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[musingsofmarvel]

Okay… Time for an unpopular opinion for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I’m going to put the full opinion below the cut for length, for mention of dark content, and for the fact that it is an unpopular opinion, so if one is uninterested in the majority of it, one can choose not read.

Summary: I love the MCU. I really, really do. I love so many of the characters––hell, I write so many of them here or elsewhere––and I am still so thrilled for some of the movies that are still to come. [ I mean, I finally purchased my first ever film-accurate cosplay just because I am so excited for Spider-man No Way Home and Multiverse of Madness. ]  But sometimes I really hate the things they choose to leave out and the changes they decide to make.

So this latest episode of Hawkeye was better than the first two and I liked it well enough, but I am still just angry that they changed Kate's origin story to be nicer for audiences.

It's a facet of the one thing that bothers me more than anything with Disney having domain of all these characters.

They're fine venturing into the Angst For Plot Purposes and into depressing their fans by ending a movie like they ended Infinity War with no hope in sight…

But then they won't acknowledge heavier themes and difficulties that are woven all throughout the comic book characters they’re bringing to life on the screen, sometimes that are vital elements of those characters.

When you take on characters like Clint or Kate or Natasha, you have to acknowledge the things that helped to shape them, for better or worse, if you're going to truly show why they're heroes.

The fact that Disney leaves out Clint's abusive, alcoholic father and his loss of hearing (the latter only RECENTLY added) takes away from why Clint is who he is and how amazing it is that he is. The level of strength and perseverance it took to get there despite everything, even when it's a struggle for days and weeks on end to do so. And that struggle was important, too. The fact that Clint deals with the fallout of what he does. He struggles with depression, but he still pushes through. And he doesn't always do the Right Thing or the Best Thing––he'll be the first one to point out he isn't Captain America––but he does the best thing that he can and he does the best that he can.

What's more, it takes away the representation from people who are Deaf or HoH or who also struggle with depression but still just try to keep going one day at a time. They could have a superhero to claim as theirs, but Disney said No.

The fact that Disney has, to this point at least, decided to omit the fact Kate was raped walking home from school through the park in favor of Clint protecting her from the NYC alien attack slights her character. She went through something horrific and she dealt with the fallout of that. She went through the guilt and the 'well it was my fault' and the 'well, if I had only'. She struggled with it, and she went to therapy for help because she knew she needed the help and she didn’t have that support system at home. On the other side of it, she decides she's going to get stronger so that she never has to feel like that again, and so she can try to help others so that they never have to feel like that. Kate wasn't motivated solely by 'Oh, this superhero saved my life during an alien attack'. It was kind of like with Spider-man. It happened on the ground level. It happened where superheroes don't leap in and save the day. It happened just because it happened. And she decided she was going to take this terrible thing and do good despite it.

And thus you take away that positive representation, too.

The fact that Disney had only scratched the surface of Widow's history to start and then completely rewrote other sections of it because they felt it was Too Heavy is a crime. How amazing would it have been to get The Name of the Rose storyline for Natasha's backstory, maybe even as a film or a Disney+ series? Natasha who was turned over to the Red Room by her 'father' at such a young age because he felt it was his patriotic duty to ensure that she was of the best service to the state. Who was conditioned and trained from such a young age to know that she was a tool, a weapon to be used by the state and nothing more than that. Who has suffered for her humanity despite their best efforts to entirely break her of it. Who fell in love and carried a child but lost her. Who was dragged back to the Red Room again and again. Who doesn't even really know how old she is or what memories are real because they've wiped her mind and overwritten what was there so many times. Who, despite all of that, still had a moment of clarity and decided, You know what? I'm not a good person, but I can do good with what has to this point only created pain and suffering. I can do good and start to pay off my debt to the world.

And Disney refuses to acknowledge any of these things because they're Too Dark or Too Inconvenient or Too Much, and in doing so they remove all of the depth and the nuance and the complexity to the characters. They remove the parts that really show just how super these people are, not because of the skills they have or the things they've done to save the world.

But because despite everything, they have overcome and persevered.

They decided, not to be heroes, but to do the best they could to do Good.

Summary: I love the MCU. I really do. I love so many of the characters––hell, I write so many of them here or elsewhere––and I am still so thrilled for some of the movies that are still to come. But sometimes I really hate the things they choose to leave out and the changes they decide to make.