mcu_cosmic | Abusive Parents in the MCU (trigger warning)

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Abusive Parents in the MCU (trigger warning)

Hello friends! I apologize for my recent absence... I've been travelling and then there was a hurricane and my power was out for 3 days, so I've been preoccupied. Thank you to

snickfic for last week's discussion topic about Thor at university learning to speak Groot.

I'm still travelling, and I watched Infinity War on the plane yesterday, so this week's topic is about that big purple dude we all hate.

The scene where Thanos kills Gamora, whom he claims is his favorite child, is one of the most gut-wrenching and infuriating moments in the MCU. I've read criticism from some fans that the directors tried to make us feel sorry for Thanos by showing his tears and his grief.

I took something different from the scene. Thanos' grief might make him more human than your average child abuser, but he's still an abuser. The fact that he hurts and kills those he loves doesn't make me, as a viewer, sympathize with him more. It only makes him more of a monster.

Others might have a different view. Hollywood does have a history of prioritizing manpain over the real suffering of women and children. And some of those cinematic tricks (e.g. close-up on Thanos' face after he throws Gamora off the cliff) are used in this movie.

What's your opinion? Were the directors trying to make the audience feel sorry for Thanos? Or were they merely emphasizing that he's a killer who feels more sorry for himself than for the children he abused?

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OMG Thanos irritates me more than any other character. In-universe, he is the most powerful. He does not have to execute this stupid of his at all. It's all his own idea. He wails "oh my pain!!" constantly as though he's being forced to do it. By whom?? No one! You could stop this at any point. You're literally the reason for your own problems. And out of universe, Doyalist - of course Gamora and Black Widow are the ones to die. Of course.

He wails "oh my pain!!" constantly as though he's being forced to do it. By whom?? No one! You could stop this at any point. You're literally the reason for your own problems.

I completely agree.

And they die in the same way, off the same cliff, and are posed in EXACTLY the same positions after the fall, and if you look closely when Gamora falls apparently you can see a bloodstain close by that's where Natasha was. I have never seen a more chilling message on film that women are fungible, except maybe all the way back with Stepford Wives, and that was a satire.

(Using my Emotional Support Icon Captain America; I usually am not falling and I weigh less than Steve Rogers)

The 'realism' of Thanos' designs really annoyed me--I like my comic book villains to have a nice thick membrane of genre when they're doing something like "halve the population of the (Universe, Galaxy, Quadrant?)" I'd have been more able to "walk it off" post Infinity War if he'd Snapped as an over the top wooing gift to Lady Death.

I was until it happened a little surprised Natasha was the one to die; Clint's spree used to be Kiss of Death to a character (not that anyone stays dead besides Uncle Ben now.) Once it happened, sure, not particularly surprised.

The Children of Thanos basically are a cult. Gamora and Natasha's rearing seem very similar once Thanos and the Red Room respectively come into play. But through the camera framing, the tears, Thanos is not repudiated in the same terms that the Red Room is. It's, there's a run of Hawkeye, were a young Clint is told that he didn't deserve having an abusive dad. The statement is delivered by someone with no ethical foundation, which steals its worth to Clint. Context matters and the fact that it's Unquestioned that with the Power Stones a Random Cull is "Fair and Necessary" as opposed to willing more resources or better logistics--it's not that they don't Watsonianly have Problems with the Snapture but it's narrative that is sloshable through the fourth wall. I know, that all is a hash of perspectives and it's very vexing that it's straddling in that fashion.

CA:CW mixed damages stemming an interstellar invasion with self-inflicted damages with damages that happened inadvertently. And then had them all proving the point by the fight in the airport...

I have a problem with Love in the statement by the interlocutor with the visage of the Red Skull regarding how to get the Soul Stone in Infinity War. Thanos may value Gamora, but it's too possessive to, in my mind, be Love. Now, in Endgame it's Value iirc, presumably because Clint and Natasha might make Love 'awkward' what with married man and beautiful woman not his wife (oh, look, it's suddenly the 1990s and Agents Scully and Mulder are investigating regressing sexual politics.)

