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April 25, 2019 60 mins

Superhero squad Jamie Loftus, Caitlin Durante, and special guest Anney Reese chat about The Avengers franchise! 

This episode contains spoilers)

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the beck dol Cast, the questions asked if movies
have wenenium, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best
start changing it with the Bechdel Cast. Hello, and welcome
to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Caitlin Durante and
my name is Jamie Lofton, and we're superheroes. Where when

(00:23):
it comes to analyzing media from a feminist lens, what
a boring superpower? Honestly, I'm asleep, but I'm asleep during
most Marveled movies, so it's fine, Sure, I like them,
but it's kind of our dynamic. That's kind of think
about it. It's basically that is how each of us

(00:45):
is defined wild. Welcome to the Bechtel Cast. This is
our feminist movie podcast, where we look at famous movies
or in this case, famous movie franchises from a feminist lens,
using the Bechtel Test as a jumping off point, that,
of course, being the media test devised by evil genius
Alison Bechtel. Uh said media test that states that there

(01:09):
must be two female identifying characters in any piece of
media that talk about something other than a man, and
they must have names. And for our purposes we just
require a two line exchange. Very low bar. And yet
a lot of these movies that we're talking about today
do not barely even try. Even when Josh Wheden is

(01:32):
that director? Yeah, Mr Buffy, why didn't you do better?
Excuse me, Mr male feminist? Excuse me? Josh wheed and
kicking down the door saying like, what what is that shirt?
Feminism is the law? Now what is that shirt? I
don't know, I don't know the feminist shirt? Everyone has.

(01:52):
The future is female. Yes, feminism is the line the
same thing. Look out for that in our riches store. Yes.
So today we are talking about essentially the entire Avengers franchise. However,
for the purposes of this episode, I have only seen
the first Avengers movie. Yes, so recap wise, we're talking,

(02:17):
but we're going to also talk about themes in the
entire I've got well that's the thing. I'm doing the
recapital differently today. I've got short paragraphs for each movie,
so you'll you'll see the whole pieces. I know, I
know this is this is We're going off the rails here, baby,
I'm lokey over here. I'm sucking. Sometimes I'm good, sometimes

(02:38):
I'm bad. Toms Hailston looks like a straight up bug Loki.
He looks like an insect. I don't like his hair. Sure,
so yeah, things are going to be a little bit different.
We are not talking about Avengers Endgame. We have not
seen that yet, but we for the sake of this episode,
are covering the Avengers from two thousand twelve. We're focusing

(02:59):
on that one. But there are a few things to
be said about some other Marvel Ensemble movies like Avengers,
Age of Ultron, Avengers Infinity War. There will be some
references to Captain America's Civil War because that's basically an
Avengers movie, so fair warning, you may hear some spoilers

(03:19):
for those movies. This all sounds like another language to me.
I watched just just you wait. Um, let's introduce our
guests before we go any further. She is the host
of the podcast Saver and the podcast stuff Mom Never
told you. It's Annie Reese. Hi, Hello, thanks for joining us. Oh,

(03:41):
thank you so much for having me. I kind of
low key. Oh there's always a low key joke when
you say low key anyway, hi key, why isn't Thor's
name hi key? Oh yeah, missed opportunity funny. It really
is the more low key one though. Anyway, Yeah, some
poetic irony there. I like invited myself to do this

(04:02):
when both of you were on my podcast. I'm very
happy this is happening. Yes you are. You're a big fan? Correct? Yes? Um?
As of like two nights ago, I have watched all
twenty one MCU movies in chronological order. Who yes, that
that is an undertake? Did you take pea breaks? Just

(04:27):
wear a diaper? As like, as I say, if you
were a true fan, you wouldn't take but test anyone's
fandom of anything, I'm like, do you pe All right, Well,
we've got a lot to cover, so let's just kind
of dive, right, So Jamie, really quickly, what's your history
with the franchise in mc you in general? So I
am feeling insecure going into this episode because every time

(04:50):
that I have not seen a huge movie franchise, people
swan dive into my mentions and call me a fucking loser. Um. However,
this is one of the massive franchise is that I
have interacted with. I've only dipped my toe and I've
seen one of the Captain America movies, no idea, which
I saw Aunt Man and the Wasp. I saw Captain

(05:11):
Marvel and Black Panther you've seen. I've seen Black Panther.
That is I'm pretty sure. And that now I've seen
the first Avengers. It that is all I've seen. Um So,
I think I do think I have with some research
a general idea, and then I have through osmosis. I've
experienced a lot of people talking about it around me,

(05:32):
but I just it's just never been my genre, has
never been my thing. Please don't get into my mentions
about it. I don't care. Leave us alone, leave us alone. Listen,
but then but then don't engage. Feminism is the law now, Annie,
what is your brief history and relationship with the m
c U. Well, it's interesting because I kind of became

(05:53):
a reverse I was as a kid, I really liked
comics and I read um about like fan O, the
Infinity War, and and it kind of became like nut
cool for girls to like that, and now it's like
cool for people, like because the future is female. I
just remembered Spider Man too is in the m c U.
Technically not really not, but it's Spider Man. Yeah, but

(06:16):
it's not in the never mind, it is Marvel, but
it's not in the m c U. This is why
I hate comic book movies. I was like, oh, actually,
Spider Man isn't the movie as Like, fine, I'm being dark.
I'm sorry, I interrupted Tom Hittleston Spider Many. I'm so sorry.

