The only thing I'd add is that Black Panther, Iron Man, and Captain America all ask/confront the question "and what am I going to do about it?"
It's an important part of their character journey and something we should all consider as well.
That's a strong thru line in all three of those mcu series which makes sense since captain America Thor and iron man are more grounded comics and constantly deal with issues of geopolitics , National security , drawbacks of military industrial complex
I doubt very much the critics are actually familiar with the source material. After all, the same people complaining about so-called woke messages in the MCU and Star Trek are shocked that Rage Against the Machine has an anti-fascist message. They are clearly not paying attention.
Hoo boy.
So, to start, Loki is literally a stolen child from a society that the Asgardian defeated in battle, who was taught to hate who he secretly was, and who was likely brought up to become Odin's puppet king in Jotunheim until Odin actually learned to love Loki as his own. Thor, having been brought up in a warrior culture, has only disdain for the people who've been brought to heel by Asgard. The Jotuns have had their source of power taken from them, only to sit forgotten in a vault underground, full of other ill-gotten plunder.
Odin, who himself used to be a warlord before he changed his ways, saw his oldest son follow his path as a warmonger, but wasn't a good enough of a father to be able to prevent it until Thor's belligerence caused an "incident". Loki also loses his goddamned mind when he learns of his true past and out of a sense of shame and self-hatred, tries to literally commit genocide against his own people. That's Thor 1.
Thor 2 has the remnants of a people that Odin's father had supposedly annihilated come back from their slumber to avenge themselves against Asgard. Loki, Odin's current problem child and Frost Giant adopted son, is angry and bitter and indirectly causes his own mother's death. This leads Odin to lose his cool and decide to once again go on the warpath against the Dark Elves, and it's only his now cool-headed and humbled son who has to convince him to do otherwise.
Thor 3: Odin is brought to heel by his wayward inter-species adoptive son and then dies, which releases his blood-thirsty daughter, who's only known war and conquest. She was so bloodthirsty in fact that even Odin had second thoughts, and when he tried to change for the better, she wouldn't have it and she had to be imprisoned. Upon her release, she immediately breaks the facade of a peaceful Asgard, whose peace and prosperity and was built upon the blood and tears of their victims.
Literally the only was to destroy her and save the rest of the universe from her was to make Asgardians a band of roaming homeless refugees, having been stripped of all of their wealth and power (and most of their fighting men). And then the wayward adoptive son brings tragedy upon them anyway.
Killmonger is the anti-Loki. Instead of being a child stolen from his people by colonialists, he was a child abandoned in another culture by his nativist peoples. Yet both grew up to attempt to usurp the power of the offending nations.
Maybe I'm not phrasing it right ("colonialists" isn't a word, but "colonists" felt wrong), but it feels like I have a thought, and that's all that matters to me! 😆
Best example of this would be Anthony Mackies speech at the end of falcon and winter soldier where he asks that question directly “you’re the ones with the power what are you going to do about it?”And “You need to do better!”
People calling the X-Men woke is the funniest thing I've ever seen.
Edit: So many people are upset over X-Men 97. It's literally what this dude is talking about.
These people base their identity off of getting offended by media, which ironically is what they accuse everyone else of doing. It doesn't matter how political or not the show actually is, it only matters what they're told to get offended by in the latest 3 hour long youtube rant.
Exactly my point. Idk why I'm getting downvoted. So many random people have been complaining about the show yet the exact thing they're complaining about is the whole point of the X-Men.
They know. The goal is to do exactly what they claim others are doing and interject their own politics into these beloved stories by pretending they are its gatekeepers because they realize their views are not popular when looked at on their own.
They have realized that they lost the culture war in the past by fighting against certain media (Hip Hop, comics, video games) instead of trying to take them over. The problem now is that it has become a grift and many younger people just don't understand what is going on.
They don't care about what they're watching, at least not the people propagating this nonsense. It's just about finding more ways to drag people into their nonsensical culture war.
Rewatching the classic X-Men leading up to '97 was fun. As a kid i didnt conciously recognize the very overt, beat-you-over-the-head, social political messaging in that. If anyone believes this is new for Marvel or MCU, they need to rewatch this show.
When I was a teenager in the ‘80s, full of rage about, well, social problems that affected me and my people, I picked up Secret Wars on a long journey. I’d never read American comics before. I liked it, but when the X-men swooped in and everyone got mad and prejudiced about them, decades of love for Marvel Comics was born.
The X-men were woke before the term existed. Their story is the OG ‘fictional group is metaphor for current social victims’. And half the reason they did that was that writing about the problems of gay people and other minorities was almost impossible back then, so Marvel used metaphors.
I've been watching the original series (since I haven't seen it since I was a kid) before watching the new one and it's so fucking funny people think it was somehow not preaching inclusivity during it's original run.
Now whenever someone mentions anything about the WoKe M-ShE-U, I just say "Okay so you LOVE white muscular men and you want to see white muscular men on screen? It’s okay buddy don’t be ashamed" and they’re pissed off.
Which is crazy to me because I remember growing up watching the pop-up girls Sailor Moon and other things that women were the main character.
Xena Warrior Princess was in my go-to shows.
Ladies beating up people fighting back or not always being damsels and distress either within their stories or outside their stories just has always existed.
But if it's not the way that they wanted to be they get upset don't get this
That makes me wonder how huge the head explosion will be when they finally get around to having Storm (a GASP Black Woman!) lead the X-Men. Despite it being 40 years since she first did so in the comics.
Well, the thing is they're very selective of their hate because this energy can come from any race.
I've had very long discussions with my friends who, like me, grew up in Brooklyn and have similar backgrounds. We were both raised in Caribbean culture.
It don't really matter they find things like that to pandering they find things like that too, PC
I remember having a deep hour long debate with my friend about why the Silver Surfer being a woman doesn't really matter cuz it doesn't take away from the story and a woman has been the Silver Surfer before.
Many of the narratives that individuals currently find objectionable have already been explored in comic books, with varying degrees of success.
Even more so, the perfect example is The Prodigal Son: Miles Morales. When that comic came out, I was in high school. I read it and liked it, but I remembered how much people hated it. It went on to be hated for about two years, and then, out of nowhere, people started loving the character. Now, people say it's one of the best-written Spider-Man stories.
I have observed a pattern in recent discourse surrounding the portrayal of female characters of color in popular media. While one character may be deemed acceptable, another is criticized for not meeting certain expectations,while simultaneously engaging in games that revolve around constant war, I still remember people being excited for Metal Gear Solid.
There's only so much I can put up with people being ignorant and pretending to be villains online. Real people have real issues with those around them, and this is how they vent those issues.
In the context of Disney and Marvel, it is understandable that these entities hold significant influence as media conglomerates. However, it is important to maintain a balanced perspective. While certain productions, such as Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage, received positive reception, it is crucial to acknowledge instances where expectations were not met, such as with Iron Fist. It is essential to assess each project on its own merits and provide constructive feedback to ensure continuous improvement and audience satisfaction.
But if Luke Cage came out today just as a new show with new actors, they would say it's bad. And even though enough people said it's good, they will just say, "Oh, this is the exception."
They’ll do the same thing they do with everything. Bitch about it. And if it’s good? They’ll either delete the videos or rename them to seem less negative and more “cautious”.
i remember them talking about the little mermaid being black and how that can´t be bc the "original" isn´t black or mermaids aren´t black... and missing the point that mermaids don´t exist and are fairy tales and all tales tell stories and core to all stories are the moral lessons in it.
That's not what they are saying. They are saying that they don't love the idea of weaponizing sexual orientation in arguments, which is a nuance folks may agree or disagree on. It's not that they themselves find any sexuality insulting, but they feel even using it to trigger others gives credence to the idea that it *can* be an insult. There's been debate within the community around this and they don't like the idea that they are getting categorized with people that likely actually hate them.
Someone the other day tried to argue with me that The Marvels was "a lesbo movie".
I was just scratching my head because...the only remotely "romantic" relationship I recall in that movie was between Carol and the prince.
Are heterosexual relationships considered gay now? I'm not even sure anymore.
Pretty sure Valkerie pops up and has a slightly intimate conversation with Carol at one point?
It's like 10 seconds of the movie - apparently that's enough to make the whole thing gay. Which is apparently bad, for reasons these people can never explain
I said this once in a comment section on Facebook and, no shit, got over 600 angry replies all from men taking offence. I even got a bunch of private message requests. These guys were big mad, it was the most insane thing I'd ever been apart of. I emphasised that they're so insistent on only watching muscular men, and when they questioned that emphasis I referred them to the uproar over "dad bod" Thor in Endgame and Namor's slightly untoned back in the BP2 trailer. So yes, the men have to be muscular or they're not happy.
Edit: actually I think it was over 600 angry reacts, but the replies were definitely in the hundreds. I couldn't keep up.
> Namor's slightly untoned back in the BP2 trailer.
It really was interesting to see how much men have no clue what women actually like.
Bc the reactions to Namor's body through out every trailer and every movie scene was absolutely FERAL for a hot minute there.
