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#its gay because what happens in it is gay not because russo is obsessed with men.
kraniumet · 1 year
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hate both of those guys but matthew vaughn & guy ritchie where theeee perpetrators of the 2000-2020 gay men movie industrial complex
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professorspork · 5 years
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Can you talk a little more about why you found Endgame devastating in a bad way and not a good way?
I sure can! I can talk a lot more, in fact! I’m going to put this under a cut because Ihave a feeling it’s going to get Quite Long (ETA: it is, this is 6k words I amso sorry) so if anyone just wants the tl;dr version, I recommend GaviaBaker-Whitelaw’s excellent article ‘How the straight agenda ruined Avengers:Endgame.’
If you want my own personal take, well. Enter at your ownrisk, here be monsters, etc:
First of all, the very short answer to your question: Itagged this photo as emblematic of all the ways Endgame was “devastating in thebad way and not in the good way” because, if I’m being really honest, Steve and Natbeing queerplatonic life partners (who maybe occasionally fuck but mostly don’t)was my absolute favorite thing about the MCU. (Yes, despite all the words thatfollow hereon about Bucky, I stand by Steve&Nat being my Absolute Favorite,because it was entirely about what was onscreen and nothing about the fanon thatfollowed.) And now it’s Gone and not only is it Gone it was Taken From Me, andI’m salty.
The much longer answer:
What’s maddening is that I honestly loved the vast, vastmajority of Endgame. I adored, like, 92% of it!! It’s just that the remaining8% is the part that’s a) most relevant to character arcs and b) permanent,which leaves me at a bit of an impasse. It’s hard to remember my delight overthe way Natasha laid down haphazardly over old take-out containers whilebrainstorming at her peak adorableness when she’s, y’know, dead. (Which isn’teven my biggest issue!)
I’m going to break it out by character, from most toleast irksome to me so we get the heaviest stuff out of the way and then by theend I’m just shouting on my lawn going “AND ANOTHER THING.” I’m also not goingto go into The Thor Thing, because I think everyone worth talking to is inagreement about that being fatphobic and offensive.
Okay, here we go: 
STEVE
I fucking hate that Steve went back in time to marryPeggy. AND I LOVE PEGGY AND I LOVE STEVE/PEGGY SO I’M SO MAD THIS IS WHERE I’VEBEEN LEFT. I have tried to make my peace with it, I have failed, and I amhonestly not used to being this mad at a fictional character. I know it’suseless to hold it against him—something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately isthat argument some fans make about like “why are you slutshaming X characterfor wearing skimpy armor, she just feels most empowered riding into battle withnothing but a strip of leather over her tits” when like, the characterdid not make this choice, the writers made it be that way—but unlike, say,the characterization of Steve in Age of Ultron, which I can happily disregard becauseJoss hates Steve, Markus, McFeely, Russo & Russo have been the architectsof everything I love about Steve. It’s straight from the source! And soI… I’m taking it personally, though I know I shouldn’t. I feel like Steve turnedhis back on me and left me behind.
Well. Me and Bucky Barnes.
It’s probably no secret if you follow this blog that I’ma big Stucky girl. I have admitted it’s one of my top three ships of all time;my steve and bucky tag is 21 damn pages long. But I promise, I PROMISE, thisisn’t even about that. Regardless of whether or not you think these two are orever were in romantic love with each other, their best friendship is one of themost important and indelible parts of the MCU.
Steve’s emotional arc over the last several movies hasrevolved around his intense obsession with all things Bucky. He bailedon his concert tour, defied orders and became Cap-in-combat to save Bucky in1944. He tore down SHIELD, HYDRA and the whole world for Bucky when he foundout he was alive. He became a war criminal on the slightest chance he couldprove Bucky’s innocence! And then, when they were finally reunited, finally foronce on the same page at the same time, Bucky was taken in the Snap. And so,like. It seems a bit WEIRD to me that Steve’s heartbreak over the Snap isframed as a Peggy thing (see: him looking at the Peggy compass before their first act attack on Thanos; his talking exclusively about Peggyin the Snap support group he runs WITH GAY MEN) when Peggy died a natural deathafter a long life in Civil War and not, y’know, Bucky, his oldest, mostintimate relationship-haver, or even Sam, his best friend. It seems a bit ODDto me that we see dozens of cute, short reunions and meetings in the finalbattle with 2014 Thanos—known Extremely Important Relationships Tony/Dr. Strangeand Peter/Carol are given significant on screen exchanges—but we don’t seeSteve and Bucky reunite with one another. It feels a bit CONSPICUOUS to me thatSteve does not tell Bucky what he plans to do when he goes to take the stonesback, full on SUSPICIOUS to me that the two don’t say boo shit to each other—can’teven stand in the same group together when Steve comes back from histime vacation—and outright UNBELIEVABLE to me that Steve Rogers would choose tolive seventy years of his life without Bucky Barnes.
I just don’t buy it.
I don’t buy that after four movies of you telling me itisn’t the case, Steve Rogers’ happy ending doesn’t include Bucky. (Andwe’ll touch on the whole idea of what it means to have a “happy ending” in abit.)