(06:39):
I actually there's a whole contract thing involved in that,
and I'm a big legal nerd, so I won't go
into it, but I I'm going to tell you, Okay,
I love legal drama more than I wonder what Alfred's
take on all of this is. He's not canonically part
of the m c U. Alfred Molina. That is a
federal crime. People should be in jail. That is very

(07:02):
fucked up. Okay, Well, sorry, and I keep interrupting it. No,
no worries. Um. So, I I saw Iron Man when
it came out because I remember it was like a
big deal, and then I didn't really see another one
until The Avengers. My my family just liked going movies.
I can't recall why we went to go see it. Um.
But then after that, I was like, wait a minute,

(07:23):
I am in yeah, and I was converted. You're one
of the Avengers. Also, I caused play every year as
the Winter Soldier I was. I was seeing your Instagram
posts about that, so that's pretty cool. Thank you for
saying it's cool. I appreciate. No, of course, my history

(07:43):
is kind of the same as yours. I didn't read
any of the comics, but I did start with Iron
Man because that was the first mc U movie, if
I'm not mistaken, and I saw it in the theater,
and then I watched others in the theaters sporadically. But
as of as of now, I have seen I think
every m CU movie except for any of the Hulk ones. Well,

(08:08):
there's only the one. Yeah, So Edward Norton is Edward
Norton Cannon No, okay, good, Yeah, I'm okay with that.
That movie is like in the m c U, but
they just kind of recast him. But Tony Stark appears
and he's like, yo, I'm looking to put together this
group interest I mean, Ruffalo over Norton any any day?

(08:30):
Three hard degree? Yes, okay, So let me really quickly
do the recaps. Yeah, and then we'll go from there.
There's got nineteen phases, starting with the Avengers from the
story of that is the Loki shows up on Earth.
He's Thor's brother. He steals the tests Are Act, which

(08:51):
Jamie you might be familiar with from from Captain Marvel
is where I recognize it and they refer to her.
They refer to the test React with she her pronounce
so interesting and I forgot about that The Avengers so feminists, yes,
or well a woman. We don't know if she's like
with us or not. So Loki steals a test React

(09:14):
from Shield and they need to get it back because
it's important. We don't really know what it does. I
don't think Shield recruits Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow,
and the Hulk to go after Loki, and then all
these superhero people capture him, and then Thor shows up

(09:35):
and he's like, hey, brother, and then he takes back
arrested development style, yea exactly. He takes Loki back, and
we're like, oh, no, what Thor, What's going on? But
it's okay because Thor is one of the good guys
and we know that from all the Thor movies that
we've seen up till that point. And then they put
Loki in a cage, but they still don't know where

(09:57):
the tests Are Act is. They learned that Loki is
building a portal for the help of some of the
good guys that Loki put under spell, including he put
the female tests I Act into a phallic like object
and is using it to suck people's hearts out symbolism
maybe possibly an accident, perhaps um so. One of the

(10:21):
one of the good guys that he has under his
spell is Hawkeye, a k fabulous standard comedian Jeremy and
then also Stelen's scars guard who is a character from
the Thor movies and he's in isn't he in? Mamma Mia?
He certainly is? Yea, yes, okay, speaking my language. And

(10:43):
then Loki escapes and all hell breaks loose, and then
Black Widow hits Hawkeye really hard and it turns him
good again, and then Loki only six him. She fixes him.
Loki on Lea shows his army on New York City
Ever Heard of It? That arrives via the portal that

(11:04):
he was building, and then the Avengers Long fight band together.
They fight back. There's a big flying metal reptile and
then they kill it and then they win and save
the world. The reptile identifies we don't, which could make
a difference. Yes, so that is a brief overview of

(11:26):
the story of the Avengers. Moving on to Age of Ultron.
Is that the one that Josweden directed that people didn't
like as much? Correct? That is the one I'm following.
So the first thing happens is the Avengers retrieve Loki's
scepter from a bad guy named Strucker, who's that we

(11:46):
don't really know. It doesn't matter. I think he dies
shortly after that. Cool, I think again, I probably don't
have all the details, right, I'm probably gonna suck some
stuff up. So also, don't divide into my mentions either.
I just still traumatized from the Lord of the Rings episodes,
like just leave us alone. We're doing our best. There's

(12:09):
a gem inside the scepter, and that would become important later.
We always need an object to circle these movies around,
because why write a movie right exactly? We need a MacGuffin.
So then Tony Stark wants to create ai named Ultron
as a peacekeeping program to help the Avengers, and then

(12:30):
he uses the coding question mark from the gem that's
inside the scepter to make Ultron. But as soon as
he does, Ultron is mad and he's mean to Jarvis,
which is, I don't mean to Jarvis, friend slash suit
man God. We also we should mention that Gwyneth Paltrow's

(12:53):
lurking around two. She's around sometimes, probably has a jade
egg in her vagina. She's smearing goop all over where
power Anyways, So then Ultron embodies one of Iron Man's
old suits and he shows up at Tony Stark's party
and he's like, Hi, I'm here and I'm a bad guy.

(13:15):
And then the Avengers like rats, So this was such
a good party, yeah, exactly. Then they try to find
him a little bit. Altron gets away, he takes the
scepter and he enlists the help of the Maximov siblings.
I think are they twins? That reminds me of who
are those murderer the Menendez brothers I was thinking of.

(13:38):
Never mind, So the maximum twins are Peter or Petrie
I don't know. Also, Altron is James Spader, Yes, Peter's
really fast, Wanda has like mind control and telekinesis powers. Um.
So the Avengers they're trying to stop Ultron. Meanwhile, Altron
tries to build a real body for himself using this

(14:01):
like high tech regeneration pod cradle, and he takes the
gem out of the scepter, which we eventually find out
is the mind Infinity Stone, which is going to become
really important in Avengers Infinity Warship. How many fucking rocks
and cpters and none of them are the Heart of
the Ocean. I know, it's the complete heart of the

(14:26):
Ocean eras, okay, So then he puts this mind Infinity
Stone into this body's head. But then the Avengers get
the cradle back from Altron, and Tony Stark wants to
use that body that Altron has been making to upload