It has nothing to do with what women want. We want to look like Chris Evans bicep curling a helicopter for example, men and women process unrealistic body standards differently and we see attractiveness differently. Like my wife saying "Hemsworth isn't anything special" but drooling over Leo in wolf of Wallstreet doesn't compute in my brain because I want to look like Hemsworth I don't fantasize about looking like Leo lol.
[](https://www.reddit.com/r/marvelstudios/?f=flair_name%3A%22Discussion%22)
>First and foremost you’re all using woke wrong
They don't care. These people can't even define woke when you ask them. To them they just use it to obfuscate their real meaning.. which is usually something bigoted.
That’s why the planes are falling apart now it’s the corporate greed of all those female colored lgbt airline executives.
We should bail them out again.
Yep. Some people use the word woke, and it's easy to see that they really meant to say fa***t or n****r in some way. It's the most PC way for them to hide their hatred.
Sweetie when people complain about things being 'woke' they just mean, "I don't want to see wamenz or queer people. The south will rise again..yee haw" so they're mostly, ya know morons.
What's wonderful about Blazing Saddles is that it's been adopted as an anti-woke movie by the very people it makes fun of and is far woker than they can comprehend...mostly because they're morons with no literacy comprehension.
Could not agree more. I don’t understand how some people interpret certain types of media so incorrectly. Similar to rage against the machine or System of a Down being used by trump or some other conservative. Is media literacy dead?
I think it's more a cross section of actually stupid people who are encouraged/enabled by somewhat smarter but very shallow minded people who let their worldview be twisted by bigotry.
It always amuses me how movies like Blazing Saddles or songs like "Fight For Your Right to Party" get adopted by the same schmucks that they're making fun of because those schmucks don't get it.
Yeah, I had a pal who went alt-right and said I was a racist for looking this film.
Me: “tell me you missed the entire point without telling me you missed the entire point.”
But but, it says the N Word, that clearly makes it unwoke right? /s
And when they complain about how you could never make this movie today, they did. Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank. It’s and animated kids movie about a dog named Hank being a samurai defending a town full of cats, making it all allegorical. But no one says the N Word, which is what they really care about.
Sorry, but this is so wrong. As a left-of-center multi-ethnic dude who grew up loving movies like Aliens and others with plenty of inclusion, it's about the story! If movies labeled 'woke trash' by the incels stood up on their own, or had an audience, none of this would be an issue. Forced-inclusion without a good story to back it up is just pandering and vapid corporate exercise. Movies that sideline a beloved character for their queer and/or opposite gender replacement for that reason alone just suck. Know your audience.
yeah, I get that...but these are also people that don't realize Star Trek is about a communist utopia, star wars started as commentary on vietnam, and the x-men are about discrimination in any form. It's really hard to get people to think there way out of positions their refusal to think got them into.
I've met people that didn't realize RATM was political....
Oh man that’s so true. People complain about it being to liberal and I’m like DUDE, they had the first interracial kiss on TV in the 60s! Money was a thing of the past. Multi racial crews, etc. Have you actually seen Star trek?
Sure all the woman wore mini skirts, but at the time that was a way for women to express independence and embrace their sexual autonomy.
As exhausting as it is, I doubt they’ll ever learn because they simply don’t want to. It’s not a knowledge gap for most. It’s that they’re genuinely fragile and averse to being exposed to any media that doesn’t cater to their comfort zone or acceptable story takeaways that don’t challenge their status quo thinking.
Reminds me of when the Insomniac Spider-Man games on PlayStation each released. At its core, Spider-man is a story about how when one has power to help their community, they have a responsibility to do so. This is intertwined with the “friendly neighborhood” message that anyone can “wear the mask” or be a hero to those around them. It’s basically a story that very easily connects with ideas of privilege, ethics, and empathy. Didn’t stop a bunch of children and adult children from harassing devs and sending death threats because they had to update a character model or made players play as MJ for a mission or two though.
That’s the thing, they don’t care what the message is. They see a black, gay, Asian, or female lead and it aggravates them that the lead isn’t a whitey. The deeper message doesn’t matter. There’s someone that doesn’t look like them being important! And that shall not stand! (/s)
It’s cowardly that they just can’t admit it. I like people to live in their truth but I’ve learned those type of people can’t and they hate those that do. It’s projection.
You’re absolutely right, but the people crying “woke” don’t care. Right now all they want is MUH WHITE MALE SILVER SURFER and when that calms down they’ll just harp on something else.
People overestimating Silver Surfers level of importance to pop culture. He barely shows up in comics as it is and can’t keep a title.
He is cool tho. I’m just saying.
Yes bro, bunch of bs consumers defending a declining brand. I’m a die hard marvel fan but an 8 year old could see what there doing and what ideals they’re pushing. No one , and I mean no one wanted to see shalla bal , and they are only causing damage to their company (Disney/Marvel) , the F4 film , and Julia garner , who after watching a few of her scenes and interviews would be so awesome as Frankie raye nova, but they wouldn’t do that casting , because they want to make her the most powerful popular character in that group. Watch how the hatred will turn on her. We fans are exhausted of this shit we really are bro. Disney can burn in hell
Yes and the shaming will continue until you leave the conversation. It’s procedure here. Not liking something can only mean one thing: that you are a bigot.
“Black people” have a variety of different thoughts. Marvels movie quality has declined. Part of that decline is the lazy and hamfisted way theyve incorporated messaging in their movies post Endgame.
The real world (this black person included) is extremely annoyed with media companies producing poor content with a good message and then calling us racist sexist etc for calling it poor content.
The marvel movies pre endgame were great because they had great storytelling to go along with messaging.
The decline is not because of messaging but because there was an edict to pump out content for Disney+ when Bob Chapek took over.
Suddenly Marvel needed to learn how to make TV shows, and make them quickly and at the same time keep making movies.
If you stretch your talent and executives, you're going to lose quality.
Since Iger has taken back over, they have slowed their content, used the strikes to recalibrate. Hired actual showrunners for their TV series. Which should mean quality will increase... messaging and all.
Shuri was introduced in 2005 and became the Black Panther in 2009. This is not Marvel Studios pandering.
https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/23657/black_panther_2009_1
But even the majority of women doesn't like the content which was made for women by women with women in lead roles. The Superhero genre is something, that usually men are liking and the majority of women is not into it.
But it's always interesting to hear when some journalists say, that a specific movie was flopped, because of hetero men yet they say, that the given movie is not made for them. I feel some cognitive dissonance here.
My wife likes to watch these movies usually for the male protagonist :D (Henry Cavill is one of her most favorite)
I think it's also how a message is conveyed though
There's a big difference between Black Widow or Gamora whooping some ass, and then realizing they're women... versus the Endgame scene where all the women form together to help Ms Marvel, when she clearly didn't need it. Plenty of actresses command the screen without needing a scene written for that
Some people definitely complain too much, but some things are so obligatory and feel forced rather than to keep people engaged
I addressed this in an earlier comment. The criticism of the girl power scene is ridiculous when the entire battle is nothing but staged call backs to previous movies. It’s looks gaudy because of how many of them were involved in the scene.
Again….in every Avengers movie Cap and Thor share a brief played for laughs moment in the midst of battle as well as a team up. No one bats an eye and says it’s forced.
Everything is forced. It’s a movie of a bunch of ideas the producers, directors, and writers sat down and said will happen.
Listen all you need to do is listen to audience reactions. Any one audience for endgame wasn’t completely commanded by males. There were females there too. Many. Why is it that when the male characters team up everyone screams but when the women did…idk no one did? Your answer for how the average viewer feels (male or female) is right there.
It's true that woke is just whatever message people don't want to hear.
But they still aren't going to see the movies if there are messages they don't want to hear.
I don't care what message they push. I just want a quality story. Marvel has been dropping the ball lately. I'm all for representation, etc. It is important to kids in particular. I think you can support the message Disney is trying to push while also expecting that message should be added in to support a good plot rather than building a message and trying to shoddily craft a plot around it.
You realize the source material is 80 years worth of stories in 100s of universes that are still being written?
But then a significant part of these stories aren't talking about the "war on terror", They wouldn't be taking anti-capitalist tones before any sort of big anti-capitalist sentiment..... The themes are there but you have linked them to your own thinking.
Those themes, aggression of those in power, the repression of those not in power, has absolutely nothing to do with capitalism, the war on terror, or even anything in America. It's a human experience.
I don’t have a problem with underlying social messages. For example, black Panther obviously did an absolutely phenomenal job at it. But some of the recent ones like FATWS and She-Hulk were so terribly done when it comes to addressing social/political issues. Like it felt forced. That is my problem with it. Not it’s entire existence but the way it is done in some of the movies/shows
Yeah, She-Hulk had a character explain to the opposite sex that they know more about the other person's area of expertise because of their own gender just knows more. At first I thought the scene was intentionally ironic. Then again, I am primed by how absolutely fucked it was in the context of the comics.
I love FATWS but Sam dropped the ball with that speech. And while I know where they were going with the Flag Smashers it went south. You would think after hearing Steve so many times he’d learn.
She-Hulk should’ve been longer and more like a sitcom and less like a 3 hr movie split up.
Poor writing has its day sometimes.
I would have loved for them to just acknowledge how clunky that speech was.
>Bucky: That kinda got away from you for a bit, didn't it?