It feels like a deliberate side-step. It feels like thecreative team tried and failed to come up with anything approaching a normal,just-two-bros reunion scene for them and with the weight of their past intimacyeverything they wrote came off as a marriage proposal so they scrapped itentirely. It’s insulting. Not on a “my ship didn’t go canon” level—I never in amillion years expected Steve and Bucky to ‘get together’ in any concrete sense,I wouldn’t even have known what to do with it if I got it, I never wanted that.All I wanted was for the text to honor the affection, the bond between thesetwo just as much as it did in any of the other movies. One of the best featuresof the MCU is its consistency when it comes to character detail andrelationship nuance. So how on earth (I know how, we all know how) did theydrop the ball on what is literally their flagship friendship?
But it’s not just that Steve goes back in time withoutBucky, or without saying a word to him about it. It’s that Steve goes back intime and then, apparently, does absolutely nothing for seventy years, includingsaving Bucky.
The time travel rules in Endgame are… unique. They areunprecedented. And it’s easy to tell that’s true, because not once have thedifferent members of the creative team been able to give a consistent answer onwhy or how it works in interviews after the fact. So like. I accept that mytake on this may not be the “canon” take, and until we get a post-Endgame moviethat addresses these things there IS no canon take. Regardless of what their “thisisn’t Back to the Future” rules means about whether or not changing the pastmeans changing the future, in the future all of these characters lived Buckywas on ice/doing murders until the events of Winter Soldier, also in which theworld learned SHIELD was HYDRA. The Russos think Steve created his own branchreality when he went back in time, and the question is then how he got back toour world to hand off the shield; Markus and McFeely don’t think that’s true;they think Steve lived concurrently to his own regular timeline and was always Peggy’s husband. YOU WOULD THINK THEY’D HAVE REACHED AGREEMENT ON THIS EITHER WAY BEFORE THIS POINT, BUT I DIGRESS. This meansthat either a) M&M are right and Steve went back in time and neither toldhis new wife Peggy “hey honey, you know that startup you’ve got going withHoward, maybe don’t invite Arnim Zola unless you want your entire legacy to beNazis,” nor did he save Bucky when he knew he was somewhere in Eastern Europebeing fucking tortured and brainwashed. He didn’t stop Howard and Maria fromgetting in the car. There’s a lot of joke tweets about how Captain America just“let 9/11 happen” and like—it’s a joke but it’s also NOT A JOKE--- orrrrrr b) theRussos are right and maybe Steve did all of those things in a branch reality,which they felt no need to mention when they were wrapping up the emotionalstoryline for their marquee character, which is lazy at best and kind ofunforgivable at worst. Even in the Best Version of Events, where not only arethe Russos are right and Steve went back in a splinter timeline, but in thatsplinter timeline Steve co-founded a Nazi-less SHIELD with Peggy and theyfought crime Hart to Hart style, saved Bucky, stopped the Vietnam War fromhappening and cured AIDS, it still means Peggy no longer did everything she didon her own, fighting and clawing for it like a honey badger. And should shehave had to? No, of course not. But is it her defining trait and greatestaccomplishment that she did? YES! This matters to me! Erasing it without givingher a say matters to me!
And the fact that all of this is in doubt is BONKERS. Iwould feel less weird about if they didn’t leave all of it unsaid! If they’dincluded a scene with Bucky before Steve went back where Bucky just went “Steve,listen. I know what you’re thinking, and you can’t save me, okay? It wouldbreak the time continuum or something. Now go be a reckless idiot like I knowyou’re gonna and say hi to Carter for me” it would at least feel like theycared the slightest bit. Hell, if they gave Peggy ANY LINES AT ALL it wouldfeel a heck of a lot more like the reuniting of two characters I love and lesslike a mortifying hetcon where Steve erases all of Peggy’s professionalaccomplishments and canon husband and other family just to have hisfairytale happy ending with a voiceless woman-shaped smilebot.
Do you have any idea how much I would have cried if we’dgotten a scene were Steve showed up at the Stork Club in time for his dance?Peggy doesn’t even need to have A LOT of lines (though she should!) A tearysmirk and a “you’re late” reprise would have gone so far! (Especially if they’dhad a final, heart-wrenching goodbye for closure and then he’d returned to thefuture, giving us the best of both worlds, but what do I know.) But no, EdwinJarvis gets a line in this movie and Peggy doesn’t. She has no say in the endof her story—it’s a decision that’s made at her. She’s a bit player inher own life. Steve isn’t reunited with Peggy, he gets a dance with the idea ofPeggy. But like. The real Peggy is brash and terrible at emotional honesty! Shewould be a nightmare to be married to! So is Steve! That’s why I love them,they’re awful! And it just feels like all of that was erased in a moment infavor of a vision of unsustainable hetero bliss.
(Honestly, the way I make peace with this is by thinkingthat after maybe six months with Peggy they were both like “oh godwhat were we thinking, this is never going to work” and broke up, and thereason Steve didn’t tell Sam his wife’s name is that it wasn’t Peggy andhe’s too embarrassed to say so.)
And like. I’m trying not to feel like an awfulbitch/bitter old crone about it, because the thing I keep circling back to inconversation with others is them saying “can’t you at least be happy for himthat he’s at peace? Don’t you think he deserves to rest? After everything he’s done,shouldn’t Steve get a chance to be happy?”
