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WandaVision | Paul Bettany is in this | Fridays on Disney+
- Thread starter Deleted member 1248
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The best part about that laugh is going back to all her previous laughs in the series up to this point and noticing they're basically the same laugh. She's been broadcasting it the whole time.
The date of her anniversary with Stan is the first day of the Salem Witch Trials.
stan =. Memephisto
X2 is better than most of the MCU still, effects aside.
Just having a really good third act elevates it above most superhero movies.
Of course not, how would they examine the era they are helping create? The point of traveling back in time to relive these sitcoms to hopefully provide some commentary upon their worth, importance, and the themes of the era. In addition to helping our character craft a reality that mirrors the evolution of their mental state.
This has been a lot of words to say "Yes, sometimes the status quo reverts and sometimes it doesn't".
You can safely ignore me. I'm old. I'm old enough to have seen all these characters retconned multiple times. I'm jaded. If anything, I envy the younger generation.
Though I'm certain Wanda will get another retcon too. It's as common now as Jean dying.
There was a time when X2 and Spider-Man 2 (Raimi) was considered an evolution and expansion of what a superhero movie could and should be. They were top tier movies, mentioned alongside Batman '89 and Superman: The Movie. X2 is not a bad movie in any respect, and you could argue that the MCU would never had happened without the steps that the X-Men and Spider-man series took in the early 2000s.
Black sitcoms tended to examine their respective eras, so that's why I was wondering.
But since that wasn't the case for these, I think you may be conflating what you wanted out of this with what it was going for. I believe it was going for simple homage, not a deep analysis. The homages are done perfectly, to that end.
EDIT: And, if I wanted to get fancy with the analysis myself... Since the idea is that Wanda is looking for an idyllic family life, the simplicity of a sitcom that doesn't look too deeply into itself reflects both the sitcoms of the times perfectly as well as what Wanda herself wants.
Yeah, I do think this is fair to say - Wanda isn't looking to explore or analyze sitcoms, she's looking to replicate them.
There MAY have been a way to do it, but it would need more episodes per era than we got.
my 10 yo also reminisced about yo gabba gabba. He loves when they used to dance. I loved when they had some fun musical groups on.
Again, its hard to criticize since the show isn't over. But, simple nostalgia is dangerous given the era she seeks to replicate. Why have nostalgia for the 50's where the male patriarchy is at its height and any hint of "liberalism" is treated as communism and thus warrant of crushing. As a Sokovian, its pretty weird for her to pine for the imagined height of American Conservatism. Let's not even get into the waving away of any racism. Rewriting history like that, without examination, should be considered dangerous.
However, again, the show is not over so we'll see how it ties it all together.
I really don't think this show is going to dive that deeply into it, but they did have a couple of lines in the first two episodes that call it out. "We don't break bread with Bolsheviks" and "He's a communist!" feel like a little sly commentary on the writer's part.
Jean has only ever died twice (and one of those wasn't actually her) three times if you include the Dawn of X death and resurrection.This has been a lot of words to say "Yes, sometimes the status quo reverts and sometimes it doesn't".
You can safely ignore me. I'm old. I'm old enough to have seen all these characters retconned multiple times. I'm jaded. If anything, I envy the younger generation.
Though I'm certain Wanda will get another retcon too. It's as common now as Jean dying.
Her dying alot is a meme.
I also count Endsong, where Wolverine just kept killing her over and over.
Something he's very good at.
Wanda has experienced incredible trauma and wants to escape. When she creates these worlds as escapism, it would be incongruous to use that as an opportunity to explore the sexism and racism of those eras. She wants an easy, idyllic life. The version of this show that goes down that road is a fundamentally different show. It's certainly one you could have made, but I don't think it's fair to say this show is a failure because it doesn't explore those themes. Instead, we get a show that shows us that those idealized spaces can only exist in fantasy, that fantasy is incredibly fragile, and the cost of that fantasy is high.
Wanda/Agatha are literally mind controlling an entire town to create an idealized version of suburban America. The criticism of "but they aren't tackling the patriarchy issue" just doesn't ring true to me.
Wanda/Agatha are literally mind controlling an entire town to create an idealized version of suburban America. The criticism of "but they aren't tackling the patriarchy issue" just doesn't ring true to me.
I feel like you're looking at it in a 2021 lens as opposed to a lens from the actual era.
Not to mention... she's white-passing with no accent in her perfect world. She's looking for a perfect world, not a teardown of the patriarchy and racism and all of that. Why would she want that in her dream world?
In her *sitcom* world, which never touched those things?
Endsong wasn't Jean it was the Phoenix Force. :)I also count Endsong, where Wolverine just kept killing her over and over.