(14:46):
Jarvis into it. So everyone is like, Tony, you're you're
crazy that well guess what he does it anyway, and
the Jarvis man turned doubt to be good, so it's fine,
and they need him his help to defeat Ultron. They
name him Vision Uh. And then meanwhile the Twins have

(15:10):
realized that Altron is too evil because he wants to
cause a mass extinction, so they leave and they join
the Avengers, and then there's this big battle at the
end where the Avengers fight Altron and his Robot Army
in Scovia. The good guys win. Of course, there's only
one casualty among the Avenger people, which is Peter. Who

(15:33):
is Peter. Peter is the really fast guy. He goes
off and becomes an X Man or something rest in
Peace and so now the Avengers have more friends like Wanda, Falcon,
war Machine and Vision. So yeah, cost them Peter. So
that's the story of Avengers, Age of Ultron And what's

(15:54):
the next one called. So the next movie that I'm
going to talk about is Captain America Civil War. I've
might know this one. Let me describe it and you
let me know if you've seen it. Cool, Okay. And
the reason I'm doing this one is because it is
not technically an Avengers movie, but it has almost all
of the characters that exists within this world and you

(16:16):
kind of need to know the story of this movie
to understand a lot of what happens in Infinity War,
the next Avengers movie. So that's why I'm including this one.
So we open in the world is Piste off at
the Avengers for destroying Scovia, which we just saw them too,
and New York, which we saw them doing the first movie.
And all these other places, and they want the Avengers

(16:37):
to agree to operate under the supervision of a United
Nations panel. And then half the Avengers are like, yeah,
that sounds reasonable. Yeah, we did help cause a lot
of destruction. I bet Tony's not on board. Tony is
on board, on board to spearheading it. He's good, He's good. Okay, Well,

(17:00):
because this is Captain America's movie, he is positioned as
the bad guy in this kind of because we're rooting
for Captain America, even though Captain America personal bias over here.
I think he sucks. Anyway, I just don't even know
which Chris he is. So that's Chris Evans, But isn't

(17:20):
there another Chris in the main cast? Chris Hemsworth is Thor,
and then by Infinity War we also have Chris Pratt
because he's in Guardians of the Galaxy. There was the
only main Chris we're missing is Chris Pine and he's
over in DC world being in Wonder Woman Purgatory. Yeah, okay.

(17:41):
So the Avengers who are like on board with this
the Cyclovia accord are iron Man, Black Widow, Roady, and
Vision and then the other half of the group like
our hero Captain America, Falcon, Hawkeye, and Wanda. They refused
to sign and they don't want to be because they
don't want to be super revised or controlled by anyone. Yeah,

(18:03):
so both sides recruit other super people such as Spider Man,
Aunt Man, and Black Panther and they have a big
fight a civil war if you will, at and an airport.
Um and then also the Blue stair Car is in

(18:26):
the background, so another arrested development reference. Wait really not technically,
but there's a stair car that looks exactly like the
Blue stair Car. I definitely haven't seen this. You might
have seen Winter Soldier maybe. Um. I feel like the
rest of the plot for this movie is not really

(18:47):
important for our discussion. So the main thing is that
Captain America and Iron Man fight each other and it
ends up breaking apart the Avengers. Okay, so that's the
story for Civil War. Annie, have I missed anything glaring
so far? I don't think. So it's a lot to
These movies are very dense, Okay, So I'll move on

(19:11):
to Infinity War and then we'll go from there. Okay,
So Avengers Infinity War we open with sanos He is
collecting all of the Infinity Stones to put on his
glove God so that he can snap his fingers and
kill half of the population of the entire universe. He

(19:34):
already has the Purple Power Stone, and in the beginning
of this movie Infinity War, he gets the Blue Space Stone,
which could very easily have been the Heart of the
Ocean from Titanic. Not to invite James Cameron into the
negotiation process. Rude, rude, Yes, he so he gets the

(19:57):
Blue Space Stone from the tests erect so that thing
comes back. And then there are four more stones that
he needs. Now two of them are on Earth. Doctor
Strange has one of them. He has the Green Time Stone,
and Vision has the Yellow Mindstone in his head. Remember
that from that other movie I described, So that's sort
of So Santos sends his friends to go get those

(20:21):
two stones that are on Earth, and then Tony Stark
has to get the Avengers back together because remember how
they were all split up at the end of Captain
America's Civil War. Yes, so he's like, come on, let's
get back together. We gotta stop Thanos. And then Spider
Man shows up. He's like, hey, he's so adorable. Yes,
and then Thor goes out into space. He meets the

(20:44):
Guardians of the Galaxy Wow. And then Vision and Wanda
are attacked by thanos s goons who are trying to
get the mind Stone, and then Black Widow, Captain America
and Falcons s up to help Vision and Wanda, and
they take Vision to Wakonda, the home of Black Panther.

(21:07):
I'm back to get the Mindstone out of his head
so that they can destroy it before Thanos gets it.
Is Lupida in this movie. She is not but a
koy as denied. Gurero's character is cool Um and Shari,
so we get to see some of our friends. So meanwhile,
Thanos gets the Reality Stone on a planet called Nowhere

(21:32):
from this guy the Collector hate it. And then he
captures his daughter who he abducted when she was a child,
Go Mora, and he gets the Soul Stone by sacrificing her,
so she has to die. Unfortunately. Yeah, we'll talk about it. Uh.
And then Thor gets a new axe in the place

(21:54):
of his old hammer. I forget what happens to his hammer.
Probably that's explained, and Thor Ragnarok, I don't remember, Oh right, right, right, right, yeah, okay,
I'm for that. Santos gets the Green Timestone from Doctor Strange,
and then Santos shows up at the big battle that's

(22:16):
been happening in Waconda and he gets the Mindstone from Vision.
So now he has all six stones, baby, And what
do you think he does? Doesn't he kill a lot
of people? He kills like half the world or something.
That's right. See, I just went to three parties and
I know that I just just saved myself hundred dollars

