In Defence of Joss Whedon...

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Note: this post is a little different to my others, may be seen as controversial and contains one spoiler about Avengers: Age of Ultron.

I don't know if you've already seen, Joss Whedon has deleted his Twitter account. Thanks to being bombarded with tweets calling him 'sexist' in reference to his latest film, Avengers: Age of Ultron. Now, I'm not a massive comic book or superhero fan, but I love the Marvel films and the new Avengers is a must-watch. By far one of the funniest and I really did enjoy it when we went to see it last week.
Today, however, my friend who is a massive comic fan and really knows his stuff, (which he won't mind me saying) sent me a message starting with, 'I know you'll hate me for saying this...' it was another 'feminist' thing.

A feminist is someone that believes men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. I am a proud feminist and that is something I firmly believe in. I hate it when people call themselves 'feminist' in order to sham men, at the same time hate it when men call women that have an opinion they disagree with, a 'feminist'. Its become a derogatory term and needs to stop. Everyone has the right to their own opinion, right, forcing someone from Twitter, wrong. These people criticising Joss Whedon's work on this film, in my eyes, aren't feminists.

It all came down to Scarlett Johansson's character, Black Widow.


A lot of people have called him sexist, along with some other adjectives... One comment I saw ended with 'The Black Widow isn't a fucking damsel'. I think she's a positive character for women, she isn't one to overly show emotion and can hold her own in any situation. If you've seen this film or any of the Marvel films with Black Widow, you'll see she is far from a damsel. In this film she kicks arse, she's a strong female that kicks arse. Really kicks arse, I mean she's a fighter assassin who can fire a gun. In one part she even says 'I'm always picking up after you boys'. Does that sound like a damsel? No. Not at one point in the film did I see her portrayed as a damsel... Were we watching the same film?

Then there's her body image. People are saying they've glamorised her. Yes, she wears a black leather cat suit and has a cleavage. Girls have boobs, who knew. The majority of people don't look like Scarlett Johansson, correct but because you're a strong independent woman you can't be attractive or wear clothes to accentuate the figure you've been blessed with? Marvel have picked good looking cast, have you seen the boys? Captain America (Chris Evans) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth), are both ripped and how many guys look like that IRL? They're superheroes for goodness sake, a perfect specimen that doesn't actually exist.

SPOILER - In one scene, Black Widow reveals to Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) that she can't have children because in her training as an assassin she was sterilised. Then goes on to say she feels like a monster. Some comments have taken this in the fact that she's a monster because she can't provide a family for a man. I took it as she went that far for training, having either her womb or ovaries removed! Why anyone go to that extreme, thats what its about, not not being able to have children.

The ironic and sad part is, Joss Whedon classes himself as a feminist. So people of the internet that have chased him off Twitter, stop giving real feminists and equal rights activists bad reputations! Are you looking for the word idiot instead? Remember his show with a strong female cast, Buffy The Vampire Slayer?

Can I add, Elizabeth Olsen and Cobie Smulders are both awesome female characters too. Also, Hawkeye is a great Avenger in this film, go and see it. The one-liners are laugh out loud funny, they are comic book films after all. Ha ha ha....


I sent this to my friend before this all happened. Thank you SNL, as on topic as ever!

Millie

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