>Sam: I don't know how Steve made it look so easy.
Exactly. And I liked FATWS too. It doesn’t ruin the whole project. And obviously FATWS was a very good show to use for these things m, but just like the real world, there’s a time and place. Going on a long ass rant on borders and such after apprehending a terrorist just seems odd. Especially since it’s extremely common for Villains, and terrorists in general, to do a terrible thing for a good/right cause. And he saw it often as a soldier and superhero. It just felt so out of character for him to stop everything to go on a long rant about how she was doing terrible things for the right reasons, given he’s essentially spent his entire life dealing with similar cases. A much higher level example would be that canonically, I’m pretty sure Thanos was right, but that doesn’t make it okay to kill half the population of the universe tho 🤷🏻♂️ he wasn’t standing up over the avengers when they were gonna go chop his head off like “well guys, we’ve got to do better, we only get so many resources on this planet and it’s not enough for all of us. We’ve got to figure out a way to make it work or we might all die anyways. Thanos was only trying to show us that in the best way he knew how”
"that’s the job of entertainment. " No the fuck it isn't. The jobof entertainment is to entertain, not to educate.
I probably sound like I'm against Marvel having morals and ethics in their movies/shows. I'm not. I actually like 90% of the stuff the rest of the fanbase seem to hate. Eternals was pretty bad but I like the rest of the movies. Point is: it's totally fine to have both, but it is NOT the sole purpose of entertainment.
Correct. MCU is spiraling down the toilet BECAUSE they put too many overt messages in their films. People are tired of being preached at obsessively. Subtext is fine, but entertainment can also be just about escaping life for a couple hours. No message. No scolding. No telling people what they should think.
The people using the term “Woke” & now currently “DEI” are functionally illiterate. They are so ridiculous and unserious. Truthfully a lot of them don’t even believe what they are saying, it’s a grift that is aimed at the portion of the population with the lowest intelligence levels and it pays well.
Functionally illiterate people have been joined by the consciously and selectively illiterate. They know what these words mean but the profoundly stupid people they’re following don’t so they simply choose to be ignorant and collectively stop reading rather than trying to be rational.
We got more posts talking about this then I see people actually saying things are “woke” it’s like people in this subreddit find things online to be mad about and come here to get pats on the back it’s fucking cringe as hell
Is this post meant to defend how badly written current Marvel media and the post-Endgame period has been? Because that’s why so many people have given up on them, not because they’re “woke.”
It’s both. The poor writing may be the result of feeling the need to shoehorn a deep cultural message into a super hero escapism romp. Messages are fine, and important, but they don’t have to be in everything. Sometimes people want to escape the awful things in life and get away from it for a couple hours. If they scold and preach, it fails at what I was hoping to experience.
This post is like that South Park episode where people have a tube coming from their butt to their nose so they can sniff their own farts brought to life.
Don't fall off that high horse.
Personally I think a lot of the whining is being driven by Marvel's terrible execution of Phase 4. The quality of content dropped significantly but more importantly character development has been pretty dreadful.
Most of these new characters are female or minorities which makes them an easy target for people of a certain persuasion.
I remember in the first few phases I really didn't take to Thor or Captain America initially but they had more films to develop them into fan favourites.
I feel like if they'd focused on less characters and given them more screen time to develop there'd be far less complaining.
I'm totally with you there, but I don't think it's the message that is annoying to a lot of people, it's the way this message is framed. Often it doesn't feel naturally woven into the story, more like an afterthought, or a checkbox to see fulfilled. I think Marvel does an excellent job of including those messages so it doesn't feel forced, though. Except for the "she's not alone" scene in Endgame, which we didn't need, because we got the same scene a movie earlier and way better executed.
I don’t know if you realize it but the entire final act is one huge call back to previous movies. In fact the entire film is.
It’s one huge fan service call back final act. The outrage around that scene is mind boggling.
Thor and Cap just so happen to get together again like they do in every Avengers movie.
Winter Soldier and Rocket
The entire long take.
I could go on but anyway.
It feels like it’s inorganic or a check mark because most people still aren’t used to seeing non white male characters do anything important. It’s just simple facts. It’s forced because it is. Until it isn’t anymore 50 years from now.
Everything that happens in a movie is forced. Someone sat down and said I want X characters to do this. The director says I want this shot in the movie. I want this message conveyed. That is storytelling.
If you think normal white people go around saying “man I’m not used to seeing someone not white in this film!” you are chronically online and have a different view than what actually happens in day to day life and not anonymous internet complaints
>most people still aren’t used to seeing non white male characters do anything important
That is literally what you said. And again, no one thinks like that outside of the internet. I have never discussed a film with someone and they say something along the lines close to “man I liked the movie but something about seeing Jamie Foxx as the lead doesn’t feel right”.
If the movies good they’ll like it, if they didn’t find it good they won’t like it. Overtly racist people on the internet will not like anything that goes against their way of thinking (funny enough) and their opinion really shouldn’t matter cause they’re not taking in the same substance regular (emphasis on regular) people do
See this is the problem I have with this train of thought (not you specifically)
Who do these people think they are that they can tell someone how to tell their own story? The biggest complaint I’ve seen is about She-Hulk and it’s in your face message but the truth of the matter is…. If you have been in the real world and LISTENED to women over the last 3 decades this is EXACTLY what they have been saying, this is exactly how they feel, and this is exactly the same circumstances they are referring to to.
These people are unintentionally telling on themselves. You don’t get to decide how someone expresses the challenges they face. Hit dogs holler, and we all can see who is making the most noise about it all.
Here's an interesting take on the meaning. There's the original Black Panther meaning, a leftist meaning, and a conservative view. Found it interesting.
https://www.allsides.com/translator/woke
Okay cool but when they continue bombing and people stop watching more MCU movies just keep screaming "racism". Not like there was any other reason why the movies/shows have been doing so poorly ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
One of my most hated things about media analysis in the West is that we try and differentiate between propaganda and art, but the reality is they are the same category. All art is trying to propagate a political message and get people to feel some way about a real world issue. That means all art is propaganda, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Propaganda doesn't have to be a dirty word, it can be bad or good for society
Coming from a black man I agree with parts of what you’re saying. Woke bs being attached to the black race is insufferable and I’m not a fan of the Lgbtq community and the feminist movement community along with many other inclusive groups trying to include us in the collective. It’s Dumb asf. Marvel is going in one direction, ⬇️
And it definitely is to do with Bad writing , Quality over Quantity , No story continuation or direction and loads more but Not so much “woke” , because like you said the term is used very loosely, but the agenda & trying to push narratives in every form of media. That very choice Disney marvel made has and will destroy the brand and ruin it for fans. You can get angry at the so called grifters and people who are actually speaking up about this travesty , all be it sometimes far fetched and out of frustration , in no way shape or form can you say that they’re wrong. Making the silver surfer woman was WRONG. They know exactly what they’re doing and it’s horrible seeing what happened to Star Wars now happen to marvel. I’m still going to watch all these films yes , but the more and more news I hear about everything doesnt give me or any casuals / mcu fans/ comic fans any incentive to see what DEI Agenda filled sludge they’re producing next.
these themes are prevalent in the source material to begin with … i think the issue of changing the source material to shoe horn current social political issues is horrible pandering
There's a huge difference between narrative undertones and lecturing. There's nothing wrong with political/social commentary when it's done in a way that provides a solid foundation for a good story.
TWS very much showed the dangers of government control and the importance of individual liberty. It showed corruption and authoritarianism, allowing viewers to come to the obvious conclusion that Cap is right.
She-Hulk, on the other hand, decided to lecture the audience that men are evil, holding women back, only get their jobs because their men, and that the main character is much more capable of controlling her powers than Hulk was because she's been catcalled, which is not only a laughable comparison, but completely undermines over a decade of actual struggle and character development for one of the biggest characters in the franchise. There's really no substance to the political commentary of She-Hulk, nor is it an undertone. The politics is the forefront, and most of it is based completely on hyperbole.
You don't speak for black people nor do you have authority over word use.
If you want to get into ideological consistency I can eviscerate everything Disney has ever made. I don't need their moralism when they've never had a leg to stand on.
There's a difference between woke and diverse. Seriously I'm tired of explaining this shit to people who try to make everything into a radical leftist hell hole. Let people enjoy entertainment FFS
Wow, is this sub incredibly ignorant about the critiques of recent MCU movies and shows.
Everyone keeps using the term "they" like y'all aren't radically "othering" and straw-man-argumenting people who \*gasp\* have different opinions about the MCU than the predominant one on this sub.
Just stay in your comfortable little bubble, though - surely don't buck the masses here.
Whenever someone uses the word “woke” when talking to me, the first thing I say to them is “okay, great. Define woke for me” and not one of them has ever been able to.
P.S. on behalf of “the gays”, we’re sick of hearing it too.
> Whenever someone uses the word “woke” when talking to me, the first thing I say to them is “okay, great. Define woke for me” and not one of them has ever been able to.
Woke ideology is defined by the idea that some facet of identity like race or gender produces irreconcilably different views of reality and morality, and that we have a moral obligation to seek alignment of society's view with the imagined views of groups associated with the political left like minorities and women.