(22:38):
of movie tickets. So half the people vanish into dust
and everyone's sad. And do we know who's dead and
who's alive? Or is that now we see who dies?
Spider Man dies? I know? Wait does he get no
more movies? Well he's coming back for Spider Man Far
from Home right on with yes love it, so he

(23:03):
I think it's revitalized. We'll have to see as I
forget who lives and who dies? But um, yeah, I
have the people die and that's the end of the
movies to date. So why don't we take a quick
break and then we'll come back for the discussion and

(23:26):
we're back. Okay, So the first thing I kind of
want to do is do an inventory of the characters
in the Avengers franchise slash the Marvel ensemble movies, which
includes Captain America Civil War side note, these are often
not the first movies that we see these characters in,

(23:49):
and we see crossovers and other m CU movies, but
these are the movies that these characters are added to.
In these big ensemble cast Marvel movies, the point I
will eventually make is that they keep adding a bunch
of men and very few women. So for example, um,
in the Avengers from we've got Iron Man Tony Stark,

(24:12):
we've got Captain America Steve Rogers, We've got Thor, we've
got Hulk, Bruce Banner, we've got Hawkeye Clint Barton. Um,
those are the super people. Yeah, and then we've got,
from what I can tell from the from the first
Avengers movie, we have three female characters who are identified
or participate in the plot in virtually anyway at all.
Where we've got black Woodow, we've got Pepper, who is

(24:35):
lightly involved in Tony stark storyline. And then we've got
Kobe Smallders who basically just gives lines of exposition to Nick,
which sucks because I I mean, I mean, and I'm
sure it goes without saying that, it is like kind
of abysmal and frustrating that there are so many men
who are introduced into this universe and like Blackwoodow has

(24:58):
not had her own movie, right exactly because I mean,
I was surprised. I assumed because I hadn't seen the
first Avengers movie. I assumed that she had a much
smaller role in it, and that is why she didn't
have But she's such a huge part of the story
and still doesn't have. Like that is just pointed and ridiculous.
And as much as I love and really enjoyed Captain Marvel,

(25:20):
I'm like, why do we introduce like we have Charlie
Johanes has been here for ten years? Like can we
can we give her? I mean, not that you know whatever,
But they're making that movie right now, they're casting. I'm glad.
I just why did it take so long? Yeah? Because
I think she shows up for the first time in
Iron Man two. Yeah, so yeah, she's been around. She's

(25:42):
been around, Like but all that to say for in
the first movie, the Black Widow is a very integral
part of the main action and is very involved all
the way up to the climax of the movie. But
the other two women are we see shots of them,
just watch the act like they're they're virtually sidelined because

(26:03):
the only man who sidelined is Fury right because Black
Widow Slash her name is Natasha Romanov, she's the only
one who is actually like a superhero. Pepper Potts and
Maria Hill, which is Colby Smallder's character, either work for
Shield or work for Stark Industries, Like they're not part
of the like world saving superhero stuff. I will say

(26:26):
just based on the research I did of the women
in the m c U, while it's like disproportionately they're
not represented, they do at least all appear to be
in high positions, whether that be like Peppers like the CEO,
and like she's in charge even though she only gets
twelve of the credit, which isn't exchange that I loved. Um.

(26:48):
You know, it's like we've got women in stem littered
throughout this universe. And Kobe Smallder's character, what is Kolbe
Smallder's character's name, Bria Hill is a Mariah. Yeah, I
think so. She didn't do anything later, Um, not anything
that's hugely significant. Kobe Smalldoers. For some reason, I stand

(27:10):
Kobe Smallders and I wanted more for her. Yeah yeah,
yeah indeed. Um. Okay, So those are the main players
in the first movie. Then we move on to Age
of Ultron. The male characters that get added into the
ensemble our vision. Uh, Quicksilver, who does die? That's like
the Peter maximof character. And then we've got Falcon slash

(27:34):
Sam Wilson, and we've got war Machine slash Roadie. That's
Don Cheetles character. So uh, those are the men who
are added. The women who are added in Age of
Ultron are the Scarlet Witch ak Wanda maximof Um, that's
Elizabeth Olsen. She is the only superhero that gets added

(27:55):
compared to these the four men who get added who
are superheroes. Um, we do we are into deduced to
a couple other female characters. There's Dr Helen Chow, but
she is not a superhero and she dies. She dies
in the movie. Um. And then we're introduced to Friday,
which is Iron Man's new female voiced operating system, saying

(28:18):
that's inside of his suit. Oh cool, So women as
a robot a service robot not familiar with the concept
because Vision got promoted to having a body, so he
has to he hired. He hired a female. We're out now, sick.
Bottom line there that four men get added to the

(28:39):
ensemble versus only one woman. And then in Captain America
Civil War, the men who are added are Black Panther,
Spider Man, Aunt Man, and the Winter Soldier versus I
guess how many superhero women are added in Captain America
Civil War? Is it none? It's none? Amazing. Yes, we

(29:00):
you meet a new character named Sharon Carter. She is
not a superhero and she's only I believe of the
Marvel Ensemble movies. She's only in that movie and uh
not others. Okay, so let's talk about Infinity War. The
men who were added to the ensemble, and that are

(29:20):
star Lord A K. Peter Quill, that's Chris Prett, Drags
Rocket Groot, those are the Guardians of the Galaxy, and
then Doctor Strange. We do get a bunch of women
added in an Infinity War. So we've got go Mora,
Mantis and Nebula from Guardians of the Galaxy, and then
sureI and a Koyer from Black panther, right, So the

(29:43):
balance is a little bit more equal in this one
and not like zero not zero. This is great, but
the fact remains that when you crunch the numbers, it's
still very largely a male cast. Of course, Yes, I
mean look at posters. I mean, yeah, tell me about it.

