#(there are good critiques of those movies but this is not that)

[citrusraindrops]

I realise I'm not the intended recipient of this post, but you posted it, so here's some GC 101.

TERFs/Gender critical people don't police gender. They think it doesn't matter, and that it shouldn't matter. They want to abolish it.

We can agree– the concept of 'gender', meaning the socially constructed roles forced on men and women, is useless and harmful. It's meaningless how long your hair is, or whether you like pink or blue, or if you like romance movies and wine or fishing and drinking beer. Those things are arbitrarily connected with whether you're a man or a woman, and those arbitrary connections, which do far more harm than good, should be completely ignored, so that people can be free to do what they want.

Now, if gender doesn't mean anything, what's left? Sex. And sex means a lot. Because one of the sexes is, on average, taller, and stronger, and more sexually aggressive, and can impregnate, and the other is smaller and physically weaker and can be impregnated and receives the overwhelming majority of sexual violence. So there's a good reason for sex segregation to exist; or, at least, for female-only spaces to exist.

But, according to what GC feminists think, sex is the only thing that matters. So, a body-building woman– completely fine, more power to her (although they might critique the heavy focus on appearances/disordered eating present in the bodybuilding community). A man with a baby face? Completely normal human variation. He's still male, and he's still a man. A woman with a beard? Well, that's out of the ordinary, but some women (female) do have hormonal disorders that cause facial hair to grow, and they shouldn't feel like they have to change how they look just because of what society thinks (most RadFems are rabidly anti-shaving for that reason).

"But!!" you say. "The TERFs DO police gender! They criticise trans people for how they act and dress and look just because it's not in line with the gender expectations of their sex!"

Well, that's somewhat true. A lot of radical feminists dislike and are heavily critical of the way trans people ��especially trans males– present. But that's not because they're breaking gender roles: As established, GC's are for that. It's because, to a gender critical perspective, these males are acting like their conformity to the roles and expectations used to oppress women makes them women. They're acting like being feminine makes you female. And to GC's who are dedicated to showing the opposite –that female does NOT mean femininity– this is a deeply offensive, reductionist and harmful view.

So, when GC's criticise a transwoman for wearing makeup or skirts or false eyelashes, they are criticising not the break from the expectations imposed on people based on sex, but the use of these things to evidence the claim that he is a woman.

The people who police your gender will police your gender even if you're cis.

Eat them.

[necrotic-nephilim]

for the ask game (3)

au where all robins develop a mental link after fighting some magical criminal of the week. what would they see in each other's minds? what secrets and repressed feelings do they discover? how would they deal with it?

for the ask game!

oooh, i love telepathic links that end up revealing secrets. especially with a family like the Batfam, who are usually so convinced they're good enough at reading each other to not have many secrets kept. so weird reveals are always fun

if i did this, i'd do DamiTim. just because of all the like, "deep dark feelings that are being hidden" for Robin shipping, DamiTim is the most fun for me. you expect DickTim or DickJay or JayTim, even DamiDick. but there's something that's so enjoyable about Damian having his feelings forcibly outted. not just to Tim, but to everyone. the way it'd be an active landmine none of them knowing what to say but all feeling each other's reactions. i honestly think Damian would try to punch somebody about it. (also, if you do a history of TImSteph where they've had sex, Damian would be directly linked to Steph's memories of how Tim was in bed, so that's fun as both something horrifying and enlightening just to screw with his feelings some more.) would they end up together? in my head probably, but it'd be weird and likely toxic bc how do you date someone you know inside out and know exactly what they think of all your flaws and what parts of you they obsess over. the answer is not very well but hey, the sex is good-

i think Jason *directly* feeling how everyone felt about his death would really rock him. he's heard all the apologies, but part of him isn't convinced there's truth to them. so to be crushed by Dick's *grief* over his death would be a come to jesus moment for him. but on the less fun flipside, you have him feeling how Dick feels about him *now*. because Dick doesn't really *like* Jason and deep down, sees Jason as a lost cause. that's his "deep dark secret". and Jason would feel and know that from the one person who he still wants to believe in him. i really do think Jason would have the Worst Time with all this, overwhelmed with everyone's intimate and complex feelings over his death. Jason is a very defensive person when it comes to his death and how reactionary he gets when other people make it about them, not him. so for Jason to have to constantly deal with that in his head, i truly do think he'd lash out a bit. the arguments. yelling at Dick and feeling Dick's guilt and snapping bc Dick has no right to feel guilty now. feeling that Tim viewed Jason as a failure. it's just a damaging mindspace to be in and man do i think Jason would take a While to recover.

