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| photo courtesy of Buzzfeed |
I usually reserve this blog for reviews and breaking news. But lately I’ve been reading a lot of chatter regarding Joss Whedon and Avengers: Age of Ultron and the portrayal of women. First of all anyone who has ever looked at Joss’ work, could clearly see that he has been and will always be a champion of creating strong female characters. He is one of the few creators in Hollywood that believes in a strong female character. So that discussion ends there. Remember, years ago he wrote a Wonder Woman screenplay that the powers that be over at Warner Bros at the time nixed. They nixed it apparently not because it was bad but because female leads in their opinion don’t sell tickets or merchandise. I think that’s utter nonsense.
I think Joss Whedon is quite brilliant. I know that there are haters out there. There are haters everywhere. For those who love and appreciate his style of writing and humor, there’s probably an equal amount that do not. He gave us Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly. I will forever thank him for that. Yes he also gave as Dollhouse (which I tried very hard to enjoy but couldn’t), then again George Lucas gave us Jar Jar. We all make mistakes.
I enjoyed Age of Ultron but it did fall slightly short of the first film in my opinion. I think what the first Avengers had going for it was the major buildup that led to the original film. It started with Iron Man and continued through four other films and certainly aided my nerdgasm. Ultron was fun and is still one of the best Marvel films done to date. Ironically, it could’ve used a little more Whedon. Perhaps his biggest error was saying that Ultron could be The Empire Strikes Back of the Avengers film series. That’s a tall order. I still look forward to seeing his future projects and I know a strong female character will emerge as they always have.
I’ll say this in defense of Whedon, being feminine and strong is not mutually exclusive. It’s sad that for some, you can’t be both or you can’t have both qualities. There’s an old saying that behind every great man, stands a great woman. Clearly for the Hulk it’s Black Widow and there is nothing at all wrong with that.
May the Dork be with you,
JPB
The Dork Knight