(30:03):
So that that's the inventory of all the characters we're
working with. Who are you know, the super people in
the franchise. So let's talk about Um, let's focus on
the Avengers from We've got pretty much the one main
female character in Black Wadow slash Natasha Romanov. There's I mean,

(30:26):
it's her introduction is she's wearing a sexualized outfit and
she's tied to a chair. Yes, I wonder how Scarlett
Johanson feels about how she's very often introduced in movies.
I feel like it is not an unusual thing to
see a Scarlett Johanson movie where she's introduced in this
very sexualized way. Um. I don't know why, I'm thinking

(30:47):
of that Coen Brothers movie, Um, Hail Caesar. But that's
like another example of a movie where she's introduced very sexually.
But it's weird. That scene feels peak corny or what
I of you to be like a really corny treatment
of a female character in uh, in a movie like
this that I was hoping that, like especially I was

(31:09):
hoping that the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer could
do better than because the way that scene plays out
is like she's tied to a chair and you know,
then she gets a call from Colson saying, like, you
gotta come in. You need to be a superhero. And
then it turns out she wasn't a damsel in distress
after all, She could have saved herself the whole time.
She just didn't feel like it. I guess. Yeah, she

(31:32):
was waiting to get the information out of the interrogation
on them basically, which we see her do later on
Loki Loki right where she's like pretending to be emotional
and she's using like I'm a woman who cries as
a like tactic to get men to, like, I guess,

(31:53):
lower their guard and reveal the information she needs. And
I don't really know how I feel. I feel like
that's very low hanging fruit to do, Like, oh, I'm
reacting like a woman would just kidding. I'm not like
to me, I'm like, that's I don't know that it
just demonizes emotions right away that I think. I mean,

(32:16):
like I think Captain Marvel tackles that situation of like
dealing with emotions and combat situations far better, right, And
it kind of just like feeds into the idea that
like women are devious and we're you know, like we're manipulative,
and we're doing emotions to trick you, to trickly. I'm
just like, she's crying, but she's actually planning to kill you,

(32:39):
which which we also see happen all the time, not
so much in this movie, but in many other movies
where women use their sexuality to get what they want,
which is it's all that also ends up demonizing women's sexuality,
where it's like I'm using this to get but like
on one hand, I'm like, well that's not good. On
the other hand, I'm like, well, if you know, if

(33:02):
idiot men fall for stuff like that, that's and that's
the tool that we can use to get what we want.
I don't know, I constantly have conflicting feelings about this.
It's the only redeeming thing for it is at least
that is like one of the tactics in an arsenal
of tactics that she has because we get to see
Blackwoodow fight hand to hand with a number of men

(33:24):
in this movie, which I was like, so happy happened,
and I think is like okay, because I think that
there's a lot of male directors who would not have
let that happen in such a big movie. But it's
clear that she is like just as capable of fighting
as any of the other Avengers, which is super important
because she's the only woman who's allowed to be there

(33:44):
at that time. So I was psyched about that, Like,
she knows what she's doing, she's a good fighters, She's
making her own calls. There's like that one part where
Captain America a k. A. Chris like are you are
you sure you can do this? And then she's like,
you know, fuck you and then she is it, which
is great. Should say more people name Chris, sorry to

(34:06):
all our chriss is out there. Another thing I want
to say about the scene where she's introduced is that
in order to get out of like the bondage she's
in and to escape these bad guys, she does the
classic wrap her legs around a guy's head and pussy
slam him into the ground. Move right, and that's like

(34:27):
a move that comes back right. That's like one of
her signature moves. We see her do it twice in
Age of Ultron. I don't know if we see it
in the other ones because maybe people were like, hey,
stop making her do that, right, But there's so many
layers moves like that where you're just like, like, it
feels like such a like creepy dude having their cake

(34:50):
and eating it too, or they're like, look, no, she's fighting.
She's like people's ass, but like with her pussy cross. Yeah,
that is a huge thing about this franchise is that
you you do see a fair amount of at first
a woman fighting, and then as the movies go on,
a few women fighting. But this very much feels like

(35:12):
that mc sweeney's piece um the As the token female
member of this action adventure team, my job is to
kick by Julianna Gray. If you haven't read it, Yeah,
to borrow a few quotes from the article that applied
to this movie. Quote, I wear black leather pants. I
wear spike heeled boots. When I kick, I pivot like
a goth both arena and drive a heel into a

(35:35):
villain's face. End quote. Um, there's another one that is
mostly I kick. I can throw a knife with pinpoint accuracy.
I am a wizard at zip lines. I probably know
how to drive a car, but my male team members
always take the wheel while I follow on a motorcycle,
leaning low over the bars, my eyes focused, my ass
taut and hovering just above the seat. I do not

(35:55):
wear a helmet, and my hair streams behind me. And God,
I love so much, but it's like describing this to
a t and then another one. The final quote I
want to read is I do not have a sense
of humor, except for an extensive repertoire of one liners
about penis size, which like kind of applies to black widows,

(36:17):
sort of in the sense that she doesn't really Here's
the thing, I feel like we have less of a
handle on her personality and characterization than any of the
other members of the Avengers. I think that partly has
to do with the fact that she doesn't have her
own movie and we didn't really get to know her
kind of one on one right, and she just is

(36:38):
characterized as this like sexy spy who was trained as
a spy from birth, and like she has no she
had her personality trained out of her right. That was
the thing that bothered me, is like we first, you're
totally right, like we just don't know her as well
because Hollywood, right, But it's also that the one scene

(36:59):
where we sort of get some idea of who she is,
and that scene where she's talking to Loki, and Loki
is there and he's looking like a fucking tarantula like man,
and she is just like talking about you know, she's
talking about her relationship with Colson and how like, you know,
she explains that he came in was essentially her savior
and then she became she went from being a baddie