oddly though, i think it'd be a good bonding moment for Steph and Jason. we really don't get much exploration of Steph and Jason bonding over dying. bc sure, Steph didn't actually die, but she *did* experience the social death where everyone believed she was dead and mourned her as such for a good while. she also felt *directly* responsible for her own death. a lot of blame falls on Steph for War Games (for the Doylist reasons of sexism but yk) and Jason feels responsible for his own death for walking into a trap. but unlike Jason, Steph had no suit in a case, no memorials, her name held no infamy. so i think she deserves just a bit of righteous fury about how dramatic Jason can be while she just has to move on bc hey, it's not like she *really* died. and she buries those feelings well, but not well enough to hide them from a mental link. and Jason, who hasn't really considered Steph before because he was so wrapped up in his complex over Tim, confronts those feelings with her. if anyone is going to know how he feels, it's going to be her. you could do it platonic or romantic, but i do think when Jason sinks to his lowest, she's the one who snaps him out of it, both with tough love and genuine compassion for his situation.

for the less serious crack of it all: they're all going to have far too intimate knowledge of each other's sex lives. everyone's gonna know Dick has fucked Slade. everyone's gonna know Jason has fucked Talia. in my heart, i believe Tim has slept with Anarky (Lonnie, not Ulysses) and everyone would *know* that too. absolute judgment all around. it's the spider-man meme of "wait you've done WHAT with WHO" and honestly, it gives a nice distraction for the more serious feelings. it's a palette cleanser they can default to. like when the fighting gets a little too serious and they're cutting too deep for comfort, someone's going to blurt out "well at least i didn't fuck Deathstroke." and the whole moment goes awry with laughter. bc i do think, at the end of it once they get through the worst of the angst, they'd be closer for it and self-aware of the ridiculous nature of all this. it's enlightening, in a way to see how they all felt about their time as Robin and the baggage/trauma they hold. even the ugliest feelings they hold for each other don't completely suffocate the fondness/respect.

that said, knowing the baggage/trauma. oof. i don't think Dick has ever fully opened up about his history with Mirage/Tarantula/Liu and now it's forced to sit in the open. Damian has never admitted the worst of being raised in the League. Tim hasn't fully faced the suffocating image of his dead father and his deep-seated want to kill Boomerang. all those ugly truths they stamp down bc well, either you're a vigilante or you're a well adjusted person, are out in the open now. and it's ugly and gruesome to force those thoughts to be shared. they all want to comfort each other for different reasons, while simultaneously not wanting their own trauma to be acknowledged. it'd be fun to see who'd instinctively react to whose trauma first. because it's an overwhelming rush of information, and you just naturally get pulled in certain directions. i think Damian would react to Dick's history of sexual abuse first, whereas Jason would be reacting to the murderous rage TIm is trying to fight off. Tim is reacting to just how much guilt Steph carries about War Games and all of it is very crunchy. there's so much they'd all have to talk about and it'd take days for them to address it all, between the arguments about the ugly parts. would they come out stronger for it? yes. but only if they didn't kill each other in the process. i hesitate to do a "and they come out one big happy family" ending, bc it's not very in canon, but i do think the bond of the Robin mantle is something special. even when the link is broken, they hold onto a freakish understanding of each other. they react and move in sync, can fight together without needing words. are they emotionally on the same page/have they forgiven each other for the worst of it? absolutely not. but they've got each other backs. it's a very much "if you called i'd drop everything to save you. but also we don't have it in us to hang out casually." bond, which i think is deeply underrated in fanfiction. sometimes, you can care about people but you have to do it from a distance.

[fertbutt]

something i really like that's started happening more recently is that whenever a new movie comes out we've started seeing a lot more artists posting their work for the film on their own personal social medias, like ive seen it for Spider-Verse, the Sea Beast, Puss in Boots, etc. even Nico Marlet one of the leading developmental artists for the How to Train Your Dragon movies has recently been posting some previously unseen artwork from like, a decade ago now. Not only is it really good insight into the process of film development, it's really emphasizing that projects like these consist of the work of dozens if not hundreds of individuals, they don't just pop out of the brain of one singular creator like fully-developed athena from zeus's brain. it's really cool to see the individual contributions of all these different artists and see them get credit for their work.