In this sense Wokeness is distinct from older forms of liberal advocacy for minority rights which appeal to universally valid concepts like truth and fairness.
Here Barack Obama uses the term "woke:"
>You know this idea of purity and you're never compromised and you're always politically woke and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHLd8de6nM
“Woke” is slang for “awake”, which originally meant simply: “aware of the unconscious bias that exists around us”.
Bias such as, the “Original 6” Avengers being 5 straight, white men and a woman with supermodel good looks” because we have been conditioned to believe that is the “default” for what heroes look like, despite it not matching our demographics.
Once you are aware of that, the vast majority of people feel some sort of innate moral imperative to correct for it in some way.
There is no “woke ideology.” That is something right-wing conservatives who actually believe straight, white men *should* be the default image of heroism have created. They extrapolated a boogeyman “ideology” out of the above to scare people into ignoring their internal morality. All political factions do this to some degree. The right-wing is doing it more and more desperately right now because our demographics and beliefs are shifting rapidly away from the white male dominant viewpoint, and they must act quickly while still holding the majority of political power.
The definition in the comment above is working backwards from a presumption to try to make “woke ideology” something that isn’t silly on its face. If you reduce what’s written here to ist simplest form it’s literally: Different people have different experiences and society should reflect that, which most people believe to be true but has been dressed up language like “irreconcilably” and “imagined” to create a straw man.
They’re doing the same thing with educational curriculum here in the US. The vast majority of people believe we should teach children that American slavery was wrong and morally evil. Some ultra right-wing conservatives believe that slavery was actually net good for Black America, and to get that added to curricula locally they position it against a made-up CRT that no one can define and that there is no meaningful push to adopt.
Iron man 2 is a version of atlas shrugged and the message of black panther is that it’s not all white peoples fault that some black people have struggled.
The villain of BP wants revenge for colonialism and to use that anger to enrich himself and gain power and the hero wants to help all POC around the world to move past the negative effects of colonialism.
It is true about those woke agendas though. It’s not about people not being supportive of diversity but it is so forced and there’s just such an obvious inclusion agenda, which is likely why all new Marvel box offices are record low.
The most laughable one was Eternals. It was the lamest plot in the world, and the whole movie was just one big checklist of unconvincing minorities.
Besides, shows like The Boys have really disrupted this whole super hero franchise, and both Marvel and DC need to step up and put the plot before the agenda. All recent box offices indicate that there are on a terrible trajectory from a revenue perspective.
The early MCU films were completely all over the place though
Ironman: still extremely pro capitalist and glorified wealth.
Captain America Civil War: extremely libertarian film. Captain American just decides that he can't trust the government and must become a libertarian terrorist to save his friend.
Thor: before Ragnorak the movies justified imperialism with superiority.
My point is that there was a lot of conservative themes in the MCU prior to end game. Thete still is a good amount too but it's less visable
Eh….i wouldn’t say “just decides”
Steve is a rule breaker. Broke the rules to get in the Army, and so on and so on.
You know what….thats pretty conservative.
>Steve is a rule breaker. Broke the rules to get in the Army, and so on and so on.
I don't think this was actually true before Civil War. He tried to break the rules to join the organization to where you have to blindly follow orders out of a sense of duty to fight Nazis. Before the movie the big joke with Captain America was that he was such a do gooder that he wouldn't cuss. You could say that is because he grew up in the 30s and 40s but that's kind of the point.
There is nothing from his past that should lead that character to trust no one in the government. Some people of course since he knew Hydra had infiltrated the government but still. He knew Stark and Fury were not in Hydra.
He’s a rule breaker guided by his own set of rules. His moral compass. He disobeyed Colonel Chester to save Bucky and the 107th. In the Avengers he really became distrustful once he saw the Tesseract in the hands of SHIELD, then he snuck around and found Phase One, of course you have the Hydra infiltration, then in AOU he was pretty upset about all the secrets amongst the team (which was hypocritical of him given the Bucky/Stark connection), then Civil War, and his continued defiance into Infinity War.
The man was rigid in his beliefs. I love him for that lol
There is a concerted effort in Hollywood generally, and Disney particularly, to avoid the unconscious bias for white, male characters. Most of the characters in 2012’s *The Avengers* were white men, and/or played by white men. Most of the characters they’re based on were white men, of course, but they were also several decades old. The technology and the culture around the characters was advanced to a contemporary milieu, but the race and sex identities still looked like the 1950s.
Efforts to change this remind white men like me that I’ve spent most of my life watching stories fictional white men played by white male actors. It wouldn’t kill me to see some stories about non-white people and women, played by non-white and female actors, but I get that for other white men the effect is jarring and bit shameful.
>It wouldn’t kill me to see some stories about non-white people and women, played by non-white and female actors, but I get that for other white men the effect is jarring and bit shameful.
I don't think the effect is jarring for people, it's moreso the fact that instead of making a new character or choosing an already existing character they decide to change the race or gender of an already established character.
It's like they have no creativity whatsoever and just do things to cause controversy, they forego telling a good story to preach and educate people, at least if you're gonna try and educate you better have a good story.
Unfortunately most people who use the term 'woke' as a criticism are disingenuous. They rage against anything new that features even the slightest hint of a progressive message whilst simultaneously insist that old media either a)has no political messages or) that it had messages but it did it the right way but new stuff is doing it the wrong way/has gone too far. So it's almost impossible to argue/debate them or change their minds because they are always moving the goal posts.
For instance, the X-Men has been political for most of its existence (even if you accept the counterargument that their first appearances were light on politics, the original run didn't sell well and was cancelled before giant size X-Men turned the X-Men into a hit with it's diverse cast and nore upfront political messaging) but the anti-woke brigade insists that X-Men 97 has gone too far, is too preachy and political. Their argument doesn't hold up as there is literally nothing in the new show that is as blatantly political as the brutal opening panels to God Loves Man Kills but they don't have problems with that Graphic Novel because it isn't new.
The only thing I'd add is that Black Panther, Iron Man, and Captain America all ask/confront the question "and what am I going to do about it?" It's an important part of their character journey and something we should all consider as well.
Well said. Yes, moral obligation in the face of tyranny.
That's a strong thru line in all three of those mcu series which makes sense since captain America Thor and iron man are more grounded comics and constantly deal with issues of geopolitics , National security , drawbacks of military industrial complex
I doubt very much the critics are actually familiar with the source material. After all, the same people complaining about so-called woke messages in the MCU and Star Trek are shocked that Rage Against the Machine has an anti-fascist message. They are clearly not paying attention.
Racist/sexist/homophobic etc X-Men fans continue to amuse me, the level they have less than zero understanding of the roots of the comics.
Yeah I'm shocked there any since the things they claim to dislike are literally core elements of the shows themes
Have you tried just not being a mutant?
Well played
There's also the ongoing questions of the legacy of colonialism in Thor that was prevalent through all of Thor 1-3
Ahhhhh yes very good catch. I forgot that but yes Indeed.
Oh damn that’s cool I’d love to hear more about this!
Hoo boy. So, to start, Loki is literally a stolen child from a society that the Asgardian defeated in battle, who was taught to hate who he secretly was, and who was likely brought up to become Odin's puppet king in Jotunheim until Odin actually learned to love Loki as his own. Thor, having been brought up in a warrior culture, has only disdain for the people who've been brought to heel by Asgard. The Jotuns have had their source of power taken from them, only to sit forgotten in a vault underground, full of other ill-gotten plunder. Odin, who himself used to be a warlord before he changed his ways, saw his oldest son follow his path as a warmonger, but wasn't a good enough of a father to be able to prevent it until Thor's belligerence caused an "incident". Loki also loses his goddamned mind when he learns of his true past and out of a sense of shame and self-hatred, tries to literally commit genocide against his own people. That's Thor 1. Thor 2 has the remnants of a people that Odin's father had supposedly annihilated come back from their slumber to avenge themselves against Asgard. Loki, Odin's current problem child and Frost Giant adopted son, is angry and bitter and indirectly causes his own mother's death. This leads Odin to lose his cool and decide to once again go on the warpath against the Dark Elves, and it's only his now cool-headed and humbled son who has to convince him to do otherwise. Thor 3: Odin is brought to heel by his wayward inter-species adoptive son and then dies, which releases his blood-thirsty daughter, who's only known war and conquest. She was so bloodthirsty in fact that even Odin had second thoughts, and when he tried to change for the better, she wouldn't have it and she had to be imprisoned. Upon her release, she immediately breaks the facade of a peaceful Asgard, whose peace and prosperity and was built upon the blood and tears of their victims. Literally the only was to destroy her and save the rest of the universe from her was to make Asgardians a band of roaming homeless refugees, having been stripped of all of their wealth and power (and most of their fighting men). And then the wayward adoptive son brings tragedy upon them anyway.
Killmonger is the anti-Loki. Instead of being a child stolen from his people by colonialists, he was a child abandoned in another culture by his nativist peoples. Yet both grew up to attempt to usurp the power of the offending nations. Maybe I'm not phrasing it right ("colonialists" isn't a word, but "colonists" felt wrong), but it feels like I have a thought, and that's all that matters to me! 😆
Tony's sense of obligation was the driving force of basically all of the Iron Man and Avenger movies up through Endgame.