(37:21):
to a goodie because of his influence. He decided not
to kill her or whatever, and you know, sort of
took her in and retrained her to be an avenger.
So her, you know, the only information we really get
to know about her. We are learning about her, and
it sounds and it's like suggests an interesting background story

(37:41):
that's worth exploring, but we really only find out about
how a man saved her and how she you know,
she is internally indebted to him. Um, which comes back
towards the end of the movie and it's like that's
you know, if that is how the story goes. It's
these movies are always tricky because they tie back to
like baseline stories went back when women truly didn't count

(38:04):
in any meaningful way. But it's like they're there's there's
more there, and we only really hear who she is
in relationship to Coulson or that's how I felt about it, right, Yeah.
And then if that is the storyline for one of
the female characters, fine, if we have several other female
characters who we learn what their origin story is, but
we don't, we just have Black Widow, and then that's

(38:27):
our like one way that she's characterized. Um, we gotta
take another quick break, but we're gonna come back for more.
Don't you worry. We are back. Um, Annie, I feel like,
what what? What are your thoughts on all this? It's

(38:50):
one of those things where kind of like you're saying,
I am very conflicted about a lot of it. Because
I was reading preparing for this, I was reading up
about people's thoughts on Black Widow, and a lot of
people said, um, she is this strong, badass female character.
There aren't enough female characters, but at least like she
is a strong one. We've talked I've definitely done an

(39:13):
episode on and we talked about this, I think when
you were on stuff when I never told you, but
like she's never included in any like t shirts with
the Avengers on them, She's not on their toys, she's
not included in that stuff. And it started like a
kind of a whole Twitter kerfuffle. Um. Yeah, And it

(39:33):
is strange because that suggests to me that then she's
only there to be the woman that is there, but
she's not like truly part of the team, or at
least she's so tokenized. And then yeah, which is frustrating
because it's like it's clear that there's a lot, there's
so much to the character that no one is willing

(39:54):
to or like the company has just not been willing
to explore. And and and now especially with Captain Marvel, it's
so like they Captain Marvel as of this recording just
crossed a billion dollars and like there is clear, like
demonstrable value in including women and black right, Well, that's

(40:15):
the thing. So of the kind of main characters in
these ensemble and see you movies here, the people who
don't get their own movies or haven't as of this,
you know recording Black Widow, Wanda, the Scarlet Witch, Falcon, Hawkeye, Rhods,
and Vision. Four of the six of these are either

(40:35):
women or people of color. The exceptions are Hawkeye, that's
Jeremy Runner. Uh he, I mean we get skip it
and then Vision also we get his origin story within
the like I feel like that's skippable too. But the
fact that the large majority of the characters who aren't
given their own franchises their own movies are either women

(40:59):
or people of color, So that is you know, very
telling and then pointed. And then we find out, you know,
through Black Panther and Captain Marvel movies that have both
made a billion or more dollars worldwide, that if you
do give movies to women and people of color, people
people want to go see those. They arguably want to

(41:22):
see it more than they've ever wanted to see. Any
of the Chris is literally any of the Chris is yes, yep.
And that's why these movies are worth talking about. Because
the m c U is the highest grossing franchise of
all time. It's earned eighteen billion dollars worldwide across is

(41:43):
it twenty eight films. It's something, it's one more in development. Okay, yeah,
jeez um, is there any sign of them stopping? Would
they be willing to consider it? I mean, with the
money they're breaking in, probably no stopping it cool cool, cool? Yeah.

(42:06):
And to be fair, these movies have evolved a bit
from say The Spider Man two Days, when you know,
the women in those movies are being captured, they're helpless,
they need to be saved all the time. But that
does not mean that this franchise is without its many flaws, right,
I mean, it seems like it's definitely evolving. I think

(42:27):
that there's a weird trope in superhero movies that I've like,
slowly the more I've been forced to watch, picked up
on where there is there is like this kind of
exciting number of like you've got a lot of women
in stem, You've got a lot of women in high positions.
Because I think that like these people making the movies
understand at least that just damseling a woman in a

(42:49):
movie now is no longer acceptable, Like we want to
know what she does, we want to know who she is.
But there's sort of this like double edged sort of
like there's a lot of women I'm thinking of, like
Natalie Portman's character in Thor or something like that, where
I think she is a she's a woman in stem
she's very qualified, but she really still only serves the
purpose of a love interest. But they look, but she's

(43:11):
really smart though. Also in Avengers, they show a picture
of her and rather than like, rather than including her
character in the movie, we just see the picture. We
get an explanation that she was sent away to be
kept safe. Basically, sure, well, didn't she like not want
to be in the m c U anymore? Wasn't she
just like, I mean, maybe after that though, so I

(43:32):
don't know, Oh so maybe she wasn't quite over it yet.
Damn it. Give Portman her Portman books. When I was
doing the research for this and I was compiling, like
all the characters, I noticed of the women that are involved,
there is a lot of white women with red hair.
Because it's like when you brought up Spider Man too,

(43:52):
I was like, oh, yeah, Mary Jane is one as well.
Oh yeah, damn because black widow often her hair color
changes throughout the franchise, but she often has changing their hair. Yeah,
that's our main thing about us that's how I define myself.
I did find an article that said, um, I think

(44:13):
it's from Vulture that Black Widow got the third most
screen time in Avengers and she had the most uninterrupted
dialogue of any of the six Avengers. Interesting, that's great news.
I like there there are like, especially watching the first one,
there were certain things where you're like, Okay, jossmed I'm
glad you're here, because that is I mean, that does

(44:35):
sound like Unfortunately, that's like an accomplishment, like no one's
interrupting her, Like that's awesome. Yeah, that's something. Another thing
that's worth noting about her character is that in the
first movie, she goes to recruit Bruce Banner to bring
him into the Avengers team essentially, and this will mark

