
That would be metal gear solid 3: Snake Eater, or as it's also known: Metal Gear if it was a James Bond movie….and I don't skip the cutscenes. I like cutscenes. I like story in my games. If a game doesn't have a story it's hard for me to get into it. I'll take a game with a good story over the latest Balls of Duty yearly release any day of the week. Hell, that's why I like the Souls series and Bloodborne (well, in that case it's my latent masochistic streak, but still) and the tales games so much.
You are one of the few, the proud, the reason we spend millions in performance capture.
We mostly work on AC and FarCry right now (PETTING BEARS IS A TOUGH JOB BUT SOMEONE HAS TO DO IT), although once in a while we'll get a team pulled in on something else.
Sadly, I don't have a new Splinter Cell date because while Blacklist reviewed well, it didn't SELL very well, so we didn't have the war chest to hop onto the next iteration. It always warms my heart to hear someone enjoyed Blacklist, though, and I like to hear criticism because we can always do better.
I can't do Souls games as much as I appreciate them! I get too angry.
"Gah!"
"Did you die?"
"YES."
"What happened?"
"I DON'T KNOW OKAY I WAS ALIVE AND THEN I WAS DEAD AAAAAAH"
OK, so I JUST saw an ad for Farcry Primal yesterday while catching up on No Man's Sky buzz. Is it a big dumb shooter, but with spears and bows, or does it have super cool caveman story stuff going on?
It's… a FarCry game! I really have a hard time suggesting my own games, I always feel like I'm too deep down the rabbit hole to be objective. If you've ever played a FarCry game, it's still pretty derivative, but at the same time it's very pretty and honestly I feel it makes a lot more sense than finding a reason why a modern dude needs to go kill 800 people by himself. I really like the story, but most importantlyyyyy:
MOST IMPORTANTLY, you can tame animal friends. And you can PET your animal friends. And RIDE your animal friends. Well, some of them.
So basically, if you ever wanted a sabretooth tiger friend, go buy this game right now.
Oh, and we replaced grenades with bees.
You're welcome.
I've never played a FarCry game. The extent of what I know is open world, FPS, famous for really long draw distances.
Oh, then I'd actually suggest it, because a lot of things that got fine-tuned a couple of games ago will be brand spanking new to you.
It's pretty. It's occasionally full of fire. You will hunt animals for their skins and tasty tasty meats. They will hunt you for the same reason. You will have unscripted stories happen in front of you like "So I let the tiger out of the cage and then the tiger attacked the other guys and got caught on fire so then there was a tiger on fire and it killed ME" and feel okay about it.
FarCry:
"Ooh, pretty!" interspersed with frantic combat, exploration, and organic fire spread. Except it's pretty cold in parts of Primal, so like, not so much fire spread (except via tiger).
Also the buddy AI is really good, so the game can play out more strategically and less "I convinced an elephant to stampede into the compound". Which is also a valid strategy.
Yeah, I just browsed the Kotaku review which was "this is a really cool game if you haven't been playing FarCry previously and gotten tired of climbing the skill tree". So I might check it out. If nothing else, it'll make me that much more eager for Horizon: Zero Dawn.
Heh, I would give a critique, but I don't play stealth games because I'm good at them (I'm…not. Very very not) so aside from 'don't put arbitraty time limits in your games and if your game isn't a stealth game DON'T PUT STEALTH SECTIONS IN' I have nothing.On the topic of souls, my first souls experience went thusly: Get dark souls, play through tutorial up to tutorial boss, get ass kicked five times, finally kill it and feel great. Go to normal game area, meander into cemetary and get raped by two skeletons for twenty minutes. Ragequit. It only went downhill from there.And, I have to ask…did someone really pet a bear for motion capture? Please say yes.
Nng, that term, I'm not very cool with it as pertaining to video games.
I WISH we got to mocap a bear, although we attempted it with a Kangaroo a few years ago and the 'roo was Having None Of It. So it hopped around the office and cuddled in peoples' laps for the rest of the day.
My workplace is kinda weird, one day you might be meowing at a microphone for a few hours, the next dealing with the rental kangaroo.
Our mocap people just play pretend really, really well.
Which term, for future refrence so I can avoid it in the future?Second, holy shit, rental kangaroo. I had no idea that's a thing but my world is better for it.
Convince everyone to rent kangaroos!
Rape, not a fan of it used outside the actual context.
ah, duly noted
Thanks guy, appreciate it!
Yeah, I've never heard of this not watching cutscenes. I mean, how else are you going to know what the hell's going on??
Not to mention you've already paid money for them…
Balls of Duty…I think I want to start using that.
I don't know! I watch cutscenes! Unless it's the 300th time I'm seeing them. I also mess with stuff for cutscenes (drop smoke or sleeping gas bombs, steal their clothes, etc — Fallout 4 has made for some AMAZING cutscenes when I forgot I had Paladin Danse only wearing bathing trunks and a pink mining helmet under his power armor), but I… yes. This is where the story is.
And also why we're trying to move the story OUT of them, and more in-your-ear stuff while you're tooling around, or companions talking to you, or y'know. As many giant lights as possible surrounding the path you're supposed to take.
I've heard Call of Doody too, but I really respect what they do, that's a big hungry fanbase to consistently please, and well. Dog armor.
Speaking of messing with cut scenes, my favorite was one my friend figured out in GTA: Vice City.
As you drive up to the mission point, it cuts to this cinematic of a guy on an old clunky cell phone. You car halts off screen. He sees you, runs and the chase is on!
That is, if you're in a car. If you know which alley the guy is in, you get the car going full speed and bail right before the radius that triggers the cut scene. YOU stop but the car is now an independent object in the world. Its not "your" car anymore. So, just like the better behaved traffic, it keep tooling right along. If you do it right, the guy on the phone gets two or three words out then a car comes whizzing in from one side of the cinematic screen and runs him down. Mission complete!
Bahahaha. PHYSICS.
I love watching Birgirpall's battlefield videos just because he takes the physics of a really interesting physics game and destroys the game with them.
Also, Skyrim giants. That was one bug I did NOT want fixed. Why yes, a giant hitting a bear with a club SHOULD shoot the bear into space!
"Meanwhile Blacklist is a game about a white American who goes all over the world killing brown people, made by a studio of Canadians that is maybe 50% white at most. "
Wait a minute.
What??
We had a test group also say that Charlie was "too stereotypical" of a geek hacker in a hoodie (nevermind it's cold on a cargo plane).
This was informed to us during a Scripting and Narrative meeting, where all 14 of us on the team were wearing hoodies.
I forgot you work in the games industry. How were you involved with Blacklist?Also, I have to admit that Charlie does fall a bit flat for me. I don't dislike him at all, I just wish he had a little extra something.
We were the lead studio on Blacklist, it was our studio's first big project (we only opened 5 years ago — geez, 5 years already) — I spent the first half of the project working coop multiplayer (with resultant replication/networking joy) with our studio in Shanghai, and the second half working Scripting and Narrative for the main story. I also did a lot of data management, a lot of coordination-role and producer-role stuff that didn't officially have a title at the time, and did the 7am-7pm shift for morning and evening conference calls with Shanghai and token hand-offs for bugs, major updates, and whatever was broken overnight.
I… did a lot of scrubbing through cutscenes frame-by-frame and a lot of audio work making sure lines were actually the post-effect lines that were supposed to be said AND properly subtitled, in several languages. I also got to do a lot of stuff with raw mocap footage which is HILARIOUS as it is basically a bunch of adults playing Very Serious Pretend, complete with pool noodles as rifles and toilet paper tubes as binoculars.
Dog attacks are just someone laying on the floor with a rope around Sam's arm, growling. No dogs were mocapped (or harmed) in the making of that game.
…Allow me to say I'm jealous as fuck. And that I liked the game a lot. And that I've yet to beat the game full ghost mode. But mostly that I'm jealous as fuck.
Haha merci! It's a great job if you can get it, don't mind working 90-hour weeks, the dog and pony show of E3, oh and now gamergators threatening your life for making things they like!
Nah, it's a kickass job, I'm thrilled and it's a good company to work for. Plus over the last 10 years people have stopped asking me when I'm going to get a "real" job and instead have started asking me to talk to their kid's class about how to get a job like this.
Well, if you folks ever have trouble finding volunteers for the dog and pony show, I own my very own ringmaster jacket. If you ever do a post-apocalyptic game, I'm not even kidding. I have a whole crew of hypers I can bring. 😀
Haha, it's much appreciated!
I wish we got to do more stuff like that. We had acrobats and contortionists do some stuff for Poser and that was awesome. So obviously we need a post-apoc game just to have you (and the Many Mothers).
Farcry Apocalypse!
*snickers*
*sighs*
It was one of those "welp" moments, because we tend to over-listen to what test groups say. Mostly because we get way too into stuff and lose perspective, and also because test groups are a great way to remind us (as our Playtest Manager says) people are REALLY BAD at video games.
people are REALLY BAD at video games
I remember hearing that way back on the blocky PC original Deus Ex, they had programmed some of the AI enemies to use sensible small unit tactics. They had to take it out because three or four non-enhanced commandos would consistently mop the floor with the PC cyborg bad ass, no matter how good the payer was.
YUP.
There's a reason games cram tutorials down your throat and treat you like you've never played a video game before — the majority of players don't get past the first two levels, no matter how much you drop the difficulty slider.
Blacklist has a big flashing PRESS B TO TAKE COVER anytime you take damage because it is a COVER BASED SHOOTER (or stealth game but good luck convincing people to do that) and after playing for 2 hours people will still not take cover and get shot at and die.
Of course, there are times when it's our bad, like when snipers had unlimited vision range and could snipe you from across the map…
Is it bad that I am now seriously (yes, really) considering boycotting movies altogether?
Okay, full disclosure: This is an attempt to give a measured response.
I think you have to vote with your feet, which means choosing where to spend your money. Which means that if you never spend anything, you're not indicating to TPTB that your choices mean something to them.
I say that, however, being fully about to boycott *this* for all the reasons stated therein …which means, if I'm going to put my money where my own mouth is, that I need to go find something else to see instead.
*heavy sigh*
Boycott what? Your link just goes back to this article.
And … to be honest, my decision to skip out on movies entirely wasn't really a case of trying to persuade Hollywood to do a better job, because I kinda figured that Hollywood didn't give a shit about me.
It used to be that the omnipresence of romance in decidedly non-romantic movies was just mildly annoying. Now, though, it's gotten to the point where I'm finding it hard to enjoy movies, even ones that would be considered good movies.
So I guess if it is possible to persuade TPTB by choosing to buy and watch movies that meet certain standards while not buying or watching those that don't, then … I don't suppose you've got a good starting point, have you? Otherwise I'm prepared to risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Either way, thank you for your reply. You've definitely given me something to think about.
EDIT: And one of the things I just thought was that that question would probably work better in the open thread. I'll stick it in there.
I hate twenty two jump street. That's another one I couldn't even think about watching.
I liked it, partly because it was making fun of itself, partly for the end-roll sequence of the concepts for the next 20 Jumpstreet movies.
But it's very much a popcorn flick.
So, I just found this on wikipedia (Captain America Civil War Page)”On Rogers' romantic life, Joe Russo said, “we can only keep Cap romantically uninvolved for so long. At some point, something has to happen with that character, so we are very aware of his lack of romantic life. We want to keep dimensionalizing his character so maybe something interesting will happen.”[13So…yeah. Apparently it's mandatory.
Yeah, but unless there's more that I'm not seeing, Joe's missing out the important bit.
Pacific Rim, Cap and. . .yeah, that's all I've got off hand.
Mad Max, although I think that's already a sort of established character thing for Max?
I get a bit annoyed by the subtext that every lead character must have a romantic partner.
I feel like that's why Hunchback of Notre Dame was my favorite Disney movie as a kid (next to Mulan, maybe)–because it was the only one that didn't have the message of: "Victory comes with a side-order of Successful Romantic Relationship, whatever the actual conflict was."
I never thought about that, but you're right.Of course, Hellfire as a villain song doesn't hurt either. I still get chills when I hear it.
Of that high note at the end of "Bells of Notre Dame?" *shiver* That is one of my favorite moments in basically all of music.
The Fox & the Hound and Pinocchio don't, either. Of course, there is a dearth of female primary characters in those movies.
Oh, wait. The Fox and the Hound does. I forgot. So, just Pinocchio, then.
I like that 101 Dalmations is a post-marriage film, the adventures happen once folks are together. The meet-cute is just the beginning!
Yeah, that's kind of creepy. I would also like no romance, at least until they show Steve go through some serious therapy because he's 70 years in the future and everyone he knows is gone, ancient or not all that stable (Bucky needs therapy too.)
I just want Bucky to have a nice day, dangit. He deserves to have a nice day.
I felt very much the same! Wasn't big on the first movie, liked him in Avengers, REALLY liked Winter Soldier.
Hawkeye's my favourite, but it's because he's just a guy who decided he'd get really good with a bow and arrow, no serum, no super powers, and uh no increased healing. Poor Hawkguy, always nursing broken bones.
I think my love for Hawkeye is a huge part of why I hated AoU (although the movie itself was just awkwardly paced).
Because okay, fine, give him a family or whatever, but at least make it seem like Hawkeye, y'know, and not something that came out of a Hallmark movie casting with "tolerant, pregnant wife, and two-and-a-half adorable-and-perfect kids, one of either gender."
And they could've at least given him a dog. Or made him say "Aw, ____, no." Just once. …nope.
I was kind of befuddled how all the other Avengers/SHIELD agents deal with people threatening/kidnapping their loved ones and somehow Hawkguy has a family that nobody knows out in the mountains and there's no concern ever they'll be used against him.
I mean I want people to have families and backstories and I kind of liked how his was "Nah, totally normal guy, no tragedy here, just likes arrows" but I was sorta sad that Whedon's Hawkeye will never cross streams with Fraction's Hawkguy.
Plus, well, Kate. KATE.
I gotta be honest, I really didn't like the "no tragedy" thing, because Hawkeye kind of is a tragedy, and he's supposed to be a complicated character who just looks simple. But instead, he came off as a simple character who is simple.
But more than that, it just made it feel like the writers didn't care about Hawkeye. Like, they dismissed the character too. Because instead of throwing in any reference to his past or whatever, they just used him purely as a sledgehammer to say to all the other characters SEE YOU'LL NEVER HAVE A NORMAL LIFE. They needed something to represent the White Picket Fence that eludes the rest of them, and they just twisted Hawkeye, of all people, into that shape.
*sigh*
welp…I've always got fanfiction.
mmmm, fanon clint is a beautiful disaster.
I grumped at the first movie because he was brainwashed for 60% of it so no character there, and then the second he's like… the Dad for the Avengers? I dunno, it's just so weird, and I can't see how his family is going to not somehow be used as a plot device because well, family always gets kidnapped in every superhero movie ever, unless they just go on and pretend they don't exist anymore.
I got the feeling they don't care about Hawkeye either, which is sad. A friend and I started saying "Nobody likes Hawkeye" when we started playing Marvel Puzzle Quest because the hawkeye cards were terrible, and that… has been a continuing theme for like 5 years now. NOBODY LIKES HAWKEYE.
Except the people who love Clint.
I was so excited when they released a variant action figure of him with Pizza Dog (who has both eyes, I guess we didn't want to scare the kids) and a boomerang arrow and bandages.
*gasp* I HADN'T SEEN THAT! I need it now.
But yeah, I feel like they'll never use Hawkeye's family again.
At the end of the day, they weren't there to give him depth, they were there to give everyone else sadfeels.
You DO need it! I paid too much money to get one because they said they weren't releasing them in Canada… and then they released them in Canada.
Don't care. I have my own Pizza dog. Life is good.
Now my FAVOURITE part of AoU was the after-party scene where they're trying to lift Thor's hammer. I could watch 2+ hours of The Avengers When They're Not Avengering.
Agreed. I love me my antiheroes (Mmm…Deadpool) but I like Cap because he's not an anti-hero. He's not a neurotic egotist like Tony Stark (though I also like Tony Stark for the comedy he brings to the movies), or the kind of jaded knight-in-aloof armor that Black Widow came off to me as. I like the Captain because he is a good man despite having so many reasons and opportunities to be an ass. He's a ray of sunshine, a breath of fresh air.
I like the Captain because he is a good man despite having so many reasons and opportunities to be an ass.
It makes me think of that quote going around about Rey in Star Wars (I think it's about Rey, but it may have originally been about someone else and just applied to her?): all that pain and loneliness, and it just made her kind.
I kinda like the idea that after a long, dark couple of decades with anti-heroes, we'll start ushering in a new, gradual trend of heroes who are kind in the face of darkness.
I'd like that. A lot. As much as I love me an antihero I enjoy good old fashioned hero as well.
I mean, we've got Cap. With got Raleigh from Pacific Rim. We've got Rey and Finn over in Star Wars world (just you watch–Finn's biggest and most important character trait is gonna be his compassion. I mean, if kind of already is, but five bucks says he's the one to pull Rey back from the brink when the Dark Side inevitably tempts her.)
Heck, we've even got Max, whose big final act was an act of healing and trust, not violence.
(Raleigh's such a stand-out to me, because according to Typical Story Tropes, he should've been a brooding anti-hero, still bitter over his losses at the beginning of the movie, but he just isn't.)
Max? Like mad max? Because I didn't see that.
Didn't see the movie, or didn't see the healing/trust act?
The movie. I haven't seen any of the mad max movies.
Yeah, in the latest movie, the last big thing Max does is keeping someone alive and opening up to them, and it's kind of a big deal, thematically.
I haven't seen the other movies (I think maaaaybe I saw Thunderdome a long long time ago? I'd like to watch it again at any rate), but Fury Road stood on its own easily enough. Shame you missed it in theaters, because it was definitely a movie worth seeing on the big screen.
Post-apocalyptic stuff has never really been my thing, but if someoene in my family gets the movie on dvd I wouldn't be opposed to watching it.
Max's arc in all of his movies except the first ends with a big chase scene where he sacrifices himself for others. In Road Warrior he drives a tanker, supposedly full of gas, with the warriors of the settlement while all the civilians and the gas sneak off in the opposite direction on a bus. In Thunderdome he wrecks while buying time for the plane with the kids to get away. Nux really got that job this time so instead he saves Furiosa with the least sanitary, least scientifically sound blood transfusion in the history of film. I love that movie but the person I went to see it with may have said "that's not how that works! That's not how any of hat works!" when he did the thing with the blood bag tube.
He really isn't a great role model though, because he is from a time when non sexual "courting" was the norm. It was drilled into his head since day one that's how it is, gender norms were strictly enforced and feminism wasn't a big thing then. So when Cap comes to our time, he doesn't know what to do in such a scenario, he defaults to his upbringing. There is also the argument that Capt is basically a-sexual, from being frozen for decades and the serum chemically castrated him to keep him on his mission, but I digress.
I, for one, don't view him as this role model of how men should act. At least, not anymore. Prior to feminism, sure, but now a days this is a recipe for how to be the best beta with a massive case of oneitis. The doc is right in the sense that sex didn't make the man in the 1940s. Back then, according to the older men I speak with from that generation when I visit my grandfather at the nursing home, doing your job was what made you a man. And back then, having a job also basically guaranteed a wife, kids, and a home. Now though? Not even close. Feminism enabled women to be much more picky about their mates. As such, a man's worth is now determined not only by his job, but also how wealthy he is and how physically attractive he is. Cap would fair poorly in this age if he was still the scrawny version.
As such, a man's worth is now determined not only by his job
TRUE! 😀
but also how wealthy he is and how physically attractive he is
…
🙁
Potential!…oh, wait…nevermind.
Cap would fair poorly in this age if he was still the scrawny version.
What's funny is I see it as exactly the opposite. In the 30s when Cap was growing up (let's take a moment to remember that his formative years were in Great Depression New York, not WWII), muscle power meant a lot to your job. Steve was never going to work in the Ford plant or on a farm like a "real man". Today, a scrawny hero has a lot more options for making a difference both in the job market and society as a whole. Steve's a leader, an organizer and a tactician who cares about his fellow man. Give that man Facebook and he'll give you a march on Washington.
This isn't a guy who would sit still and pine for a date. He'd organize a damn event that would attract the kind of women he wants to meet.
Very well put.
That could even make a pretty cool mini-series. Modern kid in Queens wants to make a difference. Can't pass his Army physical. So he organizes people in a movement to loosen entry requirements, helps a good Socialist candidate defeat a fascist one, etc. Meanwhile, he's doing normal Steve Rogers stuff like helping Old Mrs. Withers carry her groceries, volunteering at the soup kitchen etc. He tries to hack his records to get into the Super Soldier program where he discovers some internal corruption where contractors are 'losing' shipments of new test batches to Hydra. He can't get anyone in the military to listen to him so he finally takes it public, resulting in the whole program getting shut down with a big fight between Cap and some new Super Soldier in the background.
When SHIELD or whatever government agency comes to arrest him, every single person he's helped, including the Avengers, stand around him to block the feds from taking him away. She-Hulk takes the case. Dude, this could be phenomenal! But the punch line is when Cap says something like "you don't need the Super Soldier Serum to be a hero. Look at everything you've done without it."
Normally I'd say a line like that would be corny, but ChrisEvans Cap could totally pull that off!
I like this idea…I like it a hell of a lot. Afterwards maybe Modern Kid could take on an Agent Coulson-esque supporting role and the show could go through what it's like to be part of the hero's support team.
Shit, maybe expand it and/or make a sequal about an agency that does the damage control/cleanup during after the superfights. Like First Responders but up to eleven. They don't fight the bad guys directly, they come in after the Avengers kick things off and do things like find civilians, defend evac routes, and give first aid. Then, when the fight's over, they supplement the normal disaster crews and search/rescue squads that go in. Plus they deal with whatever weirdness the enemy might leave behind *cough*giantspacewhales*cough* Kinda like Emergency (the old tv show) but in a modern Marvel setting. I would watch the hell out of that.
Rescue And The First Responders!
Hell yeah. Who would play Modern Kid though?
Who played pre-serum Cap?
Apparently it was always Chris evans, but they used CGI to shrink him down and used subtle height manipulation along with markers on his chin/chest to show the other acters where to look.http://www.sliceofscifi.com/2011/06/28/how-captain-america-transformed-evans/
Huh. I figured hey had a suited double that they pasted Chris over. The more you know. http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/mt/20…
So did I until I looked it up. Excellent CGI work.
I'm on board with any pitch that includes the line "She-Hulk takes the case." That's the title of my dream miniseries.
Oh. Crap. I didn't realise this! I'd better dump my nerdy non rich boyfriend who speaks up if someone is being harassed on the subway, who takes care of his family and who treats me with decency and respect. All this time I thought he was seriously sexy, but now I know better! BRB guys!
You're doing a great disservice to Feminism, OTG. Be more pickier and stop choosing betas, dammit.
That's what I get for skipping so many classes. Ugh.
Tsk tsk tsk. We'll have to enroll you in our remedial program right away.
Feminists are well known for their dislike of men who don't Even Lift.
Right? Thanks, BP, for telling me what sexy really is because I've obviously been doing all this wrong!
"having a job also basically guaranteed a wife, kids, and a home. Now though? Not even close. Feminism enabled women to be much more picky about their mates"
So basically, feminism allowed women to have a choice in who they wanted instead of just "has job"?
So who, in your opinion, would be a better role model?
Yeah, "has job" is on par with "I'm nice". Which is like trying to sell a car by saying it's got four wheels. What else are you bringing to the table, buddy?
Oh, but this one also has a spare tire! What's not to love about it?
