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And it’s okay to have a different reading. I’m never gonna insult you or call you a joke for interpreting a film differently than I do.
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Dec 15, 2020 00:19
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They could have just rewritten Iron Man's origin in a way they didn't put any of the onus on foreigners and then feature the subsequent killing of said foreigners, but that would require a level of self-awareness in 2008 I genuinely don't believe anyone in Hollywood possessed.
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Dec 15, 2020 00:20
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Boiled down to its core, the middle east scenes in Iron Man are just a cipher for war in general. Iron Man was born in war; Stark started as someone profiteering from war before it literally blew up in his face; he tried to resolve the war through fighting the other side until he discovered the true enemy was at home. They only used the trappings of the middle east because that is the image of War in the time and place the movie was made. The scenes would have played out exactly the same, with no variation whatsoever, in Vietnam in the 70's or Germany in the 40's. It's fair to say that having the middle east be shorthand for War is problematic. But that is a sickness in western culture in general, far beyond this one movie.
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Dec 15, 2020 00:20
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Tenebrais posted:Boiled down to its core, the middle east scenes in Iron Man are just a cipher for war in general. Iron Man was born in war; Stark started as someone profiteering from war before it literally blew up in his face; he tried to resolve the war through fighting the other side until he discovered the true enemy was at home. The fact that they did this in the Vietnam War and then again with the Iraq War is testament to just how little we've come in thirty years, and nothing will ever change if we don't acknowledge these things when they happen. Granted, Iron Man 3 does also exist and handily lampshades this phenomenon, so there's certainly a little hope that some writers are at least pretty cognizant about it...to which a buncha people immediately went "Wait this is dumb! Where's my real Mandarin!??" 
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Dec 15, 2020 00:46
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Looks like WB has moved on from "gently caress Batman" to Batman: "gently caress"
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Dec 15, 2020 01:04
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The only thing problematic about Iron Man 1 was Terrence Howard and they rectified that in all future movies.
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Dec 15, 2020 01:51
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BrianWilly posted:The fact that they did this in the Vietnam War and then again with the Iraq War is testament to just how little we've come in thirty years, and nothing will ever change if we don't acknowledge these things when they happen I agree with this. But it's 2020. This would be like arguing about Apocalypse Now in 1991. Right now we in this thread are not acknowledging these things when they're happening, we're just kinda arguing in circles about a past event. I don't think your take is wrong, but it's also not the only take. When you're arguing with an entire thread, I dunno, maybe take a second and think about if you're actually going to convince anyone? It comes across not as good faith discussion. Maybe take a bit and think on it?
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Dec 15, 2020 02:11
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Jamesman posted:The only thing problematic about Iron Man 1 was Terrence Howard and they rectified that in all future movies. Jamesman.
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Dec 15, 2020 02:26
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Cartridgeblowers posted:I agree with this. But it's 2020. This would be like arguing about Apocalypse Now in 1991. Right now we in this thread are not acknowledging these things when they're happening, we're just kinda arguing in circles about a past event. So, just to be thorough: I don't think that it's crazy or dumb or trolling to assert that Iron Man, 2008, a film by Americans, was screwed up in its depictions of the middle east, fighting in the middle east, and people living in the middle east, especially in it recreating more or less directly an origin story for a superhero who started out in the comics heroically shooting evil Vietnamese commies. If the movie's twelve years old surely people should be more ready to accept criticism of it, not less. Similarly, I don't think that it's crazy or dumb or trolling to argue that art communicates a lot about the beliefs and values of the cultures and peoples that create it. Or that those beliefs and values are created, defined, and shaped by political processes. Or that many people have a narrow view of what politics is and can get very very vexed if you imply it can exist in something even if it wasn't 'intentional.'