[silverislander]

have discovered a new enemy while doing research for the honours essay. why are you pretending to understand psychology and BLATANTLY misinterpreting actual terms and concepts in order to tear down a movie aimed at teenage girls, my good bitch. i'm going to start biting

[minscofrashemen]

gos I forgot how trash the transformers movies are

[homophyte]

can i be so honest. every critique ive read of nope so far has been very lacking

[little-cereal-draws]

Overall, I think natm 4 was a pretty good movie! I do have a few critiques tho. Jed and Octi did seem a bit one dimensional and they did forget about them for long periods of time and Attila's character was really only used when they were fighting (he's my baby boy and I'm crushed that there's almost no content of him both in canon and in the fandom). And ofc Ahk wasn't there at all! I knew that already bc I checked IMDB a few months ago but they showed his sarcophagus and everything! They could've at least mentioned him! idk

But the movie was cute, funny (I laughed at several points), and gorgeously made. I'm considering it canon. It's not my favorite out of the series but it wasn't bad; it was a good movie! 7/10

[austencollins]

I miss the days when the average marvel movie criticism was actually good at being criticism.

[sunnyskies281]

“This movie is actually BAD! You were LIED TO!”

I was lied to… by myself? I enjoyed this movie because i didn’t realize it was bad… even on repeat watches when i still liked it? Mate I think you just don’t like this movie, no need to say everyone else is wrong.

[gokutitties]

So I've realized that my tolerance for misogyny in films and generally women being mistreated in movies is mostly focused around whether or not it impacts the greater message of the film. Like I didn't like blade runner cause the point of the movie is what is a human, what makes us human and its like caring for one another and all that but I don't think the main dude would have cared about the android girl if he didn't want to fuck her so the message is lost. But with movies like the gladiator and dark knight who just use the women to further the plot of the guys and all that I do think that the men care when they need to, to have a breakdown and all that or they're obsessive and controlling and that's the point. Like with taxi driver it was like was there even a downfall or was travis supposed to suck the whole time and I couldn't tell. Like was him and Betsy supposed to be charming at the beginning cause I didn't like it from the start so it's like not that much of a fall. Cause with older movies I can't tell whether that was just how it was at the time or if the movie was also saying he sucks

[sixth-light]

To dig into this a little further and evenhandedly: I actually think Skarsgård is a talented actor who's probably capable of doing a very good job with the character, including its agender identity, and this may be a perfectly watchable show.

Also, I don't care. The point of Murderbot is that it is viewed as a disposable non-person who can be both the victim and perpetrator of extreme violence on behalf of its owners, and that it has to learn to claim its own personhood and others have to learn to understand it as a person on its own terms, not their own. It's not that cis (Western) white men are NEVER subject to dehumanisation or viewed as disposable, it's that this happens *much less often* and there is also a wealth of media encouraging us to remember their personhood.

In terms of the reality of casting a TV show, it's true that you do often need a "name" star attached in a leading role to get it funded. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean they have to play the title character. I think an effective example here is the Wheel of Time TV show, where they got Rosamund Pike onboard and shifted the PoV of the story to give her character more airtime. Regardless, the original story centres around a group of young people and they still cast relatively unknown and very talented young actors, including Black and Indigenous actors, to play them. You could attach a famous white man to a Murderbot screen project and do a multiple-PoV story where we're seeing Murderbot from his PoV as well as its own.

But if the question of Murderbot's personhood is central to the story, as it should be, then casting someone *whose personhood would never be in question in our own world* to play it just...egregiously misses the point.

Congratulations to Martha Wells, who very much deserves that sweet Hollywood cash for her years in the midlist SFF author mines. A big fucking No Thank You to casting a cis white dude as Murderbot, I guess lest we miss out on a TV show reassuring us that cis white men are people too.

[sirfrogsworth]

Do you remember that Aussie sword guy who used to talk about medieval weapons?

And, like, he seemed pretty good at talking about swords and shit. He seemed to have a good grasp of the history and tactics. He'd analyze movie weapons for their realism and that was fun. He did demonstrations with real weapons. For a time I really looked forward to his videos popping up in my feed.

He seemed like a harmless sword-fighting aficionado.

