You're gonna get a fit Seth Rogan and he will become DCEU's Starlord
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
DCEU Era |OT| Crisis on Infinite Forums
- Thread starter Loxley
- Start date
- Status
You're gonna get a fit Seth Rogan and he will become DCEU's Starlord
The thing there isn't that Cap isn't sold on being a sexy figure to get boys to show up. Or Chris Hemsworth.
And lets be real, we don't dress up cap or thor in outfits as skimpy as Dianna or as skintight as Black Widow. Nevermind we don't get the ass and crotch shots of them throughout the movies. WW did avoid those to it's credit, but BVS and JL certainly did, With JL basically pointing out that the reason aquaman accepts her is because she's hot.
Yeah.. while Wonder Woman is a throwback I think that in turn justifies it's criticisms. Wonder Woman can be feminist, but not so feminist she risks upsetting the male audience. I don't want to say WW is "Feminist for Dummies" but it is such a shallow depiction of a strong female character I find it sort of ordinary?
Her rage at the end being forgettable may be because the entire last third of that movie was a yawnfest. If I remember correctly, she only goes on a wild rage induced spree because she doubts herself and her mission? If anything, the fact they display her as near perfect for the entire film until the end doesn't really speak much, because her conflict happens and is wrapped up almost immediately. It's actually another example of it playing it to safe, she can have a lapse of faith and judgement, but not such a big one she makes any mistakes. Maybe there is depth to be mined, but I'd argue thats a fault of the movie if everything else is portrayed up front with it's message of female empowerment.
That's definitely valid criticism. Both BvS and JL have problems with the male gaze that's considered the norm at this point in Hollywood. Every male hero though is practically required (maybe even by contract) to have a shirtless scene highlighting their bulging muscles. Even Holland had one in Homecoming! RDJ might be the only exception that comes to mind. That kind of stuff isn't nearly as pervasive (or toxic) as the industry's portrayal of women but it's there. The difference is one is objectification and the other is a power fantasy. I mean c'mon, I'm straight as an arrow but Evans flexing in Civil War had even me sweating.
Folks speculating that's Black Manta there.
For the most part BvS avoided the male gaze with Diana and it extended to the marketing. JL's problems have been widely discussed.
As for ogling men in these movies, there's always the distinction of power fantasy or there for those attracted to men. I'd argue it's negligible for these movies. Both the first Captain America and Thor straight up have women make remarks about how buff the heroes are. BvS only shows Cavill shirtless in romantic scenes. The intention there is pretty clear.
For the most part BvS avoided the male gaze with Diana and it extended to the marketing. JL's problems have been widely discussed.
As for ogling men in these movies, there's always the distinction of power fantasy or there for those attracted to men. I'd argue it's negligible for these movies. Both the first Captain America and Thor straight up have women make remarks about how buff the heroes are. BvS only shows Cavill shirtless in romantic scenes. The intention there is pretty clear.
Last edited:
Just like the JL pics. He's staring at something.Speaking of... new pic of Aquaman...
After all that time, we never found out what the fuck they were looking at
To be fair, I don't think this scene was really to show off his attractive muscles. It was more to show how strong he really is that didn't involve punching a face in.That's definitely valid criticism. Both BvS and JL have problems with the male gaze that's considered the norm at this point in Hollywood. Every male hero though is practically required (maybe even by contract) to have a shirtless scene highlighting their bulging muscles. Even Holland had one in Homecoming! RDJ might be the only exception that comes to mind. That kind of stuff isn't nearly as pervasive (or toxic) as the industry's portrayal of women but it's there. The difference is one is objectification and the other is a power fantasy. I mean c'mon, I'm straight as an arrow but Evans flexing in Civil War had even me sweating.
I actually don't find much that I disagree with here. Feminism for Dummies, that's how I view a large portion of Hollywood's approach to Feminism. It's like baby steps to a subject that only gets more complicated the more you study it. There's different schools of thought regarding the Feminism and approaching it is always going to be problematic. It's a tricky balance. I don't really expect a movie (especially a Hollywood Blockbuster) to dive into the matter too deeply. That review you linked in your previous post, that was coming from somebody well-versed in the subject and the reaction is as I expected. Although I think her reaction is a little too harsh, I can see where she's coming from.