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Dec 15, 2020 02:27
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I do not particularly like BrianWilly as a poster as such but they are correct about this. it is very strange to attack them for, ugh, not posting in "good faith" considering some of the other recent posts itt
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Dec 15, 2020 02:42
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Like I'm sorry this is not going to sound nice to anyone concerned with proper decorum and not being annoyed at stuff but my take at its simplest form has been "killing a bunch of Muslims in this 2008 film is kinda lovely" and if that makes an entire thread cringe and wag their fingers then...so loving be it? Maybe I'm not, and have never been, the one who needs to think hard about their biases, here?Lt. Danger posted:I do not particularly like BrianWilly as a poster as such but they are correct about this. 
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Dec 15, 2020 02:43
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I have a solution for Black Panther Make Okoye the new BP. Danai Gurira doesn't appear to be an anti-vaxxer so it could work.
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Dec 15, 2020 02:43
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I don't think there's any problems with examining the intentional and unintentional politics of a film, especially in the context of its time and place. There's a lot of films, especially in the fantasy/sci fi genre, that kind of directly reflect the mindsets of the societies they were made in for better or worse. I think its fair to say that Tony Stark and Iron Man fall into that category in a post 9/11 America. I think its got some confused and complicated ideas which probably come from the various sources of the comics, the writers and director, the zeitgeist of the time, and subconscious stuff. In the name of context I also think its worth noting that a number of these problems are kind of addressed by the further stories of the character. I think that's all fair and interesting. I admit I'm not entirely sure what we're arguing anymore. It feels a bit circular. I don't think that's necessarily one poster's fault or another's. I just rewrote this post 3 times because I'm not really sure where we're at here. I think everyone seems to agree that there's some problematic stuff in Tony's characterization and actions. There's some disagreement on how much the first film pushed back on it or how much the further films pushing back on it should factor in. That all seems like fair places to disagree. STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Dec 15, 2020 |
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Dec 15, 2020 03:05
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BrianWilly posted:My new superhero film is about a cop who has a justified personal drive to fight antifa protesters in the midwest But don't worry it's not political or anything
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Dec 15, 2020 03:07
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Drakyn posted:If there needs to be more than one person onside with an argument for it to be acceptable, I absolutely agree with BrianWilly in this case, especially with the bit where they're sort of incredulous at the amount of words they're having to output to get a very, very mild take accepted even peripherally by anyone in the thread. And even then some of the agreement seems to come weighted with a certain amount of 'well, that's AN opinion, sure...' and such. I agree with all of this. I misused the term "good faith" there and I apologize. I don't think Brian's criticism is wrong. It's moreso that I think he's just arguing against a brick wall here with a lot of folks and I don't think there is an end point where he convinces the thread to take a deep look at the sociopolitical implications of a Bush-era film. Again, that's not to say he's wrong or that we shouldn't do just that. I just don't want posts to turn personal.
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Dec 15, 2020 03:24
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OnimaruXLR posted:Looks like WB has moved on from "gently caress Batman" to Batman: "gently caress" https://twitter.com/MattOswaltVA/status/1338674888945516545?s=20
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Dec 15, 2020 03:48
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One of my favourite film journalists Siddhant Adlakha wrote this https://www.slashfilm.com/iron-man-revisited-road-to-endgame/ which goes into the aspects of Iron Man that are in fact military propaganda, considering it was part funded by the Pentagon, and required a military approved script. That's not to harp on Iron Man, loads of films do that, from multiple Marvel entries to Man of Steel, Transformers etc and it's bad in all cases. Iron Man at least does layer on context that allows it to be more thoughtful than some of those. But come on, the calls itt the thread to "not read anything into it", are absurd, it's clearly presenting analogues to real world conflict. They could have had Iron Man get kidnapped by aliens and fight a giant Octopus if they wanted something apolitical, but they didn't, they had him kidnapped by terrorists in the middle east and then return there later to blow them up. The film does provide a context for that that softens it, but the imagery is absolutely worthy of criticism, and dismissing it as just a setting with no implications is frankly a preposterous position. Get mad at the filmmakers for setting sequences there and alluding to actual military conflicts if you don't like politics in your superhero films, not at people discussing the ramifications of the portrayal.