But then I guess he wanted to spread his wings. So he started down an anti-woke path. Giving questionable critiques about media and feminism. He started defending boob armor by showing historical examples even though most of those were decorative and not battle ready like in the games.

Then he admitted he was a fan of The Daily Wire.

And that was disappointing.

I missed him nerding out about swords, ya know?

Well, Shad decided to spread his wings again.

He has become...

*bad French accent* An artiste.

You see, he types words into a little box. Then a little robot does a google image search and steals a bunch of art. Then that robot reconfigures that art to be nearly indistinguishable from the source material. Well... aside from the occasional artist watermark.

Whoops!

A.I. art is very difficult. Sometimes when you type words into the box you get a woman with 5 lopsided anime tiddies. Or 20 fingers on one hand. It takes time and effort and experience to type in the perfect magic words so that you get something close to your imagination that doesn't belong in some sort of Lovecraftian horror ripoff.

For example, check out this cool "pirate hat" I asked A.I. to place on my head.

Clearly, I am not skilled enough at typing words into a box to get a proper pirate hat.

It. Is. Not. Easy.

I heard someone say you have to type things in a box for 10,000 hours before you start getting truly masterful generations.

I mean, you can't type "marathon runners" and expect that to actually work.

THIS REQUIRES SKILL, PEOPLE.

And I am a lowly amateur. I can only dream of becoming the box-typist Shad has honed himself into.

The thing is... Shad is very upset.

He is upset that you don't like his "art" and he is ready to die on this hill.

So... before he croaks on a mound of bullshit, he has something to show you. He has created something truly brilliant and when you see it, he is convinced you will validate his considerable efforts.

Before I show you his "Not. Easy." artistic masterpiece I'd like you to sit with what he has said for a second.

Ruminate in the verbiage.

Process the ideas and points of view presented.

Digest his plea for you to accept and love his hard won battle after typing words into a box to manifest his imaginings.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Have you sat?

Ruminated?

Processed?

Digested?

Okay, here it is...

[tocomplainfriend]

Hey, hear this!

I'm not black and don't know that much about voodou. There are lots of people ready to talk and explain their concerns about their representation in HH. Please hear them! (the amount of disrespect done by a bunch of non-black people upon the topic is disgusting!)

The demonizing and villainizing of this religion has existed since the time of slavery. Using this symbols and closed religion to make a character more "edgy demon evil" is awful. This was Viv doing exactly. I do not believe Al was even supposed to be black/mixed until Viv got told about the use of the religion she was using. All of her main black characters have 0 features. They are just black to profit of "diversity" while she makes no effort to show it or be respectful.

To the people being like, "Aren't you also mad about her representing Christianity wrong???" Based on the fact of how she has talked about Christian people before... YES (I have a whole post about worrying it). But the point brought up is about a religion that's under discrimination based on racism and colonizer mindsets. About a problem that existed when slavery started. Viv is not making a critique or tribute of Voodou she is just using it to make Alastor seem "COOL AND EDGY".

I also do worry of the point she is trying to make about Christianity and believing in it. Specially cause that means her story about heaven and hell could be the blandest immature criticism someone could make. -and sell more people into the idea of "all believers of Christianity are bad people". Which I still hope, it doesn't happen directly in the show. Btw, I'm not Christian! I'm queer and have faced a lot of discrimination that a lot of people justified in their Christianism, I know the level of frustration people feel relating to that. But I have grown to realize, not every person that believes in God and Christ is a bad person. And that I don't get to throw all of those people under the umbrella of "bad" because of how I have been treated.

BTW, this person got blocked by Viv:

ALSO, THIS IS STUPID!

You are crazy to say this. They are many criticisms of Disney, specially this movie. You just didn't see it and decided to tweet this without even thinking of searching for this? Like, have you never heard of people complaining about how Tiana as the first black princess becoming a fucking frog for most of the movie.

Dr. Facilier is a demonization of voodou! Also, Mama Odie is the "Good magic" but realize how she doesn't use the symbols or African masks. But only the bad magic, has it? Most of the representation of the religion is Facilier too, and it's wrongly represented.

EDIT:

NAHHHH. GIRL

[diobrando]

Dirty Dancing my beloved ♥

[metamercury]

I disagree, because the subtle messaging of this movie, and the fact that it was something you didn't notice at first, made you think about it and speak about it much more deeply than you might have if the messaging was blatant and obvious. And if it's done that for you, it's probably done that for other people too.