Spare tire is nice, but that doesn't make up for the fact that there is a GIANT HOLE where the engine block is supposed to be. 😉
You just have unrealistically high standards. Do you really think you're enough of a catch to get a car with a working engine? You'll love this car, really. Just give it a chance. It hardly ever blows up in heavy traffic and that's no big deal once you get to know it.
So wanting a mode of transportation to be able to, you know, ACTUALLY transport me somewhere is unrealistically high standards. And "hardly ever blows up"?! If I want to play Russian Roulette, I'll buy a gun.
Not to mention, the seats all smell of cat urine.
But its a really nice car!
*side-eye* Sorry, buddy, but for my lifestyle, any car I have has to come up to a certain standard. "Be nice" doesn't cut it.
*muttering* Thank Danu I don't live in a time where I HAVE to have a car, no matter how crappy, or I'd be stoned to death.
But if you don't find some car soon, you'll end up the crazy old lady with 100 cats that all the neighborhood kids think is secretly a wicked witch.
(I think the metaphor is starting to crack)
Well, if I have 100 cats, I can hitch them to a cart and get around that way. Transportation, I wants it.
(Yeaaaah, just a bit.)
Well, you'd get somewhere. Probably not anywhere you intended to go, though.
*heads out to take cat on a walk, knowing it will only result in having to lure him out from underneath someone's car or away from something disgusting rotting in a bush again*
Yeah, taking my cat out on walks was mostly dragging her by her leash while she hissed and clawed at the sidewalk desperately. I gave up after a few tries.
Mine actually loves being outside. I had to abandon the idea that anything remotely resembling a walk was going to take place, though. He wanders in circles, hisses at his mortal enemy The Overly Tame Rabbit, and rubs his head on some trees before sitting down and deciding he's not moving. My role in this is to hold the leash, follow, and greet the curious neighbors.
But even that's only for a few cats. My other one acts like someone has put a brick on her back when I even try to put a collar on her, and she'd hate having to be on the sidewalk.
It's a time-honored tradition! http://www.playfulkitty.net/2013/12/09/cats-in-hi…
Quickly, Doctor Mead, to the Grimesmobile!
What?! Is the Mead Signal up?
*looks out the window to see the projected image of a chalice and bee against the clouds*
Oops! Just let me round up the kitties…
In all fairness this did work for the goddess Freya and she got Friday named after her…
Hey, it could be a Reliant Robin.
Yeah, if your biggest selling point is "I pass minimum inspection standards!" you might want to aim a little higher.
Having a job didn't necessarily guarantee any of that either. If your job didn't pay much or you weren't getting enough hours you were just as screwed then as you would be now.
Hence Steve's era being one of the big ones for unions. When did paying people in company scrip become illegal? That's late 19th century, right?
I'm almost thinking the first decade of the 20th.
Couldn't tell you. Sounds about right though.
Nooooooope. http://www.forbes.com/2006/02/11/money-subsitutes…
😐
Fuckin' hell! History, its not as far back as you think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Joo90ZWrUkU
"You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store"
Damn that feminism, for when it gave women the ability to do things like vote and own property! It's been nothing but terrible for men ever since.
I really do think the dooods who spout this kind of rhetoric actually do really believe this.
Which is, of course, about 150% of the(ir) problem.
If you log on Reddit, you'll find about 100,000 guys who do.
"If you log on Reddit"
Nope.
Shan't.
You can't make me!
😀
I made a reddit account years ago and after taking a stroll around a few gaming subreddits I noped the fuck out. Haven't been back since.
There are some fine enough little subreddits. Ones where people share pictures of fluffy cats are often perfectly nice. Anything general or related to subjects that attract geek aggro (whether that be gaming or atheism) can be a real cesspool.
I happily lead a reddit-free life. I'm afraid I'll get hooked and then sucked into the Cesspools (because most of my interests would be those geek aggro subreddits).
I can understand the impulse. I literally only go there to post pictures of my cat and occasionally to read about bra fittings. It doesn't sound like either of those things are your wheelhouse, so you probably aren't missing that much!
You know, that's what I've never figured out:
You hear about how some of the subjects on reddit are nightmarish, but then there are smaller subreddits that are okay and I can't figure out how that's possible; it seems like the safer subreddits would eventually be attacked (or frequented) by those from the nightmarish sections of reddits, if typical Internet asshole behavior is any indication.
Don't the moderators of the subreddits make their own rules? So the mods of the nice subreddits would be able to keep the cesspool people out?
I honestly don't know. I've only ever been to reddit to read AMAs on a blogger I used to follow and Nick Offerman.
Yes, they do. Um, one I can think of has basically this as their set of rules, "This is a place for posting pictures of X. Pictures of Y are fine too! Pictures of Z are cute and all, but they belong on Some Other Subreddit. No dead animals. No animal abuse. Source your images. Don't post things degrading to women, people of color, cultural minorities, those with disabilities, and gender and sexual minorities. Crossposts are welcome."
A men's rights one I quickly googled proclaims that it values free speech and that people are just sharing their opinions, but that it doesn't tolerate doxxing, advocacy of violence, off topic posts, complaints about banning, or links to Shit Reddit Says or Gawker media posts.
I hang out on some really REALLY specific game subs, where it is like the 1% of players nerding and mathing stuff out, and they're supportive little communities to the point where I can hang out in their IRC/Discord channels and like, not even have to worry about what's being said.
The little pokemon one's #1 rule is "Be Goodra (a pokemon) to each other".
It's a long, long way away from your general gaming, though, and the mods have to keep on top of things or one or two nasty people will spoil the whole thing.
It often is the little ones that are generally better, right? It seems like the mods have fewer people to watch, and also that the hordes of people who like to be awful for the sake of it are less likely to find them.
For sure, it's like any internet community, the ones on reddit just tend to have higher SEO if people are looking for specific things.
I never click on the main page, though. Or any suggested pages. Nope nope nope. I know what's there, thanks, I'm good. I'm just here to exchange friend codes and trade pokemanz.
The only subreddit I've ever been on and active in was the Life is Strange one, which is shockingly nice, and just filled with fan art, fanfiction, cosplay, and love for the game.
My feeling on that one is that it's more the nature of the game that is driving the tone of the subreddit, plus they do seem to have good mods.
I mean, a sub about a game focused on a game about two bisexual friends, one who can reverse and travel through time, is going to be a lot different than a WoW sub or a Fallout 4 sub.
I tried to browse the Fallout 4 sub and while searching got me some info I needed, it wasn't somewhere that I would return to just to hang out and check out the art and other fan contributions.
I'm sure that's the way it is across the boards, with specific subs being very different and drawing a different audience from the general subsreddits.
I was kind of shocked at the positive tone of the LiS sub, and even more surprised when I found myself making an account to chat about the game with people who were extremely funny, smart, and not at all what I expected from previous interactions with reddit.
Life Is Strange is SO GOOD AAAAAAH.
I use the Nexus for Fallout 4 mods and every week I'm greeted with "more reasons to hate people" as the most popular mods show up and there are always more T&A/bodyslider/nude/sexy clothing mods for the female companions.
I mean there are phenomenal mods out there, but I have to avoid the front page most of the time, just like I did for Fallout 3, or DA2, or DAO. Sigh.
"Life Is Strange is SO GOOD AAAAAAH. "
I keep hearing rumours of a second ending that doesn't end with the song "Obstacles" and two canonically bisexual lovers driving out of town into the sunset BUT SUCH A THING DOES NOT EXIST!
*sticks fingers in ears- LALALALALALALALALA*
Some of the Fallout 4 mod packs are horrific, and it doesn't surprise me at all that Dontnod went with the only publisher (Square) that didn't want to change one of the girls to a guy or make Chloe's boobs bigger (actual note they got back from another studio).
AAA games are becoming increasing boring as indie and small press games get more and more interesting and better in terms of narrative.
We're really having to step up our game (heh) in that department, but I don't think many people are unhappy about that, you know? We want to be making new and different games, and the lower barriers to entry for indie/small studio games means there are MORE games, and MORE stories, and MORE viewpoints, and it's phenomenal. The Indiecade/Indie Aisle is always my favourite part of any convention.
Life is Strange hit me hard because it came as I was trying to recover from a bad bout of secondary PTSD/compassion fatigue from the job, the character of Chloe reminded me a lot of my best friend from high school, the soundtrack was so amazing it got me playing my guitar again, and I loved not just the narrative but a lot of little things like the fact that every poster was interactive, the notes, the artwork up around town, the fact that the town felt real, and most of all that if I wanted to I could just stop in the game and sit and listen to music.
And, of course, there were plenty of punches right to the feels.
Gone Home is another game that gets tagged with "walking simulator", but I'd rather replay that at four hours or LiS at 20 hours than have to grind an 80 hour game that's nothing but killing baddies.
Not that I don't enjoy those, but I like the mix; I like my Dragon Ages and my Mass Effects and my Splinter Cells where there's story and a hint at a larger world to it all.
I'm the weirdo who plays the single player mod in the Call of Duty games first.
Lately, it's been the indie games on Steam or on the consoles that have earned my money, whether it's Firewatch or Soma or Her Story…which doesn't mean that I don't love Fallout 4, I don't even want to admit how many hours I've sunk into that and am only halfway through the main story, but I'll be happy when not every game has to be open world with an attached MP mode and even AAA games can get back to also being stories.
I looooved Gone Home when it came out, it was so refreshing (and genuinely scary for me at points because the atmosphere was lovely). I'm super happy to have gotten the Steggy emoticon from Steam trading cards 😉
I like my pew-pew AAA games (although I suffer from gameplay fatigue on certain types — there are years I cannot touch platformers, other years I'd rather sit in a tub full of scissors than play another FPS) and I'm sometimes stuck between "I want to play this with all my friends" and "I just like hearing all the stories my friends and I are sharing playing this single player (Fallout 4 for sure, also 3 still has memorable ones for me like Raider Baseball and The Incredible Machine Trap).
PTSD sucks, man, I'm sorry. If mine's rearing its head (and does so surprisingly little at work past the initial railroading-of-my-entire-life, but my trauma has nothing to do with violence) I need quiet games that allow for exploration or gentle puzzles or such (Tetris and Match 3 are always good).
Right now Pokemon Shuffle and Final Fantasy Record Keeper (and YOU MUST BUILD A BOAT) are pushing all my reward buttons since I've paused on Fallout 4 (ending indecision + BUT IF I FINISH THEN WHAT HAPPENS TO MY SETTLEMENTS). I'm not really sure what to play next.
Sometimes it's hard, working on the inside. They're really transparent with us — we always know WHY decisions are being made, and with what arguments backing them up, and sometimes we can push back or alter, sometimes… we can just do our best to make it as good as we can within the parameters we're given.
I'm not saying our feedback isn't valued, but it takes a lot of internal AND external pressure to get things to change, especially money-type of pressure. Sometimes we have culminating events like "women are hard to animate" (heads exploded across the studio when that was said). Sometimes it's throwing Annual Title Iteration Seven at the wall and it not sticking.
… I mean if SC:Blacklist reviews really well but only moves a few million copies, we don't do more SC. If AC reviews poorly and sells 10 million copies, we make more AC. Hell, we put splitscreen in SC, and WHO PLAYS SPLITSCREEN ANYMORE? Apparently over 50% of multiplayer console players, and it blew my mind.
" (and genuinely scary for me at points because the atmosphere was lovely)."
The walk to the attic was one of the most tense, frightening experiences I have ever had in a video game because I was sure of what I would find.
Besides direct PTSD, I never realize until recently just how insidious secondary PTSD and compassion fatigue was, because after 8 years working lvl 1 trauma ER I had no idea how much being surrounded by trauma affected me, and then on top of that I just thought throwing myself further into it would power through it.
Things like not understanding why I can't stand the smell of Kool-Aid anymore or why certain cartoons make me angry (performing CPR on a kid with a dirty Rugrats shirt for two hours with no luck made the connection somewhere deep in my brain meat), and especially with how much I worked with the SANE team and pediatric trauma team…I've learned when to walk away for awhile and when my anger isn't healthy anger.
Worse, it's most likely going to be one of those things that never really go away, and sometimes it's just a detail in a news story that hits me like a pile of bricks, or worse, just flips some emotional switches I didn't even know were there, especially since they're not specific to me but to cases I've dealt with in the past.
I think Gone Home and LiS and other narrative games that deal with heavy subjects can help, at least help me, because they're at heart about emotions, but they've very clearly in the context of a game, which like taking a long comic or book break, is a way to sort of realign my own emotions and really feeling emotions instead of disassociating without having it affect real people.
Everyone is different though, and I know some people who just couldn't play those games because for them they were too real.
And there are definitely times when all I want to do is sit down and gun down as many people as possible in CoD or assassinate some people in AC or Far Cry or Fallout 4…but I can see narrative moving more into the AAA games and I'm really hopeful that were going to see more and more solid narratives in the big games.
Not that I don't enjoy gameplay, because games like Left 4 Dead were great to play with friends or even solo, but at heart I at least need some narrative to keep me going in most games.
And as with all things, sometimes seeing how the sausage is made, and making the sausage, makes enjoying the sausage bittersweet at best. Especially when you know how much work went into it but how other divisions let you down, or just when something doesn't go over.
I can't even imagine the kind of things you must carry around, and just YES, ugh, it's the stuff you're not expecting that makes it so insidious. I had a panic attack when my nephew put on a Raffi tape (in a tape player!) and I had a full-on panic attack. My therapist says "Welp something must have happened during Raffi" and it's just like, I don't know, other children's shows or music don't bother me at all, but even the thought of Raffi now makes me break out in goosebumps.
I hope your workplace is understanding and good about things like that, I couldn't do it. During my stint as a vet tech we did ER and emergency work for animals and that was brutal enough.
I feel the same way about emotion — I do this through reading as much as I do gaming (probably moreso right now), but I remember very vivid emotional arcs in games I've played, even if it's punching you right in the feels. For all I tromp around the Commonwealth making "Well there's your problem, mirelurks in the pipes" comments, the odd level design story or single holotape is still enough to make me laugh, or cry, or have to take a moment. It's such a powerful medium!
Depression Quest (lo I summon the dark gators, cthulu f'taghn) was an incredibly important game for me, both in playing it and in having other people play it. It helps people GET stuff that's not in their lives, not even on their radar. So I get grumpy when people are dismissive of "walking simulators" just because there's no pew pew or explosions and instead it's FEELINGS.
I also really enjoy Romance as a genre for the same reason — the only criteria is a happy ending. So I'm 100% free to practice empathy, to open up and feel all the feels for the characters as they go through things, because it'll be okay in the end. Prior to finding it as a genre, I had post-it notes in the covers of my books that warned me if it was a sad ending so I wouldn't read it while already sad.
I need romance video games, and not in the Nora Roberts The Video Game way (although I own it because it is just incredible that it exists), but in the holy cow feels from Dragon Age character romances — but still done in a way that doesn't feel like insert token, receive love. Hrum.
On the last part of your post, I've also gotten more interested in romance, for some of the same reasons. There are times when I want a book to rip my heart out or keep me on edge or to make me ponder various things that are wrong with the world. There are also times when I want to relax, enjoy the characters and the setting and the dialogue, and not have to worry about anyone's problems but my own because I know a happy ending is on the way.
I would like to see more well-done romance in games as well, especially more of the DA:I type. Sometimes it's a little difficult to find, but I can understand that. Even a lot of other media is really awkward with romance arcs (it's almost as if, despite romance being considered a "trashy" genre, it involves skill sets not all writers have). Games have it harder, I think, because interactivity makes it more complicated.
It's also hard because romance is often coded as "feminine" and the vast majority of the game development world is, if not hostile to women and femininity, not even close to accepting of it either. Which is wild, because I know so many players of Dragon Age and Mass Effect whose favourite parts were the romances, and Fallout 4 really REALLY pleased me with the companion arcs and romances.
For books, I don't just read romances, although they're way more on my radar and to-read list than they ever were. Partly because there's just so MUCH as I only really started reading it as a genre 5ish years ago, partly because of what goes on in the rest of my life. I still love my space operas and my gut-wrenching YAs and my angsty UFs (just got current with the Jane Yellowrock series, oh my WORD does she do angst well, but she also delivers so I am a-ok with her books) and am forever looking for more books that kill people with SCIENCE. I really am happy if a book happens to have romantic elements in it (or is a romance with these elements, the line gets a little squiggly) but it's not a requirement if I'm in a swords-and-sworcery kind of mood.
I'd like to think that games as a genre are moving towards being more open to emotional investment, at least in narrative-driven games, but I also think it's going to be a very slow transition for the AAA industry (and a much, much faster one for indie games — look at Undertale!) because honestly, 500+ person teams are not the most agile things in the world.
David Gaider moving to BeamDog has me VERY EXCITE about romance in solid RPGs, however.
There is that sort of push pull. I know a ton of male gamers who love the romances in those games, would be disappointed if they weren't there, and who rather cheerfully rolled alts so they could see what Dorian's or Iron Bull's arcs looked like. I also see a vein of hostility toward romance in any RPG among a certain sort of forum user, though, along with hostility toward people who enjoy those parts of games (and, yeah, generally with the assumption that the person who likes them is either a woman or a particularly condemnable sort of guy).
I will admit that I bought Fallout 4 and then almost instantly hit a patch at work that made me not feel like engaging in anything apocalyptic. I hadn't paid a bit of attention to the prospect of romance arcs – that might make me pick it up again (I was always going to, but sometimes I'm in a Fallout mood and sometimes I want to play a god game or an MMO or an old RPG where I know where all the tearjerking moments are).
I tend to read a lot of SF, especially fantasy, a little non-fiction, and the occasional mystery. I generally read more if I have a few books to choose from, so having another genre on the list of things I enjoy is always a good thing.
I hadn't heard Gaider had moved! I've always liked his writing. I'm curious what Beamdog has up its sleeves now. I know they're doing some new content with their enhanced Baldur's Gate stuff, but I wonder if they might eventually write a standalone game? I'd certainly agree the smaller games and companies have more room to be flexible and experimental.
I loved the Dragon Age games *because* of the interpersonal relationships, romantic and otherwise. I could have cared less about the combat or whatever it was I was supposed to like. In most games, finding the monster of the day and hitting it with big weapony things are the parts I get through so I can enjoy the interesting bits. If thwacking monsters *are* the interesting bits, it's probably not the game for me.
My one frustration at reviews, and you can probably appreciate this because I saw it on a Far Cry Primal review, is when a review dings a game for "more of the same".
Which…that is one of the dumbest things ever. You brand something so that people know what they're getting. Are people going to pick up Call of Duty: Advance Warfare and expect it to suddenly be a third person cover based shooter? Or it to suddenly be a isometric tactics game? Of course not.
I still remember how crushed I was when I picked up Dead Space 3 and instead of a claustrophobic horror game I had an open world co-op cover based shooter with a crafting system, and SHOCK…it did poorly in sales and reviews because everyone asked why they changed it.
It's SO HARD to be working on Annual Title 7 and somehow manage to keep it fresh and interesting, while keeping the core gameplay loops compelling while trying not to fix things that aren't broken (because if you do you break three more things in the process aaah). Fallout 4 I felt did it beautifully — it was everything I loved from Fallout 3 in terms of tone, systems, atmosphere, just MORE… but they added in a new core gameplay loop that finally gave me a REASON to pick up every single coffee mug in the wasteland. Oh it was so satisfying.
AC4, boats. ACU, no boats, people get mad we take away boats. Put boats in for next title, yawn more of the same. It's HARD to be innovative! Or as Reggie Fils-Amie says, "You want the same games you love so much, but at the same time want things that are totally new!". We can't be all things to all people, and I want folks to embrace that and focus on doing what they do extremely well and let other people fill the other niches, versus trying to be all things to all people.
Dead Space. It still scares the pee out of me. I've been to a couple of their creative director's panels on atmosphere in horror games and oh, it's so, so good. I still can't finish the first game, I nope right out a couple of hours in. Even knowing how it's designed, how the monster closets and spawns function, how the AI and pathing works, it doesn't matter — the atmosphere is SO gripping.
Also, unlike a horror movie, I can't just cover my eyes and let it keep going. I have to open that door. It's a really special brand of terror, knowing that opening that door will trigger something, but I HAVE to open the door for the game to progress.
Oh, yes, I know I'm frustrated by this as a consumer. I particularly wish reviews were a little better at distinguishing "this game is in the same spirit as predecessors; recommended for fans but not for people who didn't enjoy the last game" from "this is a pretty cynical cash-grab that will probably displease even those who loved previous games."
When I see the "more of the same" critique levied at the first sort of game, it makes me distrustful enough of it that I can't recognize it when people are instead describing the second. It also sometimes makes me wary of praise for games, because sometimes it seems like game reviewers play so many games in genres they may not like that they give high ratings to anything that seems novel.
It's why I stopped reading reviews entirely and switched to video capture reviews (before it was a youtube career, apparently!) with people whose general likes align with mine.
I watch Giant Bomb quick looks, and they tell me exactly what I want to know — the gameplay mechanics, what looks good, what feels good, what DOESN'T feel good, basically 20-30min of one person playing the game and the other asking them questions about it. It's decided a ton of my buying habits.
Same goes for Metacritic scores or star ratings in general, too — they tell me absolutely nothing, because they're calculated by sacrificing a goat to the elder gods and reading the entrails (and have, in Scarface's case, seen companies pay magazines with heftier MC weight give a game a poor review if bonuses were tied to MC ratings — that was seriously not cool, but cheaper than paying bonuses.)
I know from reviewing books that it's really hard to articulate a "meh". It's usually pretty easy to say why you hate something, and fairly easy to say why you love something. When it's like, a C-grade, not-sad-I-spent-time-on-it, won't-revisit-it, that's where really good reviewers tend to shine.
I also don't look at reviews for games I've worked on until at least a year later, although I value individual feedback and the feedback people send in.
Ah, that's a good strategy! I will admit that I have somewhat limited tolerance for watching other people game, especially if there's an over the shoulder camera (it kind of makes me queasy in a way that playing myself doesn't). I may need to do more of that with other genres of games, though.
I stay far away from Metacritic for gaming reviews after having learned of some of the bonus shenanigans. At this point, a few single player games are on the automatic purchase list, and a lot of others get the "wait until some of my friends have played it" treatment. Though MMOs are and probably will always be selected based on what the guild's game evangelist is excited about at the moment, since in my old age I have turned into a filthy casual and play those more to socialize than to achieve. I'm sure a decade ago I felt a chill go down my spine, not knowing how far my raid-loving self would fall.
Hahaha, I am right there with you. From Server First to "ehhhh whatever's in this game's version of raidfinder might be fun". Occasionally we find a game we really enjoy (last one was Final Fantasy: ARR) but for the most part we just occasionally play multiplayer games together through Steam and get together a couple of times a year. SO much more relaxed than "Get home shove food in face log on for raid swear off vent for 3 hours because people are standing in fire".
I can't watch other people play first-person games very often either, I get motion sick if there are fast camera spins! The Giant Bomb crew works for me because they've all been doing this for a long time, have done professional radio work (so their narratives are smooth), and they're genuinely funny people without being gross and tossing slurs.
Sadly, they don't play farming sims, so I have no one to tell me what Harvest Moon-like game I should be getting next. They should have some Fire Emblem stuff up, I ought to watch, I generally really enjoy Fire Emblem games and haven't played anything new since Happy Home Academy. And Fallout 4.
