Stepping Away From the Comments

[sunnycamehome2u]

Screw it. Here's a picture of five corgi puppies, wearing pajamas, asleep in a living room blanket fort:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z3MOcymVkhM/Tqi0fvUTcNI/AAAAAAAAIf8/0-IkZMnKtCs/s640/puppies-pajamas.jpg

It is from this commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4fsHLWi_xI for the New York Lottery, featuring corgis, kittens, baby chicks, and piglets

Comments

Re: Wait, why are we bothered by Natasha's being afraid of the Hulk?

[anonymous]

Natasha being scared of the Hulk makes sense, I agree, but I wish they hadn't put Natasha in a position so reminiscent of a horror movie lead. The scene's vocabulary comes from a place that's about lack of female power, and I would have been happier if it hadn't been done that way. The scene would have worked just as well with a male character, except that the expectation for Tony, even out of armor, or for Cap would be for them to be more proactive. Tony would be expected to think his way out, despite being slower and less acrobatic than Natasha, while Cap would be expected to fight back despite being only slightly more durable than Natasha. She's in that scene, in that vulnerable position, because she's the woman on the team. It's inextricable from her femininity.

Re: Wait, why are we bothered by Natasha's being afraid of the Hulk?

[anonymous]

See, but, I feel like that scene isn't an accident - it's a deliberate commentary on the nature of horror movies and the trope. The trope is defenseless woman menaced by the scary monster, the reality is something different. IDK. I think Cabin in the Woods made me view that scene not as a play on the trope, but as a deliberate commentary.

I also think that having Natasha be scared isn't necessarily demeaning her. He also has her do obvs. kickass things, and has the male characters show physical weakness. (Cap was looking pretty vulnerable when he gets blown out of the bank, for instance. And loses to Loki. Thor was busting ass on Iron Man. Clint loses to Natasha.) But I also think Joss (and Ruffalo) did a much better job with the Hulk in recognizing that he's not a hero, he's a horror movie character, and that scene cemented that recognition.

Re: Wait, why are we bothered by Natasha's being afraid of the Hulk?

[anonymous]

AYRT

Okay, I read that scene as establishing the degree of threat the Hulk represented. To accomplish that, they put the sole female Avenger in the position of a horror film victim *because* using the boys would make them look weak in ways it doesn't do to Natasha, for sexist reasons. (I.E. because she's "the girl" she isn't expected to be able to find a way out or fight back the way the male characters would be, no matter how strong and kickass she is elsewhere.) The male characters get moments of physical vulnerability, but never the kind of terror she shows.

I really liked how Natasha was handled overall. She had more scenes, and more awesome moments, than I expected. I just didn't love the handling of that one scene.

Re: Wait, why are we bothered by Natasha's being afraid of the Hulk?

[anonymous]

NA

Well, I thought the guys who've had their movies have had their moments of terror and vulnerability in those, while this movie was Natasha's vehicle. Thor and Cap are kind of importantly built up on being physically above the rest of their weight class, so they got the moments of emotional vulnerability. Tony, the only "mortal" to get a movie, famously spent most of his first movie physically overwhelmed, terrified and vulnerable in every which way, and ditto to a lesser extent in IM2.

Natasha almost *needed* to be shown as vulnerable if there was any hope of her being more than a Strong Female Character TM, being someone that the audience could actually care about on more levels than just the 'kickass' part. And it established a great moment about her thoughts on Bruce - she kinda likes the big guy and honestly does not want to hurt him, but since she'd been wary of the Hulk all along and circumspect about related things (the lying about being alone in Calcutta, the lying about there being no cage), the scene shows that she was

Re: Wait, why are we bothered by Natasha's being afraid of the Hulk?

[anonymous]

NAYRT This is the twenty times more coherent version of what I was trying to say.

Re: Wait, why are we bothered by Natasha's being afraid of the Hulk?

[anonymous]

Pretty much agree. Like anon above, you explained it better than I could have.

[anonymous]

Re: Wait, why are we bothered by Natasha's being afraid of the Hulk?

[anonymous]

psst anonfail!

Re: Wait, why are we bothered by Natasha's being afraid of the Hulk?

[anonymous]

+1

Re: Wait, why are we bothered by Natasha's being afraid of the Hulk?

[anonymous]

She's in that scene, in that vulnerable position, because she's the woman on the team.

The scene was there because Whedon has to make sure there is a lot of material to jack off to. It makes me laugh when Whedon is lauded as a feminist when all he does is translate his wet dreams onto the screen. And then his apologists try to spin it and explain it away as ~commentary.

Re: Wait, why are we bothered by Natasha's being afraid of the Hulk?

[anonymous]

Excellent. The psychologist has arrived.

Re: Wait, why are we bothered by Natasha's being afraid of the Hulk?

[anonymous]

Yes. Now you can go back to dismissing any critical thought about Whedon's work as just the work of mean haters trying to label him as evil/mentally unsound.

What a relief!

Re: Wait, why are we bothered by Natasha's being afraid of the Hulk?

[anonymous]

NA

lol, ranting about how Whedon only writes in order to have wank material and then complaining that people won't take your "critical thought" thought seriously.

I'm sick of both the stans who pretend there's nothing wrong with anything he's ever done and the haters making creepy accusations and passive-aggressively disparaging anyone who defends his work ever.

Re: Wait, why are we bothered by Natasha's being afraid of the Hulk?

[anonymous]

Oh, come on. I thought it was funny that there were people commenting about how some people are doing pop psychoanalysis on Joss as a part of their crit and there were nonnies saying no, this is substantial crit and then someone came in and did what was implied doesn't happen.

I'm in the middle on this, I have enjoyed a lot of media Whedon has been involved with but I haven't ever held him up as a feminist role model and I don't think I've ever seen anyone hold him up as doing race the right way. There is valid criticism out there but as can be seen here it get polarized quite often. Some do seem to really enjoy the winterfoxian type of analysis and ascribing all those deep character flaws and personal worth statements as a part of their critical methodology.

Re: Wait, why are we bothered by Natasha's being afraid of the Hulk?

[anonymous]

Okay, I'm one of the people who said it was substantial crit and just to complete my pedantry masterclass for the night, the argument was not that assholish pop psychoanalysis doesn't happen (I've seen the "he hates his wife!" stuff in the wild!), but that
90% of Whedon's "actual issues" are fans who don't like some of his creative choices practising pop-psychoanalysis is not true, he does have "actual issues", no scare quotes required.

It is kind of funny if totally wince-inducing to see this pop up.

Re: Wait, why are we bothered by Natasha's being afraid of the Hulk?

[anonymous]

I don't think that we are all that far apart in our thinking except for how I do enjoy some of Whedon's work. I read the comment that started that thread off as hyperbole and wasn't taking it literally so that is probably why I was reading the conversation differently. I definitely came to read the conversation with my own personal fandom history shaping how I read the thread.

That this other comment popped up did make me laugh, it almost read like someone was trolling us after reading the other thread, but I don't think that was the case.