Listen. Do I think Steve deserves a chance athappiness? Yes. Do I think Steve Rogers actually has the capacity forsustainable, long term happiness? … Honestly, no. That’s one of the reasons Ilove him.
Steve is miserable. His life is hard, he’s got PTSD, hehas trouble adjusting even in the best of circumstances. But he’s a fighter.And the reason I admire(d) him so much is that no matter what life threw athim, he was relentless in his forward momentum. He had to go on, he had to keepstanding up for others. He didn’t know how not to. Does this mean he needs ashit ton of therapy? Yes, it does—and the therapy is better in the future, Imight add! But like. As much as the creative team keeps going on about howtheir overall arcs were “Tony needed to learn to be more selfless, like Steve,and Steve needed to learn to be more selfish, like Tony” I think there’s adifference between learning to grasp happiness with both hands in the unlikely,miraculous event it comes your way, because it’s brief and shining and worthcelebrating, even though it comes with heartbreak, and just… noping out of yourlife and ignoring your problems for seven decades while everyone else worriesabout it. I’ve never seen Steve sit still and keep himself out of trouble forseven minutes—now I’m supposed to believe he managed it for seventy years? Hewas Peggy’s weird secret attic husband no one knew about? I respected him,loved him, and identified with him—I felt represented by him—because not onlydid he have to fight for every scrap of happiness he’s ever had, he felt likethere was honor in that fight. That’s why Mjolnir declared him Worthy!! And forhim to then lay down his responsibility and NOT FIGHT for 70 years momentsafter being given that distinction… it stings.
I appreciate my happy endings when they’re hard-won. Thatoften means they’re bittersweet. And if Steve’s ending were framed that way—yes,he got back his Era and he got the girl, but he lost his best friend, his foundfamily, and any determinedly-etched-out balance—I might be more okay with it.But it’s presented as the uncomplicated ride off into the sunset he deserved,and… I don’t want my stories uncomplicated. Steve Rogers is not anuncomplicated man. I know a lot of this is YMMV and I’m maybe a bit more darkin my tastes than others, here—hell, I think it’s cheap that the Elrics got alltheir flesh back AND Mustang got back his sight in FMA:B, that feels like toohappy an ending for me—but telling me that what Steve’s really wanted allthis time was to have a house in the ‘burbs and chill doesn’t resonate. Steve’swhole thing since Day 1 was “how can I sit idly by while other men risk theirlives? I can’t stand that.”
It feels like a How I Met Your Mother ending. If Stevehad had the option to go back at the end of Avengers 1, I’d have bought itcompletely that he’d take it (both for character arc reasons and for “he didn’tknow Bucky was alive then” reasons). But he’s not that guy anymore. Yet itseems like they decided a long, long time ago that Steve was going to go backin time and get a do-over, and years of development, growth, moving on andbonding with other people be damned. Who cares if Steve got Bucky back, whocares if Steve got Sam back, who cares that he’d lived 13 years, his entireadult life, in the future? Nat’s dead, might as well go back to the other damewho liked him!
And. And here’s the thing. If everything else were equalbut Bucky and Peggy’s roles were reversed—if Peggy fell from the train, and itwas Bucky who founded SHIELD with Howard; if Steve met Bucky again as adementia-ridden old man and Peggy were the Winter Soldier, if it were PeggySteve spent all these movies desperately trying to save and nurture—I feel likeeveryone else would find it REALLY WEIRD if Steve went back in time to do itall over again with Bucky! That’s not a question of romance, or gender. Not forme, who loves all of these characters equally. It’s a question of the emotionalarchitecture the story is built upon.
Historically, every decision Steve’s ever made in theentire time we’ve known him has been about Bucky. And for this ending to work,it requires us to either ignore that, or think this single-minded focus wasnever about Bucky at all—that it was instead a sublimated love where Buckybecame a signifier for Peggy or the past Steve lost, instead of a person in hisown right, the person Steve’s always chosen and who’s always chosen him, sincethey were kids. Til the end of the line. Asking me to believe that is a)horrible, and cruel, and frankly homophobic and b) simply untenable—I don’t thinkthat the plots of First Avenger, Winter Soldier or Civil War stand up to thatreading.
And even in the kindest reading of all of this—that Stevedeserves to return to the time he was stolen from, because it’s his TrueTime and Peggy’s his True Love—then my god, doesn’t Bucky deserve that, too?Steve was an orphan with, after Bucky’s “death,” ONLY Peggy and I guess theHowlies to tie him to the world. Bucky has a family! He’s got sisters! Theythink he’s dead! If Steve deserves this, doesn’t Bucky, after everything he’sbeen through, deserve it too? If it applies to one of them, it applies to bothof them, doesn’t it? No matter which way you slice it? (For the record, if Stevehad taken Bucky back to the past with him I'd still be scratching my head aboutthe timeline bearing out—and I think it would make the Sam!Cap offer even morekind of paltry and afterthoughtish than it already is, Sam deserves FIREWORKSand A CROWD damn it, and it also deserves to be a decision not made AT him, seeabove—but at least I could be like “yeah, that's exactly the kind ofhilariously not-thought-out decision Steve would make, have fun kiddo.”)
But I guess Steve inviting Bucky on his Happy Ending Tourof the past would be too much like a fucking proposal so, uh, no, we don’t getthat.