We tend to hop back to WoW a couple times a year (amusing, given that we started as a SWTOR guild), take some time off, maybe try something new that isn't super pricey, and then spend a few more months in something that's F2P or B2P and that we all agree is reasonably fun. Final Fantasy: ARR is definitely on the list (and props to them, because that game is a completely different beast than the game I tried the first time around). In a lot of the non-WoW games most of us don't have leveled out characters, and honestly, that's just fine.
That's helpful to know about Giant Bomb! I might have to check out a few of those videos…
A couple of my buddies are raving over Fire Emblem. I am secretly kind of glad that I just have a PS4 and a PC, since unemployment lends itself to having lots of time to game and no money to do it. Thankfully, there are so many more good free options than there used to be, plus a long list of games I already own and either haven't played much or could enjoy replaying.
"I can't watch other people play first-person games very often either, I get motion sick if there are fast camera spins!"
I have a hard time with a lot of video reviews or let's-plays for this very reason. Jittery or super-fast camera work (especially that I am not in control of) makes me dizzy and annoys me. Dude, if you're trying to show me this cool thing, maybe leave the camera in one place for longer than 0.2 seconds.
I've found to my surprise that Zero Punctuation is really useful for me. I don't always agree with his tastes but I can account for where his minus is my plus. He gives a good overview and I get a laugh.
I don't know if he's changed in the last few years but I just couldn't get over the language and the vicious sexism.
Well, my understanding is that designer theory, backed by sales numbers say that what gamers want is whatever they played last year only slightly better,
I tend to think in terms of pen and paper RPGs. If I like the system and you can tell a unique story in it, that's a good thing. No matter how much I like the system, if its just killing more orcs, then I'm not terribly interested. One mechanic, one story element can make all the difference for a mediocre system, though.
I don't care for the "sandiest andbox" design of Shadows Of Mordor and Mad Max but the orc army mechanics of the former turned an ok open world game into a fascinating one.
It's that "slightly better" that we're constantly chasing! I wish it was as easy as "fix what was broken" because ask 10 people what's wrong with x game and you'll get 10 different answers.
Although sometimes it's really clear in the aftermath. Paper Mario Sticker Star was… a chug because they didn't reward you for the core gameplay loop, so it was an obstacle instead of an opportunity. If they'd added arbitrary nerdpoints it would have been a phenomenal game.
Or like how WoW had an unrested penalty originally to convince people to stop playing and go outside and people HATED IT. So they just changed the wording to "rested bonus" and made the unrested state normal, and it was a huge success.
Game design is HARD. Execution's HARDER. But it's also incredible and something I cannot stop talking about, ahem.
I heard about the rested XP thing in WoW, though I thought that was just a beta thing. It sounds a little silly on gamers' part, but I can understand. You already feel like you're being punished enough in an MMO for screwing up. It just seems mean when the game decides to punish you for working hard at what it tells you to do! (Though I'd argue the idea was ultimately a failure in terms of getting people to leave the house, as all it ultimately did was encourage people to log over to level their alts.)
Apparently the "hell level" idea of old MMOs had unintended consequences as well. Shock up on shock, they looked at the numbers, and hitting a hell level was the point at which many players quit the game. I can imagine in games that don't just want to satisfy but keep people interested long term, there's a lot of trade off between making things challenging and making things accessible and enjoyable.
Bad history and Architecture are my two favorites sub reddits. Bad history hilarious and they do a good job at dispelling a lot of bigoted bad history like :
"Women no science!"
"Blacks all lived in huts and did nothing until imperialism"
"Holocaust no real!"
"We would be living on the moon if DA CHRISTIANS didn't set the Library of Alexandria on fire"
"MUZLIMS INVADE AND KILL EVERYONE"
I think that most people who use r/gaming think the world stops at r/gaming. I DEFINITELY know that's the case in stuff like DOTA, where people outright say all the time "Well they posted it on reddit because they know we're the fanbase".
Lolno, you're a drop in the ocean of a multi-million-dollar online gaming league. But it's such an echo chamber that it's shocking if you're NOT from inside of it.
(This is like the people who talk about the "PC Master Race" bull and how important PC gamers are to developers. Look. I'm a PC gamer. I also know that we port to PC at a loss and that PC sales make up less than 10% of our sales. Steam doesn't subsidize any part of our games, which is why Uplay and Origin exist, to the vast hatred of EVERYONE including the people who make the games. Consoles are what keep us in business, PC is mostly because we can and because a million people are still a million people. But we're going to prioritize consoles every step of the way, especially whichever one's currently paying us to be a flagship title for the year.)
"So basically, feminism allowed women to have a choice in who they wanted instead of just "has job"?"
Didja ever notice, in this narrative, it's *always BAD* that women have choices.
Like — like they were people, even. (I know!)
"So who, in your opinion, would be a better role model?"
I also notice the near-deafening chorus of *crickets of silence* in response to this question.
Really says something about the guy making this complaint, doesn't it? Well, if they have *choices*….they definitely won't pick me! Maybe you should think about why, dudebro.
"Awww, lookit the little lady! She thinks she's people! How cute!"
When I asked the question I was only slightly expecting to hear the answer "Tony Stark" which I think would be unsurprising.
The past isn't just the 1950s, the Victorian Age, and the Middle Ages.
Steve Rogers spent his childhood in poverty in the 1930s and then followed it up by going to art school. Why would he assume employment at all, let alone the kind that supports a family and can attract a woman who'd otherwise be uninterested, is a given?
High marriage rates and low marriage ages were a post-WWII thing. A reasonable minority of people in the early 20th century never married, just as a reasonable minority in the early 21th century don't. Rogers probably considered the possibility more than most people, since he was raised Catholic, and I'm sure someone at least mentioned the idea of the priesthood to him at some point.
Courting wasn't all that non-sexual, either, especially not in NYC. I'm guessing there was less pressure to be sexually active, but it was by no means bizarre for dating couples to have sex.
Courting wasn't all that non-sexual, either, especially not in NYC.
An NYC which, let's remember, was more inclusive of LGBT people and people of different ethnicity than most of 60s America. AN NYC almost universally united by its support of socialism, like Social Security and against the big banking and industrial cartels that had brought about the Depression in the first place and had the Harlem jazz scene. The same NYC a decade before The Godfather, a movie that featured plenty of pre-marital sex.
Exactly. The scrubbed-clean-oh-so-virtuous-with-only-a-few-exceptions perception of the past is just ridiculous. Heck, more than that, it's dangerous (as we see in the political arena).
Also, yeah, the neighborhood Steve and Bucky lived in was one actually pretty well-known for its gay scene, Steve basically made his living from FDR public works stuff, and since the 50's hadn't happened yet, communism/socialism weren't bad words either.
Oh, yes, I mean, even the 1950s weren't the 1950s as they've been mythologized by people who were children while they were happening and other people who don't remember them at all but who've watched some reruns of Donna Reed. The 1930s definitely weren't the mythological 50s.
The scrubbed-clean version of History is inevitably the upper classes telling each other stories of how it was. There's several layers of unreliable narrator in there. Its the thing I remember from 1984 even more than the surveillance and the rats, the basic truth that the Proles were more free than Ingsoc insiders.
"The scrubbed-clean version of History is inevitably the upper classes telling each other stories of how it was."
There's also the slight issue where the upper classes were usually the only ones who wrote stuff down, either because they had the time, or they were the only literate ones. History as a discipline is built upon the back of primary data, and for so many, many groups of people, there just AREN'T primary sources. Without primary sources (historic people speaking for themselves), historians wade into the horrible murky depths of Interpretation, where you bring along all of your unconscious modern biases and perspectives and opinions. Primary sources from elites were, at least, contemporary-adjacent.
Historians have slowly been getting more and more creative with locating non-elite primary sources; sadly, so many of these fascinating new sources end up locked in the Ivory Tower of Academia, where you better be reading fairly dry, non-accessible scholarly works to get at it. There are so many things that are just common knowledge to professional historians, and yet haven't trickled down into the public, so you still end up with folks who had no idea that divorce isn't a very modern concept.
Good lord, no, divorce isn't modern. A Norsewoman could divorce her husband for insulting her.
It's mentioned in the bible multiple times, hardly modern at all. How do people even argue that?
They say history is written by the winners (and it is) but it's also written by the rich. One thing that interests me about the rise of modern technology is that information is captured so quickly, disseminated so widely, and archived so readily that we might be getting to a point in history where our records are more accurate and non-biased. Not that we're there yet, hell no, but maybe.
The down side is that we're creating and storing that information in a way that future historians might not have easy access to. Try watching a VHS tape today then multiply that difficulty by some hyperbolically large number.
Very true, but it still comforts me a bit to know that our records going forward won't be quite as biased towards the rich and powerful.
Throughout much of European history, it was also written by the Church. That's another layer to throw in there. Especially when you take into account not only what was actually written but also what primary sources were destroyed at different times by people in the Church.
Social History (or History From the Bottom – Up) has been fighting against the traditional GWM (Great White Men, or History From the Top – Down) for several decades and has definitely made headway.
Primary sources for Social History, focusing on women, people of color, lgbt, the poor, etc. are around but not as accessible as they should be. Census tracts, probate records, city directories, church newsletters, union or professional organization newspapers, letters, pamphlets/leaflets/fliers, etc.
I LOVE this stuff, if you can't tell.
This is also why women's contributions (among others) are often "lost" so often when things have swung heavily towards patriarchy. It's not like we've ever had just one history book written by the same people — we omit the stuff not currently making the folks in power look good.
For example, redefining slavery as "triangular trade".
Or one of my other favorites – the "War of Northen Aggression".
I mean, as recently as this past summer, First Nations, Chican@-Hispanic, and African-American parents have had to take school districts in Texas and Arizona to court because the latter were trying to literally rewrite the former out of the official school "history" books.
And let's not forget those fun times when various midwestern states (Indiana, Illionise, Nebraska, and Ohio, I'm looking at you) for trying to make English the official state language.
*smh*
"Constant vigilance!"
(And let's not forget the additional emotional, mental, and therefore also attendant physical burden — consisting of both time and energy — that those marginalized groups have to expend on said vigilance that white, cis, and (let's call it) usually male folks *don't* have to expend and which they are as a result free to spend on themselves / their jobs, "getting ahead only by their own efforts" and "pulling themselves up" by those well-known bootstraps?
For any who don't get it by now, this is the near-textbook (ha) example of what privilege looks like.)
Bootstrapping with million-dollar loans no less!
No wonder they have so much time for psychological arm-wrestling.
And hobbies!
(Also, Illinois.
It has been a really long Monday. *headdesk* )
I just had someone on my Facebook feed — a stalwart liberal and a Bernie Sanders supporter, post something about how Clinton opposed English as the national language as a condemnation of her, totally ignorant of the ugly contexts in which that debate always comes up. I am working up to a response, because it is late and my energy is low, but something really, really needs to be said. :-/
From a country that DOES have national languages, we still manage to do a pretty good job with all the unofficial ones spoken here too. Having official languages hasn't, like, stopped people from immigrating.
Yeah, I think they're missing the point of official languages. I guess they think it means that it must be the onlylanguage(s) available or used, rather than a language that must be available as an option in certain situations, whatever other languages are used/available?
They don't know what they mean.
(Not that that's ever stopped a States Righter before.)
Edit: Oh, wait, sorry, I like, misunderstood that entire thing. Rant erased, and my bad.
Well now I have the image of you giving this as a lecture as you scan the room with your glass x-ray vision eyeball…
Am I the only one who wondered how the hell he wasn't constantly dizzy and nauseous with that thing?
Not so much the nausea, but I always wondered if he got really creeped out at seeing lots of naked students all the time.
Crabbe and Goyle. The book versions, not the attractive movie versions. Have fun trying to sleep tonight.
"Well now I have the image of you giving this as a lecture as you scan the room with your glass x-ray vision eyeball"
If you ask the students where I've guest-lectured, I actually have two of them.
And yes – they do also see through walls and around corners.
😉
I hope you have the clanky leg and walking stick, too!
I have a torn meniscus from a modern dance accident. I don’t actually love it when it clanks.
I do have an ebony walking stick someone actually gave me after I was first hurt then, though.
(But I don’t use everything all at once. Don’t want people running out of the lectures, after all, do we? ;-))
One example of this that I heard about in college was about the discovery of the structure of DNA. Short version as explained by my teacher (for anyone here who knows about this one I apologize for carrying on, but this bugs me a lot): It was Rosalind Franklin, a British chemist and X-ray Crystallographer came up with the information about the phosphate groups in the DNA molecule that was basically the Eureka information that Watson and Crick (the guys who got the credit for discovering the structure of DNA) needed to put all the pieces together. Franklin's boss went behind her back to give that information to Watson and Crick and she didn't get recognition until later…because, you know, she's a SHE. That overrides little things like scientific integrity and basic human decency
Honestly, if the memoirs I've read of folks growing up in NYC at the time period were anything to go by, there was plenty of pressure on the guys to be seen as sexually active. (Not the girls, of course).
"Courting wasn't all that non-sexual, either, especially not in NYC. I'm guessing there was less pressure to be sexually active, but it was by no means bizarre for dating couples to have sex."
Remember, before the Great Depression came the Roaring Twenties. And they were called "roaring" for a reason. 😉
My paternal grandmother was born in twenty one. She also kept some of her older siblings' diaries and let me read them one day. She was born in rural alabama (And by rural, I mean RURAL.) and even they got out and partied a bit. Some of the stuff in those diaries…well, grandma didn't let me read them until I turned eighteen, and for good reason. I'll put it that way.
Exactly. Another dirty secret of history is that once a couple became officially betrothed, there were many cultures that thought it was completely fine for them to bone before going in front of a priest. This occurred even among certain Puritans, those cultural touchstones of uptight morality.
One of the greatest disservices historians have done us is to focus so exclusively on the upper class and elites, whose lives looked as different to their lower-class peers as Rupert Murdoch's life looks to most of us. Focusing so exclusively on the wealthy in history has, I think, given a load of people a ton of misconceptions about the past, and thus made it all the easy to favorably compare it to modern day.
I think to some extent class ties into the perception of marriage ages as well. People always throw around the claim that women used to marry at age 16…and census data just doesn't seem to back that up. Sure, rich girls sometimes did, and so did girls living in frontier areas. It seems like there were also lots of lower class twentysomething couples who were involved for five or six years while they saved up enough to support a household. And I think that ties back into the premarital sex part of things – it's not nearly so much of a risk when your family members have a little push to marry someone they meant to marry anyway as when there's a pregnancy in an uncommitted relationship.
The married at sixteen thing always gave me a laugh. My grandparents (who grew up during the depression and married not long after) dated for a LONG ass time before they felt they had the financial resources to get married, and they BOTH had jobs. My grandmother went to business college but ended up becoming a secretary because, well, she was a woman and you couldn't have a woman doing business things, and grandfather did some engineering work and drafting (basically he made blueprints…or something, he tried to explain it to me but it went over my head faster than algebra did).
That continued into the fifties, time of The America Everyone Thinks Was Great. Grandma didn't quit her job to be a stay at home mom until my aunt was born in fifty seven, and my grandparents have both told me they never had people looking down on them or giving them crap for my grandmother having a job.
Three of my four grandparents were relatively young. One set were 21 and 19, though they quit school at 14 and had more years in the work force than the ages suggest. They were also pretty poor when they first married. They eventually prospered mostly because my grandfather got a union job, though my grandmother worked too. I don't remember that as being seen as unusual by their peers.
My other set were 26 and 21, and they did well mostly because my grandmother (the older of the two) had some savings from having been a teacher for several years. She also worked after marriage, though "farmer" generally isn't reflected in labor statistics when the farmer is a woman.
I think my maternal grandparents, who I was talking about were in their twenties. I think. I'd have to ask. My paternal grandmother I have no idea, and she's passed on so I'd have to go through my dad to get that information and I doubt he knows (or cares). Either way though, hardly married halfway through puberty like most people seemed to think happened back in the pre-now era.
My grandparents eloped at 18 and 19, partly because they were madly in love and partly because both sets of great-grandparents were kind of jerks, so getting out on their own was pretty appealing. They were married just a few months shy of 70 years, and when my grandma died, we all knew grandpa wouldn't be far behind. My favorite picture of them is one where they are holding hands in the nursing home.
There are times, too, where they'd be married at 14/15/16 but that didn't mean they were living with their husband and certainly weren't getting pregnant. Because pregnancy was the leading cause of death for women for MILLENIA, who were healthy and full-grown, nevermind still growing.
For a moment there, I thought you said it was completely fine for them to bone in front of a priest! 0_o
ME TOO.
I was all, "WAIT WHAT? Was this to be sure they were doing it in a morally appropriate way?? Cannot figure out if this was a scam by the priests or a torment to the priests!!"
I recall reading somewhere that one of the french kings (prior to Loix XVI I think) was married at fourteen and had to consummate his marriage with his unfortunate wife (who was the same age or younger I think) in front of not only his dad, but a representative from the Vatican…to ensure the marriage was legit…or something. That had to suck for all involved.
How do you even get it up in that sort of situation?
Oh, wait, he was 14. Totally doable.
This comment was a huge brain fart brought about by the fact that 14 is over the age of consent in my country, but it's super creepy and thoughtless.
What country?
Argentina!
Two words: Cardinal Richelieu
This thought has been made extra creepy by imagining Tim Curry doing running commentary.
"Come on now lad, up you get."
"Let's go now, there's no time to waste."
Wait, you mean Cardinal Richelieu wasn't really Tim Curry? Because that's how I always picture him.
Fuck if I know. Ancient French viagra?
I remember a scene from The Tudors (I know, don't judge me, LOL) when Henry's sister Margaret was betrothed to the King of Portugal and all the religious and some political luminaries were all standing around the wedding bed on the wedding night.
It was to cringe, which I know was the entire purpose of the scene – and/but I remember thinking as I watched pretty much through my fingers "Well, Mr. Director, you sure accomplished your artistic purpose that time."
This is where I'm almost thankful that's no longer required in marriage.
Unless you're secretly the time traveling Dauphin of France I think you're safe.
I sense an excellent crossover fanfic here…
A-are you suggesting DNL fanfic (or DNL/history crossover fic?)???
Don't forget to work Grimes and the Beer Dragon in there.
I like this idea!!
I am counting the days until I am eligible to collect my beer dragon (I had hoped for a unicorn but will certainly settle for a dragon). Just another couple of years to go!
I'd expect that's how we'd explain a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
I mean, this was also the era of "Let's watch the Dauphina give birth because that's not creepy and gross at all"
Shudders…
I hadn't heard about that. Thank you so much for the image.
That sounds like some good old-timey birth control!
I threw up a little. Not a big one, but enough. I don't do well with the smell of blood or other bodily fluids. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be in a delivery room, and yes, I'm fully admitting to being a complete wuss.
Well, there wasn't a whole lot to do back then and HBO hadn't been invented yet.
Up till 1936, the British Home Secretary was required to witness the birth of any royal child. I guess that's under "other duties as assigned."
All I can think of is the Oglaf comic where the logic is "Our God sees all things, Our God hates gay sex, so we will have gay sex all the time until Our God helps us win this battle!" and it is beautiful.
YEEESSSS! I love Oglaf comics!
I seem to remember a threat of slug-fucking somewhere in that particular one…
Weeeeeellll, I seem to recall in one of my history seminars ("Sex and Science in European History"; IT WAS SUCH AN AWESOME CLASS), there were a few sources that slyly implied that couples could bone in front of a priest for better fertility, but there was a lot of back and forth from historians about whether that ACTUALLY happened or was just a allegory or a medieval urban myth.
Fun fact from that class: there was a strong emphasis during "the dark ages" to study and understand female orgasm, as the thought was a woman had better chances for pregnancy if she was enjoying herself. The Dark Ages have earned an (imo) unfair reputation for encouraging procreative sex only in boring missionary, but primary sources suggest the Church/society was VERY interested in getting couples to have sex as much as possible and have a good time doing it. Sex wasn't necessarily evil. Heck, priests weren't even strictly celibate OR straight (and it was totally cool!) for the first millennium after the fall of Roman culture.
I'd heard about the theory that female orgasms were necessary for impregnation, and (at least to me) it's interesting to think about what things would be like if people still thought that, or if it had been more ingrained in our culture for longer than it was.
I'd hate to be the woman sleeping with the guy who reaaaaaaalllly didn't want kids in that scenario :/
No shit.
"The Dark Ages have earned an (imo) unfair reputation for encouraging procreative sex only in boring missionary, but primary sources suggest the Church/society was VERY interested in getting couples to have sex as much as possible and have a good time doing it."
Makes perfect sense to me, considering the plagues that wiped out a good portion of the population in Europe.
I think there were some cultures (I want to say persian or assyrian but I could be wildly wrong) where the woman HAD to be pregnant for a marriage to happen. I guess it makes a sort of sense since way back in the day you'd want to know the person you were with could have kids, but it still weirds me out a bit to think about since I was raised so hardcore christian.
True! I remember in Native Americans studies learning that while wealthy Aztecs had polygamy, poorer Aztecs were monogamous. That was cool.
Not if you were poor and into poly it wasn't.
…I'm sorry. I can't help myself…
Or wealthy and *not* into poly…
I mean, that's always kinda been how it was, if not officially… If you could afford to support multiple wives, good on you. Otherwise, nope only one! (Or none. To harken back to what started this wonderous historical tangent)
"Feminism enabled women to be much more picky about their mates."
Fucking feminists and their monstrous empire of picking partners cause they're interesting, respectful and hot instead of cause you need a man around so you don't starve, dismissive and disgusting as he might be.
Yeah, I read that bit about feminism allowing women to be choosy and all I could think was "And that's a bad thing because …?"
Because he's not the one being chosen.
How do you even type an opinion that basically amounts to "I wish people didn't have a choice but to fuck me in order to survive" without wondering where things went wrong with your self respect and moral code?
And THIS! Yup. This is what needs be said to every whiney fucking dude who moans that feminism is at fault for his singledom. (Also, pssst: Here's a secret. You'd have been single in the Fifties or Victorian times too because even a good job didn't compensate for being an unmitigated asshole. Unless you think you'd have been nobility or some shit. Read a book, fool]
There are some people who, any time you say "only 10% of the people [good circumstance]" will immediately cast themselves in that percentage regardless of evidence to the contrary. Just look at the number of Ren Faire nobles, Steampunk Captains or people who theorize about zombie apocalypse plans for examples.
There's a quote from one of Bujold's Vorkosigan books about how people from an egalitarian society adjust fine to aristocracies as long as they get to be the aristocrats, which I think is where all our shiny rose-colored glasses come into play.
I am in love with this comment and everything about it.
No question, if the zombie apocalypse comes, I'm getting eaten. Because I will be too busy trying to make sure my cats are okay and not susceptible to zombification.
Which is why Quarantine scared me so much. Not the jump-scares but the animals getting affected 🙁
I am pretty sure that when the zombie apocalypse comes I will get a weapon purely so I can end my own life when the zombies show up.
My buddy/best friend/roommate and I had The Talk once. It was very serious.
That is, the Talk about what to do if one of us gets bitten by a zombie–kill immediately, or leave us behind with a weapon to try and stall for time. My only caveat was that he can't let either of my siblings kill me if I get zombied.
Yeah, I'd be hosed too. If we're talking running zombies, they'd outrun me easily. Even if we're not, I doubt I could mobilise quickly enough to either get moving or barricade the entrances in time. Plus I care too much about my mum, who has MS so …
Yeah, in the event of a zombie apocalypse, I'm screwed. But I'm ok with that, because the meds I need would soon be gone anyway and I'd rather be eaten by zombies than die slowly in misery.
