Monday, May 28, 2012

The Hollywood-blockbuster machine


Admittedly, the label of #WorstMovieEver is probably an excessive description of the recently released film, the Avengers. In fairness to the new flick, it should be noted that my concerns noted below might more accurately be directed at the Hollywood-blockbuster machine more than at any one film in particular.

However, that admission does not exonerate this film of its grievances. Here are a few of the things I found troubling:

1. The roles of women in the film. In a list of the film's 11 stars, there's only one woman, and she isn't even a real super hero. As a society, are we comfortable admitting that for every 10 important men, there's one important woman?

Moreover, what role does she play? She's eye-candy for the film's predominantly male viewership. I'm not sure I heard a single word of dialogue between two female characters in this film. The female characters' importance is only evident in their interactions/relationships with male characters, who are in every case in this film their superiors. 

While I'm grateful this film spared us the proverbial cheesy romance between the one female lead and any/all of the film's many male protagonists, and while I acknowledge some strides made in casting women in prominent positions in society ("Pepper" (Gwyneth Paltrow) heads Stark's empire, the woman XO on the flying super-carrier), Hollywood has a long way to go before it treats men's and women's roles fairly. 

2. The lack of minorities. Outside "Nick Fury" (Samuel L. Jackson), the 11-person leading cast contains no minorities. And while I'm glad to see him portrayed as the team's leader, a single minority star in a cast of 11 is not representative of American demographics, and particularly not of the demographics of the city where it takes place. (According to some rankings, New York City is the most-diverse city on Earth.) This cast only further promulgates a society of predominantly white, predominantly male role models and leaders.

While I realize this film is an adaptation of a series of comics from a bygone era where white male supremacy and chauvinism were the norm, given the artistic license already taken in the screenplay, what would it have hurt to re-imagine some of the characters as minorities?

3. The "us-vs.-them" rhetoric and shameless pro-America propaganda. Hollywood has this funny way of serially portraying the fate of the world as resting completely in the hands of a few benevolent Americans. Are we really so egocentric as to believe America alone is capable of saving the world from impending doom, or that it would be wise for us to attempt such a task without the cooperation and participation of the remaining 95.7% of the world’s population? Moreover, where are the mediation and negotiation? Is armed conflict the only means of problem resolution?

When the Avengers discover that Nick Fury is planning to harness the power of the Tesseract to create new weapons for the American arsenal, they’re incensed. This is particularly troubling for Stark/Ironman, given his mission of disarmament. Fury argues, however, that greater weapons are needed, just to be prepared in the case of foreign/alien invasion.

This arms-race foreign policy is something we’ve seen before. Did we learn nothing from the Cold War or post-WWI Germany about the perils of weapons proliferation? Moreover, Joseph F. Smith taught:

“One thing is certain, the doctrine of peace by armed force, held to so long and tenaciously by czars, kings, and emperors, is a failure, and should without question forever be abandoned. It has been wrong from the beginning. That we get what we prepare for is literally true in this case. For years it has been held that peace comes only by preparation for war; the present conflict [World War I] should prove that peace comes only by preparing for peace” (The Improvement Era, Vol. 17, p. 1074, 1914).

The message is clear: if we want peace, we have to prepare for it and live like we want it. Arming ourselves to the teeth is a backwards approach to the issue and will only require more complicated disarmament negotiations in the end.

(Coincidentally, these historical observations and prophetic counsel on weapons proliferation and making preparations for war also form a compelling argument against gun ownership and the current interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, but that discussion is for another post.)

And I suppose it shouldn’t have come as any surprise that Thor serendipitously landed somewhere in the United States  (1.9% of Earth’s surface area) instead of the 98.1% chance he’d land anywhere else. (Superman, I suppose, had the same luck?)


Disappointingly, this film's record-shattering box-office debut only confirms that as a society, Americans (and ostensibly, humans everywhere) not only accept these Hollywood-bestowed values as our culture, we’re willing to subsidize an industry that will continue to perpetuate all this egocentric backward American propaganda thinking. For as liberal as many actors and filmmakers are, the Hollywood-propaganda machine continues to do what it always has done best: give the people what they want. 

7 comments:

called2serve249 said...

Mike, Mike, Mike. There are so many issues with this post, I'm not sure where to start. So, in the words of several of Lewis Carroll's characters, I'll "begin at the beginning."

First, I must preface this by drawing your attention to possibly your most important admission: This movie is based on 40-60 year old comic book characters. Bare this in mind.

1. The role of women in the Avengers is small, in the movie that is. In the comic book "Avengers," there are a larger number of women agents including Scarlet Witch, Rescue (Pepper Pott's in her Stark-designed armor), Wasp, Spider-woman, Wonder Woman, Black Widow, among others. At any given time, there are as many as a dozen or as few as four individuals in the team, depending on which Avengers team you're discussing--Avengers East Coast? Avenger's West Coast? Civil War Avengers? Shall I continue?