Regarding WW, even tho I think Patti did a pretty great job selling us on WW, I still think the movie felt undercooked. As you said, there's a "safeness" to it and it's all the more glaring because we're essentially in WW1, one of the black marks on human history filled with countless atrocities, and the movie can't spend more than a few minutes acknowledging the tragedy of the setting. At times it feels like window-dressing just to get a few scenes to aggrandize Diana. Only towards the end do we start getting real, but then the movie sprints to the finish and we're back to hope, optimism, love blah blah blah.
Most people will roll their eyes, but I can't but think about what a Snyder version of this movie would have looked liked. Diana tells us in BvS that she walked away from mankind after witnessing a century of horrors. My gut tells me we would have had something more philosophically striking than what we ultimately got.
Even tho I like WW a lot (more than Logan btw) I can't help but think that the movie felt like it was lacking teeth. Like it was made not to offend. I think that's fine but just not something I'm interested in consuming most of the time.
Oh and BvS doesn't have male gaze. Like at all.
This was definitely a power fantasy shot. The Russos have said that they wanted to show off his muscles bulging in the shot. They said that the costume designer initially had Evans wear a jacket for this sequence but they said hell no they wanted to get a shot of his biceps. So this was definitely a shot to showcase his physical prowess as it was to establish his power levels.
I'm confused as to her affection for the women in the arrowverse if she has an issue with Diana. Iris is always extremely sexy and dressed in the most tightest dresses this side of the 7 seas. There's not a flaw on her. What's the difference between her and the first part of WW? Character wise of course the girls on the show will have real flaws. One, they have seasons worth of character development time and two, they aren't Wonder Woman.
Ridiculous. If anything, BvS can be accused of having homo-erotic undertones far easier than somehow making the argument that it features nearly any male gaze towards women.
This is some weird revisionist history. The MCU doesn't have gratuitous fan service for the ladies? Thor 1 had Thor get shirtless, Cap 1 had him come out of the machine and get eye fucked and then felt up, CW had him flexing in a shirt two sizes too small, Tom Holland got shirtless, Antman too if I recall, don't get me started on Luke Cage, Daredevil had at least one scene to show he had abs, Iron Fist needs to go to the gym cos he ain't shit.
Everything about the visual style of this movie was wrong from the start. Fire all illustrators that worked on that movie.Blu-ray cover has leaked (was this posted yet?)
The male gaze is not strictly limited to the sexual objectification of women in terms of camera angles. The male gaze has 3 separate components: 1. the view of the man behind the camera, 2. the representation of characters within the film, and 3. the male spectator. The male gaze critique is not a universally equal condemnation, meaning all instances of the male gaze are not equally bad because it does not always manifest in the same kind of gendered view. BvS can absolutely be critiqued for its use of the male gaze because, point of fact, the director is male, it's dominated by male characters, and the film's target audience is male. If you want to get more specific and actually critique the film's depiction of women, the use of Diana is arguably problematic in that despite having some agency and a motivation that is not tied to the objectives of the male characters, she is still framed predominantly as an object of physical desire from the point of Bruce in all their civilian interactions, and the movie only ever switches to her point of view to either watch studio mandated teaser trailers or to convey plot information such as in the plane when she sees the news story. On top of that, the character itself is entrenched in the male gaze having been created by a man, and that can best be seen through her hero costume. Again, I'll stress before people blow a gasket that not all example of the male gaze is equally bad, and these observations don't suddenly turn BvS into a woman exploiting misogynistic film. The traditional WW costume was not designed from the female perspective and remains that way in BvS, mostly out of adherence to tradition rather than blatant exploitation. Lois fares better overall but is still used as a damsel in distress on multiple occasions, and Martha is not so much a character as she is a prop for the male characters to fight over. None of this even touches on the critique you can make about what messages the movie tries to convey to its male audience and the inherent problem of toxic masculinity and violence as a solution to problems which plagues the vast majority of superhero movies.
You don't know a lot about his wife and their girlfriend do you?
Are you referring to Marston's interest in BDSM themes? Because I don't think designing a costume for the intent of titillating a man is a good argument against being an example of the male gaze. I'm not sure what you're referring to though which is why I asked so an actual answer would be appreciated.
From my understanding his wife didn't design the costume for him but for their girlfriend.
Interesting. Even if that's the case though, I don't think original intent exempts the design from male gaze criticism, especially since the design has predominantly been utilized by male writers/artists and not women since its introduction.
Great post and I agree. You just need to see WW to see the difference between how she's portrayed.
Even Gadot said that they basically discarded the portrayal in BvS and essentially started fresh in WW.
