[Movies] MCU: Phase 5 - To Kang or Not to Kang

I would say that being critical of Israel and it's government is less of a spicy take for millennials and Gen Z (for whom the concept of a government being "good" is a laughable take) but that it's almost certainly going to get protests one way or the other because of aging Boomers and the Right Wing.
 
So, just wondering: in Captain America 4, the Israeli superhero Sabra is making an appearance. I don't know much - anything really - about her other than what I've seen/read in media around here. Now, obviously public opinion in the USA is "slightly" different on this subject from Belgium, but...is there any outcry or opposition to the character being voiced? Or is this really a completely uncontroversial choice over there?
From the backstory (poor girl in Israeli settlement, parents killed by Palestinian terrorists) over the name Sabra (the location of one of the biggest massacres of Palestinians in the '80s under the watching eye of the Israeli army - it's maybe not "as bad as" but going in the direction of introducing Soldier Sandy Hook or Admiral Auschwitz) to the cooperation with Mossad (which I know is considered a "good guy" in many American shows but is considered about as much a "good guy" as the KGB in most of the world), the character reads (for now) more like a US Agent style character than an actual Captain America ally.
Any goodwill created in large migrant communities that was created with ms Marvel is pretty much gone already.

I'll repeat: I don't know the character from the comics (I can see how this sort of character came to life in the '80s), but the description and what we've seen/heard in media here has been... extremely tone deaf. I just can't really see how they'd turn this character around and keep her a genuine hero that could appeal to American audiences and be acceptable to Muslim minorities. If she's a Shining Light Defending Order and Justice, I hope the actress gets police protection; if she's going to be presented as critical of Israeli foreign policy it's going to go over like a lead balloon in the USA and Israel. If she's shown as a sort of anti-heroine like US Agent...Oof. Dangerous grounds. Obviously many types of characters can be or are by default political - Black Panther etc are important for representation. Of course it offends a part, but it'll get praised by another part of the population. I'm certainly not against a super from Israel per se...But a Mossad agent proudly wearing a white suit with the blue David's Star is likely to end up hated by all sides. It seems like too thorny an issue to try and skate around.
I personally hope they skate right into the thorns. It really depends on how they treat the character, is she fully on the side of the isreali government, or is she going to be faced with the realization that governments are usually shitty. It would fit in the theme of winter soldier when Cap realized the Nazis we coming from inside the house the whole time
 
I fully expect Wolverine to be a big deal in the marketing, only to have no more than a brief cameo in the actual movie. The reasons for this:

1. This seems on brand for Deadpool-style trolling. Look at how X-Force was handled in the last film.
2. Hugh Jackman is not getting any younger, and I doubt he's eager to have to get back into Wolverine shape again and have to maintain it for a whole movie.
3. I'm pretty sure Disney would want to recast Wolverine with a younger actor for the actual X-Men movies going forward.
 
Yeah, haven't finished She-hulk yet....The massive amounts of online hate made me think it'd be wall-to-wall feminazi propaganda and indoctrination (I was well aware it wouldn't be, thanks). Is it in the last episode that I finally get brainwashed into being transgayfemicommunist?

It's not without its flaws, but overall so far I'm enjoying it more than I did Ms. Marvel.
 
Yeah, haven't finished She-hulk yet....The massive amounts of online hate made me think it'd be wall-to-wall feminazi propaganda and indoctrination (I was well aware it wouldn't be, thanks). Is it in the last episode that I finally get brainwashed into being transgayfemicommunist?

It's not without its flaws, but overall so far I'm enjoying it more than I did Ms. Marvel.
Honestly, the amount of anti-incel or feminist jokes totals MAYBE a minute of the whole show so far. They're only incredibly short things, like the incel online comments or the twerking.

As always, these yahoos are overreacting to throw away gags.
 
Eh, most of the incel annoyance I saw was aimed at the "I can control my rage because I'm doing it all the time because I'm a woman" which....Yeah, I don't think that's a great line, but I also don't care much.
 
Eh, most of the incel annoyance I saw was aimed at the "I can control my rage because I'm doing it all the time because I'm a woman" which....Yeah, I don't think that's a great line, but I also don't care much.
Which also falls into the area of unreliable narrator because in that very same episode, she lost her temper because some guys hit on her outside a bar.