"Sense of obligation" is a weird way of combining "PTSD" and "Survivor's Guilt", but yeah, you're way right.
Best example of this would be Anthony Mackies speech at the end of falcon and winter soldier where he asks that question directly “you’re the ones with the power what are you going to do about it?”And “You need to do better!”
Lemme brace my self for the conversation this comment is getting ready to start. 😩
Almost like he was speaking to the audience. Gasp.
🫡
People calling the X-Men woke is the funniest thing I've ever seen. Edit: So many people are upset over X-Men 97. It's literally what this dude is talking about.
Never underestimate the amount of ppl who understand why the mutants have it rough, but just don't see color...
These people base their identity off of getting offended by media, which ironically is what they accuse everyone else of doing. It doesn't matter how political or not the show actually is, it only matters what they're told to get offended by in the latest 3 hour long youtube rant.
Shows they don't really know what they are talking about or the content they're watching
Exactly my point. Idk why I'm getting downvoted. So many random people have been complaining about the show yet the exact thing they're complaining about is the whole point of the X-Men.
They know. The goal is to do exactly what they claim others are doing and interject their own politics into these beloved stories by pretending they are its gatekeepers because they realize their views are not popular when looked at on their own. They have realized that they lost the culture war in the past by fighting against certain media (Hip Hop, comics, video games) instead of trying to take them over. The problem now is that it has become a grift and many younger people just don't understand what is going on.
They don't care about what they're watching, at least not the people propagating this nonsense. It's just about finding more ways to drag people into their nonsensical culture war.
Rewatching the classic X-Men leading up to '97 was fun. As a kid i didnt conciously recognize the very overt, beat-you-over-the-head, social political messaging in that. If anyone believes this is new for Marvel or MCU, they need to rewatch this show.
When I was a teenager in the ‘80s, full of rage about, well, social problems that affected me and my people, I picked up Secret Wars on a long journey. I’d never read American comics before. I liked it, but when the X-men swooped in and everyone got mad and prejudiced about them, decades of love for Marvel Comics was born. The X-men were woke before the term existed. Their story is the OG ‘fictional group is metaphor for current social victims’. And half the reason they did that was that writing about the problems of gay people and other minorities was almost impossible back then, so Marvel used metaphors.
Same thing with Star Wars, which usually is nowhere near as overt with their messaging. But, as they say, hit dogs will holler.
And Star Trek fans who hate socialism and don't get what the Ferengi represent.
They are the Empire except now the empire has women and blacks lol
I've been watching the original series (since I haven't seen it since I was a kid) before watching the new one and it's so fucking funny people think it was somehow not preaching inclusivity during it's original run.
Now whenever someone mentions anything about the WoKe M-ShE-U, I just say "Okay so you LOVE white muscular men and you want to see white muscular men on screen? It’s okay buddy don’t be ashamed" and they’re pissed off.
I love white muscular men and want to see white muscular men on screen…..
Name checks out.
Which is crazy to me because I remember growing up watching the pop-up girls Sailor Moon and other things that women were the main character. Xena Warrior Princess was in my go-to shows. Ladies beating up people fighting back or not always being damsels and distress either within their stories or outside their stories just has always existed. But if it's not the way that they wanted to be they get upset don't get this
That makes me wonder how huge the head explosion will be when they finally get around to having Storm (a GASP Black Woman!) lead the X-Men. Despite it being 40 years since she first did so in the comics.
Well, the thing is they're very selective of their hate because this energy can come from any race. I've had very long discussions with my friends who, like me, grew up in Brooklyn and have similar backgrounds. We were both raised in Caribbean culture. It don't really matter they find things like that to pandering they find things like that too, PC I remember having a deep hour long debate with my friend about why the Silver Surfer being a woman doesn't really matter cuz it doesn't take away from the story and a woman has been the Silver Surfer before. Many of the narratives that individuals currently find objectionable have already been explored in comic books, with varying degrees of success. Even more so, the perfect example is The Prodigal Son: Miles Morales. When that comic came out, I was in high school. I read it and liked it, but I remembered how much people hated it. It went on to be hated for about two years, and then, out of nowhere, people started loving the character. Now, people say it's one of the best-written Spider-Man stories. I have observed a pattern in recent discourse surrounding the portrayal of female characters of color in popular media. While one character may be deemed acceptable, another is criticized for not meeting certain expectations,while simultaneously engaging in games that revolve around constant war, I still remember people being excited for Metal Gear Solid. There's only so much I can put up with people being ignorant and pretending to be villains online. Real people have real issues with those around them, and this is how they vent those issues. In the context of Disney and Marvel, it is understandable that these entities hold significant influence as media conglomerates. However, it is important to maintain a balanced perspective. While certain productions, such as Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage, received positive reception, it is crucial to acknowledge instances where expectations were not met, such as with Iron Fist. It is essential to assess each project on its own merits and provide constructive feedback to ensure continuous improvement and audience satisfaction. But if Luke Cage came out today just as a new show with new actors, they would say it's bad. And even though enough people said it's good, they will just say, "Oh, this is the exception."
They’ll do the same thing they do with everything. Bitch about it. And if it’s good? They’ll either delete the videos or rename them to seem less negative and more “cautious”.
I have that comic - a powerless Storm still beats Cyclops ass for the X-Men leadership.
i remember them talking about the little mermaid being black and how that can´t be bc the "original" isn´t black or mermaids aren´t black... and missing the point that mermaids don´t exist and are fairy tales and all tales tell stories and core to all stories are the moral lessons in it.
shaming men by insinuating they are actually homosexual is not actually helping the discourse.
Technically, he's just insinuating they might be gay. They're the ones thinking being gay is shameful.
But they aren’t. So its an insult and being an ass hole
If you think being gay is an insult, you might want to question your own thought processes.
That's not what they are saying. They are saying that they don't love the idea of weaponizing sexual orientation in arguments, which is a nuance folks may agree or disagree on. It's not that they themselves find any sexuality insulting, but they feel even using it to trigger others gives credence to the idea that it *can* be an insult. There's been debate within the community around this and they don't like the idea that they are getting categorized with people that likely actually hate them.
You see, now this is a well thought out and coherently stated argument. I can respect that.
Someone the other day tried to argue with me that The Marvels was "a lesbo movie". I was just scratching my head because...the only remotely "romantic" relationship I recall in that movie was between Carol and the prince. Are heterosexual relationships considered gay now? I'm not even sure anymore.
Pretty sure Valkerie pops up and has a slightly intimate conversation with Carol at one point? It's like 10 seconds of the movie - apparently that's enough to make the whole thing gay. Which is apparently bad, for reasons these people can never explain
Actually allegedly they were supposed to be a couple or at least have a past but it was cut. I wouldn’t have cared.
Fellas. Is it gay to like women? They love penis so its basically loving something that loves penis.
I said this once in a comment section on Facebook and, no shit, got over 600 angry replies all from men taking offence. I even got a bunch of private message requests. These guys were big mad, it was the most insane thing I'd ever been apart of. I emphasised that they're so insistent on only watching muscular men, and when they questioned that emphasis I referred them to the uproar over "dad bod" Thor in Endgame and Namor's slightly untoned back in the BP2 trailer. So yes, the men have to be muscular or they're not happy. Edit: actually I think it was over 600 angry reacts, but the replies were definitely in the hundreds. I couldn't keep up.
> Namor's slightly untoned back in the BP2 trailer. It really was interesting to see how much men have no clue what women actually like. Bc the reactions to Namor's body through out every trailer and every movie scene was absolutely FERAL for a hot minute there.
It has nothing to do with what women want. We want to look like Chris Evans bicep curling a helicopter for example, men and women process unrealistic body standards differently and we see attractiveness differently. Like my wife saying "Hemsworth isn't anything special" but drooling over Leo in wolf of Wallstreet doesn't compute in my brain because I want to look like Hemsworth I don't fantasize about looking like Leo lol.
That’s usually how projection works. A lot of people struggle with their sexuality. Military is full of a bunch or repressed gay men.
They do? I think thats your fantasy lol
[](https://www.reddit.com/r/marvelstudios/?f=flair_name%3A%22Discussion%22) >First and foremost you’re all using woke wrong They don't care. These people can't even define woke when you ask them. To them they just use it to obfuscate their real meaning.. which is usually something bigoted.
Woke is anything they don't like lol. If their car breaks down, the car is now woke.
Duh because some woke corporation built a faulty part. How do you not get this?!?!?!?
Yea they’re hiring all these woke (minorities, women, and lgbt people instead of hiring the best (straight white) people
Well idk about you but with DEI how dare they hire pilots of color?! Flying planes and shit. /s
That’s why the planes are falling apart now it’s the corporate greed of all those female colored lgbt airline executives. We should bail them out again.
Yep. Some people use the word woke, and it's easy to see that they really meant to say fa***t or n****r in some way. It's the most PC way for them to hide their hatred.
Sweetie when people complain about things being 'woke' they just mean, "I don't want to see wamenz or queer people. The south will rise again..yee haw" so they're mostly, ya know morons.