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Dec 15, 2020 03:53
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Cartridgeblowers posted:I agree with all of this. I misused the term "good faith" there and I apologize. I don't think Brian's criticism is wrong. It's moreso that I think he's just arguing against a brick wall here with a lot of folks and I don't think there is an end point where he convinces the thread to take a deep look at the sociopolitical implications of a Bush-era film. Furthermore, Karloff posted:[...]Get mad at the filmmakers for setting sequences there and alluding to actual military conflicts if you don't like politics in your superhero films, not at people discussing the ramifications of the portrayal. In addition, Feels like I've seen this strategy considered before. https://twitter.com/dril/status/952778636687499265?s=20
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Dec 15, 2020 04:00
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I had a whole thing written up, but I think the issue isn't the content, BrianWilly's right in that there's plenty to unpack about how Hollywood portrays foreign countries and the people who live there, especially in action-adventure movies (and I think we've had that conversation in this thread before...? It's not a bad topic for this thread at all), but in the timing, coming in during a discussion about how it sucks to have people calling you a piece of poo poo just because you enjoy superhero movies even if you can see problematic elements within them, and then turning the conversation (unintentionally it seems, looking back at it), into just that. BrianWilly's a generally good poster I feel, I understand exactly where they're coming from, but because of where the discussion was previously people were already primed to not appreciate the turn in conversation topic.OnimaruXLR posted:Looks like WB has moved on from "gently caress Batman" to Batman: "gently caress" Zack Snyder's assistant runs in, holding a prestige format comic book. "Zack. Zack! I picked up Batman: Damned #1 and I've got an idea!"
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Dec 15, 2020 04:40
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How do Snyder fans feel about Wonder Woman? Both the movie, and the character in general.
Jamesman fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Dec 15, 2020 |
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Dec 15, 2020 04:57
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Call me when Snyder is brave enough to have Batman call Robin the R slur like Frank Miller and then we'll talk.
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Dec 15, 2020 05:00
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Karloff posted:One of my favourite film journalists Siddhant Adlakha wrote this https://www.slashfilm.com/iron-man-revisited-road-to-endgame/ which goes into the aspects of Iron Man that are in fact military propaganda, considering it was part funded by the Pentagon, and required a military approved script.
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Dec 15, 2020 05:06
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Using the "well a military guy looked at the script and thought it was sufficiently pro-military" is not as much of a slamdunk of an "it's propaganda" argument as people seem to think. An individual nameless soldier dude does not in fact define the single Correct interpretation of a movie. Even if we assume "approval" means what is inferred it means, and not broader aspects like say, not directly depicting US soldiers conducting atrocities, which was never gonna happen in a PG13 movie anyway. Also I've never seen anyone clarify what "the military funded X" means. By my understanding it's usually like "they let the crew film some aircraft and sent a guy to verify the costumes are correct". I agree with the point of Iron Man setting up this seeming contrast between a clean technological and investigative war where we will find and kill the True Bad Guy, wherever he is, while not harming innocents, and the endless quagmire of conventional warfare where the military never actually seems to help anyone, and the net result is just arms companies getting rich. I think that's the point where I'd critique it on, and the point where it responds to the 2008 zeitgeist. I do think it's significant that the MCU as a whole entirely rejects the idea of religion/clash of cultures as an explanatory factor for terrorism though. Its lens on middle east people is really at worst paternalistic, not xenophobic. No *external* force "hates America for its freedoms", only the internal fascist conspiracy. Fangz fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Dec 15, 2020 |
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Dec 15, 2020 05:46
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Jamesman posted:How do Snyder fans feel about Wonder Woman? Both the movie, and the character in general. Well, I can tell you that they feel the credit for the quality and success of Wonder Woman as a film should go solely to Zack Snyder for casting Gal Gadot. Or at least that's what they were saying on twitter when it was better received than BvS.
