sometimes you get an actual discussion

[tielan]

fail_fandomanon is a fascinating and terrifying place. But sometimes you get actual discussions that aren't just people calling each other names.

Like this one about Civil War.

(Okay, so it starts badly; nonnie is looking for a reason to shoot down Sam Wilson, finds it easily enough. And there are segments where people get dismissed as Tony-stans or Stucky shippers. This is FFA: you don't get everything with a cherry on top.)

I particularly liked the nonnie who had the sense to observe that it was a two-layered process: not just how you feel about the whole Accords business, but also how you feel about Steve vs Tony.

And the nonnies pointing out that Steve as the moral arbiter of when the Avengers should ride out is seriously problematic simply because no single person should have that kind of power to point-and-shoot weapons of mass destruction (such as the Avengers are) without checks and balances in place? Are my heroes.

No, not setting Steve up as the moral arbiter doesn't mean I think Tony and the Accords as presented by Thunderbolt Ross were right; the movie only gave two extremes - personal choice or collective agreement: like just about anything in the range of human interaction, there's a scale and the answer falls somewhere between 2 and 9 on any given day and position of the universe.

FTR: I still think it would have been a better movie if they'd actually answered the questions they started asking about individual rights vs. community/global responsibilities, instead of just reverting back to the questions they already answered in Cap2 ("How far will Steve go for Bucky?" "To the end of the line. Did you not see the scene where the helicarriers are going down and Steve goes back for Bucky?") and also in AoU ("Tony Stark has some deep issues in his psyche, and tends to cause even bigger problems for the world when he tries to fix them up. Do. Not. Ever. Leave. Him. With. The. World's. Remote. Control.")

(And, yes, I'm still pissed off about Maria Hill not being in the MCU Civil War; even if they would have made her an asshole. Because men cannot perceive women in power without the women being presented as assholes. cf. Hillary Clinton.)

Comments

[kore]

That's REALLY happening to Maria in the comics -- Spencer is forthright about how muh she suks on Twitter -- and she's going to have a big role in the Secret Empire event, as a bad leader. Sharon's going to have a big role too, and he's not that enamoured of her either.

SIGH.

[tielan]

Yeah, I noticed that. There's at least one anti-Maria stan on Tumblr who keeps posting graphics in the Maria Hill tumblr tag, and it's all negative stuff. "Maria doesn't really care about Natasha." "Maria uses everyone." "Maria can't imagine that powerful people might be good."

Cynically put, powerful people rarely turn out to be 'good'. Absolute power, et. al....

I just want her written by someone who likes her, you know? Who thinks that it's not a bad thing to be a little skeptical, a little worried about superhuman people leading the charge in, and is willing to concede that a woman is probably going to do a better job at balancing action with negotiation than a man would.

SIGH ECHO.

[kore]

....that right there is why I fucking hate Tumblr. It's like you wander out into the middle of the information superhighway and there's no privacy, no subtlety. It's like Twitter but even less verbal. Bah.

I think it was Whedon (LOL I KNOW) who said something like, Maria is the one who has to -- not "clean up" after the superheroes exactly -- but she's the one thinking about the people, the non-powered human who are often the casualties and all the damage to the infrastructure and the actual consequences. Which is going to put her at odds with the superheroes a lot of the time, but unfortunately it gets written as pragmatism. And she's Fury's right-hand woman so a lot of the time his Machiavellian side just gets transferred to her -- although she backs up Steve about the decision to take down SHIELD. I really like the idea of her as a kind of self-appointed liaison between the people who need help and the people who are able to give help, but in a very canny sharp way.

(Someday I'm gonna write that post-TWS/AoS AU where Victoria and Izzy and Maria and Melinda and Bobbi are all instrumental in helping take down the remnants of the corrupt SHIELD and trying to build a newer better one. Some day. sigh. I think the worst thing about the post-TWS MCU is how SHIELD just basically goes pouf! and that's it. WTF. It's not like British intelligence disappeared in the wake of the Cambridge Five.)

[tielan]

I think it was Whedon (LOL I KNOW)

I know Whedon likes Maria - he manages to portray her positively which is more than any of the comics writers seem to manage. I just...I just wish that it wasn't so damned DANGEROUS to be liked by Whedon...

Actually, I was thinking in the shower (this, and other cliches...) that I'd take a Whedon movie about Maria and risk whatever crappy feminism he brought to it. (I actually think he's a Maria/Steve shipper on the side, too. :D)

[olivia_beige]

Thank you for pointing out the existence of this comm. :D Anon spaces can be messy but I've just found a thread on how April is the most awful month, and that's a gem.

Also, reminds me to watch Civil War.

[tielan]

Yeah, some of the threads are absolute gems. Others are good for using up the popcorn. Still others are DO NOT TOUCH WITH A TEN FOOT POLE...

I'm still bitter about Civil War. I think I'll always be bitter about Civil War - not just for the storylines or the failure to Answer The Big Question, but also for where it indicated that the MCU was going as a whole: places that I don't really care to follow.

[lynnenne]

"Tony Stark has some deep issues in his psyche, and tends to cause even bigger problems for the world when he tries to fix them up. Do. Not. Ever. Leave. Him. With. The. World's. Remote. Control."

LOL, I love Tony but this is one of the most accurate sentences ever written about him.

"Because men cannot perceive women in power without the women being presented as assholes. cf. Hillary Clinton."

I love you.

[tielan]

Tony is a really interesting, flawed character. I just...I would like more focus on another character - preferably a female who is written as though she's interesting and flawed and who is also (narratively) forgiven her sins since socially a woman is never forgiven her sins. cf. Hillary Clinton. (Again.)

