Iron Man 3 SPOILERS POST

[feuervogel]

If you haven't seen Iron Man 3, do not expand this lovely cut tag. You shouldn't read comments, either.


HOLY SHIT. The Mandarin. That was not at all what I was expecting.

I don't read superhero comics. Most of what I know about Marvel is from the movies and the Avengers Alliance facebook game (which ties into the movies).

So I was completely fooled by the whole terrorist videos and "I am the Mandarin" stuff. I am a sucker for spliced in footage of news reels, so I liked that part, and the way they worked in the Mandarin's videos.

And then when Tony met the Mandarin and found out he was an actor from Croydon, the movie became completely different, and I was so happy. It became a critique of US actions in the Middle East, of Hollywood casting white people in everything, of Marvel's own history of racism, of the war on terror itself, of our own fucking reactions to terrorism, and I was so fucking stoked. I got distracted thinking about this article on Overthinking It.

I had other thoughts, too, but mostly that and I need to see it again.

And also HE SAVED DUMMY YOU GUISE DUMMY. HE SAVED DUMMY. RIGHT IN THE FEELS.

Other excellent posts:
http://fuckitfireeverything.tumblr.com/post/49527438770/why-the-mandarin-needed-to-be-portrayed-as-he-was-in
http://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/591046.html
http://thingswithwings.dreamwidth.org/198716.html

Comments

[feuervogel]

Like, I thought it was so great that the whole Mandarin threat was a cobbled-together thing, a terrorist threat invented for an American audience and eaten up by the people, when the actual terrorist was a white guy in Miami! Because that's actually what terrorism in the US looks like: predominantly white men.

If only it resulted in my countrymen taking a step back and looking at our own reactions to terrorism. That's asking too much :/