I always thought that the focus on Thanos was a reaction to all the criticism of MCU having terrible villains: flat, one-dimensional, and not terribly believable. Their motivations always seemed so, "I want to destroy the world," mad cackle-evil laugh, that they decided to try to make Thanos have *feelings* so that the critics would shut up about their terrible villains. The problem is that in trying to give him feelings, they decided to go down the road of abusive parent, which might make him believable and 3D but makes him COMPLETELY unsympathetic. So all the online vitriol spewed against the directors in trying to make us "care" about a guy who kills his daughter and then half the universe - yeah, I get it.

And yet Thanos had that little post credit in Avengers. So Thanos was 'on docket' for a very long time.

Many of the villains in MCU were fine--they weren't often explored with any nuance. Erik is an exception in Black Panther, because his backstory is intensely connected with T'Challa's. Aldrich in Iron Man 3, and even Vanko in Iron Man 2 have interesting reasons for why.

"Feelings" isn't what makes for three dimensionality. Acknowledging consequences is what pushes narrative 'heft'. CA:CW left me pretty meh because it was so chock full of certain things that it couldn't have even a wisp of others. It had some stuff that worked for me. That Spider-Man & Captain America Borough Boys moment-That's the Marvel Magic (tm), where the world continues to exist out of frame and is sold by little kisses of overlap just Happening. Drawing Peter Parker doing his job somewhere in a crowd scene, no fanfare just he's there, people that find him get a little boost.

There's in my mind no way to make Thanos sympathetic. His ends and means are antithetical to that. How he came to such a warped program, would certainly inject depth, but it couldn't be told in the shock and awe style.

Yeah, the way the Russos went on and on about how he was a sympathetic villain and anti-hero and it was his story and blah blah blee certainly supports that. -- For all that, I really didn't think Thanos was that important to the story until then. His appearances are mainly confined to little credit scenes that could be cut without losing anything, and the idea that he's the big thematic force behind the entire MCU just doesn't make sense. So not only are they demanding we feel for this guy, but he wasn't the focus for a lot of people all along (certainly not for me).

Clint's spree used to be Kiss of Death to a character (not that anyone stays dead besides Uncle Ben now.) Once it happened, sure, not particularly surprised.

Supposedly they meant it to be Clint, and then A Woman Working on the Film said to them 'This is Natasha's, don't you dare take that way from her' (I totally believe that happened!) and a couple of other Women on the Film said the same thing, and the writers were all, THEY'RE RIGHT, this is her HEROISM. Because a woman heroically sacrificing herself for other people (especially a man) has never been told before! whatever. And then of course the immense manpain they all feel, complete with her never being mentioned in the entire film again until five seconds at the end, goes along with classic fridging. (There are arguments over whether it was "really" fridging or not, but I think it follows the emotional pattern: beautiful woman dies, men are pushed to emotional brink, there's recovery without her.)

Gamora and Natasha's rearing seem very similar once Thanos and the Red Room respectively come into play. But through the camera framing, the tears, Thanos is not repudiated in the same terms that the Red Room is.

I think that's a really good point. Especially given how Nat infamously has the "monster" line, and she and Gamora have both been shaped into weapons of death, but Thanos did it all on his loathsome and yet we're supposed to feel sympathy for him and Infinity War is basically "he wins."

They really said A Woman? And then several Other Women?

She didn't feel fridged exactly, but how her death and how Tony's death play out is a Wonderful example of how a double standard is propagated.

Really, I think they're trying to keep her MCU dead. Because there is certainly enough slippage between what the Wearing Red Skull's Visage said about the Stone and what seemed to happen for Steve to fish her out during what I have to believe was more than 80 years 'detouring'

They really said A Woman? And then several Other Women?

Oh no, they named her, but it was just about that convincing. Markus and McFeeley said

"Jen Underdahl, our visual effects producer, read an outline or draft where Hawkeye goes over. And she goes, 'Don’t you take this away from her.' I actually get emotional thinking about it," McFeely said.

"And it was true, it was him taking the hit for her. It was melodramatic to have him die and not get his family back. And it is only right and proper that she’s done," added Markus.