NATASHA
Here is a top ten list, in no particular order, called “I’dbe fine with it, but.” 
1. I’d be fine with it—Natasha is a hero, and she deservesa hero’s ending, she merits going out in a big swing to save the world—but she’sstill the Smurfette, man. It means something different to kill your only original female leadthis way than it does to kill a male character. It especially means that whenyou kill her in the exact same way you killed Gamora—THE OTHER SMURFETTE—onemovie previous. It feels cheap, and it feels callous. M&M&R&R havetalked a lot about the woman/women in the office who read a draft where Clintdied instead and said “DON’T YOU TAKE THIS AWAY FROM HER” but a) tbh I feellike maybe they were reading a different draft than was ultimately shot, thismovie evolved a lot over the years and b) when you’re the Token Girl, your storyis more than just yours. In a franchise of this scale, it’s just… it’s notequal yet. If the circumstances had been utterly different, if Nat haddied wielding the Infinity Gauntlet, at least it would be novel. And like—I amnot the kind of person who thinks standing against Bury Your Gays means no gayscan ever die or else, for example; sometimes a Good Death is warranted if it’swell-written enough—but again: it’s the “she feels empowered in that skimpysuit” thing. You didn’t HAVE to create a murder cliff that only exists forfemale characters to die for the men who love them. You made that choice. It’speak “why do we even have that lever?!”
2. I’d be fine with it—Natasha loves Clint, of course shewouldn’t let him die for her, not when he’s fighting to get back his family—butit would have made more sense for Clint to die as penance for all of the ninjamurders he did after losing his kids than for Nat to die because she can’t haveany. It feels like it privileges bio family over found family in a way that’skind of dismissive and gross, and it calls back to the mortifying line in Ageof Ultron were Nat referred to herself as a monster over her infertility. And theargument that Clint couldn’t die, there’s a Hawkeye Disney+ series falls flatwhen Nat has a MOVIE coming out and Vision also has a Disney+ series and yetis, as of this moment, still dead.
3. I’d be fine with it—Natasha loves Clint, of coursethey’d bicker over who would jump—but when the “dramatic” scene that precedes amajor character’s death resembles nothing so much as this comic, you’re doingit wrong. I shouldn’t be giggling over their antics right before someone fallsto their death.
4. I’d be fine with it—Nat did it for her family, whomshe loves—but her family didn’t even honor her back, and that’s bullshit. Tonygets a massive funeral and Nat gets nothing? I admit that what I trulywant for her—a long sequence of RENT-style “what Angel meant to me”testimonials—would have been a bit weird to include pacing-wise, even if I dothink if I asked Chris Evans and Jeremy Renner nicely over twitter they’dprobably improvise one for me anyway. But it didn’t have to be that. A singleshot in a montage would be enough. A shot of Clint, Laura, Fury, Steve, Sam, Okoye and Pepper doing a shot of vodka together and pouring one out for Nat would havebeen enough. Simple, elegant, gets the point across. It’s not hard!!!
5. I’d be fine with it—they needed to get the Soul Stone,for skimpy outfit reasons someone had to die, I get it—but then Steve has toput all the stones back to reverse the heist and stop the branch timelines fromcollapsing like The Ancient One warned about. How the fuck do you return theSoul Stone? And Steve could, wouldn’t that cosmically mean we get Nat back? Asoul for a soul, isn’t that the deal?
6. I’d be fine with it—I understand that playing the longgame and forcing yourself to fall in love with Red Skull so you cansacrifice him, though hilarious, is not actually a solution—but it just seemslike there are other ways to write around this moment. Nat and Clint have bothlost so much, sacrificed so much. That doesn’t count? This isn’t like Thanos,who’s never sacrificed a thing in his life. Nat’s given up so much for thecause; Clint lost his family. The Soul Stone couldn’t just sense that?Or—what if they’d jumped together? Full Rose and Jack, “you jump, I jump,right?” Refusing to be separated. What would the Soul Stone math be then? Ifeel like it would have been a cooler story to find out.
7. I’d be fine with it—ScarJo needed a way out of hercontract, after the Black Widow movie (which: how they’re going to make thatwork is a whole other rant I do not have time for here)—but killing Natasha inthe one irreversible way in a damn comic book franchise just feels soneedlessly final. If you’d said “after everything, after holding the Avengerstogether for five years with nothing but the force of her will and some peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches, she’s tired and disillusioned with it and wants toroam the world for a while without the team, maybe fight some normal crime fora bit” and had her phased out quietly I would have understood! It would havebeen fine! Preferable, even!
8. I’d be fine with it—I don’t think it’s total bullshit whenM&M&R&R say that this was the end of her arc, she’d found herfamily and become a true hero—but the implication that death is the only way toend an arc is lazy and, in this case, hurtful. It comes off as “we couldn’tthink of anything else to do with her, so we killed her.” You can’t do betterthan that? Tony and Steve were gone. Natasha ran the Avengers, andpulled Nick Fury duty on top of it, for five years and death is the onlyend of her arc? Again, I know ScarJo’s contract is up, but that answer is justoffensive. In a perfect world, given the circumstances you’ve described the endof Nat’s arc would be continuing to lead the fucking Avengers.