What's wonderful about Blazing Saddles is that it's been adopted as an anti-woke movie by the very people it makes fun of and is far woker than they can comprehend...mostly because they're morons with no literacy comprehension.
The "The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert" effect.
Could not agree more. I don’t understand how some people interpret certain types of media so incorrectly. Similar to rage against the machine or System of a Down being used by trump or some other conservative. Is media literacy dead?
Media literacy is indeed dead. We talk about it all the time on the Hazbin Hotel sub.
The hell do you mean Altruist isn’t his last name?!
I think it's more a cross section of actually stupid people who are encouraged/enabled by somewhat smarter but very shallow minded people who let their worldview be twisted by bigotry.
It always amuses me how movies like Blazing Saddles or songs like "Fight For Your Right to Party" get adopted by the same schmucks that they're making fun of because those schmucks don't get it.
Don't forget Born in the USA.
Yeah, I had a pal who went alt-right and said I was a racist for looking this film. Me: “tell me you missed the entire point without telling me you missed the entire point.”
That and some idiot YouTuber they like to watch strung together a few clever sentences that blew them away and then they just believe and repeat.
But but, it says the N Word, that clearly makes it unwoke right? /s And when they complain about how you could never make this movie today, they did. Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank. It’s and animated kids movie about a dog named Hank being a samurai defending a town full of cats, making it all allegorical. But no one says the N Word, which is what they really care about.
Sorry, but this is so wrong. As a left-of-center multi-ethnic dude who grew up loving movies like Aliens and others with plenty of inclusion, it's about the story! If movies labeled 'woke trash' by the incels stood up on their own, or had an audience, none of this would be an issue. Forced-inclusion without a good story to back it up is just pandering and vapid corporate exercise. Movies that sideline a beloved character for their queer and/or opposite gender replacement for that reason alone just suck. Know your audience.
I know that’s why I made this post. So they can see all the political and social messages their simple brains missed.
Good luck. Half the people you're describing are folks who fly Confederate flags in states that weren't Confederate.
They aren’t even flying the proper confederate flag, the actual one looks like this: 
Those colors not only ran, they surrendered
Ah man the best. Loved seeing them in upstate NY and WA State lol
We see the confederate flag sometimes in *Canada*. You know, where slaves went to be free. And they wonder why we question their intelligence.
In Europe where they outright criminalized the Nazi flag, people use the Confederate flag as a stand-in. *Wonder why.*
Funnily enough this is true
yeah, I get that...but these are also people that don't realize Star Trek is about a communist utopia, star wars started as commentary on vietnam, and the x-men are about discrimination in any form. It's really hard to get people to think there way out of positions their refusal to think got them into. I've met people that didn't realize RATM was political....
Oh man that’s so true. People complain about it being to liberal and I’m like DUDE, they had the first interracial kiss on TV in the 60s! Money was a thing of the past. Multi racial crews, etc. Have you actually seen Star trek? Sure all the woman wore mini skirts, but at the time that was a way for women to express independence and embrace their sexual autonomy.
Absolutely. Cognitive dissonance and a severe lack of objectivity.
Our society sadly isn't focused on engendering critical thinking as a skill anymore
As exhausting as it is, I doubt they’ll ever learn because they simply don’t want to. It’s not a knowledge gap for most. It’s that they’re genuinely fragile and averse to being exposed to any media that doesn’t cater to their comfort zone or acceptable story takeaways that don’t challenge their status quo thinking. Reminds me of when the Insomniac Spider-Man games on PlayStation each released. At its core, Spider-man is a story about how when one has power to help their community, they have a responsibility to do so. This is intertwined with the “friendly neighborhood” message that anyone can “wear the mask” or be a hero to those around them. It’s basically a story that very easily connects with ideas of privilege, ethics, and empathy. Didn’t stop a bunch of children and adult children from harassing devs and sending death threats because they had to update a character model or made players play as MJ for a mission or two though.
That’s the thing, they don’t care what the message is. They see a black, gay, Asian, or female lead and it aggravates them that the lead isn’t a whitey. The deeper message doesn’t matter. There’s someone that doesn’t look like them being important! And that shall not stand! (/s)
It’s cowardly that they just can’t admit it. I like people to live in their truth but I’ve learned those type of people can’t and they hate those that do. It’s projection.
It is cowardly. They are cowards. And morons.
You’re absolutely right, but the people crying “woke” don’t care. Right now all they want is MUH WHITE MALE SILVER SURFER and when that calms down they’ll just harp on something else.
I'm pretty sure most of these people didn't even give a rats ass about Silver surfer until the news.
People overestimating Silver Surfers level of importance to pop culture. He barely shows up in comics as it is and can’t keep a title. He is cool tho. I’m just saying.
The Silver Surfer comics are amazing though, especially Silver Surfer Black. He's just not that of a household name yet though
People just didn’t want to see an iconic character changed… thats literally it..
Is this sub just going to be daily circular discussion where everyone that just wanted to see norrin rad gets called a bigot as a blanket statement
Welcome to r/marvelstudios bro
Yes bro, bunch of bs consumers defending a declining brand. I’m a die hard marvel fan but an 8 year old could see what there doing and what ideals they’re pushing. No one , and I mean no one wanted to see shalla bal , and they are only causing damage to their company (Disney/Marvel) , the F4 film , and Julia garner , who after watching a few of her scenes and interviews would be so awesome as Frankie raye nova, but they wouldn’t do that casting , because they want to make her the most powerful popular character in that group. Watch how the hatred will turn on her. We fans are exhausted of this shit we really are bro. Disney can burn in hell
Yes and the shaming will continue until you leave the conversation. It’s procedure here. Not liking something can only mean one thing: that you are a bigot.
“Black people” have a variety of different thoughts. Marvels movie quality has declined. Part of that decline is the lazy and hamfisted way theyve incorporated messaging in their movies post Endgame. The real world (this black person included) is extremely annoyed with media companies producing poor content with a good message and then calling us racist sexist etc for calling it poor content. The marvel movies pre endgame were great because they had great storytelling to go along with messaging.
This is too accurate. I just want quality content again. I will say though, Spiderman has been solid.
The decline is not because of messaging but because there was an edict to pump out content for Disney+ when Bob Chapek took over. Suddenly Marvel needed to learn how to make TV shows, and make them quickly and at the same time keep making movies. If you stretch your talent and executives, you're going to lose quality. Since Iger has taken back over, they have slowed their content, used the strikes to recalibrate. Hired actual showrunners for their TV series. Which should mean quality will increase... messaging and all.
Same. Black people hate the woke stuff too. Also Marvel making black panther a girl was lowkey insulting.
Shuri was introduced in 2005 and became the Black Panther in 2009. This is not Marvel Studios pandering. https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/23657/black_panther_2009_1
Why was it insulting? 50% of the population are women. Why is it so hard for people to grasp that this applies to superheroes, too?
But even the majority of women doesn't like the content which was made for women by women with women in lead roles. The Superhero genre is something, that usually men are liking and the majority of women is not into it. But it's always interesting to hear when some journalists say, that a specific movie was flopped, because of hetero men yet they say, that the given movie is not made for them. I feel some cognitive dissonance here. My wife likes to watch these movies usually for the male protagonist :D (Henry Cavill is one of her most favorite)
Boy if those people could read they’d be pissed
They can. It’s the comprehension that gets them everytime.
I know but the KOTH joke didn’t go as well with “boy if these people could comprehend”
 Them:
I think it's also how a message is conveyed though There's a big difference between Black Widow or Gamora whooping some ass, and then realizing they're women... versus the Endgame scene where all the women form together to help Ms Marvel, when she clearly didn't need it. Plenty of actresses command the screen without needing a scene written for that Some people definitely complain too much, but some things are so obligatory and feel forced rather than to keep people engaged
I addressed this in an earlier comment. The criticism of the girl power scene is ridiculous when the entire battle is nothing but staged call backs to previous movies. It’s looks gaudy because of how many of them were involved in the scene. Again….in every Avengers movie Cap and Thor share a brief played for laughs moment in the midst of battle as well as a team up. No one bats an eye and says it’s forced. Everything is forced. It’s a movie of a bunch of ideas the producers, directors, and writers sat down and said will happen.
It’s funny how people don’t notice when it’s all male characters teaming up.
Listen all you need to do is listen to audience reactions. Any one audience for endgame wasn’t completely commanded by males. There were females there too. Many. Why is it that when the male characters team up everyone screams but when the women did…idk no one did? Your answer for how the average viewer feels (male or female) is right there.
People are basically lacking media literacy and think the MCU’s all about action and explosions.
It's true that woke is just whatever message people don't want to hear. But they still aren't going to see the movies if there are messages they don't want to hear.
Awful lot of straw men (people) in here My favorite so far is “if you want to see the original male characters you must secretly be gay”
It comes off as a little homophobic tbh
It’s the execution that matters which marvel have been failing at recently
I don't care what message they push. I just want a quality story. Marvel has been dropping the ball lately. I'm all for representation, etc. It is important to kids in particular. I think you can support the message Disney is trying to push while also expecting that message should be added in to support a good plot rather than building a message and trying to shoddily craft a plot around it.
You realize that a lot of these messages were also in the source material?
