Phase 1 & 2: Week 2

 A powerful moment from this week was during a conversation with Justin Edwards while watching the Iron Man 3 movie. We were discussing the plot of the film and how certain aspects of the plot reflect realities, situations, or ideas in our world. The antagonist of this film is a white man who weaponizes technology that he stole from a female botanist, and uses it to back his domestic terrorist attacks. These terrorist attacks are portrayed to the public as being done by “The Mandarin.” This man pays an actor to be the face of his attacks, and profits off of xenophobia to spread fear and control the situation. 

Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/iron-man-3-villain-mandarin-2012-10

The actor who is the face of The Mandarin is above


Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/marvelstudios/comments/jqmuja/one_thing_i_would_to_see_in_the_future_of_the_mcu/

Although I wouldn't consider this to have a large emotional impact, during The Avengers film watching the character Maria Hill was a nice change. She is the most realistic of the female characters until this point in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She wears comfortable clothing that isn't overly sexualized. Maria also always has her hair pulled back (this is something that always confused me about Black Widow- how does she fight in a skin-tight leather catsuit with her hair down and in her face). While her purpose is to serve and assist Nick Fury, the director of the government agency she works for, she isn't subjected to the intense male gaze.

*TW: mentions of mental health and self-harm ahead*

From both of these films, we begin to see an emergence of a theme of mental health. Although only briefly mentioned in The Avengers, Dr. Banner (also known as the Hulk), explains how he knows you can't kill him- it's because he tried to already. This comment is brushed off to a destructive degree, but portraying an extremely strong physical character like the Hulk to have complex emotions and weak points as well as vulnerability contrasts toxic masculinity which may be expected of such a smart and strong hero. Iron Man 3, however, is based in his journey with PTSD after the attacks on New York.

We are currently almost through phase two and will finish it on Monday, then go into phase three which will be diving into more ambiguous territory with backstories and racial recognition from original comics to the films today. There will be more backlash in response to some of the films at the time of their release and how they correlate with the outside world.



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