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eloiserummaging
I've been having Avengers feelings all over Twitter and in texts and in PERSON, even, so I figure I may as well have them here as well--well, I've been having Avengers feelings to exclusion of almost all other feelings, which should be exhausting, and instead is bizarrely exhilarating. I haven't loved a thing as much as I love this thing since the last time I loved a thing, and I love this thing pretty unreservedly, which for me is pretty rare. This doesn't mean it's a perfect thing, but it does mean that I'm feeling irrationally butthurt about that B+ from Entertainment Weekly.
What did I love about this movie? Black Widow, first and foremost. It's absolutely and completely zero surprise to anyone who knows me that I walked into this movie and fell in love with the female lead--
QUICK PAUSE: TONY BUILT ALL THE AVENGERS THEIR OWN FLOORS IN STARK TOWER. FLKDJSALFDLK;JSAL;FJDLSJALF;JDLASJFDA
--but she is actually canonically great, I think, and really well-written. As many others have noted, she turns gendered expectations on their head: the Russians think they've played her because she's just another "pretty face," but she's been playing them all along. Loki thinks he's played her with sentiment (more on that in a minute), in an encounter that culminates with him calling her a "mewling quim" (quim being slang for "vagina," if I understand correctly), but she's played him with his perception of her "feminine" weaknesses. This isn't to say that Joss is on a crusade against vulnerability: Natasha has red in her ledger, after all, and a very real fear of the Hulk (a fear played beautifully by Scarlett Johansson--I love that the movie lets her inhabit this fear, but doesn't explain it--there are things that can't be fixed or accounted for in a two and a half hour movie).
Sentiment: I need to see the movie a few (thousand) more times (four is not enough! :D?) before I can really parse what I think about this. It comes up at least four times (I thought three, but no_detective reminded me of one more) in the movie, and it's usually Loki (I think) who says it--notably to Thor. I've completely forgotten the exact quote, but essentially he tells Thor that his weakness is sentiment. He tells Thor this as he's shedding a single tear (thanks again, no_detective), so, you know, it's hard to believe him. And when Fury tells Cap that he (Fury) is just "old-fashioned," we're talking about sentiment again, a little differently than before: he's invoking not just sentiment as "emotions," but sentiment as a somewhat treacly nostalgia for the past, which he thinks (knows) will appeal to Cap--even if Cap is suspicious of it (he thinks his suit is inappropriately old fashioned). I think the movie is saying something more complicated that just "the opposite of what Loki says," though. I think Joss has a pretty complicated relationship with sentiment himself: he is sentimental about the ability of extraordinarily ordinary people to accomplish amazing things (and maybe that's what was missing from Dollhouse?), but he also tends to puncture--often beautifully--moments of high sentiment with humor. Notably: as Coulson's "So that's what it does" as he's dying. The line reminds us of what we love about Coulson, but keeps the viewer from wallowing in the tragedy of his death (MAYBE DEATH YOU CAN'T TELL ME HE'S REALLY DEAD I DON'T BELIEVE YOU)--and maybe that's Joss's nod to the viewer: I could make this worse for you, but I won't. The team unites because of sentiment: because of what Fury makes them feel about Coulson's death. But I think the answer is more than just "sentiment in moderation is empowering": we learn from Maria Hill that Fury has manipulated Cap and Tony with sentiment (the bloodied cards that weren't in Coulson's jacket pocket). Sentiment is a tool and it can be manipulated for good as well as ill--and for everything in between, like Fury. I think there's also an ethical component to "sentiment": Coulson's death brings the team together, but what keeps them together is the development of a shared moral code that operates independently from S.H.I.E.L.D.--or really anything they've come up with on their own. That's the achievement of this moment: they believe, even if only provisionally, in the same thing, even if no one else in the entire world does. Anyway, tl;dr, and despite some illuminating twitter conversations, I still don't feel like I know what I want to say.
When I did a twitter search to recover some relevant tweets for this paragraph, a few people noted that Sherlock had said "Sentiment is found on the losing side." It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from the series: "All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage." (Uh, favorite for what it tells me about the characters, not because it's my personal philosophy.) I mention this because I think Sherlock is doing something different with sentiment, even if I can't quite parse what I think it is--I think I'm a little afraid to, honestly, because I think Joss's vision is much more humane than Moffat/Gatiss's. Clearly the "caring is not an advantage" scene is supposed to highlight how isolated Mycroft and Sherlock have allowed themselves to become, so I wouldn't suggest Sherlock endorses it, but I do think we're supposed to think there's something very special and remarkable about Sherlock's ability to reason and to be reasonable without "sentiment" clouding his mind.
