re: last gifset i mean yes and good and i would die for zendaya but the spiderman reboot only exists because andrew garfield was vocally campaigning for a bi peter parker and for michael b. jordan to play mj and sony responded by firing him and signing a licensing agreement with marvel which explicitly contractually obligates marvel to portray spiderman as heterosexual and white
ok this seems to be getting notes outside of my circle so i’m going to add some more context to this
so in a july 2013 interview with entertainment weekly, andrew garfield said that he’d been discussing the possibility of a bi peter parker with marc webb, the films’ director, and matt tolmach, one of the producers. this was just a little over a year before the amazing spiderman 2 was released. choice quote:
Recently, he says, he had a philosophical discussion with producer Matt Tolmach about Mary Jane or “MJ” to fans. “I was kind of joking, but kind of not joking about MJ,” he tells EW. “And I was like, ‘What if MJ is a dude?’ Why can’t we discover that Peter is exploring his sexuality? It’s hardly even groundbreaking!…So why can’t he be gay? Why can’t he be into boys?”
Garfield even has an actor in mind: “I’ve been obsessed with Michael B. Jordan since The Wire. He’s so charismatic and talented. It’d be even better—we’d have interracial bisexuality!” The star has clearly suggested a sexually flexible Spidey to his director, Marc Webb, as well. When EW later mentions the idea to Webb, the director says, “Michael B. Jordan, I know.” Oh, so he’s heard this too? “Uh, are you kidding?”
so, in andrew’s own words, he was “not joking” about this, and michael b. jordan was not just a random suggestion andrew threw out during an interview – he’d actually discussed the possibility with the director.
Spider-Man‘s Andrew Garfield recently said that the superhero’s sexuality is open to interpretation, and he named you as someone he’d want to play his gay lover in the film, should Marc Webb choose to go that route. No thoughts on that, but I am a fan of Andrew. He’s a talented actor, I admire his work, and I’d definitely love to work with him in the future. He’s a funny guy–he’s got a sense of humor and I love people that won’t take themselves too seriously all the time, so it’s cool for him to come out and say how he felt or joke around or whatever. It was fun, I laughed at it.
it’s worth noting that one month prior, in june 2013, it was announced in the hollywood reporter that shailene woodley, originally cast as mary jane, would have all of her scenes cut from spiderman 2. note this excerpt from the article:
“I made a creative decision to streamline the story and focus on Peter and Gwen and their relationship,” said Webb. “Shailene is an incredibly talented actress, and while we only shot a few scenes with Mary Jane, we all love working with her.”
The plan now is for Watson, one of Peter Parker/Spider-Man’s iconic love interests, to be introduced in the third movie.
It is likely that Woodley will not return and that the part will be recast.
“Of course I’m bummed,” Woodley told Entertainment Weekly, which first reported the news. “But I’m a firm believer in everything happening for a specific reason. … Based on the proposed plot, I completely understand holding off on introducing [Mary Jane] until the next film.”
okay, so – couple things:
“watson, one of peter parker/spider-man’s iconic love interests” – not “mary jane,” but the gender neutral “watson”
the director complimented shailene’s talent and work ethic, indicating that nothing in her performance was a problem; nonetheless, “woodley will not return and the part will be recast”
and woodley says, “based on the proposed plot, i completely understand holding off on introducing [mary jane] until the next film”
and the brackets around [mary jane] indicated that she… didn’t say mary jane. she said something else. maybe “watson.” maybe “MJ.”
and, of course, one month later, andrew garfield and marc webb were publicly running around comic-con calling for a bisexual spiderman and michael b. jordan as MJ.
hmm.
now, when later asked about the entertainment weekly interview, andrew claims that he was “joking” and that “it wouldn’t make sense for peter parker to suddenly discover he’s into boys” but then… he delivers a three-minute monologue about lgbt teen suicide and the importance of representation and almost starts crying. so make of that what you will.
then, shortly after comic-con, in august of 2013, stan lee was asked a couple of times about andrew garfield’s call for a bisexual spiderman. his thoughts:
This past weekend, Comicbook.com covered Fandomfest in Louisville, Kentucky, where we reported on Stan Lee’s reaction to a question about Andrew Garfield’s idea to make Spider-Man bisexual. Stan Lee said, “He’s becoming bisexual? Really? Who have you been talking to? I don’t know…seriously I don’t know anything about that. And if it’s true, I’m going to make a couple of phone calls. I figure one sex is enough for anybody.”