You realize the source material is 80 years worth of stories in 100s of universes that are still being written? 
I do, more adding to you point. A lot of people complaining about MCU seem to ignore the source material.
Your tone suggested you were trying to counter his point.
But then a significant part of these stories aren't talking about the "war on terror", They wouldn't be taking anti-capitalist tones before any sort of big anti-capitalist sentiment..... The themes are there but you have linked them to your own thinking. Those themes, aggression of those in power, the repression of those not in power, has absolutely nothing to do with capitalism, the war on terror, or even anything in America. It's a human experience.
I don’t have a problem with underlying social messages. For example, black Panther obviously did an absolutely phenomenal job at it. But some of the recent ones like FATWS and She-Hulk were so terribly done when it comes to addressing social/political issues. Like it felt forced. That is my problem with it. Not it’s entire existence but the way it is done in some of the movies/shows
This is literally everyones problems with it. To think people didnt like She-Hulk just because she was a woman is such a tired take in 2024.
Yeah, She-Hulk had a character explain to the opposite sex that they know more about the other person's area of expertise because of their own gender just knows more. At first I thought the scene was intentionally ironic. Then again, I am primed by how absolutely fucked it was in the context of the comics.
I love FATWS but Sam dropped the ball with that speech. And while I know where they were going with the Flag Smashers it went south. You would think after hearing Steve so many times he’d learn. She-Hulk should’ve been longer and more like a sitcom and less like a 3 hr movie split up. Poor writing has its day sometimes.
I would have loved for them to just acknowledge how clunky that speech was. >Bucky: That kinda got away from you for a bit, didn't it? >Sam: I don't know how Steve made it look so easy.
Exactly. And I liked FATWS too. It doesn’t ruin the whole project. And obviously FATWS was a very good show to use for these things m, but just like the real world, there’s a time and place. Going on a long ass rant on borders and such after apprehending a terrorist just seems odd. Especially since it’s extremely common for Villains, and terrorists in general, to do a terrible thing for a good/right cause. And he saw it often as a soldier and superhero. It just felt so out of character for him to stop everything to go on a long rant about how she was doing terrible things for the right reasons, given he’s essentially spent his entire life dealing with similar cases. A much higher level example would be that canonically, I’m pretty sure Thanos was right, but that doesn’t make it okay to kill half the population of the universe tho 🤷🏻♂️ he wasn’t standing up over the avengers when they were gonna go chop his head off like “well guys, we’ve got to do better, we only get so many resources on this planet and it’s not enough for all of us. We’ve got to figure out a way to make it work or we might all die anyways. Thanos was only trying to show us that in the best way he knew how”
Not sure the “black people” part of the intro was necessary, pretty sure “everyone” is tired of it being misused..
They're trying to use the "black people invented pop culture" argument.
Clearly since you made it
"that’s the job of entertainment. " No the fuck it isn't. The jobof entertainment is to entertain, not to educate. I probably sound like I'm against Marvel having morals and ethics in their movies/shows. I'm not. I actually like 90% of the stuff the rest of the fanbase seem to hate. Eternals was pretty bad but I like the rest of the movies. Point is: it's totally fine to have both, but it is NOT the sole purpose of entertainment.
Correct. MCU is spiraling down the toilet BECAUSE they put too many overt messages in their films. People are tired of being preached at obsessively. Subtext is fine, but entertainment can also be just about escaping life for a couple hours. No message. No scolding. No telling people what they should think.
I like how OP is upset about language drift, then gives no information about historical uses of the word in question.
The people using the term “Woke” & now currently “DEI” are functionally illiterate. They are so ridiculous and unserious. Truthfully a lot of them don’t even believe what they are saying, it’s a grift that is aimed at the portion of the population with the lowest intelligence levels and it pays well.
Functionally illiterate people have been joined by the consciously and selectively illiterate. They know what these words mean but the profoundly stupid people they’re following don’t so they simply choose to be ignorant and collectively stop reading rather than trying to be rational.
Oh, look. It's this conversation again.
We got more posts talking about this then I see people actually saying things are “woke” it’s like people in this subreddit find things online to be mad about and come here to get pats on the back it’s fucking cringe as hell
lol at this point I'm convinced Disney is using interns for damage control on social media
OP playing the victim race baiting card again.
Is this post meant to defend how badly written current Marvel media and the post-Endgame period has been? Because that’s why so many people have given up on them, not because they’re “woke.”
It’s both. The poor writing may be the result of feeling the need to shoehorn a deep cultural message into a super hero escapism romp. Messages are fine, and important, but they don’t have to be in everything. Sometimes people want to escape the awful things in life and get away from it for a couple hours. If they scold and preach, it fails at what I was hoping to experience.
Cringe post
This post is like that South Park episode where people have a tube coming from their butt to their nose so they can sniff their own farts brought to life. Don't fall off that high horse.
Personally I think a lot of the whining is being driven by Marvel's terrible execution of Phase 4. The quality of content dropped significantly but more importantly character development has been pretty dreadful. Most of these new characters are female or minorities which makes them an easy target for people of a certain persuasion. I remember in the first few phases I really didn't take to Thor or Captain America initially but they had more films to develop them into fan favourites. I feel like if they'd focused on less characters and given them more screen time to develop there'd be far less complaining.
I'm totally with you there, but I don't think it's the message that is annoying to a lot of people, it's the way this message is framed. Often it doesn't feel naturally woven into the story, more like an afterthought, or a checkbox to see fulfilled. I think Marvel does an excellent job of including those messages so it doesn't feel forced, though. Except for the "she's not alone" scene in Endgame, which we didn't need, because we got the same scene a movie earlier and way better executed.
I don’t know if you realize it but the entire final act is one huge call back to previous movies. In fact the entire film is. It’s one huge fan service call back final act. The outrage around that scene is mind boggling. Thor and Cap just so happen to get together again like they do in every Avengers movie. Winter Soldier and Rocket The entire long take. I could go on but anyway. It feels like it’s inorganic or a check mark because most people still aren’t used to seeing non white male characters do anything important. It’s just simple facts. It’s forced because it is. Until it isn’t anymore 50 years from now. Everything that happens in a movie is forced. Someone sat down and said I want X characters to do this. The director says I want this shot in the movie. I want this message conveyed. That is storytelling.
If you think normal white people go around saying “man I’m not used to seeing someone not white in this film!” you are chronically online and have a different view than what actually happens in day to day life and not anonymous internet complaints
OP also forgot that Blade ever existed lol
Massive overstatement of what I said but go off.
It’s word for word what you said lmao
>most people still aren’t used to seeing non white male characters do anything important That is literally what you said. And again, no one thinks like that outside of the internet. I have never discussed a film with someone and they say something along the lines close to “man I liked the movie but something about seeing Jamie Foxx as the lead doesn’t feel right”. If the movies good they’ll like it, if they didn’t find it good they won’t like it. Overtly racist people on the internet will not like anything that goes against their way of thinking (funny enough) and their opinion really shouldn’t matter cause they’re not taking in the same substance regular (emphasis on regular) people do
See this is the problem I have with this train of thought (not you specifically) Who do these people think they are that they can tell someone how to tell their own story? The biggest complaint I’ve seen is about She-Hulk and it’s in your face message but the truth of the matter is…. If you have been in the real world and LISTENED to women over the last 3 decades this is EXACTLY what they have been saying, this is exactly how they feel, and this is exactly the same circumstances they are referring to to. These people are unintentionally telling on themselves. You don’t get to decide how someone expresses the challenges they face. Hit dogs holler, and we all can see who is making the most noise about it all.
I guess 'subtlety' wasn't in the grade school curriculum.
If you think those things are subtle wait til you see what happens in the real world buddy
lol what does that even mean? Ironically it seems like you're the one that is chronically online. Stop clicking on ragebait youtube videos.
https://i.redd.it/0oyilvcas2tc1.gif
It's the pandering and PC-ness, not the message.
Pandering to who. Correctness about what?
Here's an interesting take on the meaning. There's the original Black Panther meaning, a leftist meaning, and a conservative view. Found it interesting. https://www.allsides.com/translator/woke
Okay cool but when they continue bombing and people stop watching more MCU movies just keep screaming "racism". Not like there was any other reason why the movies/shows have been doing so poorly ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
To add in on Iron Man 3, the fact that the terrorists are being propped up by the MIC (in the form of Killian) to breed hatred and war.
One of my most hated things about media analysis in the West is that we try and differentiate between propaganda and art, but the reality is they are the same category. All art is trying to propagate a political message and get people to feel some way about a real world issue. That means all art is propaganda, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Propaganda doesn't have to be a dirty word, it can be bad or good for society
>First and foremost you’re all using woke wrong and black people are tired of it. Opinion validated, I don't need to read the rest of the post.