Also, not allowed if you're non-white or a woman, because suddenly fantasy becomes very involved in "historically accurate".
Meanwhile ignoring all history ever.
The same thing sometimes happens with Westerns and with fantasy and steampunk Western mashups, again, completely ignoring the history of the US Old West.
Oh, oh, if you like weird west without the whitewashing, try "Wake of Vultures" by Lila Bowen. Biracial black/Native American protagonist.
Oh, I missed this reply and am completely unfamiliar with that! That book has one hell of a blurb on Amazon.
*adds another entry to my "to read" list*
The only bad part is the sequel doesn't come out 'til October.
Oh shoot, I'm gonna need to ask my buddy when he gets home if he remembers this amazing Alt History panel we went to at Dragon*Con where a bunch of writers just about came to blows over historical accuracy in steampunk, primarily kicked off because one writer pointed out that there's a bit of a dearth of black people in steampunk.
But yeah, the number of people who just…I don't know, think black people weren't invented until the mid-1900's is astounding.
Cool fact: Almost 1/3 of 19th century cowboys were black.
Yeah, I think the figures I saw also estimated that half or more of cowboys were people of color as a larger group. Which made complete sense when I remembered who had been living in the Southwest prior to US annexation and the typical motives for people from the Eastern states for migrating to the territories.
There's really no reason that the narrative about moving West to find economic opportunity and more social freedom wouldn't as likely be about a black character rather than the standard of an eccentric white man or a plucky white woman.
Or that black people didn't live in Europe, ever.
Just… what?
*snicker*
Mhm, I'm thinking those aren't exactly the types to be that familiar with Zora Neale Hurston (or, heaven forfend, James Baldwin) – so they're not going to have a clue where they'd have done the work if they haven't even read it.
Or have half a clue that Hannibal went back & forth over the Alps a few (dozen) times.
With elephants! On skis!
If you've never seen an elephant ski then you've never been on acid!
*wild applause*
My dad is one of those last. He buys all this survival crap he can't use, tons of knives, hatchets, and explosives (well, tannerite, which is actually fairly safe as far as they go, but still) and he keeps several loaded firearms just out and around in his stupid little single-wide trailer. Including a lever action .22 magnum right by his bed and an AR-15 with a 100 round magazine…in a closet…with a plywood door…with no lock…right underneath the ammo for it and some diabetes care stuff he doesn't use.
Have I mentioned I live in America?
When I was living in Militiagan I gave one of the busboys a ride home and had to drop him off at the start of his driveway because "I don't want my dad to think you're with the government and start shooting".
This interested me.
Come to find out they had caches of weapons buried around their farm and they'd the kids memorize how many steps and in what direction it was to each cache and would drill them by blindfolding them and making them run to a numbered stash.
I'm reasonable informed that there's probably still several containers with rifles buried on their farmland, which remains in their family.
This is the area that BLOOD IN THE FACE, the documentary partly by Michael Moore before he became big in the late 80's early 90's where there was a massive neo-nazi/white supremacy….convention…for lack of a better word, on the farm of former Grand Dragon of the KKK Robert Miles.
I used to sneak onto some of those farms. It seems weird to say that I've seen a cross-burning and full KKK rally within my lifetime (at a distance, as a Romany-Jew there's a limit to how close I'd get), and PoC moving into the town were often greeted with a burning cross on their lawn, despite the fiction that it was the faster growing liberal county in the state.
They were what I called "Latte Liberals" who ignored the cross burnings as long as they got their Starbucks downtown.
Which isn't to say your dad is racist, sorry…just that I understand living among the survivalist/militia types.
Oh, he's racist. Very. He also has stashes buried around his property…except instead of just guns, he stashes guns, money and silver. Silver bars. Because bartering. I've been meaning to get in contact with the sherriff of the county my dad lives in to give him fair warning that when my dad dies the cops are going to want to secure that property pretty fast. Also, at least one of my relatives on his side of the family (from Alabama) is a Klansman, and another is in jail for Moonshining. There's considerable reason to believe that my grandmother was the product of an incestuous relationship…My fucking family…
I'd be really scared if you said you lived anywhere else after hearing that.
I live many miles away from him. I like it that way. Less chance of spontaneous amputation via shrapnel.
They do think that tho.
(Which … yeah.)
Such a horrible thing to happen to rich assholes. Why did we ever let this occur?
"Back then, having a job also basically guaranteed a wife, kids, and a home"
You say that like it's a good thing. Do you know how many violent, horrible psychopaths have jobs? Do they all have nice women keeping home for them and 2.5 kids in your dream world?
Y'know what's funny is that I keep seeing this narrative pop up – this whitewashed, idealized view of the Past where dooods just had wives and kids and happy homes handed to them on a platter just by existing and being male. And I'm just sitting here with my minor in history going '…. no.'
I can't even respond to this nonsense because every word, beginning to end, is so ludicrous I can't even… I CAN'T EVEN. like, did BP whatsit skip all the history lessons in school and just watch reruns of Leave it to Beaver and then went WOW WHAT'S THE NAME OF THIS DOCUMENTARY, BEING A DOOD IN THE PAST WAS AWESOME!!
Kinda like there were people who believed The Martian was a documentary about mars colonization?
I'll give one small concession to BP's point of view…depending on how old you are, when you grew up, and whether you had any interest in history beyond what was taught in school, you might not have picked up a lot of social history and particularly not much that had to do with the lives of poorer people. Hell, depending on your class's pace, you might not have gotten much further in the book than WWII.
Or, in my case, the freaking civil war. We learned Columbus/Colonial America every year K-4. Egypt/Greece/Rome 5-7, up to the Civil War in grade 8, then back to Egypt/Greece/Rome for 9th, European History 10th, US History up to Civil War in 11th, and an elective in 12th grade.
This was a travesty of education.
Note particularly the TOTAL ABSENCE of any continent but North America and Europe, as well as nothing in the last 100 years.
I had state history in 4th, and US in 5th, and world in 6th, some more US and world in junior high, ancient world history (we did cover some of Asia, though little of Africa), European history, AP US history (the first place I really encountered any social history or anything that focused on people of color or women or lower class people), and civics.
I think some of my teachers really tried to introduce more modern history, but that often meant speeding past some other topics. I kind of think some time should specifically be carved out to teach 20th and 21st century history and nothing else. Its affects are a lot more apparent in today's world than what the Puritans were up to.
So. . .in one of my classrooms in 4th grade I think in Raleigh NC, we had this poster of these three stoic men's heads and shoulders against a background of stars done up in that overblown late 70s, early 80s Cosmos-esque style. It was part of the program where hey taught us about the three races of humankind, mongoloid, caucasoid, negroid. We had a brief unit on the physical differences and I'm sure other things I just don't remember. I pretty much brushed it off because I had lived in New York and DC prior but this was
In America
In the 1980s
WTF.
History, its not as far back as you think it is. All I can say is the social studies unit on slavery was even worse. It was the rich parents' Catholic school of choice.
*stewie head tilt/look of horror*
This is as close as I could find on Google and I'm pretty happy not digging any deeper. That whole segment of my life was a bit of a horror show. http://oi57.tinypic.com/28rljde.jpg
Hoo boy.
I encounter that sort of thing every now and again in cataloging when we get older material (or recently, we've been weeding through some outdated stuff). It's always just…frankly horrific.
I remember one of my teachers at transiton school showing me an old psychology textbook from the fifties. An excerpt on 'People suffering from mental retardation' was enlightening to say the least. Retard, moron, mental deficient, and idiot were apparently technical terms back in the day, and the book not only reccommended electroshock therapy and liberal use of an iccewater hosedown as general 'therapies' but it also reccommended in the strongest possible terms that 'Morons, retards and the like must be kept in designated institutions, as they are unable to control their impulses and prone to fornication and leaving behind similarly stunted or deficient offspring'.
Progress people, we've made it. Not nearly enough, but I'm glad I'm not living in the fifties let me tell you…
Oh dear lord.
Ugh, public education. I had another thought too, and that's anything that has to do with women, or women's perspective isn't taught, or isn't important or is just ignored, so….
I still don't understand this obsession with the past and assuming a happy life with wife and kids was just handed to you and there was no struggle because its not like, you know, a wife and children are PEOPLE with EMOTIONS with wants and needs of their own that differ from you.
I think that's a symptom of a lot of children's history texts focusing on wars, elections, colonization (from the perspective of the colonizers), and religious conflicts. A lot of women's history ends up being in the realm of economic history or social history. There's less information on that, because those things include everyone and not just elites. I also think there's more pushback from school boards about teaching those things to kids, though, since it can be seen as unpatriotic to focus too much on say, the exploitation of workers around the turn of the century rather than on the laws eventually passed to address those problems and the politicians who supported them.
Yes! The style of teaching history where you only bring up a problem just in time to solve it. "La la la, America was totes great, oh by the way for that whole last couple hundred years we just told you about, there was slavery! And then there wasn't. And la la la, America was awesome some more, and oh by the way, women couldn't vote for this whole time, but then they could! Yay America!"
Something I see on tumblr a lot is this concept that, say, antisemitism begins and ends with the holocaust. Like, yeah, things were pretty dicey from the 20's-40's, but then America showed up, and now there's no more of that! Ah-Ha!
I look around at what's happening in America now, and I look at folks who are greyed out on sites where I comment, and I'm sometimes flabbergasted at the absolute dearth of critical thinking and knowledge of world history and its immediate, like, immediate, relevance to current affairs.
Then I think about that — how people haven't learned anything for, like, what's starting to feel like an entire generation (bombastic rhetoric about the critical importance of education aside).
And then I go "Well, of course. How was this not going to happen?"
And then I get sad.
And … frankly, kind of scared.
"antisemitism begins and ends with the holocaust"
If any of those people would like to see the scare on my leg that I got as a teenager kicking a neo-nazi off me who was trying to stab me while calling me a Christ-Killer they're welcome to a photo.
Holy cats, I'm sorry that happened to you. 🙁
If anyone seriously thinks that about the Holocaust, let me grab my Bible and read the book of Esther to them. Antisemitism is as old as ancient Persia, probably older. And unfortunately as modern as, well, now.
(Also, stupid people who like to mouth off about how the Jews killed Christ also seem to forget that Jesus and the overwhelming majority of his early disciples & followers were Jewish. It was actually a big freaking controversy when non-Jews started to be allowed in.)
Holy shit. That's terrible. I'm so sorry.
Honestly, what I'm learning about social history of the early 20th century is all pretty much stuff I've been learning the past couple of years after getting interested in gangsters (because once you start researching that, you have to research all of the circumstances above and below that lead to prohibition and the rise of organized crime, etc).
W have studied your. . .mmmmmmmm. . .historical documents!
https://cdn.discourse.org/boingboing/uploads/defa…
loololol perfect
So funny side story, one of the recurring characters and one of our few outright "bad guy" characters in the post apocalyptic show I run is Mr. Cross. He wears a tattered suit, smokes a pipe and is generally the crazy guy in denial that the apocalypse ever happened. He's very definitely based on Ward Cleaver. . . and we have to constantly discuss his lines. Because when he's doing Fox News Conservative satire, he's usually fine but when we get into things a 50s middle class suburban dad would say casually, there are lines I just don't want to let him cross even for humor.
Since its an election year, he went out and got a Trump wig and is running for Partiarch Of The Wasteland this year. In a unique twist, he couldn't run for President because every gag we came up with as satire was repeated seriously by a candidate this year.
Is there a picture album? I have to search for a picture album now and be sad I wasn't there to see it in person.
We're still trying to get the website together but you can find Mr Cross on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/mrcrossnuclearbombshell
100 percent best answer!
😀
because he is from a time when non sexual "courting" was the norm.
oooooookay.
So, here's the thing.
I know we have This Idea of History. But really, teenagers were boning left and right, even in the 30's-40's. It wasn't talked about, but it happened. A lot. Heck, Bucky has himself a reputation for being a ladies man, so it's not like Bucky isn't part of Steve's "norm." They also live in a big city and near the docks at that, so again, his "norm" is not the Pleasantville version of the past that you think existed.
feminism wasn't a big thing then.
Yeah, it wasn't. Well, I mean, actually it was. Y'know, the 20's-40's had a lot of the early and in-your-face feminism. It was in the 50's (which Cap missed) that there was the hard backlash against it as an America shaken by the horrors of war tried to return to its perception of an idealized past (and especially forcing women back into the homes).
But yeah, it wasn't as much of a thing. Women were less safe then, were considered to be weaker and less intelligent, and not capable of life outside of the home, even as they clawed for it. So Steve, coming from that world, still treats women with respect as people. Not as women. Steve doesn't treat Peggy or Natasha as dictated by the gender roles of the 40's–he treats them as his equals and his coworkers, even the one he has a romantic interest in.
There is also the argument that Capt is basically a-sexual
There…really is not that argument? Like…at all? I don't think I've seen anyone leap to that conclusion, but it's a little troubling that if a guy goes for a movie or two without getting a Story-Designated-Love-Interest that the assumption is because he's asexual? Man, that is toxic.
a man's worth is now determined not only by his job, but also how wealthy he is and how physically attractive he is.
Wow, I mean, look, everything in your second paragraph was gross, but this is also just…stupid. Because you're leaving out the big things–what determines a man's worth is what kind of a person he is.
Scrawny-Steve would fair just fine in today's world, because he's a compassionate, kind, intelligent guy who may not have "game" but is still a genuinely good person and a pleasant person to be around.
Sheesh.
Your view of history is considerably lacking in nuance, and a bit plastic and rockwellian. I get that you're talking to one old person about it, but honestly, that's not the best source to get a bead on what was actually cultural trend going on at the time (and in that specific location), for so so so very many reasons.
Yeah my grams was boning left and right in the 40s.
One of my grandmother's sisters partied with Al Capone when he would come to Minnesota when things in Chicago got too hot. We also recently found out that her son's dad was not her husband, and she had a daughter before she was married to her husband that didn't turn out to be her husband's either. I'm not excusing the fact that she cheated on her fiance/husband, but the fact is that her before-marriage-baby wasn't all that remarked on (well, my grandmother was pretty shocked, but she's really really luthern, so…)
Teens were boning left and right in the 1830s. And the 1730s. And…
It's almost like we've been human beings for a while now.
Almost. Some of us.
But only if you have a Y chromosome.
And you're only 3/5ths of one under the original Constitution ( d*mn those pesky Amendments!) if you're not white.
You're a bonin' to the left, a bonin' to the right, hey now everybody let's go down tonight!
…I'm sorry.
"a man's worth is now determined not only by his job, but also how wealthy he is and how physically attractive he is"
Ok, last one, but you know things are bad for your kind when the idea of being valued for both your attractiveness AND your job gives you the fuzzies like it just did to me. Did it ever occur to you that while you mention this like it's a big fast injustice it's better than what women get most of the time, which is being valued by their attractiveness by people who wish they would shut up about their job already?
You realize that The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises were both written and take place in the 20s, right?
LOL, Doc –
from what I remember of his old comment history (which I can’t share, ‘cause it looks like it’s been deleted – though his new one has managed to rack up his current score with something like three comments, and I have to say I’m … impressed with that, in the darkest possible way), BPremium is not a big reader.
And why not, you ask? It’s because he has to spend *all his time* in the gym building up an 18-pack of those Beefcake McWonderabs (HT / adamhunter) he has told us in his previous iteration the laydeeeez just cannot live without.
Mhm.
I got cited! Squee!
Yes, sir.
🙂
That one's going to live on in glorious, notorious infamy if I have anything to say about it.
You left out the mike-drop, Doc. 😉
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/16287113/ns/health-sexu…
ETA: Oh! Here's another fun one… https://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/p23-197.pdf
I love the smell of historical data in the morning.
My first instinct when I think "BULLSHIT" is to start frantically researching. I have been doing a lot of researching lately.
Sometimes I find out that my instinct is wrong. I am also cultivating an instinct to start researching when I see something that someone who disagreed with me would think "BULLSHIT" about, and calling out my allies and friends out for spreading bullshit, too.
Heheh, mine too.
I find this one fairly useful too.
https://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/marriage/data…
'Even grandma had premarital sex' is the best title for any article I have ever read ever.
"a time when non sexual "courting" was the norm" *social history geek laughter*
Nooo. No, dude. If you were rich/upper middle class, maybe. Even back then, they knew a whole lot of ways to have sexual fun that didn't result in babies. Were you under the impression that condoms were invented in the 1960s or something?
"that's how it is, gender norms were strictly enforced"
Funnily enough, Steve lived in a booming time for the breaking of gender stereotypes. The Great Depression (i.e., most of the '30s) saw huge social shifts, including more women pursuing higher education. Steve's SINGLE, WIDOWED MOTHER worked as a nurse all his life. With the onset of the war, the number of women in trades boomed from 12 – 18 million, including 3 million in military-specific factories. I'm not saying it was a great time to be a woman – the pay was crap, the unions wouldn't let them in, and sexual harassment laws weren't a thing – but it wasn't as hide-bound as you apparently believe, especially for women in the poorer classes.
Steve is a respectful, smartassed, kind little punk and would do just freaking fine in the dating marker, muscles or not.
*Waves to fellow social history geek*
Right??? I am just baffled sometimes by people who group the 20's/30's besides the 50's, as if all of those decades shared the exact same social structure, values, and morality. There were huge, seismic shifts in pretty much all areas of life between I'd say 1890 and 1980; there's a reason each decade is so distinct in our cultural imagination. Folks really need to crack a history book…
"Folks really need to crack a history book…"
THIS! Historical knowledge and context, folks. You need some!
Historical knowledge and context?
What be those things you speak of?
Not Reading, or STEM.
All Children Left Behind.
*bleep bloop*
*social history geek laughter*
LOL. I think I need that on an mp3.
♪♫ That ain't workin' – that's the way you do it
Get your nerd on for nothin' and your cons for free
That there's geekin' – that's the way you do it
Lemme tell you – those fangirls ain't dumb
Maybe get a bad case of computer eyestrain
Maybe a blistered controller thumb … ♪♫
– sung to the tune of Dire Straits' "That Ain't Workin'"
😉
"doing your job was what made you a man. And back then, having a job also basically guaranteed a wife, kids, and a home."
*Squints* You do realize that WW2 occurred right on the tail-end of the depression, where having a job (especially a well-paying blue collar one, since the Depression hit farming and manufacturing jobs hard) was actually pretty rare? So…. no, there actually weren't many guarantees that a guy would end up with a job, and thus a wife, kids, and a home?
Furthermore, this weird idea that the 1920-1960 were some ideal time for the American family (and thus men) is kind of bizarre. Take a look at the US Census data over the last century. In 1930, about 20-30% of folks had never been married by the age of 30. In 2000, that percentage raises to about 30-40%, but not by a significant amount. The median age for men to marry in 1930 was about 24-25, and in 2000 it was about 27.
The URL below also found that the proportion of never married (for both men and women) was lowest around 1980, aka, over 30 years ago. Furthermore, men and women end up never married in roughly equal proportions; shocking!, given that by about age 20, the gender ratio evens out to about 1:1….. are you somehow imagining that there are hordes of never-married men hanging around, with no women to choose from, because the women are all taken? (Why, WHY, does this 80-20 myth persist? Why do there seem to be so many guys who ignore very basic statistics about gender; if there are men without relationships, then there are women without relationships as well simply by data law!)
The dirty secret of history is that people have been married and divorcing and single in roughly equal proportions for thousands of years, probably centuries. This idea of a Golden Age where you were guaranteed safety from divorce or guaranteed a wife just shows blissful historic ignorance. If wealth and attractiveness matter now, they have *always* mattered in some form or another. Don't kid yourself that if you could steal a time machine, you'd do any better in the past. Law of averages suggests you'd actually probably end up doing WORSE.
Source: https://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/marriage/data…
(Why, WHY, does this 80-20 myth persist? Why do there seem to be so many guys who ignore very basic statistics about gender; if there are men without relationships, then there are women without relationships as well simply by data law!)
Because its an easy heuristic to remember and its got that Stephen Colbert ring of gut level truthiness to it. . . if your gut is in the habit of overlooking every woman you don't personally find attractive.
Don't kid yourself that if you could steal a time machine, you'd do any better in the past. Law of averages suggests you'd actually probably end up doing WORSE.
The historical trend of human history is that quality of life improves or everyone over time. The historical trend of American history is that quality of life improves faster for those closer to the bottom, but only with a knock-down, drag-out generation long cultural fight every time.
So by all means, go back to the 30s and try to get a factory job in the Depression era with no contacts to grease the wheels for you. Then, after working your 60 hours of had physical labor a week, make time to go meet women at. . .where you planning to do that, exactly? If you're lucky, you'll have a nice one bedroom apartment that has both electricity AND running water! Also, good luck with that whole polio thing.
"So by all means, go back to the 30s and try to get a factory job in the Depression era with no contacts to grease the wheels for you. Then, after working your 60 hours of had physical labor a week, make time to go meet women at. . .where you planning to do that, exactly? If you're lucky, you'll have a nice one bedroom apartment that has both electricity AND running water! Also, good luck with that whole polio thing."
Yes, the Golden Age where men were REAL MEN and women were REAL WOMEN…and everyone was dying of malnutrition, overwork, horrible industrial accidents/exposures and disease.
On the up side, after about 1920, the streets of New York are no longer paved in horse manure and chamber pot contents, most everyone has a radio and doctors wash their hands.
If you want to learn more about this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cba7di0eL8I&f…
One of the interesting things I found out about NYC in particular is that horse manure in the streets was a huge problem that they absolutely could not solve. There were too many people and too many horses in close proximity. What wound up solving it was not some huge public works program but the adoption of cars.
Oh boy, the doctors finally accepted germ theory!
We don't need OSHA, we're Real Men(TM). If we get a broken bone we just rub some dirt in it and move on. Like a MAN.
Sanitation?! We don't need sanitation! We're Real Men(TM) who stomp through sewage clogged streets with pride!
We're Men! (Manly men!) We roam around the city looking for fights!
In tights (maybe)?
Yes!
Just like a Star-Spangled Man. With a Plan.
😀
"The historical trend of human history is that quality of life improves or everyone over time."
Weeeeellllll, I'm gonna take some issue with that, cause I don't think that's necessarily true, at least not in a long view sense. There are some strong suggestions that some civilizations had a much better quality of life than even we do now. There's a strong layman tendency to believe that we in modern are always more advanced and more prosperous than our historic ancestors, and that things only go up, when human history seems to suggests instead it's much more peaks and valleys.
There are also plenty of societies where there wasn't *really* a definable bottom. You had the very wealthy class, and everyone else. So the idea of life improving for the "bottom" classes is…. well, a modern interpretation of class/quality of life that doesn't really fit the historic context.
Sorry, I just get a little uncomfortable with glamorizing the modern OR the past. If nothing else, we should learn from history that even the mightiest, most advanced civilizations can crumble and fall.
Yeah, this…
There's a decent argument for both what I'm getting at and what you're getting at. I'll just go with "yeah, also what Marty said!"
Don't forget your cheat sheet!
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/…
(From https://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD… because Dinosaur Comics is the best)
Whenever people start whinging about the Good Old Days, I generally point out that those days meant no air conditioning, if you had any major health issues you probably wouldn't survive, there was no FDA so the food you ate was quite probably contaminated and indoor plumbing didn't become standard in rural ares till the late 1930s.
I actually completely disagree. Modern feminism and also technological changes have enabled "less than perfect" (note the heavy air quotes) dudes to have a large pool of options.