And then they or the Russos backed it up later with "yeah and other women on the team agreed." Seriously. It read exactly like Well My Black/Jewish/Asian Friend Doesn't Think This is Racist. And the paper of record didn't quote the woman, either, it was just the dudes reporting her reaction. "Oh, we wanted to save her, but women insisted it was wrong!" That's actually infuriating (and they reveal their real focus by saying "she’s been a cipher the whole time. It wasn’t necessarily honest to the character to give her a funeral." I mean dudes can dicker all day over the Meaning of Being a Spy, but it's the writers saying she's a cipher that is the big clue.)

She didn't feel fridged exactly, but how her death and how Tony's death play out is a Wonderful example of how a double standard is propagated.

Yeah, I personally kind of space out during the technical discussions of what fridging "really" is because I think there's been enough meaning creep, and there's an emotional component to it that can get covered over by all the "well she CHOSE to die so it's not ACTUALLY" arguing I've seen (usually by dudes). I think Simon's original concept of fridging certainly fits into the larger cultural trope of "The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world," which focuses on how the woman makes the men feel, it's not really about anything she does, what makes her worthy of mourning isn't her life or her actions but her death. (It also felt completely OOC for me with MCU Natasha, who is always about keeping on going and repenting and surviving.) And even if the focus is on Natasha's final, chosen action....it's still about her death. She's worthy because she chose to end her life. And yeah, your point about the huge differences between her death and Tony's death and the in-universe reactions to both, that really just spells it all out in neon letters.

Really, I think they're trying to keep her MCU dead. Because there is certainly enough slippage between what the Wearing Red Skull's Visage said about the Stone and what seemed to happen for Steve to fish her out during what I have to believe was more than 80 years 'detouring'

Yeah, it's a COMIC BOOK SUPERHERO MOVIE! And the other big "women are fungible" sign for me is, they "brought back" Gamora and clearly she's going to be a part of Guardians 3, but it's not the same person. Who knows if GOTG3 will actually be about that or not, but there's a long, long tradition in scifi and the male culture at large where a man loses a Beautiful Woman, creates or finds a facsimile, and either gets her to fall in love with him or wants to avenge himself on her or both. I've seen Vertigo, I don't need to see it again with a green-skinned woman.

Sheesh. And you're right, it smacks of the Exceptional Friend Cover. And it's going right into the pile with the not representation representation that I didn't catch on screen.

The thing that's important here, They Choose the Ronin schtick. That's on the Russos (before I was willing to concede TPTB but CA:CW wasn't a fluke.) How was he even getting around? Did all of (I was assuming the farm was in Iowa but I've read it was Missouri) Clint's part of farm country get Snapped? Because if it hadn't he'd have been drafted by a 14 year old girl who was in contact with hackers in Ukraine to reprogram the tractors.

My 'hope' is that GotG3 will have Thor trying to help Quill make a better 2nd impression on Gamora who hasn't gone through any of the arc she'd traveled. That line in Nebula's mouth... It's in the same swearjar as thinking Peggy would 'stay home'. Sheesh.

The only way I could see Natasha making such a choice, would be not wanting to explain things to Lila and or Laura. But again, the Russos made a choice. They could have had Nat and Clint do a Billy the Kid and Sundance, hell, sell off a memory.

They Choose the Ronin schtick. That's on the Russos (before I was willing to concede TPTB but CA:CW wasn't a fluke.)

Yes, that's such a good point! They could have just NOT HAD CLINT BE A MASS MURDERER, and the choice would actually have been a lot harder. I've seen meta on how it's a mirror on what he does with Nat -- he saved her after she was a killer, she does the same for him -- but she was a brainwashed child soldier, and even in that official MCU timeline, they have him bringing her in when she was 14 or 16. I am sorry but I just don't think a brainwashed 16-year-old brought up in a cult is the same or morally less than a grown man who basically decides to bartend in the dark after he loses his family, but at the expense of other people's lives. It was like they wanted to bring in comics backstory, but distorted and it makes no sense.

