Week 2

Week 2:

This week Caroline and I watched all the films in phase two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe after previously watching Phase one of Marvel last week. Some of the movies that are in phase 2 of Marvel are Iron Man 3, Avengers age of Ultron, Captain America the Winter Soldier, and Guardians of the galaxy. The three goals we set in group one were to 1) Observe how the world at the time (cultural movements) affect the films, 2) Observe how the films affect the world around them, 3) Observe the total change in representation throughout the arc of creation within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We decided to watch all of the movies in phase 2 while keeping these goals in mind.  

(https://www.scpr.org/blogs/newmedia/2013/05/07/13562/why-comic-book-fans-hate-the-mandarin-in-iron-man/ )

While Watching Iron 3 we noticed like in the previous movies that there was a lack of good representation of women and people of color. This movie also did not pass the Bechdel test. There are hardly any scenes where there are just women, and even in one of the scenes when Pepper, Tony Stark's girlfriend, is talking to another woman alone, they are still both only talking about men. The main antagonist of the film is a white man named Aldrich Killian who weaponized medical technology that he stole from a female scientist to create terrorist attacks. However, he hires a middle eastern man named “The Mandarin” to take the blame for the attacks. This is similar to the first Iron man movie where the villains were a middle eastern terrorist group. Overall, this representation of middle eastern individuals can be harmful. 

In phase two most of the movies have done better with racial representation. We see important black characters in Captain America the Winter Soldier such as Falcon, one of the first black superheroes, and Nick Fury, who is the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D. However, we have yet to see a character of color as the primary character. However, this film also does not pass the Bechdel test. Even though we do not specifically see a person of color in the film Guardians of the Galaxy, as most of the characters or aliens, except for the protagonist Star-Lord, who is a white male human, we can infer that some of the characters are based off people of color due to their characteristics, mannerisms, and experiences. An example of this is the character Gamora who is actually played by a block actress even though her skin in the film is green. 

(https://www.polygon.com/2021/1/22/22243159/scarlet-witch-brother-quicksilver-pietro-explained) 

The film age of Ultron lacks both female representation and representation of people of color. The first thing to note is that there is not a single person of color that is an Avenger and there are only two female Avengers. It is also important to note that both Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, in the comics, were originally characters of color. However, in this film, they are portrayed by a white actor and actress. This movie, like the others, did not pass the Bechdel test. In the film, Natasha Romanoff also known as Black Widow states that she is a monster as she can not give birth. I feel as though this can be detrimental to younger viewers.