If it weren't so easy to hop an airplane and go wherever in the world, I wouldn't have traveled out of my tiny small town to a place far away that had a lot of nerdy folks like me. And I wouldn't have ended up living with my boyfriend, who by all definitions of "badass male," wouldn't seem to measure up. He's a thin-limbed guy with a soft stomach, long messy hair, and a thing for video games and puzzles. This sort of guy is the person you think has no chance, but au contraire, when women get to pick, they get the freedom to pick guys who aren't culturally "correct" for them.
Back in the days of courting and family being way too involved with marriage, I'd probably have been set up with someone who would "tame" my assertive nature and be the breadwinner, and I would be forced to make babies with him. Now I'm free to pick a dude who is chill instead of clashing with me, who will play video games with me instead of demanding I housewife, and who also doesn't want kids. Not to mention the rise of computers has turned programmers and other techie types from "boring nerd" into "universally desired employees." Hell, almost every business needs webdev nowadays, or IT, or some such. If doing your job makes you a man, in your eyes, you have so many chances to do it now.
You should be really thankful that the internet, travel, and modern feminism have given nerds the option to shine and women the ability to pick people who *aren't* traditional. If anything, the new millennium has been a huge open door for them.
Agreed. I mean, I do think there is a certain sort of guy who could have counted on finding a wife if he wasn't too terribly picky and who might have a harder time now, but I think that would be more of the traditional, does all the right things, parents love him sort of dude who isn't very attractive or doesn't have a very appealing personality.
Steve Rogers wasn't that guy, though, and a lot of stereotypical nerds (especially the ones who chafe at strict gender roles or who are awkward when they're not with their people) wouldn't have been either.
A quick note from history here: The idea that 1941 was an era of non-sexual courting is pretty bogus. The era of courting that you're talking about is actually much earlier, dating to the very early 1900's and before. During this time gentleman "callers" would come to the home of the woman he was interested in and would listen to her play piano, talk with her and her parents, and essentially do all that "non sexual" stuff you're talking about. But even that formal arrangement isn't necessarily evidence that these kids never got it on. They found a way. But apart from all that, the entire system of courting in this way disappeared largely with the advent of the automobile. Sure, it filtered down from the richer guys to the poorer guys over time, but the invention of the car meant you could go to your lady's house and pick her up and take her somewhere else, away from home and the watchful gaze of her parents. This is the era in which the term "dating" became more popular to describe the process, and by 1941 cars and casual dating were ubiquitous. It didn't look all that different from how it does now, with the exception of twerking. I don't think they had twerking yet.
In the autobiographical novel Cheaper By The Dozen, which was set in the 1920s, the boys were required to chaperone their older sisters dates. Dad didn't expect the boys to clock a date if he got handsy, but they were supposed to be able to run for help. The girls all eventually got married despite this.
I'm not even sure what point you're trying to make. That Cap is a bad role model because he doesn't think with his dick? And even if feminism wasn't a thing he still treated the women in his life with respect. He didn't look down on Peggy because she wasn't filling a traditionally feminine role, same for Natasha, he treats her as a friend and equal, and that respect was also applied to the nurses, and the USO girls. And when a woman isn't interested hi backs off. He views us as people not objects to fuck.
I mean what is wrong with that?
I'm not sure if I'm following, but then I haven't read the lots of replies yet. But what you're saying looks something like "compared to the forties, more women now express their requirement for reciprocity in sexual and/or romantic relationships, and because of that, personal qualities that are not cultivated primarily for getting laid no longer make someone worthy as a man"? Am I reading you wrong here? Or if not, how does that make any kind of sense?
Yes, good. Co-signed. Sam Wilson is also a wonderful role model, if you need ideas!
I will almost certainly circle back around to Sam Wilson when he’s had more time and exposure over the course of the movies so I have more material to work with.Right now, almost every scene he’s in revolves in some way around Steve. (Or Ant-Man).
Good, good! Though, there are also the comics.
Ew, Antman.
I hereby join you in your disgust at antman. Of all the heroes they could've taken from the Marvel universe, WHY HIM?
I saw the movie and about 10 minutes in went "is there a reason why we needed another white dude as a major hero" because I was screamingly bored of the "welp I'm a terrible father and don't pay child support but no really I'm a super great guy!" backstory. Give me someone interesting, not… every trope so beaten it's making that horse look lively.
*Rant warning*
I couldn't even watch the full movie. My sister got it on dvd and I quit partway through and I had to go watch Avengers again just to make myself feel better about movies in general. My taste in movies is terrible (I like ninja assassin for fuck's sake) but I couldn't stomach that tripe.
Seriously. There are so many cool marvel heroes that they could've gone with. I hate reboots, but I'd love to see Blade rebooted with Idris Elba, or they could've done a movie focusing on Nick Fury, only one of the most badass characters ever to be spawned by a comic book. Terry Crews would be THE PERFECT Luke Cage. If they want to give the X-men a little more love (which they might given the way they factor into Deadpool) they could bring out Warpath or done a movie with Storm (my favorite X-men character tied with Wolverine). Hell, they could do the Miles Morales Spider Man.
These are just examples I pulled off the top of my head. Googling a list of marvel heroes could net you probably DOZENS of characters that would make good movie fodder instead of scraping sawdust from the bottom of the barrel. But no. They didn't. They picked ant man. THEY. PICKED. ANT. MAN. Why the did they have to pick the hero with quite possibly the dumbest fuckmothering premise in existance, and then proceed to MAKE IT WORSE. BY GIVING HIM A TROPE ENEMA. Seriously, you have to put EFFORT into making something suck that bad.
*done now*
I would buy advance tickets for a Nick Fury: Agent Of Shield movie set in the cold war!
You'd have to fight me for space through the doorway into the theater. That would be the baddest of ass.
I'm still pretty sure Ant Man was supposed to be a Ben Stiller movie.
That would be about the only way to make it any worse…Still angry…fucking ant man…
Well, it was supposed to be an Edgar Wright movie, and he did most of it before dropping out. It was plagued by some production problems, and the final product was probably less zany than Wright's version would have been, even though Wright did a fair chunk of it.
It was never supposed to be a standard MCU movie.
See below. Why does Marvel care so much about what character Edgar Wright is really in love with, rather than some other director? That's the stage of things where bias really creeps in.
Like I said, I watched Ant Man on an airplane. It was fine enough, I guess. But to me it looks like they invested a lot of resources in a character who didn't really bring anything new to the franchise. Iron Man started it all. Thor and Captain America rounded it out by bringing a couple new subgenres to it. By that point, though, I think it's time to ask whether it's time to put the spotlight on someone who's actually different. And I don't think that the fact that the director of Scott Pilgrim and Shaun of the Dead loves a character is a sufficient answer. I'm guessing half the directors in Hollywood have a Marvel character who they think would make a great movie.
I think they were still doing that "different genre with superheroes" thing. Ant Man was, when you get right down to it, a movie about a retired thief who gets called back for One Last Job.
I can see that in concept, though I found it to be less strikingly different than some other movies as made. I mostly just question why that and why him. They don't need to do a dozen different genres of white guys. You can do a different genre starring someone who's also different. I mean, I certainly hope Ms. Marvel is its own thing and the theme isn't, "This is the one about the female character."
I'm equally thrilled to get a Carol Danvers movie while at the same time pretty sure it's only happening because she's white as white can be with blonde hair and blue eyes and conventionally attractive in a skin-tight uniform.
I love her, don't get me wrong, but Ms. Marvel would be a way more interesting movie for me if it was Kamala Khan and not Carol Danvers. But that's NEVER going to happen, because a Muslim superhero, CLUTCH ALL THE PEARLS, GO BUY MORE PEARLS TO CLUTCH.
Or if it did happen, it'd be "for" teenage girls and get the Jem (mis)treatment.
That would be truly outrageous.
Yeah, not saying it was done well or that is was needed but I can see where, deep down, it was supposed to be The Caper Movie. The same way GotG was The Space Movie and Winter Soldier was The Espionage Thriler.
Replace dude with Parker from Leverage, caper complete!
<3
We'd have much better movies if more of them replaced random dudes with Parker.
Can you imagine? I need someone with amazing video editing skills to just do that and see how great it would make some otherwise bland movies.
Of allllll the supers, they pick the dude who IN CANON, hit his wife. They solved the uncomfortable problem of this in the movie by FRIDGING JANET VAN DYNE, FOUNDING MEMBER OF THE AVENGERS, WHO NAMED THE TEAM. Who was, incidentally, the only reason I had planned to ever watch the movie. Guess what I've never seen and never will!
#FuckAntMan
Except these aren't the comics, it's not this Ant-Man, and the movie itself was pretty good as more of a fun continuity light romp.
I don't really get the hate for Ant-Man the movie at all.
So, I've never read the comics, but I still loathe Ant-Man, and the character's history in the comics just makes it worse. My problem with the movie is that it is explicitly CALLED OUT in the movie that this really should be a movie with a female protagonist. The only way to make this movie about a guy is to have a dad override his adult daughter's desire to be a person with agency and risk the entire operation on an untrained criminal.
The bit at the end doesn't change the fact that in any just universe, this is a movie with a female protagonist, and not only did they decide to actively write a script that says, "Yeah, should be a female protagonist, but I guess fuck you?" they also didn't include any other female characters with agency.
I have lots of angry feelings about the movie.
And the way the minority characters got increasingly more cartoonish as the movie went on really, really, really, really didn't help.
I don't really get the hate for Ant-Man the movie at all.
Because it's not happening in a vacuum is why.
Like I said, if this had been its own separate thing, I probably would've seen it by now, and enjoyed it.
But…eighteen movies before one lead by a non-white protagonist. Twenty movies before one lead by a female protagonist.
We're just…tired, is the thing. Nothing about Ant-Man seems all that unique, or particularly vital to the MCU in a way that couldn't have been worked to include another character instead.
And remember, every time fans started asking, "So, where's our Black Widow movie?" the response has always been that there's this big, set-in-stone story-arc that they've all got planned out…which doesn't include a Black Widow movie. Which doesn't include a Captain Marvel movie for almost a decade. Which…well, it's pretty much all about white guys, with some color thrown in for support.
It's not like they're twirling their evil moustaches an d cackling with glee or anything. It's just that it shows their priority pretty clearly. It shows what they default to, and how they don't seem all that inclined to break away from the default.
So really, to everyone just sort of being told to wait our turn, Ant-Man just looks like yet another story of a wise-cracking white-dude who becomes an unlikely hero.
Also, honestly, I haven't really seen anything that explains why Hope couldn't've been the protagonist anyway. I dunno, maybe when I watch it, it'll make sense, but I'm just not eager to see yet another Designated Female Character in the Professor's Daughter love interest role.
The real reason there hasn't been a Black Widow movie, but also why there's not reason to not do a movie with one of the Marvels (Capt or Ms) is that Scarlett Johannson costs a lot more than Disney/Marvel is in the habit of paying their leads. Even RDJ, the only big name with a starring solo is relatively cheap because he has a few days of shooting and any time he's in the suit, he's voice acting for a double. Widow doesn't wear CGI armor or even a mask.
I'll give them Black Widow, presuming Scarlett's contract is up (is it, though?).
But, yeah, there must be a line of blonde actresses who'd like to be in a franchise movie. I don't know that there are a lot of established actresses who'd be appropriate for Ms. Marvel, but it's not as if Marvel has never cast unknowns before.
The fact that we're getting Lucy 2 and a possible Ghost in the Shell movie before a Black Widow movie has to be some sort of crime.
The fact that they're casting a white woman as the lead in "Ghost in the Shell" is appallingly racist.
I'm just. . .I love GitS, I like Scarlet. . .but just no! Bad studio! BAAAAAAAD!
Mmmhm.
Unknowns are what they want. They can sign them for Your Character (episodes 1, 2 and 3) and three Avengers movies all at once and lock them in at their unknown salary for the better part of a decade. Ms Marvel, sadly, must come after Captain Marvel so they can establish the connection but there's no reason Carol couldn't go in for a script write tomorrow and be ready to make a guest appearance in GotG2.
Hank Pym may not be the "active" Ant-Man, but he's the person who's the driving force behind the movie, Janet Van Dyne is still fridged, and they first invented, then Trinity-ed Hope Van Dyne. The only other female characters in the film exist to be obstructive or cute. Scott Lang may meet minimum requirements for a decent human being (maybe, haven't seen it), but they still sidelined one woman and put another out of commission for him to be where he is.
And also see above arguments.
I am really, really angry that Janet didn't get the chance to be an actual character.
Oof, I hate Trinitying. I really really do. Like, even movies poking fun at it (like the Lego movie) still get on my nerves.
Let's try and go, say…five years without doing that (but still having dynamic female characters).
Were they poking fun of it in the Lego movie? I thought they were just… doing it.
Don't get me wrong, I love the Lego movie!
Eh…yeah, you're right.
They were poking fun at the idea of a Chosen One, but at the end of the day, it's all still solved by the awesome and highly-trained female character being all like, "I believe in you, Generic Male Everydude!"
Heh, yeah. I still really love that movie, though! I think I accept the generic male everydude because he's so generic it's sad, and also that it's a kid's story that's roleplaying his own relationship with his dad.
Or something.
Business business business, numbers!
That article was fascinating, and now that I've read it, I've seen it happen elsewhere.
(That being said, I disagree about Mako Mori. Whatever the outcome of individual fight scenes was, that movie was more about her story arc than Raleigh's, and I think she passes all of the tests proposed toward the end.)
I'm with you on Mako Mori – there's some different factors there that I think the writer's missing.
Yeah, on thinking about it a second more, I think that I read even the scene mentioned differently than the article. I think of Last Breath Bullet as a male action hero trope, whether it ends in a heroic death or in one of the hero's teammates saving him. I don't think it's the same thing as Save the Princess, and I think Mako's part could have worked quite easily if played by a man.
The Pacific Rim fandom made me love that movie EVEN MORE because it helped me solidify a lot of thoughts and feelings about Mako and the movie in general.
To the point where I am almost willing to stop yelling AIR DENSITY DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY during a specific scene. Or ask why a genetically-engineered creature was pregnant. Or how they could be knee-deep in water but still manage to submerge bodies when needed. Y'know. Monster movie physics.
*jazzhands* Kaiju film!
I'm way more forgiving of it than most WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY movies!
Robot Jocks is my all-time favourite giant robots fight stuff movie, Pacific Rim slots in very nicely beside it.
Heheheh.
MY ROBOT IS ANALOG
My nuclear robot with high rez holographic readouts is analog!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmDVHs-juPo
I was trying really hard not to scream at the screen "the word you want is optical! Fiber optic circuits instead of electric!"
*nods* Especially since that basically did happen to a dude earlier in the film with…Dad!Australian leaving Son!Australian behind. (I have such a hard time telling the sandy-brown-haired white guys in that film apart.)
I love that they express their emotions for each other through the dog.
I just
*sniffle*
I'm sorry, I found them really boring, actually. The dog was fine, the guys were…tedious.
I was super sad when the Russians and the Chinese triplets got bumped off. They were my favorites.
I loved the Russians, loved loved loved, and yes! Basically all the Jaeger pilots were pretty cool for me.
Oh, it's totally her arc. Raleigh's already had his arc at the beginning. He's not broken and in need of healing. He doesn't have to make an emotional turn-around or learn to believe in himself. But Mako does both of those things.
Marvel has legal reasons they need to be careful with the X-Men, and I'm not sure they have the rights to do the film version of Miles Morales (I know they've only recently secured it for Peter Parker).
That being said, I entirely agree that there were a number of other characters they could have gone with. Hell, if you want to make it easy, they could have moved Black Panther up a few years on the schedule.
(Ant Man didn't annoy me as much as you guys, but along with Iron Man 3, it's the only MCU movie I didn't bother to see in the theater. My not being too annoyed by it may have in part been because I watched it on a 9 hour flight, after Wolf Hall had exhausted my patience with various Tudors.)
I didn't even know they're doing him. I'll take it though. However, given their track record I fear the first female lead they go with is going to be squirrel girl…
It's out in 2018, directed by Ryan Coogler, who also did Fruitville Station and Creed.
2019 will also see Captain Marvel's release…though it will be preceded by a few months in late 2018 by something called Ant Man and the Wasp (sorry, guys).
I would love to see Squirrel Girl on film, though. I think that like, but totally unlike Deadpool, she taps into a vibe you don't always get from superhero movies. Ms. Marvel would be a good choice, too, given how popular she is.
They greenlit a sequel for ant man? Fuck me.Also, seriously, can we get a Terry Crews Luke Cage? Please Marvel execs? Pretty please?
Didn't they already cast Luke Cage for Jessica Jones and then his own Netflix show, though…? I rather liked the actor who played the part. (Sorry if I'm crushing your MCU dreams tonight.)
I don't watch Jessica Jones, so I wouldn't know…and stop crushing my dreams! They're the only things that give me hope for the future!
Okay, okay. I'll be nice, at least for a limited period of time!
*sniff* My dreams…they're in shards on the floor…
Oh, yeah, I saw. I was sort of planning on making an Ant Man themed collage of them and selling it on Etsy. Would that, uh, not be okay?
No, no it wouldn't…you'd lacerate yourself on the hatred-sharpened edges anyway…
I really wanted to to be Isaiah Mustafa. Y'know, the Old Spice Guy (the other one–the "Hello, Ladies" one), ever since he said that was his dream role in an interview.
That would've worked too. The reason I mentioned Terry Crews is that the first I eve saw Luke Cage was in a Spider Man game and he was drawn as a huge, extremely muscley guy, so that's the image that's always stuck with me and Crews is obviously huge and muscley (you could grind meat on his abs…)Now that I think about it, Isaiah would also make a good Blade, along with Idril Elba. Wesley Snipes was good, don't get me wrong, but I think the writing in the second and especially the third movie kind of ruined things a bit.
Yeah, Mustafa is pretty but not, like, excessively muscled.
The guy they cast for Jessica Jones looks pretty good to me, though.
I confess to absolutely loving those Old Spice commercials. I would totally see a movie that had him as the lead. Perfect timing and just the right amount of "this is clearly ridiculous, but I will act as if it is serious business."
You should absolutely 10000% watch Jessica Jones.
"Hell, if you want to make it easy, they could have moved Black Panther up a few years on the schedule. "
*laughs hollowly*
I am quite frankly amazed TPTB agreed to do that this century, no matter how much money Fruitvale Station and Creed made. (I'm not even sure it won't yet get cancelled, no matter how much fan anticipation it's garnered already.) Let's not forget that the only award nominations for Oscar or Golden Globe for Creed were all white (Stallone for Best Supporting Actor for both awards, and the screenwriters). Nobody else got a nod. Not the lead actor, not the lead actress, not the director — and nobody else from cast or crew was invited to the Oscar party either, even though creatives from the film were nominated.
Like I said in a different way to Rob about the Bechdel (sp?) test, it took me a long time to realize that implicit biases were going to trump anything else, even short-term (and possibly longer) financial gain. (And it was a sad, bad day when it did sink in.) But the reason it happens is because those biases support the status quo and the hierarchical structure determining who gets the most money to buttress power retention over the long-term, and they're not going to give that up for anything. Not without a long sustained fight.
Sorry in advance, because this does trigger my pedantry tendencies. Creed didn't get nominated for Best Screenplay at the Oscars or Golden Globes, only Stallone did. However, this pedantry does actually enforce your point, because if Creed had got nominated for Best Screenplay, a black man would have been nominated. You might be thinking of Straight Outta Compton, which only was nominated for Screenplay and is where the writers were all white.
"Sorry in advance, because this does trigger my pedantry tendencies."
Then how about you read the linked article *first* next time? Because for all you know, it could just be a typo.
🙂
You are right about this comment – I didn’t proofread here, because I’ve been talking about this for *months*, so that’s on me – but not about the article in the link (I’m guessing you didn’t get to that, maybe?), where I did make the distinction you reference.
I did mean the Straight Outta Compton screenwriters, but you’re also right that that doesn’t negate the point, as no one from the movie BUT the screenwriters was invited to the Oscar party … and those exclusions don’t happen with other movies.
Everyone from Spotlight was invited, even though everyone in the cast wasn’t nominated for an individual award.
Same for Birdman, last year.
And those are just two examples off the top of my head.
Well, even though it would likely be a typo, even reading the article, I still would've pointed it out, since it's an unintended conflation of both film's nominations. My apologies for not reading the link. I just thought it would only focus on a separate point about who was or wasn't invited to the Oscar party, which I felt willing to accept on face value, and didn't think I needed to check it for my nomination point.
I definitely don't intend my corrections to undermine your point. I agree wholeheartedly with what you're saying. Just, I'm someone who nerds out on these sorts of facts, so I just wanted to say something. Plus, I also wanted to make sure that it was known that there was a POC involved with the writing of Creed which, if you read the post like I did, might be unclear.
I don't think you realize who owns the rights to what and what movies they're doing.
A lot of the properties you mention are tied up with Netflix or Fox.
Ant-Man got the greenlight because Edgar Wright really liked him and wanted to do a movie with him. However, he walked because he didn't like the Falcon cameo….which is one of the dumbest reasons to walk when working on a shared universe production.
Also, the reason they wanted the cameo was because it was taking Wright so long to make the movie that they had already had multiple hits (Ant-Man was sold before Avengers was a hit) and they, rightly, decided they should pull the movie closer into the MCU.
Janet is pretty clearly alive in the microverse, and Hope if co-heading the second Ant-Man and Wasp movie which may well deal with getting her mother back, which unfridges the character.
End of the day is wasn't a great movie, but none of the MCU movies besides Winter Soldier have actually been great movies, and I'm far more annoyed at how bad Age of Ultron was from a filmmaking standpoint, and why I'm happy the Russo Brothers are taking over Avengers and that Joss is gone.
Ah, I didn't know any of that, thank you.I have to quibble a little with the part about none of the MCU movies aside from winter soldier being great, I liked them all a lot, but as I said my taste in movies isn't that great and I deliberately don't look into things like cinematography or filmmaking principles because I don't want to spoil what is (for me) cheap, easy entertainment. As for Joss…eh, I don't have a strong opinion on him one way or the other. Basically, as long as a movie entertained me I'm happy with it.
Ant-Man got the greenlight because Edgar Wright really liked him and wanted to do a movie with him
Honestly, I get the reasons it was made, just like I get the reason most of the new Star Wars merch focuses on Kylo Ren and not, y'know, either of the protagonists.
But it's still kind of total weaksauce. After Iron Man's success, they went into this with the full intention of building a shared 'verse with multiple characters. But they never made a female hero a priority.
Like I said, if AntMan had happened on its own, it wouldn't be so frustrating. But honestly, the fact that it's what they went with–and the way they went about it–is just…tiresome. Yay, Wasp in the second movie (yay, the first female character to headline a movie has to share the title with a guy), and yay maybe the mother gets unfridged in the sequel or whatever, but it's still just…
It still just smacks of "you have to wait your turn."
And the knowledge that after "your turn" they'll dust off their hands and call it a job well done. Somewhere between eighteen and twenty movies before one starring a female lead (depending on how you want to count), and I think we all know that there won't be an additional female lead in Phase 4.
You know what really infuriates me about their thinking, too?
They'll put together a female-centric movie, and they'll think, "Eh, it's niche, it won't get the same interest" and they'll put in things "to attract women", since they're trying to pursue "a different audience from the other movies", and they'll spend less because it won't have as wide appeal, and then when it doesn't do as well, they'll say, "See? We were right!" instead of recognizing the self-fulfilling prophecy of it.
I won't lie, I am really worried that the Captain Marvel movie is gonna lean heavy on "girl power," instead of just letting her be a superhero without having to make a point about it, y'know?