I mention these things because you must understand, the Avengers have been around for almost 60 years, and have undergone myriad changes in membership and story-telling. You want them to make a movie with all the women characters represented? Buckle up. I do have some unfortunate news for you, however--They are still going to be very attractive. All super heroes are. However, I find critics such as yourself much more willing to attack the sexualizing of female characters, but not as keen on discussing the overtly sexualized male characters. Do you look like Captain America or Thor? Not unless you SERIOUSLY beefed up since our last visit. (That's a joke. I'm being light-hearted about all of this, please keep in mind.)

called2serve249 said...

As for the choice of Scarlet Witch, she was chosen because she's an exceptionally important individual in both S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers, participating in both teams. It's an attempt to bridge the gap between the two groups because, as you noted, the Avengers don't trust S.H.I.E.L.D. because of their ulterior motives. She keeps an eye on the Avengers for S.H.I.E.L.D. and assists the Avengers with her uncanny espionage and martial arts skills, working knowledge of countless weapon systems, technological prowess...In short, Black Widow is a bad freaking lady. You don't get that much from the film, because they had 2 hours and 30 minutes to tell a BIG story without focusing too heavily on back stories.
As a side note to Black Widow, they've been discussing a spin-off for her for 4-5 years now. That's right-A female super hero headlining in her own movie. I'll warn you though, she's going to wear a skin tight black suit for most of it. Why? Because she's a freaking comic book character. Sex sells, and she combines the powerful female character and the idealized female form for teenage boys. It's a formula that works. You'll notice, none of these female characters you mentioned are helpless damsels in distress. They are powerful, either physically (Black Widow v. Russian mafia?) or intellectually (Pepper Potts v. Tony Stark). They only time there was any real trouble was Black Widow versus the Hulk, but let's face it: Everyone is in trouble against the Hulk. Next point...

2. The lack of minorities. Mike, I'm sorry, but not every movie needs to be an exact demographic cross-section of the city of New York. The Government in the US is predominantly white. S.H.I.E.L.D. is a government organization. Believe it or not, Nick Fury is a grizzled old white guy in the comics. They gave it to SLJ because he's a bad mamma jamma. They also wanted to increase the number of minorities in the film in an attempt to appease those who demand affirmative action in super-hero teams. Another note-There were no black Norse gods, yet the gate keeper of the Bifrost road in and out of Asgard was black in Thor. Perhaps the Nords were racist and didn't include blacks in their mythology. Perhaps Stan Lee was racist in keeping to that racist sentiment in writing his comic books. Regardless, in a show of appeasement, they made a Norse God black. Did I care? Not in the least. I wasn't watching the movie to analyze societies treatment of minorities. I was watching it to see Thor drop freaking Mjolnir on some Ice Giant skulls. I was not disappointed. (As for Thor's race, I'm not sure Asgardians consider themselves "Caucasian". So I'm counting him in the minority group.)

called2serve249 said...

A film is not made good by the number of women or minorities featured in the film. It is made good by writing, plot, acting ability, special effects, choreography, etc. Obsessing over the diversity of the film just for the sake of diversity will ruin the film, as it appears to have done for you.

You'll be at least a little pleased to know that one of the main characters of the Avengers, the Black Panther, is likely receiving his own film as well. (I'll let you toss and turn tonight, wrestling with the overtly racist name of "Black panther" for a black character, and its social implications with the civil rights movement. Personally, I don't care.) Luke Cage, another black Avenger may also be getting a spin off.

Also, Vision may get a spin off. He's an android, and the half-human-half-robot subset of our culture has been horribly underrepresented in cinema. Thank goodness someone has taken notice.

3. The "us-vs-them" rhetoric and shameless pro-American propaganda. Hollywood is set in America. In Korea, guess who saves the world? Koreans. In African cinema, guess who is the hero? An African. The Chinese and Japanese film in their own countries, with their own heroes and nationalistic rhetoric. Do you complain about them? No? And why not? Isn't nationalism a shameful thing no matter where it occurs? Do you propose Movie makers take everything overseas to be fair to other countries who want their chance to save the world from their country? Good news! They are. In Iron Man 3, Iron Man battles his arch-nemesis Mandarin (yeah, he's Chinese. So racist!) in China. He is also supposed to fight a German enemy in Germany. Hopefully this will assuage some of your angst over this problem.

called2serve249 said...

As for the propaganda, the leader of the Avengers is a 1940's anti-Nazi propagandist pamphlet character. The Captain America comics were adapted from WWII ideals and written as an anti-Nazi series of comic books. What do you expect? I'm not sure you picked up on how much he disliked what America had become, or how much he distrusted Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. Perhaps you also missed the pro-Christian propaganda he uttered on the transport ship about there only being "one God" who doesn't dress like Thor or Loki. For shame! What of their Hindu viewers?

