It didn't strike me as unthinking; it struck me as authentic. I once joined a team in a law firm which had previously been all male, and for about the next six months the younger lawyers in the team adopted "C**t off, mate" as the standard form of friendly greeting.
I do think they got too much right on the gender front for it to be accidental. In, I suspect, a similar way as selenak, writes about how the Stuttgart scene played out for her as a German and therefore used to manifold ways of fail in which Germany's past is used by Hollywood, I was on edge expecting all the horrible ways in which gender relations in the movie would go wrong (including fearing an explicit threat of or actual rape or a female fridging - I assumed that the female character in the pre-credits sequence was toast the moment Loki appeared).
In fact, what we actually got in the Loki/Black Widow scene was a very, very plausible way in which someone who lives by headgames would attempt to play headgames with a woman who was also not someone with the superpowers of the other members of the team. And, again, that could have gone really badly - specifically, she could have had to rely on one of the other Avengers to get her out of the situation but in fact it didn't.
It's always difficult to see what a movie doesn't do, and it's probably a horrible comment on low expectations about Hollywood but these points taken together add up to something pretty damn unexpected:
a) neither of the characters who were turned (temporarily) to the dark side were female. b) the character rescued from alien mind control by the bad guy was a man rescued by a woman. c) the character who dies to motivate the others is male. No woman was fridged in the making of this movie. d) women are routinely shown in bridge command positions including overall command and weapons control NOT signals. e) none of the women we see earn their livings by taking their clothes off. f) shoes - or absence of shoes! Dear God, yes. I could talk for days about the symbolism of the fact that Natasha picks up her shoes and carries them when leaving the building, and Pepper is barefoot and in shorts in Stark tower. Next time you're fancying some implausible photography, try doing it in movie heels. g) no-one gets raped. That includes no-one's sister, mother, girl-friend etc. h) the male character helps civilians - mixed by age and sex - from the bus while the woman holds off the bad guys with covering fire.
Both with that and Hunger Games, I'm feeling rather encouraged for 2012 in movies.
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Date: 2012-05-08 06:56 pm (UTC)I do think they got too much right on the gender front for it to be accidental. In, I suspect, a similar way as
In fact, what we actually got in the Loki/Black Widow scene was a very, very plausible way in which someone who lives by headgames would attempt to play headgames with a woman who was also not someone with the superpowers of the other members of the team. And, again, that could have gone really badly - specifically, she could have had to rely on one of the other Avengers to get her out of the situation but in fact it didn't.
It's always difficult to see what a movie doesn't do, and it's probably a horrible comment on low expectations about Hollywood but these points taken together add up to something pretty damn unexpected:
a) neither of the characters who were turned (temporarily) to the dark side were female.
b) the character rescued from alien mind control by the bad guy was a man rescued by a woman.
c) the character who dies to motivate the others is male. No woman was fridged in the making of this movie.
d) women are routinely shown in bridge command positions including overall command and weapons control NOT signals.
e) none of the women we see earn their livings by taking their clothes off.
f) shoes - or absence of shoes! Dear God, yes. I could talk for days about the symbolism of the fact that Natasha picks up her shoes and carries them when leaving the building, and Pepper is barefoot and in shorts in Stark tower. Next time you're fancying some implausible photography, try doing it in movie heels.
g) no-one gets raped. That includes no-one's sister, mother, girl-friend etc.
h) the male character helps civilians - mixed by age and sex - from the bus while the woman holds off the bad guys with covering fire.
Both with that and Hunger Games, I'm feeling rather encouraged for 2012 in movies.