The video game industry does the same thing. We spend 10x more on marketing when it's a male-led franchise, then turn around and say games with women as protagonists don't sell.
If the character is customizable (Mass Effect? Dragon Age?) they're defaulted to a white dude.
I think part of the problem, and this was a MAJOR problem with the movie, is that Edgar Wright REALLY loved the character and snagged him up when Marvel was plotting the first wave movie; Captain American: TFA, Iron Man 1, Thor 1, etc.
Then he put it on the shelf and went and did other things.
Would it have been better if people didn't have the expectations of other MCU movies to compare it to? IDK, but I do know that production suffered badly for being sort of tinkered with for so long, actors were attached and left when it was clear Wright was doing other things, and then Wright came back and decided to make it and this thing called Avengers and Phase 2 was happening, and suddenly doing just some random one-off wasn't a great idea and they needed to at least nod towards to the existing properties and set up the next movie with the Falcon cameo, which Wright didn't like and left the production over.
As a movie that would have been a fun, sort of geeky romp without needing or wanting people to know about the Pym difficulties that came out ahead of the other films? It could have been just a fun romp, but letting it sit didn't do it any favours, and then having the director who had a very clear "Scott Pilgrim" like vision of it, leave the film and not edit the film was the final nail.
Could Wright have brought enough silliness to it to redeem it? IDK, but literally nothing in the production helped, and there was talk of Marvel actually canceling the movie at several points, but besides wanting to at least break even, having a flop with one of their Phase 1 movies could have hurt them going forward.
It's pretty much bog standard but it had a few nice set pieces, but honestly it probably shouldn't have gotten the green light to begin with, and if not for Wright it wouldn't have.
In terms of a women headlining the film….I didn't think that was Adam's complaint, but they sort of screwed themselves by not leaving production time in to knock out a Black Widow movie.
Especially the way they contracted Scarlett to certain movies and didn't leave room in her production schedule.
OTOH, this is the same company that did Jessica Jones through Netflix and has Captain Marvel on tap, and according to the GoTG screenwriter had Captain Marvel in the batch for Phase 2 but the script just never came together.
I didn't think an Ant-Man movie would get made, nevermind a Wasp movie, so I can't blame them got putting the two together in order to build the brand on that set of movies.
I'm hoping that we see the next few sets really up the diversity game, especially as we start replacing heroes (actors) whose contracts run out.
I don't have any personal dislike for Ant Man, but this…"Edgar Wright REALLY loved the character and snagged him up when Marvel was plotting the first wave movie;"…this is what I think is at the heart of a lot of underrepresentation in movies and TV shows.
Because, why does Kevin Feige care so much about which characters Edgar Wright is in love with? He's just a director, and Marvel goes through those like Kleenex. His most recent high profile film was financially unsuccessful (and also, personal opinion, dreadful). So, why does Marvel care so much about his vision that they let him pick a character and get an independent franchise to build around? Ryan Coogler didn't get to do that – he was hired after they decided on Black Panther. And it's not like anyone was asking Ava DuVernay or Sam Taylor-Johnson or Catherine Hardwicke who their favorite superhero was. Hell, even though James Gunn loves Squirrel Girl and should have more street cred than most with Feige, I'm not seeing a movie with her on the schedule.
They are working on diversity. Now, after people have spent years complaining about it. Now, when DC (which got started on a shared cinematic universe much later) will have a movie starring a woman out before they do and a movie starring a man of color out a few months after. And, while there is the Netflix stuff and the later wave of movies, it can't help but feel that women and people of color are getting pushed to the smaller platform and left to hold up the cinematic universe when there's some risk interest in superhero movies has begin to wane. If people don't go to Captain Marvel in droves, there will be an easy explanation besides, "Well, audiences who aren't comic book fans have had a decade of these stories."
That's not to say Marvel is malicious, but I also don't think the people who whitewash fantasy epics set in Egypt or who don't bother to check whether the female characters in movies bother to talk to each other are malicious.
left to hold up the cinematic universe when there's some risk interest in superhero movies has begin to wane.
That's a BIG thing that I'm worried about.
I mean, hell, the shine came pretty hard off the apple what with Civil War. I'm not 11% certain Marvel will even properly make it to Phase 4, or that they'll be putting in the kind of craft and effort that come in Phase 1 & 2.
And yes to your last paragraph. It's not that they're malicious. It's not that they're making a conscious effort to keep their playground white and male. It's just that there's so little effort to move away from that.
"Because, why does Kevin Feige care so much about which characters Edgar Wright is in love with? He's just a director, and Marvel goes through those like Kleenex"
In this case it was one of the first directors brought on, and Marvel had no idea how to make a hit, or that their movies were going to be hits. So letting Wright just do his thing probably seemed like a good idea at the time.
I'm not wild about Ant-Man, but it's a perfectly serviceable movie.
I understand all the complaints about it, but it's a weird relic that probably shouldn't have gotten made, and it's an example of just how little Marvel knew about making movies when they started.
I sort of suspect some of it was a bone to Disney in that it's a quirky character who they could do something with and they were hoping Wright would bring in the older nerd crowd.
I don't disagree with the criticisms, I just didn't mind it that much as a movie, separate from the other issues.
In terms of the criticisms I have a lot more reserved for how Black Widow was used in Age of Ultron and some of the choices made there, especially after how well she was used in Winter Soldier.
It's not as if any of the Marvel movies have really been great about diversity, but I'm sort of hoping that changes with the next Phase of movies and characters like Negasonic Teenage Warhead are the breakout stars of things like Deadpool (yeah, Sony, but you can bet Marvel is paying attention to those movies and what works and what doesn't).
Again, though, why?. I mean, I'm going to hammer on that because I do think it matters. Why did Marvel decide that the director of a highly successful indie film, a modestly successful movie based on a highly recognizable property, and a flop that was supposed to work for mainstream audiences but didn't was their guy – so much so that they let him pick which hero he was crazy about?
Marvel very likely didn't know what they were doing at that point, but I think what they did when they didn't know is probably pretty representative of how Hollywood thinks: they hired a bunch of white dudes to write and direct movies about white men and hoped what they threw to the wall stuck. And what they got in this case was merely serviceable. I mean, can you see why people who are frustrated with the way the process systematically works to exclude women and people of color might find Ant Man to be representative of what's not working about how movies are made?
I have plenty of criticisms of how Black Widow was handled in Age of Ultron, though most of mine would have been easily tempered if she wasn't the only female headliner in the series. She's had to carry the weight of being The Girl for way too long. And I'm not super convinced that Marvel did much to change that when it was pointed out years ago. As for the future…eh, I guess? But my concern is that while superhero movies never go completely out of style, that nothing is dominant in the way superhero movies are forever. Marvel had a chance to actually do something different, and I think they've probably waited until too late for it to make any real impact with people who weren't already huge fans of Captain Marvel, Black Panther, or the character who isn't a white man who they'll be introducing in 2030 when the phases finally get around to that again.
OTOH, this is the same company that did Jessica Jones through Netflix and has Captain Marvel on tap, and according to the GoTG screenwriter had Captain Marvel in the batch for Phase 2 but the script just never came together.
…
-.-
This is my "unimpressed-bordering-on-angry" face.
Firstly, look, let's just forget the Netflic/NBC stuff, okay? Let's just stop throwing that out as "Wait, wait, there's some representation here! Skye is half-Chinese!" The tv shows aren't the movies. They aren't what markets to kids. They aren't the thing with the huge merchandise push behind them. They're extra. They're lagniappe. They're nice, sure. But they're not what we're talking about here.
We're talking about the movies.
Of which there will be twenty by the time Carol makes her appearance.
So don't hold Captain Marvel's movie up like it's supposed to be placating. It's literally the very least they could do, and it's coming a decade into this whole thing. We literally have to wait ten years to see a Marvel movie starring a woman. (We may've had to wait longer for Star Wars to do the same, but heck, at least they got there by #7.)
And while we're talking about that, let's not forget that this is the same company who pushed back her movie–after wringing their hands about how the schedule was set in stone and couldn't possibly work in a Black Widow movie or an earlier female-lead movie–so they could give us a Spider-man movie.
…
Starring Peter Parker.
Because oh boy, if there was one thing we've been missing in the cinema, it's Peter-freaking-Parker.
Like, heck, they couldn't even shake it up enough to be able Miles Morales, even though there's really no reason Miles couldn't fill exactly the same narrative function Peter would.
Nope. Boy howdy, I cannot wait for the third Spider-man reboot since I graduated high school.
Oh, and she got pushed back again for Ant-Man 2. Let's not kid ourselves–the only reason Wasp has second billing there is because they knew they were trying to ease that move. It's still gonna be Ant-Man's movie, Wasp working support.
And yeah, we might get a Captain Marvel 2, but I wouldn't hold my breathe for there to be a second female show-runner.
Yeah, we're all hoping the next few "set up the diversity game," but it's still frustrating to basically be told "wait your turn."
Yeah, I'm not actually arguing that at all, just that here we are and Marvel shot themselves in the foot by not having any slack in their production schedule.
And, like I said elsewhere, I don't think the existing Marvel movies really did great jobs with diversity, so it's hard for me to get THAT mad at Ant-Man for having the same problems.
I'm hopeful that Marvel is learning but Hollywood itself hasn't been great at learning either. My hope is that the diversity we're now seeing in the comics will float up to the movies, and that it'll be done well, but it remains to be seen, and the track record isn't exactly great.
not having any slack in their production schedule.
No.
No, that's still just not the thing.
Firstly, because as we've seen, they did have slack in their production schedule–they squeezed in at least two movies.
But more importantly, because it wouldn't matter if they didn't have slack, if they'd just thought about having women/PoC leads in the first place.
Like, I'll give 'em Cap, Thor, and Iron Man. But after that, once they had an idea of the franchise they were building, at least one person should've said, "Hey, what if one of the new movies had a female hero?"
It's a matter of priorities. And we've seen what takes priority for them. (Spider-man and Ant Man 2, among other things.)
I don't think the existing Marvel movies really did great jobs with diversity
That's kind of the point.
I mean, like I said, on its own, I probably wouldn't have a problem with Ant Man. But it's not on its own. It's the latest in a line of this.
I mean, heck, if you think I'm grumpy about Ant Man (and really, that's all I am–grumpy, kinda irritated/tired. Not super-worked up), you should see me on Dr. Strange, because hooooo boy, they had a golden opportunity to fix that origin mess, and they slammed the NOPE button.
(Also, have you seen the mock-up of Oscar Isaac as Dr. Strange? WE WERE DEPRIVED, I TELL YA!)
I had no idea Oscar Issac was a possible for Dr Strange!!!
Spider-Man is at Sony, unless I'm missing what you're saying, which is entirely possibly. Ant-Man and Wasp is fair. Although I though that was more because they had a cast ready to go.
Regardless, I'd rather see a Wasp solo movie about her going after her mother, but there's no way that was in the cards.
I think you think I'm making excuses when I'm saying this is what Hollywood does, and I'm probably too cynical to be surprised or angry anymore, whether it's the whitewashing of Romany-Jews with Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver or failing to use Black Widow properly or failing to get even one female lead movie out before Phase 4, or allowing a PoC in any role but sidekick.
Honestly, I have no idea if he was or not, it was just a fan thing.
But casting a non-white actor would have gone a long way towards fixing the whole "mighty whitey goes to the mystical orient and learns their secret ways" trope that is at the heart of Dr. Strange. There've been any number of lists floating around, but who knows which, if any, of them are accurate. Marvel was only ever going to cast a white dude for the role. They've just "fixed" it by making his teacher white too. Yay. (They also went with, imho, one of the more dull popular actors. I think we can all imagine BC's Doctor Strange for ourselves without even seeing the film.)
Oh, I'm no longer surprised (okay, I was just a teensy bit surprised that they went, "Hm, what should we do with these historically Romany-Jewish characters? I know! Make 'em work for the Nazis!"), but I've still got a lot of frustration in me.
It's a banked fire, but always ready to go.
"Honestly, I have no idea if he was or not, it was just a fan thing."
Off to the Google-machine!
""Hm, what should we do with these historically Romany-Jewish characters? I know! Make 'em work for the Nazis!""
Yeah, I am conflicted about that because I have strong feelings about Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. Namely that their Jewishness (before the retcon that Magneto isn't their father) has NEVER been a thing in the MU, and secondly that I could do without a bog-standard Romany "Witch" in this day and age.
There's things I'll give passes to, like Buffy and Angel because it was a different time and the curse made sense, but if I never see a like like Constantine's "Gypsy magic is the darkest of magics" or a Romany witch or warlock again I'm okay.
And I know she's just a mutant, which somehow makes it worse, because that just means he only connection is artists randomly sticking her in what they think "Gypsy's clothes" look like.
I love you George Perez but that outfit you gave her was awful.
Also, there were some really uncomfortable discussions where I realized that a lot of people have very stereotyped views of what a Romany person looks like that was downright uncomfortable for me to read.
There's your problem. George Perez may be great at most things – not the least of which being absurdly huge crowds – but he is a shit costume designer, period.
It looked like he picked the outfit that Cher decided was too on the nose for "Gypsie, Thieves, Tramps".
SPE owns the Spider-Man rights to solo Spider-Man movies and the income generated, but Marvel now has rights to Spider-Man-in-Avengersverse movies. It's weird but it's also fairly amicable (Marvel's not paying for these rights) and any Spider-Man movie is going to put money in both studio pockets, keeping hype up for the character.
Because let's face it, kids love Spider-Man and want a yearly movie, and Marvel's not at the point where they can do annual titles with single main characters or casts. It's why Avengers has so much potential because Avengers eventually became "whoever can show up to fight this thing" after a point, so they can have an annual Avengers movie with a rotating cast.
I would have been happy with Oscar Isaac. Dr. Strange is another one I'm nope-ing out of, because too white all around. Fun fact, Tilda Swinton? NOT TIBETAN.
But—but they totally made the Ancient One a woman!
I mean, okay, not, y'know, an Asian woman. Like, literally the whitest of women. But, y'know. Representation, right???
The cynic in me says that was a deliberate choice. That they were probably trying to fix the White Dude In Mystical Orient problem, but the only way they could suss out to do that was to just…take the Asians out to avoid "Asian Stereotype." siiiigh.
Here's a mock-up of Oscar Isaac as Dr. Strange
Mmmmhm. Women of color in the MCU? Blasphemy…
Yeah, I've seen that, it's pretty great. I'm pretty sick of BC in everything, frankly.
Ant-Man could have been flipped to Wasp SO EASILY. Flip the roles.
Wasp's son wants to be the new Wasp but she's still heartbroken, even though that's a pretty bad reason to be telling your grown-ass kid not to do things (and to fake a relationship with the bad guy because that's TOTALLY safe to be doing, WHAT).
They wind up hiring a woman who is an unlikely hero and allergic to beestings so we can have a learning moment about bees vs wasps.
Entire film remains UNCHANGED except you have to learn about paper wasps instead of fire ants.
As a minor other bonus, Wasp is a much less stupid name for a movie than Ant-Man. I can't imagine anyone who is not already a die-hard superhero fan saying "Let's go see a movie tonight. How about that Ant-Man that just came out?"
Here's the thing:
There's always a logical reason.
There's always a logical reason for everything.
"We make Star Wars toys without Rey because boys are more susceptible to advertising so we can make more money."
"We cast white actors in Gods of Egypt because we needed big-name actors to make money, and there aren't enough Egyptian actors we can use."
"We don't put black cowboys in our western because even though it's historically accurate, people won't think it was, and it will throw them out of the movie."
"We changed Stonewall to put a white cis man at the center instead of a black trans woman because it makes the movie more accessible."
But when the overwhelming majority of those "logical" choices go in one direction, and it's away from diversity and inclusiveness and woman-friendliness, then we have to start calling bullshit, and in this particular case it was just so BLATANT that the movie served as a fulcrum for the anger women have been feeling.
"We cast white actors in Gods of Egypt because we needed big-name actors to make money, and there aren't enough Egyptian actors we can use."
Alex Proyas actually apologized for that, which kind of made me laugh semi-hysterically, because I was like "How about using a diverse cast the first time, since you're apparently aware it's the right thing to do — and then you wont' have to apologize at all afterward! See how that works?"
(And that with a side order of "Alex, I would also have taken you for one who knew better" — as well as "You could've cast straight out of your own country if you'd bothered to ask SGA-nominated Remi Malek who his actor friends were who might be interested in an audition. Just for starters.")
ETA: And now, according to the Guardian, he's calling some of the critical press "vultures", LOLsigh. Did you think the fauxpology was going to both wipe the slate clean *and* let you off the hook for letting that script get out of development without a rewrite, Alex?
*smh*
One of the reasons why the Star Wars merch focuses on Kylo Ren and not Rey is because Disney intentionally told the toymakers to do so. They did not want to market a "girl hero" in the movie. It's also why Black Widow is missing from all Avengers-branded stuff, Gamora was missing from all Guardians of the Galaxy stuff.
Disney wants their stores very clearly delineated, pink princesses for girls, black and blue action figures for boys. If you've ever been in one it's… gross.
…so, Disney may have done that, but I can guarantee you Hasbro would have done it anyway. (I have an insider there, who talks about the marketing research they have done, and it's horrifying.)
Yeah, I've heard bad thing about toy marketing even when they're marketing for a work where the creators would love to see the female characters merchandised.
It's gross at all levels, I just felt EVEN MORE GROSS that it was coming from the same people making money hand over fist because of this movie and its characters, but would like to pretend that the characters aren't important (except for all the ones that are).
Yeah, what I heard is that TPTB just assumed Kylo Ren was gonna be "the break-out character."
Which is like…um…y'all, did y'all see this movie? Like, I actually like the character, but he's…he's not cool. He's not scary. He's actually kinda pathetic.
Finn, Rey, and Poe on the other hand? Amazing!
It's not just the toys, though–it's the merchandise. I was at Michaels the other day, looking through it, and it's just…so frustrating. Like, the calendar: there are four pictures of Kylo, one, maybe two pictures of Rey (neither are Cool Character Pose), and the only picture of Finn is the one with him and Rey running.
Finn doesn't even get to be on, like, the cup or the blanket. He's only the character who drives the whole story, dangit.
Why represent real people when you can have cute droids?
I mean, I will admit, BB-8 is adorable (and the mouse droid from the original movies made me squeal in the theatre for its 1-second cameo appearance). But I like ALL the characters, plz let me have ALL the characters. It won't warp my fragile little mind to have a black man on my backpack along with a white emo dude.
My sister got me an Avengers birthday card, she went to 5 different stores to find one that included Black Widow in the cast shot, and had to print out and tape on a picture of Hawkeye. Because full cast stuff DOES NOT EXIST. Except one mug I found somewhere that I treasure.
THANK GOODNESS FOR ETSY.
My SO is waiting impatiently for a Captain Phasma figure. I was pleased to find a "Rey and her speeder" toyset at Target the other day and apparently there's going to be one with Rey, Maz Kanata, and a couple other people in.
Nice!
Captain Phasma was such a great surprise for me, as I managed to avoid all spoilers and trailers so went in knowing nothing. It really was a delightful movie.
OK I'll admit, I had tears in my eyes during the opening credits roll AND the closing. So did my mom, who saw the original in theatres and said to me "This is the star wars movie I hoped you'd get to have as kids".
I too avoided the spoilers and trailers to the best of my ability.
I cried about the female X-Wing pilots. That was…that was really lovely to have made canon after all this time. Deleted scenes from e4 (curses!) and expanded universe novels aren't quite the same.
YES YES YES YES YES to this!
I will also admit a tremendous amount of joy when they remastered the original trilogy and added A and B wings, because I am ALL about the A-Wings.
WHO NEEDS BOMBS I CAN GO FAST
Also to General Solo. Not Princess. Not even Mon Mothma-style Senator or Chancellor. General. Because she was still doing what she did best, and that's not "being a princess".
Yesss, General Organa! Actually, I don't remember anyone ever referring to her as "Solo"?
I actually don't remember! I need to see this about 500 more times.
I'm almost certain no one did.
It may be a holdover from me reading all the novels, she's Organa-Solo for a good part of them and their kids are Solos.
It actually really bugs me that fandom keeps figuring on Kylo's original name being "Ben Solo."
I will gloat when someone refers to him in canon as "Ben Organa."
(Also if they bother calling BB-8 "she." I know it's a droid, droids don't need gender, but it would be kinda nice to see one that uses female pronouns without needing to have some kind of tertiary gender designator, like being pink or whatever.)
(Esp. if BB-8's also allowed to be the same kind of snarky shit that Artoo clearly is.)
Oh same. Like, not even hyperbole, there were actual tears in my eyes when we heard Jessika Pava check in with Poe. I was honestly more excited about that than Poe still being alive (and I was plenty excited about that.)
Of course, I cried the first time I saw those deleted stills too. But those weren't happy tears.
I knooow.
Yes, definitely. Like, really, we coulda had this 30 years ago and they left it on the cutting room floor?
Just gonna say again, one of the little things that gave me joy is that none of the new generation protagonists acted like droid slavers.
The thing about Kylo Ren is, last I heard unconfirmed. That aside, no, I don't think they saw the movie. Much like the Mad Max comics were clearly based on a concept, maybe even an early script but definitely not the movie. Production schedules these days don't really allow for the movie to be put in the can, shown to Hasbro, then toys designed, made and released while the film sits around in the can. So they were probably working off of a final-ish script and photos of the actors in costume.
Nah, yeah, I know the folks in merch production probably didn't even have a script to go off of, but it's still just…yeah.
I mean, you can say the Kylo Ren thing is "unconfirmed," but the evidence is that we have masses of Kylo Ren merchandise–not just toys, but specifically Kylo Ren slapped on posters, pens, cups, blankets, thermoses, stickers, etc etc etc. And very very little merch of Rey or Finn.
(I mean, heck, I got a cute sticker sheet awhile back. There's, like, eight or nine Kylo Ren stickers, and two each of Finn and Rey–and Rey's two stickers are the exact same pose, but one of them has her scavenger hoodie up. That's…basically the merchandise in a nutshell.)
So clearly they were banking on Kylo being the Big Thing.
Well they were also intent on MAKING him the Big Thing. It's not like they don't have the ability to make a thing a thing just by saturating the market with it.
My nephew doesn't like Darth Vader but that hasn't stopped people from giving him a ton of Darth Vader stuff, because he likes Star Wars and that's basically all that Disney was selling pre-TFA in the star wars hype leading up to it, so that's what people were giving him.
I mean, I have an x-wing water bottle, but that took some real looking to find.
Exactly.
Like, I am an absolute Star Wars nerd, and TFA has brought that back in spades.
But mostly, I just want stuff with Rey, Finn, or the pilots on it. I want Rebel logos (maybe some tasteful Rebellion earrings?). But everywhere I look is Kylo and sometimes Phasma, who is, y'know, cool and all, but not really visually dynamic enough for me to want gear of her.
(Also, if Snap is getting a Pop figure, then Jessika better get a figure in the same darn wave dangit!)
Yes yes yes!
I think Hot Topic's got some logo-fied stuff, they do okay with pop culture accessories. I've mentioned on occasion I feel like I missed the age it was appropriate for me to shop there (too young when they first opened here, then they disappeared for a while, now I feel old) but all my Ghibli stuff is there…
Yesss, Jessika.
Yeah…some of us want to be the Rebellion/New Republic, thank you.
I swear, that was my question for the entire prequel trilogy. "But isn't he the bad guy? Doesn't he murder thousands of people? Why is he the hero of all of this?"
The bad guys have better masks I guess!