How was he even getting around? Did all of (I was assuming the farm was in Iowa but I've read it was Missouri) Clint's part of farm country get Snapped? Because if it hadn't he'd have been drafted by a 14 year old girl who was in contact with hackers in Ukraine to reprogram the tractors.

HAH! And yeah, Clint in the MCU is kind of a CIPHER, to borrow a word, ahem, but I really never got the impression that he would just go off on a rampage like that. Hell, I don't even remember that they outright said that Coulson brought him in from a life of crime (could be wrong!). I know that's what fandom picked up and ran with, but fandom also ran with Clint in Vents, so.

In comics right now, Nat (and Tony too) is a clone who has all the memories of her former self, but is having a bit of a posthumous identity crisis. Too bad they won't do that in the MCU, because if she met up with Gamora then, it could be neat....

Well, we never get backstory, and Phil is MCU first and backformed into the comics. But if they were thinking Ultimates (which is where Laura springs though there's been some name changes for the kids) then he'd been an Olympic archer that somehow ended up on death-row.

I have to say, if we spun a bingo card we'd get more sensible origins.

They just didn't want infinity formula in the MCU. Because then it wouldn't have been so easy to living fridge Peggy. And I'm really tired of 14/16 year old murderous girls, mind controlled no less, sprung from the half-grown minds of men.

Grief can have some strange results. But really, the healing powers of hot dish. Even if some 60 year old man was the only other Unsnapped, there would be one in someone's freezer. "Now, Marge made this, I just heated it up. Scout is on her ham radio and she's going to need an assistant."

Ah, the Natasha post Hawkeye and the Winter Soldier.

But really, the healing powers of hot dish

OMFG I love that phrase. That basically sums up a perpetually half-baked (ha) fic I have about Nat and Clint bringing Wanda to the farm post-AOU, featuring a Laura who is neither a murderous badass nor a cardboard Good Wife prop.

*curtseys*

I loved Ma Kent on Lois & Clark.

While she's not in much, Laura does appear in The Journey Rose as of Chapter 3

Edited (added chapter info) 2019-09-21 22:19 (UTC)

In comics right now, Nat (and Tony too) is a clone who has all the memories of her former self, but is having a bit of a posthumous identity crisis. Too bad they won't do that in the MCU, because if she met up with Gamora then, it could be neat....

That would be so cool!

(Your icon is beautiful! Yikes about the weather. :O)

Thanos isn't a bad villain, IMO. He's irredeemable and inhuman. He does unforgivable things on a personal level, unfathomable things on a much larger scale than that. But he's a believable character, and he works in the context of IW - maybe more so than in EG.

I don't love everything about Gamora's death. We already have fewer women in the MCU, so why do they keep killing female characters, brutally, for the shock value? Nat, as mentioned. Nebula in EG.

But I also like Gamora's story in IW. Saldana's acting. Those dramatic, cinematic landscapes. I like present!Nebula in EG, kind of a parallel to her sister. I like their complicated reactions to Thanos' (supposed) death. I even like Thanos' occasional shows of affection, though he clearly values his own misguided ideals more than anything or anyone else. Because that's what abusive people are like, isn't it? They're not necessarily at their cruellest behaviour 24/7. Sometimes they're "nice", even plain nice. All of those things are dramatically more interesting than, say, Malekith.

Though IDK if Thanos is more of a monster for (supposedly) loving Gamora - and killing her nonetheless. Does it matter what he's feeling?

The movies seemed to really want to push Thanos as an anti-hero almost - giving us a lot of showtime about his motivations, how he feels about it all, etc. Which as I hated Thanos and thought he could just fix his own damn problems instead of inflicting it on everyone else, made me very unsympathetic.

(Oh, no! Carol looks furious!)

I've heard "is Thanos the real protagonist of IW?" - no, and I don't feel sorry for him, at all. But I don't mind "seeing" his POV, because he's so obviously in the wrong. And, yes, the architect of his own grief.

That's why I like it so much - she is frowning so hard it's like :c not :( haha

I guess - but I find him really exasperating so I'm really glad endgame didn't feature him much!

FIGHTY CAROL (Carol not moving at all in reaction to his headbutt was fucking amazing, I do love that)

I am just all <3_<3 about Carol honestly.