9. I’d be fine with it—maybe all those office ladies wereright, maybe it would have felt pandering and sexist and deflating if Clint hadstolen Nat’s moment and died for her—but it’s kind of conspicuous that thereare only two female leads in this movie, Natasha and Nebula, and when both trulyexhibit their agency in their climactic moments, they choose to die. And Nebulakilling her past self to save Gamora is one of my favorite moments of the film!But god, there’s more to female agency than suicide, right?
10. I’d be fine with it—the way Steve cries when he findsout is gratifying and in-character—but Tony’s question of “Did she have anyfamily?” is fucking horrifying. You know she doesn’t, Tony, Jesus Christ.It was a sloppy, lazy setup just so Steve could say “Yeah. Us.” Which wasfucking unnecessary because we know that, that’s why she died for you. (Thecomedy reading, which is that Tony was implying she, like Clint, had a secretFarm Family is hilarious but, y’know. Not the right time.)
And speaking of the sir himself…
TONY
This one is a big case of “it’s not what you say, it’show you say it.” I didn’t expect Tony to get out of Endgame alive. (In fact, Ihad braced myself for a total party kill for the original six, which, if it hadbeen a TPK, I would have felt way better about it tbh. If they’d gone down one byone Rogue One style, at least the playing field would be even; that wouldremove a lot of the sting.) Tony’s the bedrock, he’s where we started, and ofcourse this would be the end of his road. He was going to go out big, he wasgoing to save the world. I knew that was the deal.
But they also gave him a little girl.
To my eyes, you can give Tony the ending he deserves—the endingwhere he and Pepper get to settle down, where he gets to be the father he neverhad, the one where he’s finally stable, finally at peace—or you can giveTony the Ending He Deserves—the one where he, the flagship, the starting pistolof the MCU, gets to vanquish Thanos saying “I am Iron Man.” Epic.
You… you lose me when you do both.
Here’s where I get my hackles up:
Were there any other outcomes you considered for Tony?
MARKUS No. Because we had the opportunity to give him theperfect retirement life, within the movie.
McFEELY He got that already.
MARKUS That’s the life he’s been striving for. Are he andPepper going to get together? Yes. They got married, they had a kid, it wasgreat. It’s a good death. It doesn’t feel like a tragedy. It feels like aheroic, finished life.
It is a fucking tragedy! Pepper is left alone with a fiveyear old girl! Pepper does not get a perfect, finished life. It’s a gross,reductive, alienating view of fatherhood, which is all the more starkly (punintended) contrasted when you compare him to Scott, a good dad whoactually gives a shit that he missed out on three years of Cassie’s lifein prison and then ANOTHER FIVE in the Quantum Realm. Honestly, this is whathappens when you don’t let women write these movies—the characterization formen suffers, too, not just women. Because it wasn’t even a factor to them.Like. They literally cut a scene from the movie where a vision of Morgan fromthe future absolved him of guilt for leaving his family behind. That’s… reallyawful, fellas. Surely you can see how awful that is?
I want to feel good about Tony’s death. I want to feelinspired. Part of me does. But god, that little girl. God, Pepper.
But then, it’s pretty much par for the course. Because it’sworth it to talk about 
WOMEN
This isn’t about how the one “Girl Power” shot wasshallow fanservice instead of substantive representation, how it makes no sensein the plot of the moment, or how it’s a totally empty gesture unless they planon giving us an A-Force movie (though all of those things are true).
It’s about how this movie has a gender problem in whichthe vast, vast majority of female characters got to be “badass” by bucklingunder the will of their male counterparts—and those who didn’t mostly justweren’t in it enough for that to be true.
Peggy doesn’t get any lines; she is presented not as thestrong, capable individual we know her to be but as a storybook reward forSteve’s good behavior after all these years. She is a prop, not a person.
Pepper is, for the thousandth time, defined as strong andcapable because she’s able to withstand all of the crap Tony puts on her. Ilove Tony/Pepper, I think they’re the beating heart of the MCU, their screwballenergy left a positive and indelible mark on the MCU that redefined how loveinterests work (well, barring Betty Ross, I’m so sorry Betty your movie isawful and you deserved so much better). But like. Tony gives her a company whenhe doesn’t want it anymore, he gives her a suit even though he knows she’s notinterested, he talks her into having a child together and then he leaves herbehind. Pepper is like an amazing, super intense version of one of those cookswho up-cycles leftovers into new, amazing, even-better-than-the-originaldishes. But she shouldn’t have to be, and she deserves better.
The same goes for Valkyrie, who is literally handedthe crown of Asgard for no other reason than because she’s there. It’s notthat she’s not capable, it’s not that she doesn’t deserve it, and it’s not thatshe won’t do an amazing job, but again: it’s a decision made at her. Why isthis still happening? (See also: Sam!Cap, and another way that Sam is stillgetting the Love Interest treatment after all of these years).
Carol was underused, and utilized entirely as a Deus ExMachina instead of as a person with feelings every time she did show up. Whileshe has the raw power to back up that plot usage, aside from her little smirkand “hey, Peter Parker,” we got almost no humanity from her. It’s not like theMCU is bad at establishing loads and loads of nuance in just a few lines—the massivejuggernaut that is Clint/Coulson shipping was launched when they exchanged twosentences to each other!—so it doesn’t feel like a lot to ask that Carol bein the scenes she’s in. You know?