Eh, with the prequel, I think it was a little more in the line of a classical tragedy.
I mean, Macbeth is the bad guy, but we still have a whole play following him.
The frustration of it all is that the prequels could have been really good and compelling. There was one video awhile back where a guy laid out a pitch for a version that was very close to what we got, but with a few key changes that was just so good that it's almost tearfully frustrating that we didn't get something more like that.
Vader's the bad guy, but the triumph of RotJ is his redemption. I'm fine with not actually delving into his backstory, but it's not such a bizarre idea to give him the sort of tragedy that makes you want to see him redeemed.
Kylo, though…look, I just want him redeemed for Leia's sake. She doesn't deserve all this nonsense.
I said in a conversation just last week, that a Kylo redemption arc would be great if instead of being the Great White Heel-Face Turn Savior, his redemption was to join society (ie The Resistance) not as the guy who blows up the second Starkiller or kills Snoke but as Red 13 in Penal Squadron, just another guy on the line doing his part.
Considering how much is cribbed from the original trilogy, I'm guessing he's going to have the Vader redemption where he sacrifices himself helping Rey take out Snoke. I'm not a huge fan of that idea.
The only reason I have even the slightest interest in Darth Emo being redeemed is to make Leia happy. That's it.
Oh yeah, I agree its probably true. I also think there was this complete other movie where The Prettiest Little Sith was more obviously setting up for the heel-face turn and wasn't a force-rapetastic rage ball of a Darth Vader fanboy. Just like I'm fairly sure that in the script phase, Fury Road was much less women-friendly. I'm happy both of them turned out the way that they did. Now it would be nice for that to be done early enough to get all the tie-ins on the same page.
I worked on the Pirates of the Caribbean games and the whole office went to see Dead Man's Chest as we were sim-releasing with the movie… and were pretty shocked to see a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ENDING than in the game. WHOOPS.
My biggest claim to fame is screwing up the dialogue in the 300 PSP game, because I thought there was no way Spartans would say some of those things (like "tuck tail!"). The dangers of working without a script…
Those weren't just any Spartans, they were Frank Miller Spartans! They say things like "freedom isn't free" while running a brutally repressive slave society.
In the PSP game they say things like "Shields up!" and "Form a turtle!" instead of y'know, what they said in the movie. Because I was indignantly certain that Spartans WOULD NOT RUN AWAY.
Apparently the script writers disagreed with me.
Not many people get to point at a thing in a video game quite so directly and say "I made that", but that's one of my shining moments of whoops.
If your biggest whoops is "I tried to present the Spartans as they presented themselves instead of as a metaphor for the Bush administration", I'm not entirely sure that's a whoops. 🙂
"I can guarantee you Hasbro would have done it anyway. (I have an insider there, who talks about the marketing research they have done, and it's horrifying.) "
*nods*
Can confirm.
(Do people forget Hasbro was the one who licensed G.I. Joe & co-produced those movies?)
If that's the case then I'm shocked Lauren Faust was able to do as much with My Little Pony as she was!
Well with a name like Faust, you expect her to be good at making deals. 😀
And they still keep doing weird things. Like Celestia has to be "Princess Celestia," not "Queen." And her toy was pink, even though she's very clearly white in the show.
They've gone full-blown pink pony with Princess Cadence, whom I enjoy anyhow — interestingly, her husband is NOT Prince Shining Armour because he… hasn't earned wings. Because royalty is a meritocracy in ponyville. I don't even?
King Sombra and Queen Chrysalis were things though! But they're evil. So maybe um, only evil people get to be full monarchs.
That's generally the perception–not always with kings, but Queens are Evil in fairytales, etc.
I think I saw that come up in one of the Nostalgia Critic's videos.
EDIT: I think it was this one.
I…still haven't seen it.
I mean, a big part of that is that shortly after it came out, we had our theater shooting. (My buddy and his girlfriend were actually on their way to go see Antman and had just been running late, so that's how I found out–him calling me to tell me they were okay.)
But…yeah. It seems like… Like, I think I would/could actually enjoy the movie on its own if it existed in a vacuum, but then I think of how it will take 18 movies for a non-white protagonist, and TWENTY FREAKING MOVIES for a female protagonist, and I just get tired. Like, just tired and angry and irritated. Because it might not even be a bad movie. I love heist-type movies and all. But this is what they felt took precedence over telling a woman's story?
Once again I plug Storm.
I mean, I know they don't have access to her. But they did have access to Captain Marvel. And the other Captain Marvel (no lie, I enjoyed GotG, but if we could only get one "wacky team of irreverent misfits" movie from Marvel, I would've liked Nextwave). They have Black Widow.
Hell, they could've just made it a Wasp movie straight up, and let Ant-Man be the guy who comes in at the end for the sequel. Wouldn't that have been wacky? A dude who has to piggy-back on a woman's movie to get a credit?
Yeah, I'm not going to criticize them on the X-Men stuff. That's the result of contracts signed long before the MCU took off. That being said, one of the benefits of a comic book universe is that there are loads of characters to choose from. They haven't even used many of their A-listers, and I think Marvel has shown that they can make hits out of even characters who don't currently have huge followings.
Yeah. Like, okay, I have a hard time listing female Marvel characters who aren't X-men (especially compared to DC where I can just rattle them off for an hour or whatever), but it's not like GotG was well-known, even in the comic world. Heck, it's not like anyone not reading comics cared about Iron Man or Ant Man before the movies either.
I'll admit I don't have a huge list, but mine would start with Ms. Marvel and include Squirrel Girl and She-Hulk. Hellcat is presumably going to be part of the Netflix universe. It looks like they're doing Inhumans at some point. It would be nice if they took advantage of the female characters there.
There are also plenty of female villains, and I would like to start seeing some of those at some point as well.
I was all excited when Marvel released some novels aimed at women, the She-Hulk Diaries and Rogue something something.
They weren't very good.
They get "An Attempt Was Made" star.
Personally, I would have rather had more She-Hulk comics, but this is just me…
Bah.
I'm right there with you!
Speaking of spin-offs, Marvel Puzzle Quest has been shockingly good with character diversity and representation — I was shocked while playing just how good they were with content updates and keeping the roster from being all dudes, or relegating the women to having fewer powers or anything. Whoever that team is, they were doing GOOD work (and making bank on a free-to-play, but I don't begrudge them that because they absolutely didn't have stuff paywalled off). Plus it was a marvel-based match-3.
If you follow comics at all, "Patsy Walker, AKA Hellcat" is pretty awesome.
Does Circuit Breaker count?
*happy sighs over the perfection that is Sam Wilson*
Indeeed.
Saaaaaam Wiiiiiilssssoooonnn
*runs in fangirl circles*
I have a quibble with one of your footnotes, Doc. Being Lawful Good doesn't mean you wouldn't break the law if it was unjust. That way lies more Lawful Neutral. Lawful Good, from what I can remember, is more a case of preferring to work within the limits of the law (or a very strong personal code – the Lawful component of the alignment doesn't necessarily indicate that they follow the law of the land) to achieve good ends, but if that's not possible then they may willingly violate the law in order to achieve the good ends.
Maybe, with all that said, Cap would still be considered Neutral Good. I dunno. All I'm saying is that the reasoning given for him not being Lawful Good doesn't necessarily hold up.
I dunno. With my DM, doing that more than once can get your character stats shifted around. For us, anyway, the whole point of playing a lawful character is that you have to work within certain limits to maintain that status. Like, they might not have to be straight up Javert, but they still have to follow a code that isn't 100% their own.
The bit about the personal code is an idea I picked up from a blog post I once read about whether or not a paladin should fall if they commit certain acts. I'm going to go see if I can find what I was thinking about.
Steve's code is what makes him fuzzy on the Lawful/Neutral axis. Because Steve's code is the America we've told ourselves since his time that we live in. The one with equality and justice, welcoming of new arrivals, where idealistic people take a stand for what's right instead of what's popular while acknowledging and celebrating the differences in others, the one that stands up to bullies and protects the little guy. Its Lawful America as it should be but as it hasn't ever really been.
New comment because GJ replied to my other one before I could edit it.
Here's what I was looking for. See the example under heading 3: Was his act unlawful?
Well…Steve tells the truth and keeps his word, but he doesn't respect authority (he respects individuals who he feels have personally earned it), isn't too fussed about honoring tradition. It's a 50/50 about "judges those who fall short in their duties" though.
A lot of that seems more concerned with "good" than "lawful," though. Steve is definitely Good. As to "was his act unlawful?" I mean… which one? He's kind of got a lot of rule-breaking. Trying to cheat his way into the military was unlawful (frankly, had it not been for the serum, Steve would've been a waste of resources. He wasn't just scrawny–he was chronically ill, partially deaf in one ear, had asthma, etc etc. If he'd even have made it out to boot camp, he would've been a liability in the field). Going after Bucky was Good, but not Lawful (risking three valuable assets for an unsanctioned suicide mission). Going against SHIELD-HYDRA was more lawful, but even early on before it's obvious that SHIELD is HYDRA, Steve was pretty clearly against their practices, and unlikely to go along with it.
Aaaaand we've got Civil War coming up. Which seems to be sub-subtitled: "Steve Rogers will tell the entirety of the US government exactly where they can stick their collective orders when it comes to his best friend and said friend's well-being."
I was thinking a good description of Steve is he obeys the philosophy of America rather than the government of America. When America isn't living up to the country Mr. Rogers (Steve, not Fred) believed it could be, who's the Lawful one?
It is sounding like Steve doesn't even have that strong of a personal code to adhere to as well as not really following the law of the land, so yeah, probably not Lawful on the whole by any reasonable interpretation.
This was interesting though. The footnote's reasoning didn't hold up very well so you folks came up with better reasoning.
I dunno, I think he does. His personal code is to help people who can't help themselves.
I dunno, Steve's *really bad* at following rules.
Yeah, that's true too. It's pretty much a habit of his. I mean, he only gets into the army because he constantly tries to forge his way in. Steve pretty much only listens to authority so long as it's useful.
Ah, that does sound less than Lawful Good. Depending on how much of a habit he makes of ignoring authority unless it's useful, he might even veer towards Chaotic Good, but if he was able to make it as a soldier, which, call it a hunch but that would normally require a considerable adherence to authority regardless of whether or not you would benefit from doing so, right? I doubt a Chaotic person could survive under those conditions.
Well, the movie Cap isn't really a soldier. For the majority of the movie, he's just a prop, until he goes rogue and pulls a mission on his own, with no authority.
Even in the modern day world, he's only a soldier as long as it's convenient and aligns with what he wants to do. Basically, in any of the movies (and the trailer of CW that we've seen), any time an authority figure gives Steve an order that he doesn't agree with, Steve disobeys that order, unless he decides on his own that it's worth doing. Being in the Army, and later in SHIELD are a means to an end, and when they don't function towards that end (help people), Steve goes his own way.
So yeah, I mean, he puts up with some military discipline for a while, but purely because it also happens to align with what he wants to do.
Hm, maybe he is more Chaotic than I first thought after all.
To be fair, if we're going with comics-Cap, he jumps around the alignment sheet a lot more (including hitting Lawful Asshole a couple of times in the dark days of shitty writing). But he's usually pretty firmly on the side of the underdog, damn the orders.
I want to say at least some of the worst of it was later revealed to be a guy pretending to be Steve Rogers, but honestly, heck if I know, it's comics.
Heck, once you get to comics, Batman goes across pretty much the whole alignment sheet himself, so…yeah.
Yeah, most of it was retconned as somebody else. I don't think all, though.
Hoo boy.
If nobody minds me getting uber-academic for a moment, the last section reminded me of a very similar argument I came across once for the Frodo/Sam relationship in Lord of the Rings: specifically, "Oh … no… Frodo!": Readings of Male Intimacy in The Lord of the Rings" by Anna Smol. She argues that there's good evidence that Tolkien deliberately drew on his WWI experience of wartime male intimacy for the role, in the wake of a post WWII atmosphere where that sort of masculinity was falling out of favor.
It's an interesting overlap, given that both the Cap/Bucky and Frodo/Sam relationships seem to have captured similar parts of fandom devotion.
I think that when looking at it academically, it's important to separate the "look this is/should be canon" discussion from the "look, I just want them to kiss, okay?" discussion.
Because, like, I ship Steve/Bucky. It's not my go-to ship, but I enjoy a lot of the art and fic that come from it.
But just looking at it in the context of the movie…I get the argument for non-sexual male intimacy, but in CA:WS, the writers/directors went a few steps too far, to the point that they really were using typical movie tropes that usually indicate romance. That's separate from the non-sexual-male-intimacy-of-bygone years. When you have Tasha trying to set Steve up with various people, and he turns all the offers down, and then jokingly says "Where'm I gonna find someone else with my life experience?" (or something along those lines) the language of film has taught us to read that dramatic irony and automatically respond with "Bucky." Since we know that Bucky is still around, that not only did he and Steve grow up together and have the same childhood experiences that no one else in the modern era has, but Bucky has also fought in a war, been turned into a super-soldier, and frozen as a man out of his own time for decades. So we know that the film is basically saying, "Bucky's on his way, haha." But it's in answer to a question about Steve's potential dating life.
Plus, like I mentioned up-thread. When they first see each other again in the movie, the song they chose to have playing is an old torchsong about lovers being reunited after WWII. That is…way too on the nose, dangit.
So I guess I mean, on one hand, yes, Steve and Bucky's friendship absolutely can be read as platonic male intimacy, and there's nothing wrong with that. But unlike Tolkien, where we know the text wasn't trying to be sexual or romantic (and I think even in the movies, they're not trying to be sexual or romantic, just, y'know old-fashioned and epic), Winter Soldier kept borrowing romance tropes for the staging of that relationship.
Which is…frustrating, really, because we know there's not going to be a pay-off, and you shouldn't use the language of film to mislead your audience in quite this way.
This is a really good description of the difference that makes it a lot clearer to me. Thanks for that.
That was a really interesting comment! Now I'm thinking about how female friendships are staged and whether a similar storyline would have that romantic undertone if the characters were women. And that opens up a whole other avenue looking at how men and women code and read friendship differently, and whether borrowing back and forth would improve things for everyone.
I think those things are definitely something you can find if you look for it, but to the average movie-goer the cinematic language is far from that blunt about any romantic feelings. It definitely emphasized the relationship between the two characters, that being one of the focuses of the film, but nothing that was explicitly romantic. Those techniques may be more commonly applied to male/female romance, but the context the film gives you makes the intent relatively clear.
Now, it's not a unreasonable conclusion to draw, but there is some form of confirmation bias when it comes to shipping the two characters. The same goes for many popular slash pairings of famous male friendships(Spock/Kirk comes to mind). I could take many of the points you made there and turn them around to be about Sam, or Natasha, and it would ring just as true to someone who wants it to be.
Once again, I don't think you're WRONG for interpreting it this way, but it's far from as objective as you're portraying it. And I definitely don't think the Russos were attempting to queerbait anybody, as you(possibly unintentionally) implied.
I find it difficult to buy that Disney, in a summer tent-pole movie, got sloppy with their subtext. They were throwing a bone to the people who want that sot of Cap/Bucky relationship without ever having to come out and say it and offend a large ticket-buying demographic of guys who want to identify with Cap.
I mean, someone upthread linked to a bit about the Russos pretty much going with it. But Winter Soldier is a well-crafted movie. It really is. I don't think they got sloppy.
Plus, again, the song choice. They deliberately chose a love song. Even if it wasn't their "intent," they still knew what a love song is. There's nothing subjective about that song choice.
All that said, the thing about the language of film is that whether or not a movie-goer is paying attention to it from a critical standpoint, it still informs the way people perceive a movie, even subconsciously. That's why they drill shot-choices and camera angles into our heads.
Honestly, yes, you could make some points about Sam. He functions as the "girlfriend" character in the movie–someone who's technically a civilian, someone that Steve goes to for comfort and support. Natasha has her kiss, which is…predictable, really. Gotta throw a hiding-kiss into a thriller/spy movie if there's a woman in it.
But the thing is, the story is and always will be about Steve and Bucky. The whole story of the Captain America movies, spread across three films, is specifically about their relationship. And yeah, it's a friendship, because this is 2016 and it's Captain America, and there's absolutely nothing else it could be. But the choices they made to express that particular relationship are choices usually reserved for romantic relationships. (Heck, in action movies, romantic relationships frequently have less emotional build-up than this, because usually all it takes it putting a woman in the vicinity of the man for her to be his designated Romantic Interest.)
I don't think the Russos were queer baiting anymore than I think, say, Terry Winters was queerbaiting with Charlie and Meyer in Boardwalk Empire. I think in both cases, the writers want to play with the idea of these two characters/historical figures being More Than Friends, just on a thematic level–not just for the fangirls or whatever–but they know they can't deliver. They'll go as far as they can in both cases.
But the writing on Winter Soldier was too clean for the subtext to have been unintentional.
(same goes for BWE, really.)
Seriously. Everything in movies (just like in video games) is the result of multiple deliberate choices, and nothing just "happens". It's all created. Every camera angle, every moment is edited and viewed by human eyeballs thousands of times before it's released. Just because people aren't necessarily willing to acknowledge the fact that everything is vetted and approved (even subconsciously) does not make it unseen and unapproved.
OH SIMILARLY!
Not only do people not pay attention to what films choose to do, but they frequently don't pay attention to what films choose not to do.
Like…okay, this is an old one, but I remember the SNL Avengers skit with Jeremy Renner. And the joke for Black Widow was that she was sexily posing and her costume was unzipped so her boobs were visible. Which…had no basis in the movie whatsoever. Tasha kept her suit zipped, and the camera was far more likely to focus on Cap's flexing buttocks than Natasha's.
But the perception is that if there's Just One Female Hero, especially if she's in a black catsuit, she's there to be Sexy. So whether or not the movie actually treated her as an object for the Male Gaze, people just sort of…assumed it did.
Same thing with Fury Road. The movie as actually really careful never to shoot the Wives in a Male-Gaze-type way. Even in their first real scene, where they're splashing around with a hose and wearing really filmy nothings. It's never shot sexually. But you find people who somehow figure they were. I dunno.
Sorry, I think I got a bit distracted.
There've been some interesting "female gaze" directed moments in the Thor movies, along with Jane Foster being just a kick-ass and unsexualized character, that has made me really REALLY like them.
But yes, it is super frustrating that even when people go against the grain to NOT shoot that way, people are so used to SEEING them that way, they don't necessarily notice.
Hell, most realistic-styled video games look weird unless we add lens effects because people expect their media to be presented with them. We're so used to looking "through the lens" that if you take it away you make people really uncomfortable and unhappy.
My parents' TV has some weird framerate issue that makes every movie look like it's a daytime soap, and it took a LOT of me watching it and trying to figure out why everything looked "wrong" for me to realize it was entirely missing lens effects plus framerate. It's also why people reacted so strongly to The Hobbit. It doesn't look like we have been taught to expect it to look, and it's WRONG DAMNIT.
As a huge tolkien fanboy, one thing that prods me right in the deep dark hatey-hole of my heart is when people start going on about how frodo and sam's relationship was innappropriate.
Maybe this is only something you get from really homophobic christians (and I'm the first to admit I know much more of those people than what could be considered average) but the instant people start talking about the way tolkien used the word 'gay' in the text and whether or not it's okay to let the children read it because it might give them ideas I just about have an aneurysm. Some people at my old church seriously talked about trying to make a censored version of the books that changed the frodo/sam dyamic and removed 'gay' from the text, I still start frothing at the mouth when I think about it too much.
A few things:
1) Actually, it's possible that Steve got closer to getting that card punched than you think. Remember, that most of the war consisted of a rapid montage from first acquiring the round shield to losing Bucky at the train. We don't know what Steve was up to in his down time.
In fact, Hayley Atwell was asked by a fan at a convention panel about this (it's perhaps worth noting that the fan in question was a young woman) and you might be surprised by the response.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw4R_u-AG28
Yes, we think of people from that era being more chaste, but I'm reminded of a quote I once read: "Every generation thinks THEY'RE the ones that invented premarital sex."
2) I've seen a couple of "Winter Soldier" reviews that actually note that Sam/Falcon's role is structured as that of a love interest (not literally, of course). There's an obvious meet-cute moment between them during that first "on your left" scene at the start of the film. Sam is also cast in a care-giving role as a counselor for vets, with no real demons or issues of his own to overcome. Conversely, Natasha fills a role usually filled by a friend of the same gender as the protagonist. It's perhaps worth noting that it's a film where the lead male and female character have NO suggestion of romantic involvement.
(I really recommend checking out this review and the other relevant pages) http://hellotailor.blogspot.ca/2014/04/captain-am…
3) In discussing Steve and Bucky's relationship and not worrying what people think, you missed a GOLDEN opportunity to bring up the 15th President of the United States, to whom Bucky is a namesake, and the rumors that swirled around HIM and HIS extremely close male friend (and that's not even getting in to the fact that he too started a civil war!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Buchanan
4) Not totally relevant to the article, but look at that moving scene with Steve and the elderly, Alzheimer-stricken Peggy and tell me it's not the end of "Peter Pan". It's exactly the same. He's still young. She's married (God willing, to Daniel Sousa!) and grown old and can no longer join him on adventures. Instead, he ends up with a much younger relative of hers…
4) Not totally relevant to the article, but look at that moving scene with Steve and the elderly, Alzheimer-stricken Peggy and tell me it's not the end of "Peter Pan". It's exactly the same. He's still young. She's married (God willing, to Daniel Sousa!) and grown old and can no longer join him on adventures. Instead, he ends up with a much younger relative of hers…
Someone must be dusting in the office. I think I got something in my eye.
Instead, he ends up with a much younger relative of hers…
He'd really better not. That's so…creepy and weird.
I hadn't actually thought about the James Buchanan parallels with Steve/Bucky (though I don't think it fits in with the article so much. Sort of like Arnie Roth–an interesting side-note that can influence perception of their relationship, but not so much relevant to the overall thesis of "be like Steve." Well, okay, no, absolutely be like Steve–two decades ahead of popular opinion regarding LGBT rights and relationships.)
I'm…kinda hoping not Sousa, to be honest? Like, I mean, I like him, but it just feels a bit predictable. Then again, I know none of my Peggy ships would be canon, so I'm not too fussed about who she actually ends up with.
Creepy and weird? Perhaps, but it has precedent in the comics.
And I stand by favoring Sousa, predictable or not. We know Peggy marries SOMEONE. Based on the pics of her grand kids, I doubt they're biologically related to Wilkes (and yes, I know adoption's a possibility). It's certainly not going to be Howard or Jarvis, and I won't dignify any suggestions of Thompson.
Creepy and weird? Perhaps, but it has precedent in the comics.
Lots of things have precedence in comics that don't need to carry over to the cinematic universe. And frankly, at this point, I'm all for jettisoning things in the comics that don't make sense or that are just plain out-dated or whatever, for the sake of making a stronger story-universe. Movies don't have the luxury of having literally thousands of installments of various degrees of canon and what-not. Being smaller and more contained, they should be stronger stories for that.
Dating your former girlfriend's niece is unsettling already, but in the context of a story about a man-out-of-his-time, it also carries an implication of women being more or less replaceable by a newer model–instead of having a relationship with someone completely different, Steve winds up in a relationship with Agent Carter 2.0. (In before pointing out that Sharon is her own person, etc etc. Thematically, it conveys the same notion–Steve winds up with Agent Carter, just a new one.)
