Joss Whedon pressured off of twitter by angry Age of Ultron viewers

[Mike82]

Which is what I keep saying when people go "WHY ARE THEY MAKING ANT-MAN AND NOT BLACK WIDOW?!"

(I still don't get why people obsess over Budapest though. I thought it was a stupid line. Honestly, the best stories are the ones you don't know. What you don't know makes the stories larger. What you do know makes them smaller)

The Ant-Man movie has been in the works since before Iron Man 1. Ant-Man man also do cool things that Black Widow can't and Black Widow has already been in four movies. I can't say I'm all that interested in a Black Widow movie.

I don't specifically care for Budapest, but I would have liked to see more Hawkeye and Widow than Bruce and Natasha.

[Username taken]

This is really poor form from the guys attacking Whedon on Twitter.

Sometimes people have a right to get outraged over things, in this instance though, the folks attacking Whedon clearly haven't seen the movie and their opinions are staggeringly ill-informed. The sad thing about this is that folks that actually have legitimate issues and want to air them get lumped together with folks that really don't know what they are saying.

This is why I'm pretty weary of "social media outrage" because some people hide behind "outrage" (like the #fireRemender controversy) to simply further their agenda (like the individual behind the aforementioned controversy who really had a problem with Remender's writing and not necessarily any deeper issues).

[shgs]

Honestly, I read a few articles on this and I sort of have to agree with 95% of what the people hating on Joss are saying.

The 'four strong female presence' in the movie never happened, despite his claims.

Practically every female character in that movie is sidelined. And BW is made into a mooning idiot who gets captured for no reason other than for Banner to save her.

The movie not only fails the Bechdel test but I can't even remember seeing two women sharing a scene in this movie at all.

The 5% I disagree with are people who are misunderstanding the monster exchange to mean childless women are monsters, when the script meant that she's a monster because shes killed a fuckton of people and the people who hate on Joss for writing the prime nocta line and saying it is pro-rape when it's just Tony being Tony.

I think to be honest you are overestimating the extent to which Whedon has full control of what characters to include and how much screentime they get. The producers will have an awful lot to say on such matters, I would have thought. Plus working from an initial starting point of having five male Avengers and one female Avenger limits your options for bringing female characters together a little.

[yet another]

I think to be honest you are overestimating the extent to which Whedon has full control of what characters to include and how much screentime they get. The producers will have an awful lot to say on such matters, I would have thought. Plus working from an initial starting point of having five male Avengers and one female Avenger limits your options for bringing female characters together a little.

Yeah, seems a little unfair (and stupid - but what can you expect of people resorting to insults and threats) to blame the beefcake show on Whedon. That's just how this was built up, takes a while to change the foundations, but maybe the next movies will do better in this regard.

[Mike82]

Honestly, I read a few articles on this and I sort of have to agree with 95% of what the people hating on Joss are saying.

The 'four strong female presence' in the movie never happened, despite his claims.

Practically every female character in that movie is sidelined. And BW is made into a mooning idiot who gets captured for no reason other than for Banner to save her.

The movie not only fails the Bechdel test but I can't even remember seeing two women sharing a scene in this movie at all.

The 5% I disagree with are people who are misunderstanding the monster exchange to mean childless women are monsters, when the script meant that she's a monster because shes killed a fuckton of people and the people who hate on Joss for writing the prime nocta line and saying it is pro-rape when it's just Tony being Tony.

I think it's hard to deny that BW and Scarlet Witch definitely had a presence in this film. Widow, as always got a more than a ample amount of screen time. Wanda totally kicked ass and played a big part in the movie. It's hard for an Avengers movie to pass the Bechdal test when Widow is the only female Avenger.

[Iron Fist]

I think to be honest you are overestimating the extent to which Whedon has full control of what characters to include and how much screentime they get. The producers will have an awful lot to say on such matters, I would have thought. Plus working from an initial starting point of having five male Avengers and one female Avenger limits your options for bringing female characters together a little.

He wrote and directed the movie, I'm not buying 'producer meddling'

Black Widow was in the same building as Maria Hill, she could have been the person to tell Scarlet Witch to get a grip. Widow's entire plot this movie revolves around Banner and a lot of people have a problem with that, myself included.

For someone who has built a career on strong ties to feminism, Whedon made a rather anti-feminist movie. The woman with the second largest amount of screen time literally spends all of it pregnant and in the kitchen. And then third you have Scarlet Witch who barely spoke and largely unused until they needed a montage.

[t hedge coke]

I think to be honest you are overestimating the extent to which Whedon has full control of what characters to include and how much screentime they get. The producers will have an awful lot to say on such matters, I would have thought. Plus working from an initial starting point of having five male Avengers and one female Avenger limits your options for bringing female characters together a little.

How many of those four men talked with another man at some point in the movie?

I'm not bothered by it. I'm kind of amused that Whedon may have tried to hype the movie based on the presence of women, since, really, yeah... but it's no reason for anyone to threaten him or whatever. I mean, Marvel said Winter Soldier was a political thriller and it was just a fight movie with the occasional politician. Hype is just hype.

Weirdly demanding fans, especially when they get to be threatening or start invoking someone doesn't dislike Nazis enough... there should just be a gauge to see you're going nuts, so you stop. Like that invoking Nazis rule except it also includes threatening people over Superman's little red shorts or whether or not Tony Stark makes a sexist joke (hell, Pepper refers to a woman as "the trash" in the first movie just for daring to sleep with her beloved boss - Pony, as I will now call the couple, are dumbly elitist and sexist, and also hella fun to watch).