(44:57):
the start of a friendship that laid evolves into a
romance as the movie goes on, because you can't have
a lady felt making her be with a man, right.
Another another problem that they seem to be fixing with
Captain Marvel. Yes, yep, there's a lot of air like
things that I noticed with the Black Widowed character that

(45:18):
I was like, Okay, at least they're trying to course
correct that in future movies. Another thing I wanted to
talk briefly about is the men's powers versus the women's powers.
Especially early in the franchise. The male heroes usually have
some sort of super strength or high tech equipment or suit,

(45:43):
or they're literally a god like some they're shooting out
lass out of their penises, which I thought was a bit.
They've got these like awesome abilities, right, and then if
we're looking at Black Widow, she does not have any
out of this world aility or tech really because Iron

(46:03):
Man has his suit, Captain America has his shield, plus
he had this like serum that made him a super
person or has a hammer. He's a god. Bruce Banner
turns into the Hulk. And then Black Widow she she
fights really well, she's a good fighter. She sometimes has guns,
and if like that's a canonical issue with that character

(46:24):
within the comic books, okay, but then we need more
than one woman there, because you know, like that's you know,
like what you described as crazy disproportionate where it's like, Okay,
if there is a character who's a great fighter, who's
a woman amazing, but we need more than that, and
there's so many like like was drowning in listicles of Marvel,

(46:47):
like female Marvel characters who could have been introduced into
these movies that never were um for you know, I
mean as much as I feel like people fall on
the like, well, the characters were written in a different time,
so it's kind of hard, and it's like, well, there
are still people making decisions of which characters are brought
into the universe and which aren't. And it's mostly men.
And some of the men they're bringing in our fucking

(47:09):
bores and they're not like Captain America, just a lot
of a lot of like they're like, we're gonna hire
every actor named Chris and women can't vote like that. Yeah,
this changes whenever Wanda is introduced in Age of Ultron,
because she does have these awesome that's great telekinesis mind

(47:31):
controlling powers and she she does damage like super powerful.
But in this first movie especially is like Wolf, all
the men get to be awesome. The woman kicks in
her leather suit, I mean, and at least she is good, Like,
you know, she does damage. I was glad that we

(47:51):
got to see her fighting, we got to see her
do damage and we get to see her get result.
But that's kind of the bare minimum you can ask
of a superhero in a supermo hero movie. She is
the one who figures out to how to close the portal. Yes,
and I do want to forgun out that you both
kind of did this. There's a running joke that everyone
forgets Hawkeye. Yeah, you didn't mention him then, and earlier

(48:15):
you were saying Colson, it was actually hawk Eye that
she was like trying to he was the good guy
that turned right. Oh damn, really, you're just cracking me up.
Jeremy Renner is first of all misogynists who sucks, and
he's also failed stand up comedian, and he's also a

(48:36):
really terrible actor. I can't think of one thing he's
good at. Um, So that's that's maybe that's why everyone
forgets him because he sucks you. Yeah. Um, we have
to wrap up pretty shortly. There were a couple other
just like quick things I wanted to mention that we
see in the later movies. So I'll just kind of

(48:57):
go through like a list of problematic ship that happens
where there's some like fridging that happens in Age of
Ultron where Dr Helen Show one of the only women
of Color in the movie gets killed to advance the story,
Black Widow gets captured by Ultron and Bruce Banner kind
of has to come and rescue her, and then they
briefly consider let's run away together because we're so we love,

(49:20):
and then they're like, wait a minute, no, we should
stay in fight, and then oh god. Iron Man has
a horrible line where he's like, hey, you two, you
better not be playing hide the zucchini yause There's also
that line at the end of The Avengers where like
Tony Stark just comes up with these this like homophobic

(49:41):
light zinger where he's anyone kiss me, Like no, gross.
There's a couple no homo moments at the end of
every movie and really yeah, at the end of Age
of Ultron, don Cheetle saying to I iron Man is like, hey,
you think I can't hold my own? And iron Man's like,

(50:04):
if you get this all, hold your own, which I
guess is like I'll hold your day, and then uh,
don'cho is like yeah to make it weird, and then later, um,
I mean that's weird. That's a weird thing to say
to your to someone, and the later Black Widow is
like to Captain America and Iron Man something like oh
you guys done gazing into each other's eyes or something

(50:27):
like that. It's all just like, so there's there's a
lot of that. Um yeah, we don't really have time
to cover a lot of the other stuff that happens
um in the in the later movies of the franchise,
but kind of the last thing I want to say
is great that Captain Marvel is now going to be

(50:48):
introduced in to the ensemble. However, to me, it feels
like it's too little, too late, Like they had so
many movies, so many opportunities to introduce more dynamic, well
developed female characters who are doing things to contribute to
the narratives, and they just missed a lot of those opportunities.

(51:13):
And it's great that Captain Marvel has made a billion dollars,
it's great that we have this new character who's going
to be introduced into Avengers Endgame. But again it's just like, Okay,
well what about the other It took like seventeen movies
to like include women and people of color in a

(51:33):
meaningful way or something crazy like that, So it's just like, well,
taking that long to course correct, and it you know,
it does sort of track with what movie going audiences
were demanding based on like the beginning of the m
c U going up to now. But it's yeah, I
totally agree, which unfortunately I don't know really what the

(51:57):
resolution of that is because it no one's going to
be like, well, scrap it will start over from this time,
we'll treat We'll treat everyone fairly and make it more
like that's just not going to happen. Uh So I
am glad that the course correction that is happening is happening.
I hope it will continue to happen. I hope that
uh we can get a non franchise movie into a

(52:18):
movie theater. Ever, again wishful thinking. Does this movie pass
the Bechtel test? I know, no, women don't even interact
or meet. It does not get much better than that.
In the other movies of the franchise. We do have
a little bit more female interaction, But Scarlett Johnson ever