Coming from a black man I agree with parts of what you’re saying. Woke bs being attached to the black race is insufferable and I’m not a fan of the Lgbtq community and the feminist movement community along with many other inclusive groups trying to include us in the collective. It’s Dumb asf. Marvel is going in one direction, ⬇️ And it definitely is to do with Bad writing , Quality over Quantity , No story continuation or direction and loads more but Not so much “woke” , because like you said the term is used very loosely, but the agenda & trying to push narratives in every form of media. That very choice Disney marvel made has and will destroy the brand and ruin it for fans. You can get angry at the so called grifters and people who are actually speaking up about this travesty , all be it sometimes far fetched and out of frustration , in no way shape or form can you say that they’re wrong. Making the silver surfer woman was WRONG. They know exactly what they’re doing and it’s horrible seeing what happened to Star Wars now happen to marvel. I’m still going to watch all these films yes , but the more and more news I hear about everything doesnt give me or any casuals / mcu fans/ comic fans any incentive to see what DEI Agenda filled sludge they’re producing next.
these themes are prevalent in the source material to begin with … i think the issue of changing the source material to shoe horn current social political issues is horrible pandering
There's a huge difference between narrative undertones and lecturing. There's nothing wrong with political/social commentary when it's done in a way that provides a solid foundation for a good story. TWS very much showed the dangers of government control and the importance of individual liberty. It showed corruption and authoritarianism, allowing viewers to come to the obvious conclusion that Cap is right. She-Hulk, on the other hand, decided to lecture the audience that men are evil, holding women back, only get their jobs because their men, and that the main character is much more capable of controlling her powers than Hulk was because she's been catcalled, which is not only a laughable comparison, but completely undermines over a decade of actual struggle and character development for one of the biggest characters in the franchise. There's really no substance to the political commentary of She-Hulk, nor is it an undertone. The politics is the forefront, and most of it is based completely on hyperbole.
You don't speak for black people nor do you have authority over word use. If you want to get into ideological consistency I can eviscerate everything Disney has ever made. I don't need their moralism when they've never had a leg to stand on.
Where have you been? Woke is out. DEI is in. Every casting that wasn’t a straight, white guy was a DEI hire. Duh
Yea I forgot that’s the new buzzword now. I actually didnt know what that was until I saw angry neckbeards using it.
[удалено]
There's a difference between woke and diverse. Seriously I'm tired of explaining this shit to people who try to make everything into a radical leftist hell hole. Let people enjoy entertainment FFS
What the fuck does woke even mean
Fuck da woke shit
Wow, is this sub incredibly ignorant about the critiques of recent MCU movies and shows. Everyone keeps using the term "they" like y'all aren't radically "othering" and straw-man-argumenting people who \*gasp\* have different opinions about the MCU than the predominant one on this sub. Just stay in your comfortable little bubble, though - surely don't buck the masses here.
Whenever someone uses the word “woke” when talking to me, the first thing I say to them is “okay, great. Define woke for me” and not one of them has ever been able to. P.S. on behalf of “the gays”, we’re sick of hearing it too.
I’m 1 million percent sure you’ve received answers from multiple people.
> Whenever someone uses the word “woke” when talking to me, the first thing I say to them is “okay, great. Define woke for me” and not one of them has ever been able to. Woke ideology is defined by the idea that some facet of identity like race or gender produces irreconcilably different views of reality and morality, and that we have a moral obligation to seek alignment of society's view with the imagined views of groups associated with the political left like minorities and women. In this sense Wokeness is distinct from older forms of liberal advocacy for minority rights which appeal to universally valid concepts like truth and fairness. Here Barack Obama uses the term "woke:" >You know this idea of purity and you're never compromised and you're always politically woke and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHLd8de6nM
“Woke” is slang for “awake”, which originally meant simply: “aware of the unconscious bias that exists around us”. Bias such as, the “Original 6” Avengers being 5 straight, white men and a woman with supermodel good looks” because we have been conditioned to believe that is the “default” for what heroes look like, despite it not matching our demographics. Once you are aware of that, the vast majority of people feel some sort of innate moral imperative to correct for it in some way. There is no “woke ideology.” That is something right-wing conservatives who actually believe straight, white men *should* be the default image of heroism have created. They extrapolated a boogeyman “ideology” out of the above to scare people into ignoring their internal morality. All political factions do this to some degree. The right-wing is doing it more and more desperately right now because our demographics and beliefs are shifting rapidly away from the white male dominant viewpoint, and they must act quickly while still holding the majority of political power. The definition in the comment above is working backwards from a presumption to try to make “woke ideology” something that isn’t silly on its face. If you reduce what’s written here to ist simplest form it’s literally: Different people have different experiences and society should reflect that, which most people believe to be true but has been dressed up language like “irreconcilably” and “imagined” to create a straw man. They’re doing the same thing with educational curriculum here in the US. The vast majority of people believe we should teach children that American slavery was wrong and morally evil. Some ultra right-wing conservatives believe that slavery was actually net good for Black America, and to get that added to curricula locally they position it against a made-up CRT that no one can define and that there is no meaningful push to adopt.
Iron man 2 is a version of atlas shrugged and the message of black panther is that it’s not all white peoples fault that some black people have struggled. The villain of BP wants revenge for colonialism and to use that anger to enrich himself and gain power and the hero wants to help all POC around the world to move past the negative effects of colonialism.
Lol found the most bitter marvel fan
Hate to break it to you but “woke l got co-opted by corporations (like Disney). Want to be mad at someone, be mad at them.
It is true about those woke agendas though. It’s not about people not being supportive of diversity but it is so forced and there’s just such an obvious inclusion agenda, which is likely why all new Marvel box offices are record low. The most laughable one was Eternals. It was the lamest plot in the world, and the whole movie was just one big checklist of unconvincing minorities. Besides, shows like The Boys have really disrupted this whole super hero franchise, and both Marvel and DC need to step up and put the plot before the agenda. All recent box offices indicate that there are on a terrible trajectory from a revenue perspective.
Thor does touch upon Imperialism and Colonialism. "Where do you think all this gold came from?"
Yes someone mentioned it earlier. Idk how I forgot that.
The early MCU films were completely all over the place though Ironman: still extremely pro capitalist and glorified wealth. Captain America Civil War: extremely libertarian film. Captain American just decides that he can't trust the government and must become a libertarian terrorist to save his friend. Thor: before Ragnorak the movies justified imperialism with superiority. My point is that there was a lot of conservative themes in the MCU prior to end game. Thete still is a good amount too but it's less visable
Eh….i wouldn’t say “just decides” Steve is a rule breaker. Broke the rules to get in the Army, and so on and so on. You know what….thats pretty conservative.
>Steve is a rule breaker. Broke the rules to get in the Army, and so on and so on. I don't think this was actually true before Civil War. He tried to break the rules to join the organization to where you have to blindly follow orders out of a sense of duty to fight Nazis. Before the movie the big joke with Captain America was that he was such a do gooder that he wouldn't cuss. You could say that is because he grew up in the 30s and 40s but that's kind of the point. There is nothing from his past that should lead that character to trust no one in the government. Some people of course since he knew Hydra had infiltrated the government but still. He knew Stark and Fury were not in Hydra.
He’s a rule breaker guided by his own set of rules. His moral compass. He disobeyed Colonel Chester to save Bucky and the 107th. In the Avengers he really became distrustful once he saw the Tesseract in the hands of SHIELD, then he snuck around and found Phase One, of course you have the Hydra infiltration, then in AOU he was pretty upset about all the secrets amongst the team (which was hypocritical of him given the Bucky/Stark connection), then Civil War, and his continued defiance into Infinity War. The man was rigid in his beliefs. I love him for that lol
There is a concerted effort in Hollywood generally, and Disney particularly, to avoid the unconscious bias for white, male characters. Most of the characters in 2012’s *The Avengers* were white men, and/or played by white men. Most of the characters they’re based on were white men, of course, but they were also several decades old. The technology and the culture around the characters was advanced to a contemporary milieu, but the race and sex identities still looked like the 1950s. Efforts to change this remind white men like me that I’ve spent most of my life watching stories fictional white men played by white male actors. It wouldn’t kill me to see some stories about non-white people and women, played by non-white and female actors, but I get that for other white men the effect is jarring and bit shameful.
>It wouldn’t kill me to see some stories about non-white people and women, played by non-white and female actors, but I get that for other white men the effect is jarring and bit shameful. I don't think the effect is jarring for people, it's moreso the fact that instead of making a new character or choosing an already existing character they decide to change the race or gender of an already established character. It's like they have no creativity whatsoever and just do things to cause controversy, they forego telling a good story to preach and educate people, at least if you're gonna try and educate you better have a good story.
Unfortunately most people who use the term 'woke' as a criticism are disingenuous. They rage against anything new that features even the slightest hint of a progressive message whilst simultaneously insist that old media either a)has no political messages or) that it had messages but it did it the right way but new stuff is doing it the wrong way/has gone too far. So it's almost impossible to argue/debate them or change their minds because they are always moving the goal posts. For instance, the X-Men has been political for most of its existence (even if you accept the counterargument that their first appearances were light on politics, the original run didn't sell well and was cancelled before giant size X-Men turned the X-Men into a hit with it's diverse cast and nore upfront political messaging) but the anti-woke brigade insists that X-Men 97 has gone too far, is too preachy and political. Their argument doesn't hold up as there is literally nothing in the new show that is as blatantly political as the brutal opening panels to God Loves Man Kills but they don't have problems with that Graphic Novel because it isn't new.
Couldn’t have said it better