Which these idiots wouid understand if they had any semblance of media literacy.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
Eh, most of the incel annoyance I saw was aimed at the "I can control my rage because I'm doing it all the time because I'm a woman" which....Yeah, I don't think that's a great line, but I also don't care much.
I see so many people getting hung up over if that line is true, but that's not the important part. What really matters is if its in character for Jen to say that, and I think it absolutely is something this version of Jen would say. Doesn't matter if it's actually the reason she's better at handling her anger, it's definitely what she'd say in an argument with Bruce. Sure it's an over-simplification at best, and probably wildly off-base in some aspects, but it's still very much in-character. She's not delivering some well-researched thesis on why Bruce's abusive childhood, and suppression of his rage have left him unable to deal with anger on a very basic level. She's trading barbs with her cousin in a oneupmanship contest. I know women who would make very similar arguments, even if they'd admit that the real issue is more complex were they really pressed about it.

That said, Jen does have a point about how having to deal with anger on a regular basis makes you much better at dealing with it than just repressing it until you explode. It's not because she's a woman and Bruce is a man, it's because Bruce had an abusive childhood and was taught to repress his emotions. I saw someone on Twitter comparing it to being able to swim. Jen can swim just fine because she's been in the water regularly her whole life. Bruce can't swim because he's only been in the water when he's been dropped into the deep end, and then into the middle of the ocean as Hulk.

I think one of the reasons why this statement is so polarizing for comic book fans is that we've been trained to accept a character's statements about their powers as the Truth, or at least as close to a capital T as you can get in a fictional world subject to retcons. Comic writers use characters talking about their powers as a way to inform us about how the fictional world works, and it's rare for characters to have Rashomon moments when talking about their super abilities. When a character says "my powers work this way", then that's how their powers work, like 99% percent of the time (until they're retconned). So when Jen says "I have more control because I'm a woman", nerds take that as the writers telling us how She-Hulk's powers work, not as a character saying something from a biased viewpoint during banter with her cousin.
 
I've gotten into arguments with some MRAs on the She-Hulk page. Almost invariably, they are from small towns in impoverished regions. They will write pages of poorly spelled, grammatically incorrect hatred and try to insult other posters' masculinity just for liking the show. I remember a few years ago, when they applied the "cuck" label to anyone who didn't subscribe to their beliefs. It was such a weird insult that reflected much more poorly on the manbaby using it than it did on the intended target. I'm very much a highly educated, cosmopolitan, coastal elite and so many of their attempts to make me angry don't work. But I have noticed that if I even insinuate that their specific demographic will be replaced one day, they fly into nerd rage and say something that gets them thrown into Facebook jail. Inceldom and racism often go hand in hand, and many angry white men subscribe to Replacement Theory. They sincerely believe that liberals are importing brown-skinned immigrants to push conservative whites out of the country.
 
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She-Hulk
Now, why couldn't the Avengers care about each other's mental health this much??? I mean, I could see Steve trying to make it a thing, and Thor would totally be all in, but the rest...

Also
goddammit, Josh.
 
I enjoyed them putting D-list villains into this series.

"Spanish is a language, not a nationality."
"You've never heard of... SPAIN?"
 
I really hope they make fewer tv series.
They've got at least... 5 scheduled for 2023 (one is season 2 of Loki), with at least that many more in the pipe. They are going to be going into animation more coming up though, especially with Spider-man stuff.
 
This looks pretty danged great.

Let's hope, out of all the choices this movie makes, having Shuri become the new Black Panther is not one of them. Anti-vaxxer Letitia Wright shouldn't be handed the keys to the franchise. I say give the keys to Danai Gurira or Lupita Nyong'o.
 
Do our movie going experiences continue to have to be influenced by what dumb shit some actor or some creator has said on twitter?
 
Do our movie going experiences continue to have to be influenced by what dumb shit some actor or some creator has said on twitter?
In this case, yes? It's not just that she's both a terf and an anti-vaxxer, but she also delayed filming for weeks because of it because she couldn't re-enter the US. She must have caved at some point... it's literally illegal for an non-immigrant, non-citizen to enter the US without a COVID vaccine right now.
 
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