I think a big reason for Wonder Woman being such a cultural phenomenon now is definitely do in part to her redesign. She's currently my favorite superhero, but I never even liked her before the movie. This design:
Everything about it is just so terribly ugly! This, however:
Is so incredibly bad ass. It screams Greek warrior rockstar. Pure genius.
Everything about it is just so terribly ugly! This, however:
Is so incredibly bad ass. It screams Greek warrior rockstar. Pure genius.
Sorry guek but don't really agree that much here.
I dont really see the point of criticizing BvS through those parameters of male gaze if the only conclusion you're going to arrive to is that Diana's skirt is too short. It's a cameo and that's an outfit she has come to be defined by. The fact that the camera doesn't even try to linger on any of Gal's features is enough to discredit the notion that's she's simply an object of physical desire. Bruce's whole thing with Diana in the movie is that he knows she's hiding something and the majority of their interactions is Bruce trying to discover how she's connected to all of it. You can argue that it's problematic that she's essentially a world-building tool at the end of the day, but that's one of the reasons why I like BvS because it literally has no peers when it comes to world-building. You'd have to go outside the genre and another movie to find something that even compares (Fury Road and Blade Runner 2049 would be candidates).
With Lois, you're right that the film does a lot better. However, I don't see her being used as a damsel in distress as a negative. It's hard to even think about her as being in distress when she has Superman watching her back. Lois contributes so much more to the story but to appreciate her role you really have to watch the UC. I'm not sure how much time the TC spent on her. Focusing so much on the two or three times she has to be saved kind of misses the point of her role which is showing the good part of humanity in Clark's eyes.
As for the toxic masculinity, that's something I would like to hear more about. From where I stand, I see BvS as a repudiation of it but this is more emphasized in the UC.
I don't know if you've seen the UC guek.
Unless it's about a Snyder cut, I think I'm good being kept in the dark lol
I've seen the UC.
Here's the thing about criticism: it's not always meant to be negative and is often done as an exercise to deconstruct art. The point was to be critical of how the movie uses its male gaze and try to deconstruct the end product of a movie made by men about men and for men. Of course you're welcome to disagree with the conclusions, but the question isn't whether or not it employs the male gaze (because it undeniably does) but rather how it shows up under scrutiny.
Honest question: if you asked Snyder if he made the movie for men, what do you think he'd tell you?
I honestly have no idea because that dude sucks at interviews and answering questions :-P
As an avid defender of Batman v Superman I tend to get really irritated when "Have you seen the UC?" gets thrown around like the UC somehow takes a bad movie and makes it great. The UC fills in some blanks and fleshes out a couple of narrative points but it by no means changes the movie. Somebody can watch Batman v Superman as it was released in theaters and still have a pretty solid grasp on what occurred and how they felt about it. How much the UC changes an opinion in my experience has been minor at best.
"You know the thing is that uhmmm...that...uhm....the thing that uhmmm....these characters uhmmmmmmmmmmmm.....what is so cool about euhmmmmm...its cool that ehmm"
lol, this is garbage. You guys started along the lines of objectification, and when it was pointed out how BvS is clearly slanted towards eye candy for women or gay men, you went in deep with this male gaze tripe.
Yes, Zack is a male director. Often stereotyped because he works out and has a good body. Sue him... His target audience is teens and everything up, male and female.
Skimpy outfits, ass shots, crotch shots, etc. were being discussed. BvS has one sort of upskirt shot of Wonder Woman in the Doomsday fight. It's the only such shot I can think of in the entire 3 hour cut. The same cut that shows us Bruce's shirtless workout routine, his wet bare ass in the shower, and Henry's hairy chest on multiple occasions.
Bruce is initially attracted to Diana, big deal. Nothing new. In this case, the attraction leads to absolutely nothing and is merely used to set up their meeting of each other. Even so, the relationship does evolve past the point of Bruce's attraction. Diana isn't an "object of physical desire in all their civilian interactions" since they were together at Clark's funeral, where was no longer even a hint of anything going on.
The movie shows Wonder Woman to rival Superman's power. Not only that, but she totally saves Batman.
Lois being a damsel in distress is part of her character. Always has been. Might as well make up someone different in her place if this is too much.
'Martha' famously stops the title fight, and was written from the very beginning to do so. So I don't know what you're thinking with that one. lol @ 'toxic masculinity' and 'violence as a solution' in a movie where the utterance of a woman's name stops the big fight.
This overzealous feminism stuff is cringe, especially coming from men.
- Status