In an interview yesterday with WGN radio, Stan Lee was once again asked about Andrew Garfield’s comments. The radio host asked, “There’s one thing that happened recently, and I think this is one thing that makes you a little bit mad. Andrew Garfield suggested that maybe MJ could be a man. Was that out of left field?”
Stan Lee replied, “Boy, that was so out of left field! I don’t understand why he said that, and one of the quotes I gave, he wanted to talk about I think Spider-Man being bisexual, and my only comment was I thought one sex at a time ought to be enough for anybody.”
When asked where he thought Andrew Garfield’s comments came from or if he was just trying to include another audience, Stan Lee said, “Or maybe sometimes you say something just to be noticed or to create a controversy, who knows? But he’s a great guy and he’s a fine actor, and I hope this doesn’t hurt him in any way.”
so like… stan lee was not on fucking board. stan lee was talking about “making a couple of phone calls,” and suggesting andrew “said something just to be noticed or to create a controversy,” and intimated, “i hope this doesn’t hurt him in any way.”
and then, of course, andrew was let go from his contract, and sony struck a deal with marvel to reboot spiderman according to a legal licensing agreement – in place prior to the andrew garfield movies, actually – requiring peter parker to be heterosexual and white.
now, earlier this year, andrew garfield took part in a roundtable discussion with several other actors, including dev patel.
at one point, around the 36-minute mark, dev mentions that he regrets participating in avatar: the last airbender, saying:
I saw a stranger on the screen, like, i didn’t really relate to. And I was just like, this is a terrible extension of me. This is not what I want to represent in any way.
andrew then replies:
I love what you just said, that it felt like you were looking at a stranger, and feeling like you were perpetuating something that’s toxic. And something that’s shallow. And something that has no depth. No matter how much depth was attempted to be bought into it and sold. And then you go – millions and million, for me it was, you know, Spiderman stuff… There’s millions and millions of young people watching who are hungry for a hand here. Someone to say, “You’re okay. Everything’s okay. You’re seen. You’re seen very deeply.” And we have opportunities to do that with those kind of behemoth films. And more often than not, the opportunity is not taken. And it’s absolutely devastating and heartbreaking because there’s so much medicine that could be delivered through those films.”
then the interview asks, “but why is it not taken?” and andrew replies, “why do you think? why do you think?”
tl;dr andrew garfield and marc webb were lobbying for a bisexual spiderman and sony literally fired both of them, signed a licensing agreement with marvel, and rebooted the entire franchise to ensure that would not happen. thanks for coming to my ted talk.
That’s infuriating. Andrew Garfield, please dress up as Spiderman and make out with Deadpool. Just to piss Stan Lee off. Please.
stan lee is really, really old and has no idea what’s going on. i’m not going to villify him for this. but i’m not pleased with the rest of the industry for being firmly stuck in the 1980′s while the rest of us are reaching for 2020.
And this is how The End is stopped. Not by the gods or goddesses, the other races than man, no. It is Tumblr. As a mass running after a now confused and tail tucking Fenrir, whining softly as the crowd chants “PUPPER! PUPPER! PUPPER!”
Better yet: Fenrir escapes his chains and lopes forward to destroy the earth, and is met by a crowd of people. An army, Fenrir thinks, and bares his teeth in a ferocious snarl and charges toward them.
They cheer.
Wait … cheer?
Fenrir slows, confused. He smells no fear, senses no rage. This is … a very strange army.
The first hand—weaponless!—reaches for him; he tenses, ready to tear the offending limb to shreds, and lets out a high little yippy whine when it pats him about the ears.
Immediately the noise is reproduced by some four or five of the nearest humans; he smells excitement; more hands are patting him.
It’s nice.
The humans crowd around him, patting him and scritching him and shuffling around to give others a chance. Voices coo, and make puppy noises, and someone catches just the right spot and he cocks his leg and scratches himself, drawing a multitude of oohs and ahhs and cheers and squees.
At some point, his hunger awakens at the scent of burnt flesh; a human has brought him what he later learns is a hot dog; he swallows it in one bite, to more cheering, and looks around hopefully for more.