I don't think there's anything that's mixed or a mistake about the messaging either. Capitalism is something that creates a lot of inequalities and injustice. Yes. But having lots of money also makes your life more fun and easy in a lot of ways because you can take advantage of those inequalities. Is that escapism? Sure, but so is asking your friend what they'd do if they won the lottery. The statement that capitalism is bad (for everyone) but having money is good (for you) is just fact, and a fact we all have to deal with. Everyone has to navigate capitalism from within it. So, to me it seems like more of a commentary. One that's more grounded in reality than the high-stakes dystopia that you get in mad max.

The thing is, I can watch Fury Road knowing full well about what the movie is about and still walk away thinking "hell yeah, car go fast". It doesn't matter how in your face it is, people are going to take what they put into a movie. If they want to think about what the writers are saying, it's there. If they don't, then a fun story is there too.

The Problem with Gentle Critiques

This deserves a longer, more interesting post than I have the spoons to write, but:

I have been reflecting a lot lately on the fact that Pretty Woman offers huge and insightful critiques of capitalism that I Did Not Get as a child, and have completely missed until very recently.

It's a problem a lot of 80s movies have, where capitalists legitimately do bad things and are critiqued about it, but so much of the movie is spent wallowing in the luxuries rich people have that audiences do not absorb the critique.

One of the crucial plot arcs in Pretty Woman is about how the Richard Gere character is deeply unhappy until he meets Vivian (Julia Roberts) because he is *angry* at his father, and has been taking out that anger on others by buying up their businesses, breaking them up, and selling the 'valuable' remains for profit.

Vivian makes the insightful point that his company doesn't make anything, it only destroys, and that this is partly why Edward (Gere) remains deeply unhappy, and all the therapy in the world hasn't solved that. Just recognising that you're angry at your father changes nothing. You have to change the behaviours that perpetuate that damage as well.

Vivian is a force of socialist disruption wherever she goes.

Perhaps the most memorable moment of the movie is not the romance or the business plot or the sex work, but Vivian returning to the snooty shop where the women dismissed her because she looked 'cheap' (and probably they recognised her as a sex worker). These are women who work (unfairly) on commission. They're dismissive because they don't want to waste their time helping someone they've been trained to judge won't buy anything. So these are women who won't help another woman. They're women who want to keep as far away from sex workers as they can lest they be damaged by association. But if they had co-operated, they would have all raised each other up.

But I didn't get that.

I didn't get the point about big business and the fact that extracting capital actually destroys productivity because shareholders only care about their price going up, not about funding enterprises that benefit us all. Because the business plot is boring. Even though the business men in the movie are the most grotesque and easy to hate, because of how they treat Vivian, the critique of them as business men doesn't register, because what Edward's money buys is a lot more fun: the beautiful red dress, the fabulous hotel, 'rescuing' Vivian from her life of poverty and sex work.

I also didn't get the socialist undertones of the shopping interaction. What I felt - and what I think most of us feel when we watch that moment, where Vivian comes back in with her many bags and says 'Big mistake! Big! Huge!' isn't 'Workers should unite to protect each other' or 'Women must unite in solidarity with sex workers', instead, what we feel is visceral triumph over bullies and snobs. And what enables Vivian to triumph in that way is Edward's money, and how good and expensive she looks in the clothes his money enabled her to buy.

Because she does look good (in a very 80s way). So even though the film is really well made (it's a classic for a reason) and is doing all this subtle shit with how much more free and comfortable Vivian looks in her street clothes than either she or the shop workers look in their expensive, 'smart' clothes - even though there's this beautiful thematic work going on with how Vivian's character's sex work and free spirit embody actually living life and enjoying it sensuously, and how often the rich-people environments feel sterile and unwelcoming to us as well as her - it all gets lost, because she's also Cinderella.

And don't make the mistake of thinking I'm critiquing Cinderella, because I'm not. I *get* that we all need stories about being rescued sometimes. We shouldn't have to do it all ourselves. We can't. We need stories where the people with resources make the time to see us in our struggles and lift us up out of poverty and pain. I GET IT.

The point I'm making is that a film can do all this good work - it can work hard and skilfully to critique capitalism and say your feminism must include sex workers or it will be bullshit - and it can ALL GET LOST. Because subtle points don't register when the escapism is too inviting.