For the most part, I really love how they handled Gamoraand Nebula, but the fact that 2014 them were Super Team Thanos flies directlyin the face of where both of them were at the start of GotG—and for Gamora tochange her mind after learning that in the future, she and Nebula are trulysisters when it’s Nebula who always wanted that for them is… a littlereductive. This was Their Movie—five more minutes to really tease out thenuance here would have really gone a long way.
Plus there was that whole scene where Frigga was like “actuallyit’s fine if I die; I’m just glad you’re okay honey. I feel so empowered inthis skimpy outfit. It has to be this way!” If Nat didn’t die the way she did, this scene would read differently! But she did! So it doesn’t!
Okay. Okay. I’m sure I’ve forgotten things that botheredme, but I have to stop somewhere so it might as well be here. In fact, here’s alist of things I really liked, to remind us all that I did like this movie:
America’s ass! “I could do this all day”/“I know!” ThePB&J cut diagonal! Cooper’s baseball mitt! Tony and Nebula playing PaperFootball! Nebula and Rhodey being best friends / “he’s an idiot!” Clint and Natforehead touch! Nat lounging on the takeout containers! When Hope calls Steve ‘Cap’and Scott gives her a little Look about it! Instant Kill Mode! Bruce and TheAncient One talk metaphysics—and the fact that Bruce is what is astrallyprojected out of Hulk! The redo of the elevator scene being subverted with “HailHydra!” Tony and Howard! Rocket’s much-needed frank pep talk to Thor! Ding dongditching 1970 Hank because he deserves that and so much worse! Tony revisitinghis Age of Ultron mentality at his lowest—frankly, it made me buy it in a wayall of AoU didn’t! Nebula murdering who she used to be so she can becomesomething new (let the past die, kill it if you have to amirite?)! Theindulgent credits sequence with the original 6 and their autographs! Quill’sface when he saw 2014 Gamora! TIME HEIST AS A CONCEPT LBR. Everyone’s funeralfashion choices, some of which are patently Bonkers! Smart Hulk having to riphis shirt off and pretend to enjoy smashing to blend in in 2012! The whole tacosight gag outside the compound! I love you 3000! Scott reuniting with Cassieand saying “you’re so big” instead of “you’re so tall!” Steve being Worthy!Thor doing a self-Fastball Special by hitting Mjolnir with Stormbreaker! YIBAMBE!
I don’t think I have ever cried as hard as I didwhen Sam said “on your left” and all of the Snapped heroes came back in Strange’sportals. Desperate, sobbing, joyful, elated, transported, awe-filled GASPINGkind of crying. I could hardly breathe. I really freaked out the guy next tome, I’ll tell you that.
I’m upset because these movies are good. This movie isgood. It made me feel… I don’t think I can describe the acute, painful ecstasyof that moment as long as I live, when everyone I loved, everyone gone,returned and returned and returned. I’m tearing up just describing it to younow.
I say these things because I care. I say these thingsbecause I don’t want to stop caring, and when characters I love are written inways I cannot understand, that I cannot abide, I am removed from the equation.And I am the damn target audience for this fucking movie. What I think matters.And it matters that I say it.
If you actually made it this far, I am very impressedwith your fortitude, and I thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
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iamnmbr3 · 5 years
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Hey, thanks for being here and letting us sound off and let our grief and anger out somewhere safe. I personally feel like I can’t be honest without getting abuse. I think the straight fans forget isn’t about “stupid shippers being butthurt” a lot o us are actual queer people being hurt. No one expected on scene romance marvel/Disney are too cowardly for that. But for them to completely undermine his entire character just to shut us up is a pointed, intentional message Part 1/2
2/2 As a queer person with no comic knowledge watching these movies I really thought Steve was written as a closeted gay man. His every interaction with P*ggy/blonde lady/nat/Sh*ron legitimately,to me, seemed one sided and uncomfortable to Steve. The one time he kissed P*ggy seemed for her sake not his because he had no intention of coming back. That’s why his whole new Peggy obsession seems off the rails to me. They didn’t date and he really seemed uninterested in tfa. Guess I was a gay dumbass
Part 3 I guess I’d just ask the people who are celebrating this win to be a little understanding and stop telling shippers to shut and be grateful
Of course! *giant hug!* Thank you for this ask. Sorry if this answer gets a bit long, because there’s a lot in here that I want to unpack. 
Obviously I’m quite upset about what the Russos have done, for a number of reasons, and how the MCU’s corporate leadership in general has handled this whole thing. But honestly, I’ve also been quite disturbed by the reaction I’ve seen on here from some people who seem so angry that there are some of us out here who didn’t like this movie.
Attacking someone because they didn’t enjoy a superhero movie for whatever reason is absurd. You have the right not to interact with negative content. But you do not have the right to attack people for having feelings. 
However, this is more than just a movie that some people didn’t like. If people were complaining because their ships were sunk, that would be a valid reason to dislike a film, and they wouldn’t deserve any criticism. But this goes deeper. 
This movie didn’t just happen to sink a ship. It was written in a way to very specifically and systematically undermine people’s ability to read Steve and Bucky’s relationship as romantic. People aren’t just upset because Marvel didn’t canonize stucky. They’re also upset because the film went out of its way to try to actively de-canonize anything that could contribute to a queer reading of these characters, to the point of utterly destroying their characterization to do so. 