It is not long before more is bought: steaks and Big Macs and bacon; it seems like much of the group has brought him a snack of some kind and was hoping for a chance to give it to him.
The End of the World is supposed to be at hand, but Fenrir does not care. His hunger sated, his battle-lust swept away by a tide of gently petting hands, he rolls over, careful not to crush his many companions, and takes a nap.
“Who’s a good boy?” they ask him, over and over.
Is this some psychological warfare, he wonders, designed to undermine his confidence and remind him that he is nothing more than a monster who needs to be chained?
“Who’s a good boy, huh, huh?” “Who’s my good boy?” “
And then one of them answers the question for him.
“You are!”
‘Me?’ he thinks. But if there was any doubt, she confirms it.
“You are, yes you are.”
Fenrir’s tongue hangs out of his mouth as he grins. ‘I’m a good boy!’
Concept: Some jackass shows Bucky how to make a blog and it becomes really popular. Not because it’s the blog of James Buchanan Barnes, American Legend, War Hero, Infamous Assassin, Alleged Terrorist. Nobody even knows it’s his blog. It gets really popular because people think it’s a really great shitpost generator or something. Because Bucky is just a Weird Fucking Person and everything he posts on his fucking personal blog comes off as somewhere between dril and Jaden Smith and people are like “this is some quality garbage right here” and thus Accidental Memelord Bucky is born.
Bucky posts things like
“What is wrong with bananas. I ate a banana today and it was Wrong. America why”
“Every time I put on my eye makeup it gets bigger. My whole face is eyeliner now.”
“Why does friendship feel so much like punching”
“When I wake up in the middle of the night I am either thinking ‘who am I? does my life have meaning?’ or “did I already eat all of the plums?’”
“Why are you so grumpy” they ask me. they do not realize this is just my Face.”
“I know i said i would give my left arm for a cup of coffee but i am more awake now and i would like my arm back please”
“I guess I must have done something horrible in a past life. I mean. I definitely did something horrible in this life, so. “
OMG I LOVEEEE
YEEESSSSSSS!
“Guy in front of me won’t move his car seat up. I think that might still be upset about all those times I tried to kill him.”
“Got lectured by a guy who had been complaining about how things were Back In The Day. I don’t understand why he got upset. I too lived through the Great Depression and was drafted for the War.”
“The economy in this century sucks. Who exactly though another Stock Market crash was a good idea?”
“Apparently, it was Rude™ of me to pitch in my two cents on a conversation I happened to overhear, despite agreeing with them. On an unrelated note, I am no longer allowed in the ceiling vents.”
“‘If you don’t behave we’ll send (mutual) after you.’ Jokes on them. I’m the one who trained them to be an assassin in the first place.”
“Tried to buy a Chicken Dinner candy bar at the supermarket today. Turns out they were discontinued 54 years ago. Super bummed.”
“Wait. People were on the moon?! We got into space? There is a way off of this rock?! Why am I only just hearing about this?!”
“’Have you been living under a rock the past 50 years?’ No I was cryogenically frozen for 70. I don’t appreciate your tone young man.”
“My friend likes convincing people that I’m the Reckless one in our friendship. As if he won’t find an alley behind a bar to pick a fight in if I take my eyes off him for two seconds.”
“Why would i want to get a haircut when instead I can look like i just returned from a 12 year jaunt in the wilderness every time i grow a beard”
“was having a hard time finding noodles in the grocery store & asked a clerk for help. she looked at me like a crazy person. lady, it’s not my fault you don’t speak russian”
“what kind of idiot thinks dancers are sissies? literally every ballerina i have ever met could kill an adult man with just her legs”
“today i discovered Conditioner. the future is a miracle and my hair like a cloud now”
“apparently just jumping on to a moving bus when you are running late is not a thing people do anymore. please stop yelling at me.”
“went to a club last night to see what the hip kids were into. apparently the latest thing is just having sex standing up with your clothes on in a room full of people.”
“on the one hand, people dressed much nicer in the 40s. on the other hand, yoga pants.”
“rode in a car with heated seats today. it is my house now. i live here.”