[t hedge coke]

For someone who has built a career on strong ties to feminism, Whedon made a rather anti-feminist movie. The woman with the second largest amount of screen time literally spends all of it pregnant and in the kitchen. And then third you have Scarlet Witch who barely spoke and largely unused until they needed a montage.

Hawkeye's wife being pregnant doesn't make it an anti-feminist movie. It's not making any great feminist strides, but then, it's Whedon. We should probably feel blessed that Widow doesn't have a wise old daddy to set her on the right path in the movie.

It's a flawed movie, but it's not in any way anti-feminist in the sense of being antagonistic to feminism or antagonistic to women.

[xMatt]

It never ceases to amaze me how many people use violence and aggression to silence the works others and still think themselves social crusaders.

We don't know if he left Twitter because of this. Maybe he just left because the movie's out and he doesn't have to promote it.

The "racist" accusations come from Tumblr, where they've decided that the Maximoffs have been "whitewashed" because they're not Roma-Jewish. They never were, in the comics - they were generic white characters who were later retconned into being Magneto's kids, and he was retconned into being Jewish, etc. It's not really whitewashing if the characters have always been portrayed as white, but you know Tumblr.

Iron Man's joke was completely in character. He's a smart jerk. If he actually meant that he wanted to force women to have sex with him, it would make him a bad guy (more so) but as it stands he's just a guy who made a tasteless joke. Again, people often confuse a character saying something with the author believing it's totally fine.

And yeah, Natasha was saying she's a monster because she was turned into a killer, not because she can't have children. Forced sterilization was part of the process of turning her into a killer. But it's a big leap from there to "Joss Whedon thinks women who don't have babies are monsters."

Sometimes when people are taught to recognize bad or racist or sexist tropes in popular culture - and that's not a bad thing to recognize - they jump to deciding that all uses of a trope are illegitimate, or that characters must never do anything that reinforces negative stereotypes. So some people go from "too many movies have women who need to be rescued by men" (true) to "it's bad that Natasha got captured and needed Bruce to break her out." That's not how art works.

This was a really insightful and articulate post. Thanks for sharing.

[MichaelC]

I never took that scene as saying infertile women are monsters. Rather, that sterilizing her was part of the psychological conditioning of her into a killer who cares about nothing but her missions.

[Shadow]

And people wonder why I hate feminists. Taking things out of context like always.

[t hedge coke]

And people wonder why I hate feminists. Taking things out of context like always.

That's pretty funny.

[Iron Fist]

Hawkeye's wife being pregnant doesn't make it an anti-feminist movie. It's not making any great feminist strides, but then, it's Whedon. We should probably feel blessed that Widow doesn't have a wise old daddy to set her on the right path in the movie.

It's a flawed movie, but it's not in any way anti-feminist in the sense of being antagonistic to feminism or antagonistic to women.

Hawkeye's wife is the only positive portrayal of a woman in that movie, and that's horrible. Black Widow is miserable because she's childless (according to the movie) and has been seen to get out of situations where she's tied to a chair and dangled off a steep drop but she she has to wait to be saved by Banner of all people, Maria Hill is a traitor and not to mention reduced to being a secretary instead of a kick ass shield agent, Wanda was given manipulative powers because she "messes with your mind" which just feels like a sexist statement and the scientist who dares oppose anyone gets shot and beaten.

It's not a movie that portrays women well or competently at all. And considering Whedon's past work, that feels very anti-feminist.

And people wonder why I hate feminists. Taking things out of context like always.

You know, like the wage gap. Totally out of context.

[xMatt]

Hawkeye's wife is the only positive portrayal of a woman in that movie, and that's horrible. Black Widow is miserable because she's childless (according to the movie) and has been seen to get out of situations where she's tied to a chair and dangled off a steep drop but she she has to wait to be saved by Banner of all people, Maria Hill is a traitor and not to mention reduced to being a secretary instead of a kick ass shield agent, Wanda was given manipulative powers because she "messes with your mind" which just feels like a sexist statement and the scientist who dares oppose anyone gets shot and beaten.

It's not a movie that portrays women well or competently at all. And considering Whedon's past work, that feels very anti-feminist.

I'll give you the other points -- but the Wanda one is a bit of a stretch. That seems more assumption and personal opinion than having basis in the context of the film. The way I saw it, Wanda was the only one actually capable and did anything, in regards to the action.
- She beat the Avengers by using what seemed like illusory telepathy. "Messes with your mind" is something pretty much every good fictional villain does (Loki, Joker, Hannibal Lecter, Clown It).
- She halted the train.
- She killed Ultron's main body.
You took the one instance of Wanda and used it to completely generalise the rest of her representation.

[t hedge coke]

Hawkeye's wife is the only positive portrayal of a woman in that movie, and that's horrible. Black Widow is miserable because she's childless (according to the movie) and has been seen to get out of situations where she's tied to a chair and dangled off a steep drop but she she has to wait to be saved by Banner of all people, Maria Hill is a traitor and not to mention reduced to being a secretary instead of a kick ass shield agent, Wanda was given manipulative powers because she "messes with your mind" which just feels like a sexist statement and the scientist who dares oppose anyone gets shot and beaten.

I guess I just don't feel that way. Widow seemed pretty damned heroic to me. Cho and Hill seemed pretty cool. Good people. None of Widow's problems stem from her not being able to have children, they stem from her being emotionally messed up, a professional liar and bastard, and having killing a lot of folks and probably burned a lot of bridges while people stood on them to get out of the water or not fall to their doom.

Banner and Stark are the ones all the blame is levied at (and, even there, I'm mostly on their side; the mind gem put Ultron out there, not them).