I remember so many of my friends were like "DAMN IS THIS WHAT DUDES FEEL LIKE AFTER SEEING MOVIES FOR THEM? I COULD PUNCH A PLANET!" I loved what little we got of her in EG, even if it felt a bit like they sidelined her.

Yes- is this what being catered to feels like??!?!

Thanks!

Because that's what abusive people are like, isn't it? They're not necessarily at their cruellest behaviour 24/7. Sometimes they're "nice", even plain nice. All of those things are dramatically more interesting than, say, Malekith.

I do agree with this. I personally don't find Thanos that interesting on a character level because he's not as conflicted as, say, Loki, or even as much fun as Hela. But he is believable and 3D, whereas so many MCU villains are pretty cardboard.

Edited 2019-09-18 04:25 (UTC)

I understand not wanting to deal with, like, anything about Thanos. But I saw it as a not entirely unnuanced portrayal of an abusive (familial) relationship, where one party claims to love the person they hurt.

I like present!Nebula in EG, kind of a parallel to her sister.

That was great, but I also personally hated how neither of them got to bring down Thanos, and Nebula kills her past self! Augh. But yeah, that reversed dynamic is great, and I hope the movie goes into it. Or I hope people write fic exploring it anyway -- there's been a lot of great post-Infinity Saga Nebula/Gamora fic already.

LOL I ranted about this endlessly when Infinity War came out, second only to my ranting about Nat after I saw Endgame. I'm probably way too close and way too angry re this topic to contribute anything good, but yeah, I felt like the film was demanding we feel sorry for Thanos, or feel sympathetic, and since he was A MURDEROUS ABUSIVE KIDNAPPING BRAINWASHER, ahem, it just did not work for me. I wonder if we're going to have a parallel to that with Nat and Ivan in the Black Widow movie (they hinted at it). So many people made the point that abusive parents often say, "I'm doing this because I love you, I get to hurt you because you're mine and you have no autonomy," and the movie just doubled down on that with "he really loved her, because he gets the soul stone." His sacrifice is what's valued, his feelings, not hers, or what he actually did.

I wonder if we're going to have a parallel to that with Nat and Ivan in the Black Widow movie (they hinted at it).

Interesting! I never thought of that, but it does beg the question of why the Red Skull named her father at all.

Yeah, and IIRC Ivan is the one who gives her to the Red Room in the comics, right? So that would go along with "Gamora, daughter of Thanos" (ARGH). There kind of seemed like no reason for it to be in the movie other than as a build-up for the solo movie.

(Also now I feel I have to apologize to everyone for making endless posts about Nat and non-cosmic movies /o\)

HA, no apologies necessary. Passionate responses are always welcome. :)

I never got onboard with the idea that the audience was supposed to feel an ounce of compassion for Thanos cuz he's also in pain (etc). At its most basic, my response to anything Thanos-related is an epic eyeroll.

FWIW, I'm still not sure if he loved Gamora or if she's the only one of his "children" he respected the most because--despite his toxic influence--she strived to be better than him. I think he was an abuser from day one and died (twice now!) an abuser. The fact that he articulated excuses for his demoralizing behavior in a calm voice doesn't erase the fact that he not only abused (emotionally, psychologically, and physically) many children. Not to mention creating a cult where he posit himself as the ultimate voice of reason.

I understand why the Russos and M&M thought they had a complex villain in Thanos and why they said that he was super interesting, etc. Yet, at the end of the day, all they had was a powerful bully that condemned the universe into chaos simply cuz he (Thanos) thought he was right. AS IF!

The fact that IW is so focused on showing who Thanos is (etc) is the main reason why that's one of the few MCU movies I've only watched twice. >:(

I understand why the Russos and M&M thought they had a complex villain in Thanos and why they said that he was super interesting, etc. Yet, at the end of the day, all they had was a powerful bully that condemned the universe into chaos simply cuz he (Thanos) thought he was right.

YES. He wasn't complex or interesting, he was just a sociopath.

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Abusive Parents in the MCU (trigger warning)

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