This is particularly disgusting and upsetting because the relationship between Steve and Bucky was initially written in a way that was full of romantic subtext. And I don’t think that was accidental. I think at one point, it was very intentional. Sure, they were never going to actually explore that relationship openly in the films. But I don’t think the subtext in Winter Soldier was coincidental or accidental. 
The Russos were looking for a way to make Steve’s character deeper and more interesting. They looked at the relationship between him and Bucky in TFA, which already included subtext, and they decided to accentuate that. Steve’s adjustment to the 21st century becomes a lot more complicated, if you write him as a closeted gay man from the 40s who has lost everything he ever knew or cared about and is mourning the love of his life, only to then discover that that person is actually alive. And then of course, Steve has to fight an antagonist who he is in love with and desperately doesn’t want to harm. That’s a good story. That’s an interesting one. And it adds depth to the characters, even if it stays as subtext. 
But then something happened. People picked up on that subtext and responded to it. They responded too much. And Disney didn’t like that. They started trying to sink stucky in Civil War (how mild their efforts seem now). By Infinity War, Steve and Bucky were barely allowed to interact on screen, despite how central they are to each other’s stories. And then we got that disgusting conclusion to Endgame, which defies logic and characterization. And honestly it feels like it’s punishing fans for picking up on the subtext that was written into the movie. We didn’t put it there. It’s punishing us for caring about this truly epic and beautiful romance. And it’s punishing people for seeing a reflection of themselves in these characters. And that’s not just wrong. It’s sickening.
Obviously people are upset about that. To call them “angry shippers” is so insultingly reductive. Even if they were just angry shippers, they still would have a right to dislike this movie. But it’s so much more than that. This ship wasn’t just born out of fandom. It was born out of the canonical content of these films and the way people connected with that. People are angry because Marvel gave us something and then tried to take it back and destroy it.
But they didn’t succeed, and they won’t. Because fandom is stronger than that. We saw this beautiful relationship, this incredible love story that Marvel and Disney were too pathetically cowardly to tell, and we told it. Not once, but a thousand times over in every manner and format you can imagine. We honed and perfected it and we will keep doing that. These are fictional characters. The “canon” Steve is not more real than the “fanon” Steve in any fan art or fanfic. All fiction is equally fictional. 
On AO3 right now there are 40,901 versions of Steve and Bucky whose romance is canonically acknowledged. The MCU has one (1) version whose relationship is not canonically acknowledged. 40,901 to 1. Fandom wins. 
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wikipress01 · 6 years
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How Rockefeller Created Feminism And Enslaved Humanity
First-wave feminism has some good factors, and created some optimistic modifications in society, however it’s excessive time folks realized that at present’s number of feminism, which has produced nothing however catastrophe and despair, and has despatched Western civilization spiraling into decline, is at it’s basis a Rockefeller creation designed to enslave humanity. 
People today have a look at you want a weirdo if you happen to speak about the truth that society was more healthy earlier than the arrival of feminism. Much like the rest, the media, politics and cash have been used to warp folks’s minds and encourage them to actively embrace what’s unhealthy for them.
In 50 quick years since Rockefeller lobbed the feminism grenade into each American family, many ladies have misplaced contact with their pure loving instincts. Consequently, the household is in disarray, sexual depravity is rampant and start charges have plummeted.
I’ll broaden on the Rockefeller’s position, however first we have to keep in mind that for a lady, love is an instinctive act of self-sacrifice.
She offers herself to her husband and youngsters and is fulfilled by seeing them thrive and  receiving their love, respect and gratitude.
A girl makes this supreme sacrifice to just one man who will cherish her and supply for his household. Men instinctively need to fulfill this duty. This is the essence of the heterosexual contract (i.e. marriage): feminine energy in trade for male energy expressed as love. Sex is the image of this unique bond. Marriage and household might not be for everybody however it is the pure path for many.
Feminism has skilled girls to reject this mannequin as “an old fashioned, oppressive stereotype” regardless that it displays their pure instincts.
Henry Makow studies: On Thursday a British author reported overhearing two younger girls:
“All males are ineffective today,” one stated. “Yeah,” stated the opposite. “The hassle is that they haven’t risen to the problem of feminism. They don’t perceive that we want them to be extra masculine, and as a substitute they’ve simply copped out.“
That’s their logic? If girls are much less female, males shall be extra masculine? Men aren’t designed to battle with girls. They must be affirmed by a girl’s acquiescence and religion. When girls consistently problem them, males will “cop out” of marriage and household.
Now that love and marriage have been “discredited,” girls don’t have anything left to trade for love however intercourse. Thus, many are unnaturally obsessive about look and pathetically give their our bodies to one and all.
Permanent love shouldn’t be primarily based on a girl’s intercourse enchantment, or persona or achievements. Ultimately, it’s primarily based on self-sacrifice. We love the individuals who love us.
THE BIG PICTURE: THE CENTRAL BANKERS 
People don’t notice that feminism is mass indoctrination as a result of they can not establish the perpetrator, the means or the motive.
Recently Aaron Russo, the producer of Bette Midler’s motion pictures and “America: From Freedom to Fascism” recognized all three confirming what I’ve been saying.