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Dec 15, 2020 06:11
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This exchange in the linked article in my above post does imply there is level of hands on tampering from the DOD over seemingly minor elements, and also implies they are present on set."Siddhant Adlakha" posted:A pertinent example of the military’s role in Iron Man comes courtesy of a deleted scene, in which one U.S. soldier tells another that “people would walk over hot coals for the opportunities he has.” This line never made it to the finished film, but its original incarnation was “people would kill themselves for the opportunities he has.” This phrasing was strongly objected to by Phil Strub, the D.O.D.’s chief Hollywood liaison since 1989, in an apparently heated on-set confrontation with the film’s director. On one hand, it’s a minor occurrence. The line didn’t matter in the long run since it was cut from the film, but it’s also emblematic of a larger problem. The mere notion of a U.S. military member mentioning suicide, even in a joking context, was enough for Strub to call for censorship — in the literal government censorship use of the word — presumably, due to the barely-addressed epidemic of veteran suicides. It depends on how one defines propaganda of course. But clearly such relationships with film studios are considered fruitful. Helping recruitment such as with Man of Steel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz75IWt8YuA or Captain Marvel, or just avoiding negative implications of the Military such as in Iron Man, to me both qualify as propaganda. Also I should clarify, when I say something is propaganda I do not mean to say that it is solely that, or that it's the primary purpose of its existence. But that it forms part of an deliberately crafted ideological point of view that is meant to stoke support for and lack of criticism of military action. Most film makers on these productions I'm sure would rather not have to deal with it, as the above conflict seems to suggest, but they do have to work within those constraints. Karloff fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Dec 15, 2020 |
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Dec 15, 2020 06:11
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One of the biggest blows to Iron Man is not going with the Ghostface Killah cameo scene
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Dec 15, 2020 06:20
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Karloff posted:This exchange in the linked article in my above post does imply there is level of hands on tampering from the DOD over seemingly minor elements, and also implies they are present on set. Its pretty much the same relationship the NFL has with the DoD. The bottomless pit of defense spending is too much for the Entertainment industry to over look. And everyone wins, the movie studios get ease of shooting military equipment/personnel + accurate depictions, the NFL gets to jerk off Conservative middle America, and the military gets advertising.
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Dec 15, 2020 06:41
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I firmly believe it's ok to not care about the political implications of movies, but by the time Brian Willy started chatting people were already talking about how the MCU was leftist. They didn't drag the discussion of of Iron Man's politics into an unrelated discussion about how rad Downey's acting was, they were responding to arguments other posters had made. "I don't want to discuss the politics of this movie I like," is defensible. "This movie I like has good politics and I refuse to discuss those further, is less so.
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Dec 15, 2020 06:44
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Is it too late to bury this again?
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Dec 15, 2020 06:59
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Fangz posted:I do think it's significant that the MCU as a whole entirely rejects the idea of religion/clash of cultures as an explanatory factor for terrorism though. Its lens on middle east people is really at worst paternalistic, not xenophobic. No *external* force "hates America for its freedoms", only the internal fascist conspiracy. The military aspect of Iron Man is both a part of his aesthetic and ethos, but it's also something the character doesn't want to engage with that much, because down that way lies the kind of complicated no-easy-answers storytelling that is essentially anathema to superheroes. The same reason Captain America will tell authoritarian commanding officers to gently caress off all day long, but he's never going to smash through the front door of the White House and clobber a bunch of secret service agents on his way to take down the president, unless the president is Red Skull in disguise or something. Even in the original Secret Empire, the ending is almost explicitly designed to avoid having to put Cap in a position where he has to beat the piss out of the president for some evil poo poo that he done. Basically, they want to have their cake and eat it too. And as long as they're smart about it, they can get away with it to some degree. But how smart they are being about it (and subsequently how good a job they're doing with getting away with it) is subjective. ...Now conversely, I have no idea why the hell Superman was loving around with terrorists at the beginning of BVS
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Dec 15, 2020 07:29
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Let's all step back and discuss how and when Batman might say "gently caress" in his upcoming movie. My idea is that right before the movie begins he should turn to face the screen and say "Hey everybody, hope you've got your frosty Coca Cola, hope you've got your fuckin' sourpatch kids, hope you're all set up with some popcorn, maybe some chips, you're sitting next to your sweetie, got a nice cozy blanket on, alright, it's movie time, let's do this!!"
