Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba wrote:See, I have disagreements with Bakky, but this is awful, because it isn't really criticism. This isn't subtext - the movie says this explicitly, that Loki is like Hitler and wants to take our freedoms but really he lacks conviction because he's just a puppydog wizardgod who didn't get enough attention or whatever. That isn't subtext, it's repeated over and over, explicitly.
The point of criticism is to look at the assumptions and contradictions behind that, and even when it's problematic. For example, I think Bak's notion of the movie presenting a dichotomy between 'Council-ruled authoritarian world' and 'Superhero-ruled authoritarian world' is wrong, because it takes the idea that superheros as elites will be an authority as axiomatic - there's nothing specific in the text to justify the idea that the superheros intend to lead, guide, direct, or otherwise rule people, and in fact they mostly part their separate ways to live on their own pursuing their own divergent interests away from any establishment and unburdened by its snares (a case for The Avengers as some kind of objectivist tale might have legs, I guess), and extradite the villain to his nation of origin to face due process, which is significantly less fascist than how most action movies would treat him. Fury's still in charge but given that the movie establishes Fury as a man who can't be trusted and manipulates our heros towards his own ends, I think that he represents more a realist take on the establishment coloured by Whedon's longtime anti-Authoritarian bias.
But even when I disagree it's ten times more interesting than 'oh the splosions' 'yah i liked the splosions' 'i liked when the guy killed the guy too' 'hey i bet in the next movie thanos because at the end thanos' 'the splosion was ten jizzatons i wager' There's nothing in principle wrong with just shooting the shit about a movie you liked, but then, there's also nothing wrong with critiquing it, and it makes a better exercise.
Yeah, I can see the interest in this kind of thing, and how it beats endless repetition and chewing over micro-analysis of the easter egg details thrown in to appease the fannest of fans.
But I don't get the appeal except when it's done in an honest way- when it's about looking at the work of fiction, not about tearing it apart for the sake of looking clever.
One thing we can do is look at Fury. He's in some ways ambiguous. He's authoritarian in that he's the big bold commanding officer with legions of troops and his own fortress and so on. But he's also acting as a check against the authoritarianism of the Council. The Council is about world domination- only unlike Loki, they don't have to fight for it and engage in complicated schemes, because they already
have it. Nick Fury is about world protection. To do that job he does things that are morally ambiguous and raise really good questions about who he should be accountable to, and whether or not he's going way too far in his quest for security.
At the same time, he also seems to favor this idea of using... basically a group of superpowered volunteers to do the job that would otherwise be handled by the Council's enforcement arm. Is this more or less authoritarian? I think I agree with you, Amoeba, about it being less authoritarian.
So Fury sort of straddles the line between authoritarian and non-authoritarian. On the one hand, he's largely unaccountable. And he operates through force, trickery, and intimidation a lot. On the other hand, he also seeks to limit the absolute power of the people who he's supposed to be working for, and he's willing to rely on consensus-building and his faith and trust in people not directly under his power, which are not usual traits for the authoritarian.
To wax tropish for just a second, he's the Reasonable Authority Figure, maybe?
Although I'm not so sure about that 'objectivist' thing, since the characters are living pretty un-objectivist lives. Banner fears his own power and uses what skills he possesses almost entirely for the benefit of others. Cap is... he's basically a solid block of altruism and biceps, from head to toe. Black Widow and Hawkeye are minions in someone else's army, that's not very objectivist either.
The guys you can make a case for- there's Thor, and there's Tony Stark.
Thor is a prince, with a very toplofty sense of his own place in the world, but he also shows a caring and protective side that I don't think really fits as "objectivist." His life isn't about finding what's right
for him, it's about making the transition from self-centered but heroic warrior prince to a man fit to be a king.
Something similar is true for Stark. He starts the first film living the Objectivist dream: the man so brilliant and talented that everyone wants a piece of his skills and abilities, he's universally respected and does whatever the hell he wants. And all this comes in large part from his own unfettered use of his own abilities, unrestrained by 'petty morality' or whatever.
That's where he
starts the first movie. His entire character evolution over something like 7-8 hours of film has been away from that. In the first movie he had to learn to take responsibility for the moral consequences of his actions for other people. In his second movie he has to embrace that "no man is an island" thing, and learn to work with his friends and accept help from others, because otherwise his personal faults will destroy him- not an objectivist lesson.
And in
Avengers what he learns to do (obviously in the end scene with the nuke, but also in the earlier scene with the turbine that kind of foreshadows this) is risk his life, to just lay it all on the line for other people and damn the consequences. Sure, he may have a plan for getting out alive, but his plan relies on other people and he's having to come to terms with the idea that all this heroing stuff he's doing may get him
killed. But he keeps going back anyway.
, which not all of them were aware of when they referred to it by said terms?