As for the "armed conflict" issue, yes. In this case Mike, the only way to stop the single-minded, completely destructive alien invasion was through use of armed conflict. I'm sure they would have liked to sit at the table with the Chitauri and work out some kind of non-aggression pact. Or maybe they just wanted to annihilate us. Believe it or not, the don't make action flicks to encourage peaceful resolution to all-out war. The idea is to simulate utter hopelessness--we didn't stand a chance in the face of such a force--and the salvation that comes in the form of an unsuspecting, fractured group of anti-heroes, fragile humans, and giant green rage monsters. It's the greatest story ever told, Mike! We LOVE IT! The little guy beating the big guy, the natural man over coming himself to become the self-sacrificing hero (Iron Man flying the nuke through the Tesseract portal, while trying to call Pepper, for example), the unity that forms in spite of personal differences in the face of evil. These are such common themes I'm surprised you like any American made movies at all. Or maybe you don't. We never saw movies with you guys.

As for the government agency, of course they want weapons. Haven't we learned? No, of course we haven't. I teach history, man! That's what keeps me in business--same crap, different day (or decade, or century). We never learn. It will always be the minority that is peaceful and Christ-like. In general, we are exactly what Thor calls us: Petty, and tiny.

called2serve249 said...

As for the 2nd Amendment, bear in mind that for a long time, Mormons were the second largest army on the continent. And to the foundational text of our faith: There were three groups involved in the massive conflict in Alma--The wicked Lamanites, the righteous Nephites, and the conscientious objectors, the Anti-Nephi-Lehies. They refused to take up arms as a part of a covenant they made between themselves and God. Their sons didn't, however, and under the flag of Moroni (In memory of our God, our religion and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children--talk about some shameless propaganda!) they took up arms to defend their loved ones. They were blessed with divine protection even as they ran their blades through the bodies of their enemies. God is not a God of passivism. He doesn't want us to seek out war, but He will fight along side us when we need it. I could go on about the virtues of the warrior-culture and the necessity of self-defense in the real world (we don't live in a utopia, mind you), but I've already typed so much I'm losing track. We can discuss that at another time.

And no, it shouldn't have come to you as a surprise that Thor landed in America, since that's where the comic book was written. He more than likely should have landed in the ocean. Or he and Superman should have missed earth completely, hurtling endlessly through space, since they were traveling from across the universe and all.

Fortunately, 99.9% of people who went to see the film didn't go so they could write a critical analysis of a movie which was never intended to represent reality. Not sure if you noticed, but, uh...people were flying and stuff. The Marvel Universe is an escape from reality, from a place where people are cruel to each other, where racism and sexism run rampant and I have to worry every time I open my mouth that I'm going to offend someone around me. It's a place where when you're in danger, there is a flying metal man who will scoop you up and carry you to safety, where a soldier will jump on a grenade to protect the innocent, then will get up and walk away because he's immune to shrapnel. It's a world where I don't have to fear for my safety because deus ex machina is alive and well, and I like that world. I like escaping there from time to time, when the burdens and stresses and ad absurdum political correctness of this world cause my back to weary and knees to buckle. It's a fun place, Mike. You should visit sometime.

In summary, you're being WAY too critical of a film intended to entertain with ludicrous fantasies and impossible scenarios that appeal to our inner 7 year old. It was designed to allow us to step into the comic book world so many of us grew up with. ( Had you grown up with comic books, you would have known that this is simply a glimpse into a much more diverse and complex world than they could cram into 150 minutes). The massive amount of money they made attests, not to American's love of the Aryan ideal and ultra-nationalism, but to awesome super heroes flying around and saving the day. I never once thought, "Wow, this movie is so racist. There aren't nearly enough minorities on this team." That's absurd, Mike. You need to lighten up, or stop seeing movies that aren't screened at the Sundance film festival. I'd say you're being as unnecessarily analytic and uptight as Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, but I'm sure he freaking LOVED THIS MOVIE.

Nic said...

The characters in this movie are from 50+ year old comic books in some cases. It would've been a slap in the face to the decades-long fans of those comic books to just mix up the races of those existing heroes. If this were a movie of new characters, then I agree they could have mixed it up a little. But I think you're putting way too much thought into this.

Sarah said...

Not only that... but by "changing" such obvious characters from one race (or even GENDER) for that matter... would infuriate diehard fans... which comic books fans are... further hurting your "equality cause"... Nobody wants political correctness force fed to them... especially when it wears the mask of their beloved childhood.... Seriously dude, you picked the wrong movie/genre to be offended by. Plus, I'm so sick and tired of people wanting fantasy to be REALITY... they're doing it to TV and now "blogs" like this one are trying to do it to movies... PEOPLE WANT FICTION... THEY WANT ESCAPISM... THEY DON'T WANT REALITY... they want the warm blanket of nostalgia and a life less complicated to wrap up in. The last thing they want is the worlds problems and "deficiencies" creeping in to their happy fantasy. I think you've wound yourself up over nothing.