And yes, I like what he brings to the table - like what all the other characters in the MCU bring to the table - but I admit I'd prefer less of him now that we're out of Phase 2 of the MCU: I want to know more about the characters they've dropped by the wayside (Hint: MARIA HILL), about the aspects of power that get dismissed (WANDA MAXIMOFF AND HEADGAMES), about women - I prefer narratives about women - who use the power that they have to do what they can (a.k.a. "agency") to leverage the world. (Maria, Pepper, Wanda, Laura Barton, hell, even Natasha, who I mostly dislike because she has so many stans and 95% of the time they can't see anyone else because the narrative dictated by the men running the franchise has indicated that she's the only woman who actually matters in the scheme of things, all the others being adjuncts or dismissable.

...I may have feelings about this franchise. Just a few...

[lynnenne]

Yes, the fact that Marvel has yet to have a female character headlining her own film says a lot about their attitudes towards powerful women. Jessica Jones is the only example I can think of where the lead character is a woman and an asshole and yet still a sympathetic hero.

[tielan]

I haven't seen Jessica Jones - people either seem to absolutely adore it, or else they don't watch it because of...something in the first episode with the Purple Man. (?)

[kore]

JJ is AMAZING. It's also a very forthright examination of PTSD and the lingering effects of trauma, but it's not really exploitive or even really difficult to watch. And I say that with authority as the world's biggest wimp with trauma issues galore.

[tielan]

Well, the other issue I have with watching TV shows is that I start watching them...and then I wander off to do other things.

Sometimes I do wonder if I'm a little ADHD...

[elanya]

JJ deals with what bad people do with mind control powers, which is a lot of really bad things. The main villain is basically a super-powered abusive stalker. It's very grim, but very good, so far. I don't find it is exploitative. It has some really kickass secondary women.

Also, I think you should watch Voltron, because Allura is really Your Jam. Article for reference:

https://blackgirlnerds.com/volton-princess-allura-black/

Mind you the fandom can be a bit of a mess, but the episodes are short and might hold your attention ;)

[tielan]

Also, I think you should watch Voltron, because Allura is really Your Jam.

*eyeballs you*

Where do I find it? (Is it another cartoon, like MLP, or is it live-action like...IDK...Power Rangers?)

[elanya]

It's a cartoon, and it's on Netflix. :)

[tielan]

Okay, fair cop: is this going to be another fandom where I walk in and discover that only a handful of people ship my (het) pairing and most of the others are 15, while all the people capable of adult conversations loathe het and think anyone who ships it must be 15?

Sorry, but yes, I'm cynical. Fandom has given me a great deal of experience in being cynical...

[elanya]

I'm not sure I can 100% predict your pairing. But probably not? People are stupider about the slash pairings, I think. If you're shipping het I think you'll be okay. There is at least one super popular het ship that involve her though, and some others that have at least a stable following.

I can promise you at least one fic in a pairing of your choice if that sweetens the deal ;) I'm pretty ship-flexible with her.

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[kore]

Jessica Jones was absolutely amazing. It's particularly awful that so many (male) critics are like, "And Hope van Dyne is co-headlining Ant-Man and the Wasp!" and I'm just like, THAT IS NOT PROGRESS IN ANY SENSE.

[tielan]

Sounds like the male friend who was all "But Black Widow was practically equal standing with Captain America in TWS."

And I was "oh, what, NO, NOT EVEN".

Although it does go to show that (in great and hilarious irony) men have no fucking sense of proportion.

[kore]

LOLWHAT?

It's like those studies where men go "it's fifty-fifty men and women here!" and it's actually more like eighty-twenty, or where women are seen to interrupt all the time in meetings or be "shouty" and in fact they're speaking far less and more softly than all the guys in the room.

Bah.

[tielan]

A woman's crime is forever. A man's crime is forgivable (especially if it only injured a woman - women aren't actually people, yo).

[beatrice_otter]

Yeah. One of the main reasons that Winter Soldier is a better movie than CW is that the action comes logically from the intellectual questions about power and freedom that the movie asks. It's not just pastede on yay for drama.

[tielan]

Also, it's not trying to be so many things all at once with so many people in the mix.

[kore]

YEAH, absolutely everything else (hah!) aside, Civil War was just an unholy mess -- it's very incoherently written, and I find having discussions about Who Was Right frustrating not because "both sides have good points," which they should in a good film, but because the actual setup is so confused and doesn't work logically and then they swerve away politically from the bigger questions and have it come down to extremely personal psychology. (Whereas people are like "we already knew Steve would do anything for Bucky in TWS" but the point I like is Steve keeps fighting Bucky until he's sure he's destroyed the helicarriers and Maria is making the final shot, AND THEN there's all the big drama with Bucky. But anyway.)

I like 616 Tony a lot and RDJ is a fascinating actor even if directors let him get away with being too charming and quippy and improvisatory, but I get so tired of MCU Tony. One small thing about Tony -- why on earth is HE the negotiator between the reluctant superhero team and the big bad gov't official? He absolutely sucks at negotiating, he won't do it most of the time. But right on his STAFF, there's a woman who not only rose to the second highest position in SHIELD but also worked for Stark Industries and then retained a whole truckload of contacts in SHIELD after it exploded. Or Pepper, who is certainly used to negotiating with high-level global businessmen and diplomats as CEO of SI. Or Nat or Sharon. Who are in the film, but who are much more passive as opposed to what they do in TWS. It's like they had to get rid of all the women with actual interpersonal/business/gov't skills in order for the "plot" to "work." HMMMMM.


(sorry I am just FOREVERMORE bitter about Civil War. The film that made me look more kindly on AoU, which I didn't think was even possible)

[tielan]

I get so tired of MCU Tony because there's so damn much of him.