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Dec 15, 2020 07:47
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Lurdiak posted:Well, I can tell you that they feel the credit for the quality and success of Wonder Woman as a film should go solely to Zack Snyder for casting Gal Gadot. Or at least that's what they were saying on twitter when it was better received than BvS. Don't forget those who were saying he secretly directed all the action scenes, because, you know, there's no way a woman can direct action.
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Dec 15, 2020 12:29
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I am totally down for the Batman Who Fucks.
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Dec 15, 2020 12:50
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Karloff posted:This exchange in the linked article in my above post does imply there is level of hands on tampering from the DOD over seemingly minor elements, and also implies they are present on set. Yes, but that particular exchange reads to me as the consultant's personal bugbear (he doesn't like people using suicide as a joke or an exaggeration to imply the desirability of a thing) than a grand ideological message. I think reading it as a particular piece of pro-military propaganda is going too far here. It's just a stretch to go "presumably, due to the barely-addressed epidemic of veteran suicides" when the issue here is a joke about *prospective recruits* supposedly killing themselves because they don't get the pilot position they want. The line is in poor taste to begin with - note that filming kept happening throughout this argument, so it clearly wasn't a deal-breaker from the military's point of view. I mean on the issue of veterans, IM3 had a whole story arc about veteran abandonment and PTSD, and this was not apparently problematic. Anyway the original source is https://www.uso.org/stories/105-to-tap-into-the-military-s-arsenal-hollywood-needs-the-pentagon-s-blessing Note that in the original source, this example was mentioned as a *singular, exceptional example* of Strub having a disagreement with a director on something, not an example of something that is typical. Honestly the picture the article paints is, if anything, that of a rather haphazard system based on the opinions of two particular dudes. How Wonderful! posted:Let's all step back and discuss how and when Batman might say "gently caress" in his upcoming movie. My idea is that right before the movie begins he should turn to face the screen and say "Hey everybody, hope you've got your frosty Coca Cola, hope you've got your fuckin' sourpatch kids, hope you're all set up with some popcorn, maybe some chips, you're sitting next to your sweetie, got a nice cozy blanket on, alright, it's movie time, let's do this!!" I think Batman will stub his toe. Fangz fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Dec 15, 2020 |
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Dec 15, 2020 13:42
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Fangz posted:Also I've never seen anyone clarify what "the military funded X" means. By my understanding it's usually like "they let the crew film some aircraft and sent a guy to verify the costumes are correct". That's always been my take. You can tell maybe not in Iron Man 2 or Hulk, but definitely after that, they become a lot more fast and loose with military uniforms. Hell, Ross is usually portrayed in a suit nowadays rather than in uniform. \
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Dec 15, 2020 14:12
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notthegoatseguy posted:That's always been my take. You can tell maybe not in Iron Man 2 or Hulk, but definitely after that, they become a lot more fast and loose with military uniforms. Hell, Ross is usually portrayed in a suit nowadays rather than in uniform. \ On that subject I wonder if there's a change coming on these days where if the military says "no you can't film our planes" people can just CGI up a F35, vs back in the day where they don't have any other options. So nowadays the impact of military approval is mostly for smaller film-makers who don't have access to the technology.
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Dec 15, 2020 14:17
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https://twitter.com/marvelstudios/status/1338846284015226881?s=10 ....ok? Who wants this?
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Dec 15, 2020 15:05
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Rhyno posted:I am totally down for the Batman Who Fucks. I unironically love the god drat batman so I'm fine with foul mouthed Batman was long as he's totally unhinged in every other way.
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Dec 15, 2020 15:06
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Happy Noodle Boy posted:https://twitter.com/marvelstudios/status/1338846284015226881?s=10 Is it just clips or is it a documentary style thing?
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Dec 15, 2020 15:07
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If it goes into broader character histories or stuff from outside the MCU, maybe interview some of the Marvel Comics staff etc - that could be really fun. I've been enjoying that docu series 616 on Disney+ (even if it is basically just a series of puff pieces) If it's just clips from the movies as like a recap then it can get in the bin.
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Dec 15, 2020 16:04
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