(52:42):
even heard of Kobe Smolder's I don't. I don't know.
I feel like if she was asking in here to
be she'd be like whom. But yeah, the Avengers does
not pass. So let's let's rate the movie on our nipples.
The first Avengers. Yeah, let's gok with the first one.
I'll give it a one and a half. The fact

(53:05):
that we do see a woman who kicks ass. You know,
she is making important moves in the story. She uh any,
like you said, she's the one who figures out how
how to stop the or how to close the portal.
But the way that she is characterized or not, because again,
what's her personality. I barely know. The way that she

(53:30):
is just very clearly you know, the token female character.
The way that she is pretty hyper sexualized, especially with
the you know, pussy slam wrapped my legs around the
bad guy's face, and the skin tight outfits and the
you know, like quippy that I mean, everyone's got some
pretty horrendous quips and all shores canonical to the genre,

(53:52):
but like hers are always you know, feminine quips, right
like wait you know. Yeah. So it's a step in
the right direction from where we were with earlier superhero movies,
but we had a long way to go, and we
are slowly course correcting. But you know, it's it's not
great what we're seeing, at least in this in this

(54:15):
first Avengers movie. So yeah, one and a half. I
guess one to Scarlett Johansson and my half nipple will
go to Goop Young Group, the website, Goop dot com,
the business. Everyone check it out. I'm kidding, I would
never do not check it out. Um okay, I will

(54:37):
also go with one and a half. I feel like
we're given some We're really thrown some scraps in this
movie in terms of like female characters who are interesting
and it seems like there is a lot to them,
and then we proceed to find out nothing about them
that isn't directly in correlation to a man who gets
far more context or already has existing movies in this universe. Um,

(54:59):
I'm glad they're there her uh, and I'm glad that
future movies have begun to course correct, not really for
any of the characters we see in Avengers in the
first Avengers unfortunately, um, but in a more general way.
Um that did? I mean? You know, John Josh Sweden
is now a polarizing figure that I honestly have not

(55:20):
interacted with his work or the coverage around that enough
to have a strong opinion on. But you know, he
has been known in the past an advocate for women
within his work at very least, So I sort of
was hoping for for a little bit more uh in
this movie, because you know, he really tooths his own

(55:40):
horn about it, and it's like, well, he didn't interrupt
the one female character, so that's something, and you could
have delivered on that way more. And we know that
he's capable of more based on his other work. And
of course there's like a million producers in Marvel and
the patriarch, like than patriarchy in general, to push back against.
It's not like he got the call of everything, but

(56:03):
you know, it's it. It sucks to see like even
one of the biggest advocates allegedly for for women in
in narratives like this still was not able to get
that much in uh. So I'll go, I'll go a
nipple and a half and I'm giving both to Alfred
Molina because he should be in the m cun't talk
the main villain. That's bullshit. Legal reasons, legal reasons, get

(56:30):
the man his check. He shouldn't have time to do
the Bechtel cast. He should he should be content on
every single and all of them. Anyway, do you say
for a rating, I guess I'll agree I UM. I
actually recently did watch the old Sam Ramy Spider Man's

(56:51):
for this like really ridiculous project I'm working on, UM
and I was shocked at how like I hadn't seen
it in a while, but it was the portrayal of
Mary Jane was so um bad yea yeah, And so
watching that recently and then seeing the Avengers, I do
think it was a step in the right direction. I

(57:11):
do think like she's smart. She's actually the first Avenger
to like sign on, and she kind of helps bring
the group together. She's an important figure to it, figures
out how to close the portal. But yeah, she doesn't
have the outside movie, she doesn't have the same story.
And also yeah, I was watching it and some of

(57:32):
the camera angles, I'm like, this is this is more
sexualized than it really needs to be. Ok. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
which which I'm sure has something to do with the
behind the scenes makeup of the crew, which is most
of the major players in this movie. The cinematographer is

(57:53):
a man, written and directed by a man. Uh. There
is a shout out to Lisa E. Lassic. Uh, there's one.
There's one of the two editors on this movie is
a woman. So shout out to Lisa Hell yeah, yeah,
so I give I'll give Black Widow, I'll give my
Nickel two. At the end, Um, there's this I don't

(58:17):
know her name, but she's an actor that plays that.
She does the voice acting for one of my favorite
video games ever, Ellie from the Last of Us. So
shout out to you. I don't know your name, but
I love you. Well, Annie, thank you so much for
joining us. Sorry we didn't have more time to go
into a deeper dive, but we're so happy to How

(58:38):
do you Where can people follow you online? What would
you like to plug? People can follow me. You can
find me on saver podcast. So that's s a v
O R for international listeners. Um, you can find us
online at saver pod. Across all of the social media's
you can listen to the podcast. Please do stuff I've
Never told you. It's a bit more complicated, but so

(59:00):
it's at Mom's Stuff podcast on Twitter and at Stuff
Mom Never Told You on Instagram. Please check that out
as well. And my name is easy A and N
E y. If you type in Annie Reese, easy to
find because no one spells it that way. And that's
how on social media and thank you so much for
having me. Any time you want to talk about this,
I will come back awesome. Yeah, you can follow us

(59:22):
at all the all the spots at Bechtel Cast. We've
got our te public store from merch, We've got our
Patreon ak Matron. Five dollars a month gets you too
bonus episodes plus the entire backlog. So over forty we've
crossed the fort and and and April is Portman July.
So we covered the theme is Portman July. Although it's April,

(59:44):
it's complicated. You have to join our community to understand.
If you're feeling como, then fork over five dollars any like.
I don't know how to tell you. So if you didn't,
if you missed Natalie Portman's character in the Avengers movies,
you can. You can hear us talk about her in
guard in State and Annihilation to identical movies. Thanks for listening, everybody,

(01:00:07):
I guess go and see Avengers Infinity, war Man's Dame
and game Endgame. Just kidding. We're very invested in this
um and to everyone considering jumping into our munchtions, do
not talk to you later, Okay. Bye,

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