“i have acquired a small bear. i am putting a collar and leash on him. he is my dog. no one tell animal control”
“i am working on this whole Good Guy thing but anyone who cuts me in line at starbucks deserves to have their kneecaps shot out okay”
“why did they have to make escalators so terrifying to get on and off of? from now on I’m just jumping off the mall balconies. none of this awful moving teeth staircase”
“i don’t care if it’s a ‘priceless historical artifact,’ punk, i didn’t wanna do the dishes and it makes a pretty good spaghetti bowl”
“hoodie pockets are so great. i can fit like three sandwiches and a grenade in there and my hands are still warm”
“i really though we would have flying cars by now. the future is such a letdown.”
“changed sam’s ringtone to jesus take the wheel.”
“do you know that feeling when you go to lean on your short friend’s conveniently arm-rest-height shoulder but you forget they had a huge growth spurt and you just awkwardly lean your elbow into the middle of their bicep”
“i swear i didn’t know your girlfriend was coming over. i always ominously clean my assault weapons on the coffee table like that. it had nothing to do with you.”
The Origin Story.
(Mod Note: I get tagged in this post a lot by people trying to tell hellenhighwater that Buckykingofmemes already exists, or by people trying to tell buckykingofmemes about this post. I am hellenhighwater; this post is how this blog started. Figured I’d just clear that up. But thank you for trying to point me in the right direction! -Mod Hell)
honestly one of my favourite things abt tony becoming iron man is that like…he didn’t have a trial run? like sure, he tested the flight systems, but he didn’t go try to fight crime in his own backyard to see how if would go first. he had a purpose!! he had the vague outline of a plan!!! he finally knew what he had to do and he knew in his heart it was right!!!! my deeply traumatized furious civilian son stepped into the suit of armour that he built in his basement, flew directly to afghanistan, and fucked up a tank
FAVORITE THINGS: victor von doom doing a mental risk/reward analysis like “you know what? when this girl was fourteen she covered me in squirrels. have i rodent-proofed my shit since then? yes. am i in the mood to get covered in fucking squirrels again? literally never. god knows what new powers she’s found since puberty. let the little devil-imp take the goddamn time machine. fuck it. who cares. she’ll probably just end up using it to go back in time and tell herself to never come here. that’s how 90% of all time travel ends. another 5% ends with me as undisputed ruler of the entire earth. i’m not even giving her the good time machine. it’s the janky one. joke’s on her, the a/c doesn’t even work and the tapedeck is broken. doom, as ever, is the real winner here.”
Wow, OK, I had kind of conceptualized that Joss Whedon post along the lines of “here are some random thoughts that I’m gonna store behind a cut in case a few people are interested,” not expecting so many people to reblog it. But since there was so much interest, I ended up thinking about it more. And the direction my thinking took me in was this: what is it that women find attractive in male and female characters, and to what extent does this match up with what men assume that women find attractive in these characters?
Here’s the thing: I honestly do not believe that Joss Whedon understands himself as writing for an exclusively male audience. I believe that he thinks to himself: “Wow! This is so great! I’m writing for girls, I’m writing to empower girls, I’m writing the characters that women want!” (For one thing, this is the line that has been fed to him by the media as a positive and important aspect of his work.) There are tons of male writers/directors who are very open about the fact that they are not interested in the female audience. (David Goyer comes to mind.) But Joss Whedon is not one of them. So what is going on with the disconnect between what he understands himself to be doing and what we see him doing?
This disconnect doesn’t just have to do with female characters, either. I’m reminded of that Tumblr post that compares two magazine covers featuring Hugh Jackman: a men’s magazine on which he appears bulging-veined, huge-muscled, and sort of terrifying and weird, and a women’s magazine on which he appears as a slim, athletic guy smiling and wearing a sweater. Anyone who reads comics is familiar with this weirdness: comics heroes are often depicted as nightmarishly hyper-muscled, enormous man-mountains. (Interestingly, this trend grew more and more exaggerated as women became more and more nominally liberated— that is, as they should have been more and more able to communicate what they wanted, including what they wanted from men.) Hyper-masculinity is almost always framed in terms of being attractive— to women or, for gay men, to other men— and sometimes even talked about in the same breath as “the female gaze.” Yet, as that Tumblr post points out, while “the female gaze” is attracted by things like a naked, sweaty Chris Evans or Idris Elba, it’s also attracted by things like: men smiling in sweaters, men crying (DON’T LIE TUMBLR), barefoot fragile Sebastian Stan in the rain on Political Animals, men holding babies, men speaking foreign languages, Mark Ruffalo, and a whole bunch of weird stuff on Ao3 that I don’t even wanna get into. And that’s just “the female gaze as it pertains to men.”
