Avengers: Age of Ultron.

[MediumHigh]

The average movie goers are thrown mcguffins and highly irrelevant plot threads all the time. They nod and keep watching, most americans have this thing call smartphones that can instantly access the internet and even googles stuff for them. The only people concerned about continuity are the nerds who have basically watched 90% of all MCU material, with the 10% being the godawful TV shows too many people think are good (except daredevil).

[Ginaz]

So apparently Joss Whedon deleted his Twitter account because of the harassment he's received from feminists and other random SJWs.  The irony. It is thick and sweet.

http://www.ibtimes.com/joss-whedon-fired-nope-he-deactivated-twitter-following-feminist-hypocrisy-1907981

[Mattemeo]

In a stunning display of baseless rage (because context makes being angry so much harder!) that surprised absolutely fucking no one ever, Twitter users once again reveal that the service is a magnet for and aggregate of the most fuck-stupid of the fuck-stupid of the internet.

[Malakili]

More evidence that my refusal to join any social networking sites is paying off.

[Evildrider]

Considering Joss was like their sweetheart when he took the opposite role against Adam Baldwin during all the gamergate stuff, this is hilarious.

[Ginaz]

I guess people were pissed that Back Widow's role was reduced when it came to action scenes.  I wonder if her pregnancy had anything to do with that?

[Mattemeo]

Please, don't come up with completely reasonable limitations that handily explain why something is the way it is. THE TWITTERATI WOULDN'T LIKE THAT.

[Evildrider]

I guess it's also Stark's "Prima Nocta" joke.     

[Fabricated]

Oh hey, purity tests by the overly political. That always turns out well.

[Margalis]

"This Frankenstein's Monster I helped create has now started to choke the life out of me - who could have possibly predicted that besides anyone familiar with either history or literature?"

[Hutch]

I wouldn't be surprised if he hates Twitter in general, and is worn out from promoting Marvel films, and saw this tempest in a teapot as a good cover for getting out.

[Merusk]

As that article points out, he's quit Twitter before. I don't know that he hates it or understand it's a great marketing tool with little use beyond that.

Which is good. The more people see it as a stupid piece of fluff the better off we all are.  The US user base is only 1/300th of the population,the international user base is 1/25th of it but we hold it up like it means anything.

[Ironwood]

Wait, what was wrong with Black Widow in this ?

I don't get the 'damsel in distress' shit, before anyone starts.  Non-starter.

[Velorath]

As that article points out, he's quit Twitter before. I don't know that he hates it or understand it's a great marketing tool with little use beyond that.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's something close to the latter. For the first time in years he doesn't have a project he needs to promote and he probably won't be doing anything anywhere near as big as Avengers for quite a while.

[Hutch]

Wait, what was wrong with Black Widow in this ?

I don't get the 'damsel in distress' shit, before anyone starts.  Non-starter.

edit: I realized that should probably go in a spoiler.

[Ironwood]

No, I get that.  It's bullshit tho.  Utter Bullshit.

[Merusk]

She also "didn't fight enough" and the interaction with the Hulk was too much "fairy tale princess" 'beauty tames the beast' for them.

You're correct that it's utter bullshit.

Speaking of:

[jgsugden]

There are a couple elements to it that are all very weak, but when assembled construct an unexpected image of a female heroine in a Whedon project :


All of that could happen to a male character and we wouldn't blink.  Do it to a female and you're sexist.  Because that isn't a sexist reaction.  Of course not. 

As for Whedon deleting Twitter - good for him.  It is such a pointless medium.  It is too prone to people speaking in an attempt to be heard rather than to convey useful information.  Yes, there are some good uses for it, but the good gets flushed out by the bad so easily...

I'm betting his next projects are Doctor Horrible 2 (as Doctor Horrible 1 was his most lucrative project to date for him) and then something brand new - I hope it is a Netflix series... I hope that he'll consider coming back to Marvel in a few years as I think he did a lot for them.

If anyone wants to hear an interesting Whedon and Bettany interviews, there is a good interview / podcast on Empire. 


It is even more striking to compare his beat down tone to the energy coming off Bettany.  He is clearly pumped to be playing Vision.  I'll be surprised if the Vision and Scarlet Witch relationship is not front and center in the MCU for the next 4 years (get together in Cap III, he gets torn apart in Avengers 3 by Thanos to get the Mind Gem, they reassemble him in Avengers IV but he loses his memory and is distant from her, etc...)

