A Problem With Ant-Man
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Overall, Tananarive’s reaction was “a sad, sad mess.” I agree. But there are deeper problems than just an over-reliance on CGI, narrative bloat, bad editing and simply put, a movie too large with stakes too small.
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When you walk into a movie with a mild curiosity about not “if” but “how” they will render a character (or all characters of a particular type) asexual, it is bleak satisfaction to see that they have, once again, found an approach they probably thought clever.
SPOILERS FOR “ANT MAN” AND OTHERS
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So…we know Michelle Pfeiffer was stuck in the Quantum Universe for 30 years. She had “needs” which she satisfied with Bill Murray — they made a point of it.
But she also spent years marooned alone with Jonathan Majors. Intimate years. “It was good to have a friend” she said, as they sat together platonically.
Later, we see that Kang/Majors is apparently of a species that reproduces asexually — a vast crowd of males, no females at all.
And of course, viewed as an individual choice, there is nothing wrong with that. Viewed as part of a pattern where no black man in any of the THIRTY MCU movies or the Disney+ shows has so much as kissed a woman, it is just another part of an obvious pattern.
What’s the problem? I don’t believe in that world. I can believe in men who turn green when they are angry, shrinking to the size of ants, or swinging hammers to fly, or getting powers from being bitten by radioactive spiders.
But I do not believe in a group of human beings, apparently on Earth, who have no interest in the opposite sex. Any more than I believed in Tribe A dying disproportionately so Tribe Bcould feel noble and be inspired to fight harder, or that the women of tribe A are the only worthy warriors, or whatever other fantasy the males of Tribe B want to masturbate to.
Throws me out of the world. Can’t suspend my disbelief. Now, I used to be able to do that. To watch HUNDREDS of movies set in the old west with no black cowboys…when the Smithsonian says that between about 20% of them were black. Or watching “When Worlds Collide” and seeing that all the people thought worthy to be saved were white. Or read “Handmaid’s…
