Yes...Another Rant Book (OLD discontinued)

The Avengers Controversy

Hello people! I haven't done a rant in a while because (a) I got caught up with college and life and such (b) I haven't had much I wanted to rant about. Plus my rants tend to be better when I'm legitimately pissed off by something or the thought of something. Anyhow, let's continue shall we?

Wow. Just...wow. I don't even know where to start. I don't care how long ago this is or even if this was already resolved, I need to rant. First off, I loved Age of Ultron. I've been a huge Joss Whedon fan for years and that movie was every bit as fun and entertaining as I was hoping for. Here's the problem. Apparently, the movie's getting labeled as "sexist" for its portrayal of women, particularly Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff) and Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff). Let me ask a big question: why? Why are people going ape-shit exactly? Why are people calling Joss Whedon a misogynist and a sexist? I'll tell you why. Because they're a bunch of ignorant, raging shitheads who can't call it a day without labeling something as sexist.

Now, I'm not against feminism. Why would I be? I happen to be a woman first of all and I do think we deserve to be treated equally. That being said, I don't think we should be parading around and scrutinizing every tiny thing in media to label it sexist! What the hell people? How do you expect to gain any respect (heh that kind of rhymes) if you're going around condemning every bit of media for having one little thing that you wrongly interpreted as sexist?

Here's what I mean by wrongly interpreted. I'm not going to cover any issues regarding the actors themselves before movie release or anything like that. I'm focusing solely on what pissed people off and why I think they're being ridiculous. Also, quick disclaimer: I'm gonna have SPOILERS for Age of Ultron in here, so if you haven't seen the movie and don't want these spoilers, STOP READING NOW. Alright, here we go. People already had their panties in a twist because of the lack of superhero women in these Marvel movies. I will admit. Are the girls a little underrepresented in the superhero world? Sure, yeah. I'm still waiting for a Black Widow movie anyhow, but I'm not gonna go ape-shit and that's not what I'm thinking about when I'm watching a movie as enjoyable (in my humble opinion of course) as Age of Ultron.

To keep this organized, I'm gonna categorize the parts that made feminists ragequit and keep the attention around Black Widow and Scarlet Witch to make things easier for myself.

The "Damsels in Distress"

See what also pissed people off was that Black Widow and Scarlet Witch were supposedly given "damsel in distress" roles in the movie. Black Widow got captured by Ultron and Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff) kept saving Scarlet Witch. If I could put clips of the movie I would, but since I can't I'll just describe them.

Black Widow—First off, Black Widow kicked plenty of ass in the movie. Riding motorcycles, kicking robot army-ass, getting the Vision cargo to the Avengers, oh and that little thing where she calmed down the goddamn HULK. So she got captured by Ultron. That's how the story went! It's not like she was standing around and then suddenly got hauled off by a robot henchman. She was succeeding, keep in mind succeeding, in getting a synthetic body away from Ultron. But doing so made her a target, resulting in her capture.

Scarlet Witch—Like Black Widow, Scarlet Witch kicked plenty of ass in the movie too. Hell, in the first half she tripped the shit out of almost all the Avengers! After that, she ripped apart evil robots with her mind and oh I don't know, stopped a train! But nope. Everyone's all butt hurt because Quicksilver had to run in a few times to save her. For one thing, he was just being a good big brother looking out for her. Also, she's powerful as all hell. All that trippy mind shit is bound to have a physical toll on her body to keep her balanced, otherwise she'd be an overpowered god-level character that would render all the other characters irrelevant. Considering what she can do, Quicksilver carrying her off a couple of times is not a big deal.

Mass Misinterpretation-Now I'm getting to the scenes that caused the most controversy on the internet so this should be fun.

Black Widow—You all know it by now, the section where Natasha opens up to Bruce Banner about being forcibly sterilized to become a better killer. What got people in an uproar was that she called herself a monster after telling Bruce the story. Here's where the ignorance begins. People think she called herself a monster because she couldn't have children and therefore think the entire movie is implying that not having children makes you less of a woman. No, no, and no! First of all, the only reason she told the story in the first place is because Bruce brought up having a family and such. Second, that's not why she called herself a monster. She was referring to the fact that she was made and bred to be a killer and was robbed of the choice to have children because of it. The killer part, people! All the Avengers were having issues after their mind-trip so this conversation was relevant! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

Scarlet Witch—So there's this scene when Ultron is raising the city to drop it like a meteor on the world. All the Avengers are up there trying to kill all of the robots he's controlling to destroy him completely. Then here comes the part where people got pissed off. Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye are pinned down by robots in this little shack. Scarlet Witch starts freaking out, talking about how she can't do this and it's all her fault. Hawkeye gives her a speech about how none of it makes sense, she doesn't have to fight, but if she does she's officially an Avenger. Then he runs out and Scarlet Witch joins him after a few moments.

Apparently people think this scene is sexist because "oh Scarlet Witch needed a big strong man to stop her from panicking". First of all, no. This actually happens to be one of my favorite parts in the movie, and here's why. Throughout the movie, the Avengers refer to the Maximoff twins as "kids". They're young and got a bad break. Also, and if I'm wrong call me out, this is the first time Pietro and Wanda were completely separated from each other during the battle. Now, I'm sure these people still think this scene is sexist because Pietro didn't have a freak out session like Wanda did. Take a moment and think about it. Scarlet Witch mutters something about how it's all her fault. She was the one who tripped out Tony and influenced him into creating Ultron. Now Ultron is lifting up a city, attacking civilians with evil robots, and is doing all this so he can destroy the world. All of this hit her at once, along with being new, young, and in her first legitimate battle. You know what this is called? A realistic human reaction!

If you think about it even more, the fact that all she needed was a quick pep talk from Hawkeye with all of this weighing on her to go out and fight actually empowers her character. Keep in mind Hawkeye even gave her the option to get picked up by her brother. She chose to fight instead. And she continued to fight even after Quicksilver was killed! I mean shit, she yanked out the heart of the main Ultron-bot for God's sake!

What really pisses me off about all of this is that after misinterpreting scenes in the movie, people go off and mercilessly attack Joss Whedon calling him a dirty sexist pig and a misogynist. Joss Whedon made it very clear how he feels about women. In fact, he's a feminist himself! He did make this little show called, oh what was it...Buffy the Vampire Slayer! Even if some things here and there in the movie, besides what I already discussed, came off as sexist, I sincerely doubt it was intentional. Also remember that while trying to juggle seven main characters, keep comic book fanboys happy, tying everything in from the other movies before it, he also had to have a coherent plot and a functional movie. What he did was not easy. The fact that it turned out (again in my humble opinion) to be a great movie and a huge success with all of these obstacles is truly an admirable feat. Is Joss Whedon a saint? Of course not. No one is. But he can tell a damn good story. It really angers me that people resort to calling him what he's not and sending him death threats because they got butthurt about something they interpreted incorrectly.