While making an attempt to recruit Russo for the CFR, Nicholas Rockefeller instructed him that his household basis created girls’s liberation utilizing mass media management as a part of a long-term plan to enslave humanity. He admitted they need to “chip us.” Google “Rockefeller Foundation” and “Women’s Studies” and also you’ll get a half million citations.
The hidden purpose of feminism is to destroy the household, which interferes with state brainwashing of the younger. Side advantages embody depopulation and widening the tax base. Displacing males within the position of  suppliers additionally destabilizes the household.
Nicholas Rockefeller is on file admitting the Rockefeller Foundation created “women’s liberation” so as to enslave humanity.
A drastic paradigm shift is required to make sense of the world. The Rockefellers are a part of the personal world central banking cartel that additionally controls media, defence, pharmaceutical and different cartels. To shield their monopoly of credit score and wealth, they’re instituting a world police state (“world government”) utilizing the bogus 9-11 assault and countless battle as a pretext. Rockefeller instructed Russo about this plan a yr earlier than 9-11.
The poet Charles Peguy stated, “Everything begins in religion and ends in politics.” The banking cartel wants a philosophy to justify enchaining mankind. That philosophy is Satanism. The cartel controls the world by way of a community of occult societies linked to Freemasonry, Communism, the Vatican and arranged Jewry (Bnai Brith, ADL, AJC,  Zionism.) The highest occult rank is called the Illuminati.
Modern Western tradition is Masonic. Based on Luciferianism, Freemasonry teaches that man and never God determines actuality. (Naturally, they should overrule pure and religious legal guidelines so as to assert their very own management.) They have observed that persons are diffident malleable creatures who favor to imagine what they’re instructed than belief their very own purpose or notion.
MEDIA ERADICATES  LOVE
Every side of the mass media (motion pictures, TV, magazines, music, commercials, information) is used for indoctrination and social management with the last word purpose of enslavement. There is a connection between what occurred in Communist Russia and what’s taking place in America at present. In each circumstances, the central banking cartel is asserting its totalitarian management.
In order to destroy the household, the media satisfied girls that they may not depend on the heterosexual contract.
Myrna Blyth was the editor in chief of Ladies Home Journal from 1981 to 2002. In her e-book “Spin Sisters”(2004) she says the media bought girls “a career in exactly the same drum banging way that the Happy Homemaker had been ..sold to their mothers.”
The Rockefeller managed media undermined girls’s pure loving instincts utilizing the next mantras:
1. Men can now not be trusted. Using the Lifetime Network for instance, Blyth concluded “all men are 1) unfaithful rats 2) abusive monsters 3) dishonest scumbags, or 4) all of the above. Women on the other hand were…flinty achievers who triumph despite the cavemen who…want to keep them in their place.”
2. Women are victims by advantage of their intercourse.  Blyth says the media sends “one message loud and clear. Because we are women, we remain victims in our private lives, at work, in society as a whole.” Thus girls should have a way of grievance, entitlement and revolt. The similar tactic was used to manipulate Jews, Blacks, employees and gays. (See my “Victim as Moral Zombie” )
3. Women must be egocentric. “Liberation and narcissism have merged,” Blyth says. Leisure now means, “time for yourself, spent alone, or perhaps with one’s girlfriends but definitely without spouse and kids…Endless articles preached the new feminist gospel, that indulging yourself is an important part of being a healthy, well adjusted woman.”
4. Sex shouldn’t be reserved for love and marriage. Magazines like Glamour and Cosmopolitan  urge younger girls to “put out on their first date”, “ogle men openly” and be an athlete in mattress. There isn’t any dialogue of marriage or household. Such girls can’t belief a person sufficient to give up themselves in love.
5. Self-fulfillment lies in profession success and never husband and household. “The social rewards of holding down a job are critical to one’s sense of dignity and self worth,” Betty Friedan pontificated. In truth, “most work is deeply ordinary,” Blyth observes.
Thus many ladies are schizophrenic as they try to reconcile their pure instincts with fixed exhortations to do the other. The wreckage — damaged households and dysfunctional folks — is strewn in every single place.
At the identical time, Playboy Magazine and so forth. aimed a comparable message at males. You don’t must get married to have intercourse. Marriage and youngsters are a bore.
CONCLUSION
This constant media drumbeat is organized brainwashing. Society has been completely subverted by the central banking cartel, utilizing a Satanic cult, Freemasonry as its main instrument. Most masons are unaware of the reality however the house owners of the mass media definitely are.
We used to say, “as American as motherhood and apple pie.” Only satanists would trash motherhood. Far from empowering girls, feminism has unsexed many. It has disadvantaged them of a safe and valued social position and diminished them to intercourse objects and replaceable employees.
Luciferians promote revolt as a result of they’re defying what’s pure and conducive to happiness. Like their image, Lucifer, they want to play God.
God’s love will be seen in a girl’s dedication to her husband and youngsters. Thus the bankers should destroy it.
Baxter Dmitry
Baxter Dmitry is a author at Your News Wire. He covers politics, enterprise and leisure. Speaking fact to energy since he realized to speak, Baxter has travelled in over 80 international locations and received arguments in each single one. Live with out concern. Email: [email protected] Follow: @baxter_dmitry
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