Anyway! I have many, many more feelings, but this has gone on long enough.
What did I love about this movie? Black Widow, first and foremost. It's absolutely and completely zero surprise to anyone who knows me that I walked into this movie and fell in love with the female lead--
QUICK PAUSE: TONY BUILT ALL THE AVENGERS THEIR OWN FLOORS IN STARK TOWER. FLKDJSALFDLK;JSAL;FJDLSJALF;JDLASJFDA
--but she is actually canonically great, I think, and really well-written. As many others have noted, she turns gendered expectations on their head: the Russians think they've played her because she's just another "pretty face," but she's been playing them all along. Loki thinks he's played her with sentiment (more on that in a minute), in an encounter that culminates with him calling her a "mewling quim" (quim being slang for "vagina," if I understand correctly), but she's played him with his perception of her "feminine" weaknesses. This isn't to say that Joss is on a crusade against vulnerability: Natasha has red in her ledger, after all, and a very real fear of the Hulk (a fear played beautifully by Scarlett Johansson--I love that the movie lets her inhabit this fear, but doesn't explain it--there are things that can't be fixed or accounted for in a two and a half hour movie).
Sentiment: I need to see the movie a few (thousand) more times (four is not enough! :D?) before I can really parse what I think about this. It comes up at least four times (I thought three, but no_detective reminded me of one more) in the movie, and it's usually Loki (I think) who says it--notably to Thor. I've completely forgotten the exact quote, but essentially he tells Thor that his weakness is sentiment. He tells Thor this as he's shedding a single tear (thanks again, no_detective), so, you know, it's hard to believe him. And when Fury tells Cap that he (Fury) is just "old-fashioned," we're talking about sentiment again, a little differently than before: he's invoking not just sentiment as "emotions," but sentiment as a somewhat treacly nostalgia for the past, which he thinks (knows) will appeal to Cap--even if Cap is suspicious of it (he thinks his suit is inappropriately old fashioned). I think the movie is saying something more complicated that just "the opposite of what Loki says," though. I think Joss has a pretty complicated relationship with sentiment himself: he is sentimental about the ability of extraordinarily ordinary people to accomplish amazing things (and maybe that's what was missing from Dollhouse?), but he also tends to puncture--often beautifully--moments of high sentiment with humor. Notably: as Coulson's "So that's what it does" as he's dying. The line reminds us of what we love about Coulson, but keeps the viewer from wallowing in the tragedy of his death (MAYBE DEATH YOU CAN'T TELL ME HE'S REALLY DEAD I DON'T BELIEVE YOU)--and maybe that's Joss's nod to the viewer: I could make this worse for you, but I won't. The team unites because of sentiment: because of what Fury makes them feel about Coulson's death. But I think the answer is more than just "sentiment in moderation is empowering": we learn from Maria Hill that Fury has manipulated Cap and Tony with sentiment (the bloodied cards that weren't in Coulson's jacket pocket). Sentiment is a tool and it can be manipulated for good as well as ill--and for everything in between, like Fury. I think there's also an ethical component to "sentiment": Coulson's death brings the team together, but what keeps them together is the development of a shared moral code that operates independently from S.H.I.E.L.D.--or really anything they've come up with on their own. That's the achievement of this moment: they believe, even if only provisionally, in the same thing, even if no one else in the entire world does. Anyway, tl;dr, and despite some illuminating twitter conversations, I still don't feel like I know what I want to say.
When I did a twitter search to recover some relevant tweets for this paragraph, a few people noted that Sherlock had said "Sentiment is found on the losing side." It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from the series: "All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage." (Uh, favorite for what it tells me about the characters, not because it's my personal philosophy.) I mention this because I think Sherlock is doing something different with sentiment, even if I can't quite parse what I think it is--I think I'm a little afraid to, honestly, because I think Joss's vision is much more humane than Moffat/Gatiss's. Clearly the "caring is not an advantage" scene is supposed to highlight how isolated Mycroft and Sherlock have allowed themselves to become, so I wouldn't suggest Sherlock endorses it, but I do think we're supposed to think there's something very special and remarkable about Sherlock's ability to reason and to be reasonable without "sentiment" clouding his mind.
Anyway! I have many, many more feelings, but this has gone on long enough.