*evil grin* I kinda like Peggy/Thompson. Or, rather, I like the idea that Thompson is totally gone on her, and absolutely hates it, because she's nothing like a woman is "supposed to" be and she also makes him feel small and lesser, but she's just so amazing. So Thompson insults her, insults Sousa, etc, because he really just has no idea how to be a healthy grown-up about…well, any kind of social interaction, really. Thompson is such a weasel, but he hits my sweet spot for: "Selfish character prone to bouts of semi-selflessness, despite his worst inclinations." Sort of like a less complex Max Lord.
It's still not my absolute favorite ship for Peg, but it's a fun little hateship.
Sousa's still the most likely.
Eugh, I am super done with the Peggy/Sousa angle that they're pushing. I've only watched through s2e1, but was just really put off by how hard they were trying to frame that as endgame.
If I can't have Peggy/Angie, which would be my fantastic and adorable, I'd like Peggy/Gabe. Chances of that are also slim, though, considering how little we've got of the Howlies in Agent Carter.
I liked the idea of Peggy/Gabe, although I think Trip over at SHIELD josses that (because if his grandmother was Peggy Carter, they DEFINITELY wouldn't mentioned that too). I was kinda hoping Jim Morita would make an appearance in this season though.
Honestly, (mild spoilers about Sousa in S2)
…
…
…
…
they did even worse with the Peggy/Sousa thing in this by giving Sousa a really sweet girlfriend who apparently breaks it off with him when she sees Sousa panicking over Peggy being very badly hurt because "She's why you came here–to get away from her because you're in love with her!" Which is just so so gross. Because y'know what, honey? Yeah, maybe he did. So what if he did. Dude realizes that a girl he likes isn't into him, and has trouble getting over it. He removes himself from the situation and makes a fresh start in a new town. Even finds a new relationship that by all observation looks like it's 100% genuine on his end. Yeah, so maybe he's got some lingering feelings for this particular person, but he's choosing you, dangit. Oh, I'm so sorry that he was really upset and freaking out about his friend and subordinate almost dying painfully on a mission he authorized. Yeah, you're right, that's completely out of line.
I mean, there's no fight about it, not really. But just the idea that Sousa isn't even allowed to move on frustrates me and kinda creeps me out. Like, the dude is clearly trying to move his life in a direction away from pursuing Peggy romantically and…other people won't let him? Because he has feelings for her, and therefore that supersedes all? Stop that.
(If I'm being perfectly honest, my favorite ship as of Season 2 is Peggy/Jarvis/Ana. For a good portion of Season 1, I wasn't even sure that Jarvis's wife was a real person or even alive anymore, and…well, look, they have chemistry. Then Ana actually makes her appearance and she is wonderful, and honestly, the only headcanon I can even have is that Ana and Jarvis are poly/semi-open [maybe they tried swinging with Howard exactly once before Ana decided that he's very nice, but just not mature enough], and Ana invites Peggy to be their third. Especially after she gets to watch Peggy and Jarvis wrestle. But that's an absolute pipe dream primarily for fandom fun. Ugh, Ana Jarvis is just so cute tho.)
Honestly while Ana might be up for it Jarvis has already shown that he's having major issues balancing his being Peggy's platonic partner with his personal life. Adding another person, even one he likes strikes me as being more likely to drive him to the breaking point.
But then I dislike the idea that has fandom that threesomes solve everything and make all problems disappear.
I think the problem is they sold Violet too well. It would've worked better is she and Sousa were causally dating and their break up had more to do with treating serious puncture wounds at 3AM.
But then I dislike the idea that has fandom that threesomes solve everything and make all problems disappear.
Eh, I'll take it over the days of the rabid ship wars. Or the vitriolic hate for any female character "getting in the way" of a preferred ship. But in this case, it's less as a problem solver and more because I think the three of them have good chemistry.
Though, I dunno, bringing Peggy in seems to me like the sort of thing that would make it easier on Jarvis, rather than more difficult. But that's me.
And yeah, nah, Violet came off as way too good a character (even if it is the classic "fall in love with your nurse" trope that seems awful common in WWII stories) to just suddenly nope out for that reason. It had shades of…not cattiness, but sort of unreasonable jealousy to it? I think the only reason they didn't make it more about her not wanting to be in a relationship with someone whose job is dangerous etc is to have one more freaking person try to shove Peggy and Sousa together.
That's the thing. I kinda shipped 'em last season, but as of this season, they're sort of being Strangled By The Red String.
Thing is he was willing to marry Violet until she said' no'. While he does having lingering feelings for Peggy [see his freakout when she disappeared] he was clearly invested in the relationship.
I mean if you wanted to break them up the whole 'there's a superpowered actress trying to set off a nuclear bomb and we're the only people who can stop her' seems like a good reason to me.
My problem with that is if he can't treat her decently at work do you really think he'll treat her any better if they're dating or married?
But then I'm not fond of the whole 'they treat you like crap because THEY LOVE YOU! You should endlessly tolerate their disrespect and abuse because someday they might not be an asswipe to you' trope!
Oh, no, it's absolutely not a fluffy or healthy ship whatsoever. Like, it would take masses of character development to bring Thompson to the point where it was even mildly canon plausible. If Peggy ever figured out that Thompson had a crush on her, the reaction would be sheer disgust, and very well-earned at that.
Shipping isn't always about what's the nicest or most plausible ship.
Agreed. But I have issues with this because I remember being bullied by guys and told 'they have a crush on you' [they didn't] like it was some sort of magic fix-it for the situation. You aside from actually punishing the bullies which wasn't an option for some reason.
Oh, no, yeah, that is the straight up worst, and I hate it.
But I just have a lot of ships that in real life would make me nope the heck out on my nopetopus.
"4) Not totally relevant to the article, but look at that moving scene with Steve and the elderly, Alzheimer-stricken Peggy and tell me it's not the end of "Peter Pan". It's exactly the same. He's still young. She's married (God willing, to Daniel Sousa!) and grown old and can no longer join him on adventures. Instead, he ends up with a much younger relative of hers…"
My grandmother had alzhiemers, and I watched her slide down from 'normal and functional' to the point where she was having trouble remembering my name and recognizing me at the end. Not much, but there was a second of hesitation that was NEVER there before the last time I saw her. She remembered me longer than she remembered my dad. When Peggy recognizes Steve for the second time it was so much like seeing my grandmother in a hospital bed I felt like I'd been fucking stabbed.
Re: #1, fanfiction has explored many of the possibilities…
#2 Yeah, I enjoy Sam Wilson framed as love interest. They made some really interesting moves in the whole structure of that movie. (For gosh sake, they had him sitting by Steve's bed, playing a love song when he woke up.)
#3 Sousa can go eff off with his pedestal.
Wait, was that a love song too? Fantastic!
Okay, not entirely, the song's detailing the difficult life that has brought him to this point, but it's addressed to "baby" and includes:
"This I know baby, this I know sugar
Girl Ain't gon let it sweat me babe."
http://www.metrolyrics.com/trouble-man-lyrics-mar…
I think "pedestal" is a bit harsh. He's not always been perfect but he's always been respectful of Peggy and least he's never pointed a shotgun at her, unlike SOME love interests.
Where the heck is all this Sousa hate around here coming from, anyway?
If I'm gonna be perfectly honest, I think it's because a lot of us are really over the story of a "nice guy pining over a girl for months/years finally getting the girl even after her initial rejection because she just realizes He's So Nice."
That, and in Season 1, I really thought Sousa sort of represented the other, softer side of sexism–where yes, he respects her, but he can't help but view her romantically, even though she's not interested. It doesn't make him a bad person, but it's one more thing Peggy has to contend with that her coworkers don't: unrequited love from a colleague making things awkward. It's one more way she can't quite be "one of the guys" at the SSR.
So to have that turn around and have Season 2 lean hard on the whole "Oh, but they beloooong together" thing the way it's been doing is just…a bit tiresome.
I like Sousa. I really do. I even don't particularly dislike the endgame of Peggy/Sousa. But I'm just a little put off by the whole "The only one who believed in her from the beginning is eventually rewarded by her romantic attention" trope that unfortunately comes off the whole thing.
Especially with the whole "moved away to move on, started a new relationship, proposed and got engaged in said relationship, but still really always pining for Peggy, even though they were never an item, and she had every chance to make them an item before." thing.
If having feelings for a co-worker that you respect at some point is sexist then just about every man or woman is sexist. You make it sound like he was putting moves on her left and right. He didn't make any advances towards her throughout season 1 until asking her out for a drink at the very end, he didn't push it when she said "maybe another time" and her reaction even then suggested it wasn't totally unrequited anyway.
Nor do I think it's fair to write off Peggy and Sousa getting together as simply some sort of karmic "reward". If you look at the three men she's been drawn to on-screen, Peggy clearly has a type: She identifies with those who've been held back in society because of some immutable characteristic (Steve's frailty, Sousa's disability, Wilkes' race) and had to struggle for acceptance, just as she's had to.
If having feelings for a co-worker that you respect at some point is sexist then just about every man or woman is sexist.
siiiigh
Look, firstly, that's not what I said.
Sousa being attracted to her doesn't make him a sexist. But narratively speaking, in Season 1, it shows another kind of hurdle Peggy has to deal with that the average guy in SSR would not have to deal with.
You make it sound like he was putting moves on her left and right.
I emphatically did not. To Sousa's credit, he never tries to make his feelings for Peggy something she has to manage. Other people do that (which is a big squick for me, having outside folks try to push two people together). But he does just ask her for a drink and leave it at that.
But she still knows. That's not Sousa's fault, but it's the sort of thing that makes people uncomfortable–knowing that somebody has strong feelings for you that you don't necessarily reciprocate, especially if it's somebody that you do like as a person and don't want to hurt. Having that person also be a coworker, especially in a dangerous job, just adds another level of frustration to it.
Nor do I think it's fair to write off Peggy and Sousa getting together as simply some sort of karmic "reward".
If it were real life, sure, no. But this is a story that people are writing. These tropes exist. The "first guy gets the girl" trope is a pretty strong one too. It's predictable. Sousa was the only unmarried guy in season 1 to believe in her. It's…it's sort of like how in old animation, you can tell which brick is going to move because it's painted differently than the others. It's predictable.
The idea that someone else/s feelings, which you yourself admit they are not pushing on someone else, is somehow this undue burden is pushing it. You're coming close to suggesting people aren't even permitted to have FEELINGS.
The point is not that this real person shouldn't feel this way or that this other real person shouldn't be uncomfortable because the first real person feels that way. Its that these fictional characters were deliberately written to this lazy trope. The responsibility isn't on either character to feel some way, its on the author to quit using tired tropes. Its on the writer to quit dedicating screen time to something that, in the real world, most people can handle without being a big deal.
You're coming close to suggesting people aren't even permitted to have FEELINGS.
No. No, I'm not. If that's how you want to read all this, then that's your issue, but really, dude, you're not reading what I'm writing. But that's a hyperbole bordering on the hysterical, and not actually what I'm saying at all.
Peggy and Sousa and Thompson and Jarvis and all aren't real. They are fictional characters.
Because of the nature of this show, Agent Carter has always been a look at the sorts of things a woman in a male-dominated industry has to put up with. Dooley represented one set of problems (paternal dismissal), Thompson represents another (resentment and fear, but with enough power to push her down). And Sousa represents another.
That's not their sole purpose, obviously. But Agent Carter is a very well-written show, and works on multiple levels.
Here's a dirty little secret for you, though: Sometimes, someone else's feels for you are a burden.
That goes for men as well as women, but it's more common for women, because we're conditioned from a young age to want to manage people's feelings, and to feel responsible for them.
Even if you don't deliberately push those feelings onto someone else to manage, there can be situations where said feelings hang in the air and color every interaction you have. And it sucks to know that someone you care about is sad because of something you did (or didn't do).
That's not actually anyone's fault. That's just a sad fact of life that people have to deal with. It's not about not being "permitted to have FEELINGS." It's just understanding that sometimes feelings make things messy.
Especially feelings in the workplace.
Especially when that workplace is a male-dominated workplace and everyone else seems to think that you shouldn't be there except for this one guy.
(Actually, that's another thing to examine about the whole Peggy/Sousa thing, and about how him being the only one in the SSR who ever supported/believed in her from the beginning affects their relationship now. Even if that admiration and his romantic feelings are completely separate–and they probably are–Peggy must be hyper-aware of the fact that if she and Sousa became romantically involved, most people would write her off even further, and dismiss her presence as something she slept toward, rather than earned. It's another thing that is neither Peggy or Sousa's fault, but still creates a problem and still sucks.)
I'm not sure where you getting 'the only one who believed in her' since I'm pretty sure Jarvis and Howard Stark were on Team Peggy long before Sousa was. I mean you make it sound like he went to work wearing a Peggy Carter tee-shirt and waving pom-poms when at first all he was just the guy that wasn't a complete jerk. Their relationship grew by working together and getting to know each other and he was hardly Peggy's only support.
Also I don't know how he made his feelings Peggy's problem when he accepted her rejection and moved across the country.
I'm not sure where you getting 'the only one who believed in her' since I'm pretty sure Jarvis and Howard Stark were on Team Peggy long before Sousa was.
Pretty sure I clarified "in the SSR." Pretty sure it's right in the paragraph just above your comment. None of the other men in SSR treated her like she had any kind of place with them. Sousa did. He may not have always been "team Peggy," but at least he still didn't doubt her position as an agent the way the others did.
he was just the guy that wasn't a complete jerk.
Yes. That's what I mean. He's the first (only) guy at the SSR who wasn't a complete jerk to Peggy. He's The Nice One.
Also I don't know how he made his feelings Peggy's problem when he accepted her rejection and moved across the country.
ffs…
Okay, everyone is hearing some accusatory stuff that I'm not typing. For one thing, here is a DIRECT QUOTE FROM ME: "To Sousa's credit, he never tries to make his feelings for Peggy something she has to manage. "
So…saying that he made his feelings Peggy's problem is the exact opposite of what I said.
To clarify: SOUSA ISN'T DOING ANYTHING WRONG. (Or at least, not a great deal wrong.)
But sometimes no one is doing anything "wrong" in a situation, and it's still awkward and uncomfortable for the people involved in it. It doesn't matter if Sousa makes his feelings Peggy's problem (he doesn't. Again–he doesn't). But the fact that they are there creates problems for her–from simple emotional ones like having to make someone you care about sad by saying no to the much trickier ones, like having to worry that people will believe she gets her position because "the boss (in s2) is sweet on her." It is not Sousa's fault. It's not Peggy's fault. It's just an uncomfortable situation.
Furthermore, discussing this narratively–and THIS is the big thing that bugs me about the whole situation:
Sousa did his level best to manage his feelings on his own, and the narrative wouldn't let him. He moved across the country, because he knew that his feelings, now out in the open, could make it weird for the two of them to work a high-stress job together. He moved on. He didn't move and keep moping forever over Peggy. He found a really nice (and good-in-a-crisis) girl that he very much seemed to like, who liked him back. He proposed to her. Did he still have some lingering feelings for Peggy? Sure. I mean, I've had crushes where just being in the room with them years later can still make my little heart pitter-pat, even if I don't actually want to do anything about that.
But the narrative has been very…inorganic about this. His very nice nurse breaks up with him…because she notices that he's really worried about his friend/coworker who is bleeding out after mission he okayed, and decides that means not only that he was in love with Peggy or has feelings for her, but that apparently those feelings that he was deliberately choosing not to act on, those feelings of unrequited love that never actually even were a once-upon-a-time relationship, must outweigh the actual solid relationship the two of them had built.
Like, that's just clunky writing. Nothing graceful about it. She doesn't even break it off because after seeing Peggy like that, she realized how dangerous Sousa's job is, and doesn't think she can take that being a constant worry. She just basically moves aside so Peggy can take her place.
And then there's just a lot of the nudges at both Sousa and Peggy from other characters.
It's been very clunky relationship writing. It's just obvious and uncomfortable, and smacks of that whole "Despite your initial 'no,' the two of you are Meant To Be Together." Meant To Be can be a cute trope, but to me it seems pretty antithetical for Peggy.
Look you keep going on and on about how awkward and uncomfortable things were when we never saw that. Peggy never seemed upset or disturbed by his attention and in season two she was willing to give things a go until it turned out she was too late.
Could the writing have been smoother, yeah I agree and Violet's role could've been handled better. But you keep referencing things that never really happened in the show. In reality yes they could happen, but we never saw them in the series.
But also, yes, the tropes are a bit tired, and I'd like to see something different.
I like him. I just don't like his relationship with Peggy. And what thatthat said, about season 1. That's a really tiring narrative.
And lest you think this is because I'm advocating for a different white dude, Thompson can go fuck himself with a cactus; he is SO GROSS.
Am I the only one trying to figure out what is going on in that first pic? It looks like Cap just finished taking out a fleet of flying aerodromes, but I don't recall him ever battling Don Karnage.
It's from one of the posters. They don't usually make a ton of sense if you try and see them as a single point in the movie.
Captain America #1 came out dated March 1941. Happy 75th, Cap!
Captain America Comics #1 — cover-dated March 1941[8] and on sale December 20, 1940,[9][10] a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor, but a full year into World War II — showed the protagonist punching Nazi leader Adolf Hitler; it sold nearly one million copies.[11] While most readers responded favorably to the comic, some took objection. Simon noted, "When the first issue came out we got a lot of … threatening letters and hate mail. Some people really opposed what Cap stood for."[7] The threats, which included menacing groups of people loitering out on the street outside of the offices, proved so serious that police protection was posted with New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia personally contacting Simon and Kirby to give his support.[12]
-Wikipedia
And Cap has always been controversial.
Because there’s nothing toxic about the embodiment of the biggest imperial war machine in the world 😀
Cap is my favorite superhero, and I’ve long seen him as the kind of guy I’d like to be. I’m not all that good at it, but I’m still trying, and I’m glad he can be seen as a role model for this type of masculinity, too.
I love everything in this article. And while perhaps tangential to Steve as an exemplar of non-toxic masculinity, I personally think it’s also worth noting his general progressivism. I think it flies under the radar in the first movie but it’s important to me that Steve’s Howling Commandos are an integrated combat unit (with a woman, an African American, and an Asian American–possibly a Nisei) prior to the army’s actual desegregation. I think this underscores the core of Steve in that all he ever wanted was a chance to prove himself and he wants everyone else to get the same chance. If you can do the job he doesn’t care what your race, religion, gender, or likely even your orientation is. It’s a very THEORETICALLY American concept in that it’s the quintessential American ideal of meritocratic successes.
I think that makes it even sadder that this person is then rejected by a world that was supposed to have become MORE progressive during his slumber.
“an era when what it means to be a man is changing”
Um, what? A ton of people suddenly becoming super sensitive PC fags at the same time doesn’t suddenly change what it means to be a man – it just means they don’t qualify. You don’t change the definition of something just because 70% of a generation can’t measure up. Or wait, maybe you do if you’re a liberal.
Nah, pretty sure what it means to be a man is exactly the same as it’s always been. It’s Marcus Aurelius, it’s the Boy Scout Handbook, it’s Clark Kent in Smallville and Captain America and William James. It’s Ulysses S Grant, and Ned Stark. It’s exactly the same as it’s always been. Many of the MEN have changed – into less than men – but ‘man’ as a concept and an ideal remains unchanged. We don’t change the rules just because pussies have proliferated. Likewise, being a good woman hasn’t changed just because feminist shrews and bull dykes are now ubiquitous. We just say those aren’t good women. The ratio of real man:good woman, oddly enough, has remained about the same.
Again. Ew. Not cool.
If Clark Kent, Ned Stark or Captain America were living in THIS world, today, I don’t think I’m what they be disgusted by, no. And Ulysses S. Grant was awesome, you’re just ignorant. Presumably you haven’t read his autobiography and know nothing about his life story but have heard a couple of cliched things about how he was a drunk and got a lot of men killed etc. Gertrude Stein, who your dumb politics probably make you worship, loved and admired Grant and said she wept reading his autobiography.
But those are all different versions of masculinity. In the characters you just mentioned you have honour versus pragmatism, pride versus humility, standing up for the downtrodden versus might makes right, etcetera.
Seriously, even on the conservative aisle you have clashes between Beltway philosopher kings, fight-the-man libertines, hoo-rah soldier boys, tax-evading businessmen, salt-of-the-earth blue-collar workers with a white picket fence ideal and religious moral crusaders, and that’s just going by the popular stereotypes.
(In all seriousness, the Platonic ideal of masculinity to strive for is still Robert Morrow).
Don’t dignify the bullshit with a response. As soon as Doc or one of the mods get to him, he’s out.
btw, if you’re somebody who goes around saying “what it means to be a man is changing”, you’re probably going to get cucked at some point, maybe even for a black dude. So. Get ready for that. I’m sure you can cry and write in your diary about it, and that’ll be ok, since, after all – what it means to be a man is changing.
It’s scientifically proven that any douchebag who uses “cuck” as a verb is a gross weirdo who the rest of humanity is happily staying FAR AWAY from.
Something tells me an Asian fag isn’t capable of speaking for the rest of humanity. Believe it or not, most of the world is not Buzzfeed.
HAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA!
[points and laughs at paulie]
Also, there is literally no homosexual subtext in the Captain America films to this point. None. If you want to see what homosexual subtext between ostensibly straight characters look like, look at the shameful abominations that are the Downey Sherlock Holmes films. THAT is gay subtext. The CA films literally just show a couple guys who are close friends. We see them together once, on a double date (what fags!) and then fighting in the army together (talk about homos!). Oh, in-between the double date and the fighting there’s a scene of Bucky trying to get with Peggy Carter, only to have her reject him for Steve – what a coupla queers!
Then in the second movie he’s a killer robot literally all movie. If you got gay subtext from a brainwashed speechless assassin, more power to you and your psychiatrist.
Dude. No. Not okay, whatever your interpretation of the movies.
Um, that’s – not a counterargument? Find me the homosexual subtext in either Captain America film, please. Point it out to me. Where is it? I can scene for scene, line for line, shot for shot – it literally isn’t in the films. Anywhere. We meet Bucky when he goes to the theater and rescues Steve from a bully. No homosexual subtext in this scene. We then go to the Stark Expo where they’re on a double date. Steve quits early, has an argument with Bucky about enlisting, and Bucky goes off with both girls. Then Steve saves Bucky from Zola’s lab. Then Bucky makes a pass at Peggy Carter, who rejects him for Steve. Then the mission montages, and Bucky dies. That is literally every scene of them from the first film. WHERE is the subtext? There are no long lingering gazes, no awkward touching, no weird line deliveries carrying hidden meanings or suggesting things not scripted. There is just – nothing. Just a brief few scenes sketching a cliched male best friendship. It’s frankly bizarre. We never hear the accusation concerning Stark and Rhodes, but you know why? Literally the only difference is the attractiveness of the actors. Nobody wants to pretend there’s gay subtext involving Don Cheadle.
Point out the specific moments, lines, shots from the first two Cap movies that are gay subtext. I’m all ears.
No, it’s not a counterargument. It’s a call for you to be banned based on your homophobic language. I don’t care to engage someone who uses it.
The homophobe doth protest too much, methinks.
Bro we get it, you’re suppppa straight. And spend all this time thinking about gay sex… But you’re straight! Yeah, hahah, look at those fags, man! Can’t. Stop. Watching. Gay. Men…
I actually didn’t protest that much. My response, unlike yours, was to the point and not from fucking crazy guy axe to grind pulling shit out of nowhere fantasyland. Fuck off with your bullshit.
No no no dipshit. You’re the one who’s gonna fuck off with your homophobic bullshit. Just as soon as a mod wakes up, your annoying little ass is GONE.