But think about whether men would agree that this is what women find attractive in men. Imagine a men’s magazine that offers tips on being attractive to women that include: looking fragile, being a bumbling scientist, acting like a helpless meatball, expressing affection to tiny children, blushing, being intensely interested in gorgeous clothes, etc, etc. This is hard to imagine. In fact, these are characteristics that are typically characterized as not ideal for men, because they are coded as feminine. Yet they’re also not only traits that are commonly attractive to women, but are generally accepted as commonly attractive to women, if one looks at “women’s” entertainment (romantic comedies, chick lit, anything in which Hugh Grant appears).
What I’m getting at is that there is a division between what attracts women and what men accept/permit as attracting women. Men are engaged in a constant enforcement of heteronormativity, a policing of women’s desire and their own accession to it. What women want is subordinate to what men decide that women want, and the latter is then culturally broadcast as the ideological “what women want” that becomes accepted.
This is true also in the case of female characters. What do women want in female characters? Well, I mean, a lot of us just want female characters for the love of God. But specifically: some of the most popular current female characters in comics/MCU fandom are: Natasha Romanoff, in a movie (Cap 2) where she only briefly appeared in a sexy bodysuit and instead spent most of her time wearing jeans and a hoodie, wisecracking, having a complex narrative about salvation, and hacking computers, not to mention the down-to-earth Phil Noto comics depiction, who even (GASP) sometimes wears a ponytail; Peggy Carter, a 1940s secret agent with little patience for men; Kamala Khan, a teenage Pakistani-American girl who writes fan fiction and wears a modest homemade costume; Darcy Lewis, who’s full-figured, socially awkward, and not a superhero; the lady scientists of the MCU (Jane Foster, Maya Hansen, Betty Ross)… I could go on.
But what do men apparently believe that women want in female characters? Well, going by Joss Whedon: superheroines who wear catsuits, beat up men, are secretly very vulnerable, and are sexually threatened, fragile and unstable girl-women with superpowers beyond their control… oh, wait. That’s it. Expanding beyond Whedon, the most common characteristics tend to be: aggressively sexy, sexually threatened, beats up bad men but is secretly vulnerable. I discussed already one potential reason this is attractive to men (see my previous post); my issue here is: this is not what women want, but it is what men believe that women want, because it is what they have been told by other men that women want.
Once again, what women want is ignored (or, more accurately, invisibilized— in that men deny or are oblivious to its existence) in favor of the ideological construct of “what women want,” which is determined and enforced by men. Men genuinely believe that they know what women want, and are earnest in their attempts to explain “what women want” to women. They are deeply confused, because of course they know what women want! Right? They are unable to see that they are selling a version of “what women want” is essentially “what it would be attractive to men for women to want.”
That is the center of this thing: everything revolves around what men want. What type of female heroine would be most attractive to men? If she has to be strong, what type of strength would men find attractive? How can she be “feminist” but still attractive to men? This seems obvious, yet men seem to find it invisible.
One of the most interesting angles from which to consider this is that of the queer/lesbian woman. That is the viewpoint that is most invisibilized in this discussion, because it simply has no relevance or importance to men’s desires. The woman who is not sexually available to men does not exist within a system that assesses women’s value based on sexual availability to men. The gay male gaze is comprehensible, because it can conform to existing ideas about the male body’s desirability (though it does not always). Indeed, the gay male gaze is often preferable to the female gaze, because it sidesteps the problematic female perspective. The lesbian gaze, however, is fundamentally incomprehensible. It is the divide-by-zero point of the system. What does a woman want if she doesn’t want men and doesn’t want what-men-want-from-women? This is the perspective from which it’s easiest to see the bizarreness of what’s going on, the degree to which it is all centrally tied up with men.
This is, not incidentally, the reason that it’s so important for women to have creative control over projects. For women to write, produce, direct. As long as men dominate these positions, representations of what women want will be filtered through them. It’s not accidental that two of the most popular female comics characters among women (Kamala Khan and Captain Marvel) are being written by women. We need female creators; we need female voices. It’s the only way to end the invisibilization of women’s desires.
just moving along like everyone else 