People will defend Lord of the Flies and Fight Club until the cows come home for having 'real' messages that are important and get missed under the emotional impact of how the story makes you feel, but they won't make the time to do the same for Pretty Woman or The Little Mermaid (another post I should make some time) because they're 'fairytales' and 'for women' and 'feel good'. So I definitely don't want to drag the film down.

It's more that I am, 30 years too late, having an 'OH, THAT'S what you were doing!' about a movie that was making some pretty great points, and I didn't get them until I experienced a company being destroyed to extract capital from the inside.

I didn't get it because, I think, we don't see the perspectives of the workers. The only suffering we see is Vivian's, and she's wrapped up in a fairytale where she's going to be rescued and live a life of luxury at the end. We don't see what made those sales assistants behave like dicks, even though the movie shows how working on commission in a luxury store *sucks*.

We don't get the perspective of the ordinary workers in the companies Edward destroys - only their CEO, who at the end of the day would actually be fine. The idea of losing a 'family' business that 'makes something' is abstract. The CEO never made anything with his own hands, even if he 'cares' about his workers.

And yeah, a single film can only do so much, but the issue is that it's a paradigmatic example of a wider problem - also seen in Lord of the Flies and Fight Club. Which is that if your message is overtaken by revelling in the thing you want to critique, all the audience will take away is that they enjoyed the revels.

We want to be Edward and Vivian, not the shop workers. We want to burn it all down, not critique toxic masculinity.

In a world where most people know the way capitalism operates is bad, Pretty Woman makes a powerful critique. In a world where we're constantly urged to worship money... it makes it look like having money is really nice. Like you get beautiful dresses and jewellery and to get back at your bullies.

I think too often, as writers (and I am speaking of myself here) we allow ourselves to be persuaded to hold back, because we don't think people will accept what we have to say if we say it too bluntly. But actually, there are people out there who need you to scream.

And I'm not saying that Fury Road is a better movie than Pretty Woman because it confronts the issues head on and screams them in your face. We do need both. We just get a lot more of one than the other; which sadly makes the more dominant kind of film less effective.

I guess I'm saying that if you want to make a point, subtlety doesn't cut it. If you want to change minds, to go against the grain, you have to be careful not to enjoy too much that which you critique.

If you want to critique billionaires, you can't make their lives look fun.

People remember Iron Man's gadgets and fabulous home, not the critique of arms dealing.

People remember Vivian's red dress and the defeat of bullies with money, not the importance of worker solidarity.

If you want people to remember your critique, you can't be subtle.

(OK, maybe I failed at writing the short version of this post.)

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

There’s a Variety article I read today that summarizes how I felt about “Deadpool and Wolverine”. It’s a movie that was made by a genuine Marvel fan, from the fanservice to the disses.

The fanservice in this movie feels like it’s targeting the fans that are really into Marvel. Of course, you have yellow suit Wolverine. But there are references that casual fans probably wouldn’t understand, like Channing Tatum playing Gambit, the Wolverine crucifix, and Henry Cavill Wolverine.

The disses in the movie feel like they also came from a Marvel fan. When Wade says stuff like, “You joined at a low point” and “You’ll be playing this role till you’re 90”, those are the kind of jabs that the fanbase would make. Think of it like this. A hater would probably say something along the lines of superhero movies are the death of cinema, or that we should be watching A24 over anything Marvel related. You know, surface level criticisms. A fan would make digs that they could only do if they’ve been following the universe for a long period of time.

For example, I’m a fan, and I know I’ve made jokes in the past about the whitewashing in Doctor Strange. Or that Agents of SHIELD is better than anything in the main movies. Or that the Netflix Marvel shows were so poorly organized that they failed to properly build up to the Defenders miniseries. Or that the people behind the Fox X-Men movies don’t know how to make a good story without Wolverine. Those are critiques, but I could only make those critiques if I’m a genuine fan who consumes this material.

That’s why I like how Variety described Deadpool as if he was a Marvel fanboy. Because he is! He spends a great deal of the movie fanboying over Captain America and Thor, he views the Avengers as the gold standard of what it means to be a hero, he jokes at the expense of Fox and Disney, and he winks at the audience when he knows that the next scene is something that the Marvel fanbase would truly love. Again, the movie is a love letter to Marvel and the Marvel fanbase and it shows.