Oh, and one more thing on the tag...

[Ironwood]

[Merusk]

Maybe he suffers the same fatal flaw as Thanatos and he just wants to lose SO BADLY.   

[HaemishM]

People who think Black Widow was a useless damsel in distress in AoU are as fuckstupid as the people making jokes about Hawkeye being useless. Even without her usual physical action (due to her pregnancy), she still more than held her own as a character and a piece of the action.

People really make me stabby sometimes.

[eldaec]

Better ways to criticise Disney's treatment of women in the MCU would incude asking why Black Widow hasn't had a film yet, mentioning that GotG really didn't do a good job on agency of female characters,  but most of all pointing out that the twentieth film in the MCU will be the first with a female lead.

It isn't worse than other media, and the particular examples in this film seem pretty tenuous, but I get why people would grumble.

[Khaldun]

The gripe that I think is somewhat fair is

[Velorath]

The gripe that I think is somewhat fair is

[Ginaz]

The gripe that I think is somewhat fair is

As mentioned above, you completely misinterpreted that scene and fell in line with the morons shitting all over Whedon.  

[Velorath]

If you have to preface what you're about to say with "Not to drag this into politics", chances are you're about to follow it up with something that belongs in Politics.

[Rendakor]

It's the "No offense, but..." of f13 posting!

[Ginaz]

If you have to preface what you're about to say with "Not to drag this into politics", chances are you're about to follow it up with something that belongs in Politics.

You're right.  

[Margalis]

There's a weird resurgence of "cultural critics" badly characterizing fiction, using phrases like "what the work is telling us is..."  or "what the author is saying is..."

Law and Order: SVU - the work is telling us to just give up, GamerGate has won
Bioshock Infinite - the work is telling us that black people are in fact the savages the white people assume they are
Avengers - The work is telling us that being sterile = being a monster

Whenever you see anyone claiming to understand what a work is "telling us" or "basically saying" it's best to ignore them. Most works of fiction aren't fortune cookies with simplistic, one-line morals.

Oddly enough the group that uses the above language also regularly argues that authorial intent is both unknowable and irrelevant, and that interpretation is highly subjective - while also arguing that they alone know what simplistic message the author was trying to convey.

I haven't seen the movie but the idea that Joss Whedon thinks sterile women are monsters and is inserting that message into his movie doesn't pass a simple smell test. I think Whedon is both untalented and a huge douche but that totally out of character for him.

[eldaec]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with serious analysis of popular culture, and ascribing worth to a piece based on that analysis. Most literature that gets the most serious thought put in was also written as pop culture.  Getting overexcited and shrill about it as some appear to have done is clearly rather silly; but no more so than feminists who insist on missing the point of a play like Taming of the Shrew and complaining about that.

[eldaec]

And furthermore, while author intent has no bearing on the literary content of a piece of work, I guarantee the authors of something like Law and Order do intend that they explore literary themes to a degree.  And Joss Whedon certainly aims for it in his work.

[Margalis]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with serious analysis of popular culture, and ascribing worth to a piece based on that analysis.

I agree but this is a complete non-sequitur.

I wasn't talking about "serious analysis", I was talking about idiotic analysis by morons. "The work was telling us this one thing I desperately want to believe it was telling us because my whole world view is about getting outraged over things like this" is not serious analysis.

Ken Levine recently did an interview in which he said one of the bad characters in Bioshock was supposed to be autistic and some raging morons decided he meant that being autistic makes you evil. Of course that isn't what he said or what he "basically said", it was their invention. Invention is not analysis.

[Ironwood]

Sorry, Khaldun, but it's not a fair gripe.  It's not even what was on the screen.

[Merusk]

Iirc I'm a monster happened after a flashback about having to kill that hooded person.  The I can't have kids happened to reassure Banner after he said he can't give her what Hawkeye has. 

[Khaldun]

I agree it's a misinterpretation. But I see why people thought it. It's a clumsily written scene.

Which is something people should be able to work out in a conversation without people freaking out--and without saying, "You are in the camp of the enemy"!

Once upon a time people were able to talk about scenes in movies that could be interpreted in different ways without regarding that conversation as trench warfare.