Something he's very good at.
it actually does though, there are little nods here and there in the early episodes to help give a small bit of context to how sexist media and the world in general was at the time. in the first episode there was the line in the toaster ad that was basically saying "it's so easy even your dumb wife can't fuck it up" as well as the stuff from the magazine "Agnes" was reading to Wanda
And the doctor in Episode 3 giving that talk about comparing fetal development with varied fruit sizes to "make it easier for the little ladies to understand"
but you're 100% right it's not the focus of the "sitcom fantasy world" in the context of the show. if anyone was expecting an at length deconstruction of sitcoms' interpretation of society throughout the decades, it wasn't gonna be here. this is Wanda's perfect fantasy sitcom world with her husband and kids, with an evil witch breaking it apart for selfish reasons. ya know, the weird comic book stuff we come here for.
As a non-comic reader, it amuses me that somebody dying thrice is not considered "a lot". How many times do these characters die on average?
Wasn't she pleading with Logan to kill her to kill the Phoenix Force, but it just kept resurrecting her over and over? Then when it didn't work, she put her self on ice.
Eh. I'm counting it. It works too well for the meme.
...But she's got nothing on Doctor Strange.
Of course I am because the show is from 2021. The show did not have to be able Wanda going through different eras of sitcoms to create a "perfect" world, it chose to do so and thus it can be analyzed and critiqued. As a show in 2021, traveling back to a 1950's sitcom is going to bring about questions, especially when it is being portrayed as "idyllic" to our main character. Ideally, it should have something to say about nostalgia and specifically nostalgia for these shows of yester-years. Otherwise, what is the point of poking fun at the male patriarchy on display in those areas where the women is expected to be nothing but a housewife and any "beatnik" affectations are treated with suspicion?
If the show just wants to have fun, why even have those elements? I'd also argue simply "having fun" with those eras is also as dangerous as Wanda trapping people in her show itself.
to be fair Jean Grey is a character associated with The Phoenix, so death/rebirth is a thing intrinsically tied to her character.
Vision has died numerous times, but it has come at great cost to him and his loved ones personally over the years.
Other characters do go overboard with dying sometimes though. Tony Stark doesn't need to be dying and undying every 10 years for example but we're headed in that direction. A lot of times the "death" is just a fake out and was an excuse for a character to go into hiding or undergo some great change in the process.
It's almost like the show is *about* the promise of sitcoms being fake and not representing a real, healthy family dynamic.
Nope, we don't know that yet. As I repeatedly mentioned, I'm hoping it can actually bring all these elements to a satisfying resolution that offers some depth and commentary. But at the moment it has not leaned towards saying something like that.
I wouldn't get your hopes up because the MCU typically doesn't go beyond surface level commentary on societal issues. Which is both good and bad.
There were definitely jabs here and there about patriarchal society in those first few episodes, but this is a character driven show first and foremost and it won't be spending much time on anything but Wanda and Vision in these last two episodes.
They definitely have yet to explain the "why" of the sitcom TV format so it's coming, but it's likely got more to do with the characters and their situations/motivations than social commentary.
It's 100% about that. Every episode plays with the idea that the presentation is an empty, meaningless facade on top of repressed trauma and guilt, and that the people playing their parts are being forced into it against their will.
And the show has already gone out of its way to TELL US THIS repeatedly.
When I say you're looking at it with a 2021 lens, I mean the sitcom eras, not the show itself. For a great many people IRL (and Wanda herself), those sitcoms represent a simple, perfect family life. Wanda had everything taken from her, she's looking for that simple, perfect family life. That's the whole point of the sitcoms.
Because these sitcoms didn't go any deeper into the stuff you're talking about, this 1-1 representation of them also doesn't go any deeper. What you're talking about would be an awesome, but different show. "Kevin Can F*** Himself" sounds exactly like the type of show you're looking for, with cuts between the sitcom life and a more modern look at the role of the housewife within that. However, that show is about the conflict between the main character and her husband. Wandavision is not about that OR about tearing down any of the perceived perfection of yesterday's family sitcoms.
Exactly, 100% this.
That is not a commentary or critique on sitcoms, its simply Wanda forcing people against their will to create a fictional life for her. If it were damning the fictional portrayals of the happy families of sitcoms it wouldn't have the scenes of the Sword characters watching the show with genuine interest and getting emotionally invested in Wanda's plotlines within the show. It has yet to offer any grand thesis at the moment beyond "nostalgia is cool." So far, it neither damns nor praises sitcoms.
Neat! I don't remember that showing up in Agents of Shield, but I don't think I finished that Ghost Rider season where I'm sure that showed up, either.
A couple others have noted it, but the sitcom aesthetic is unfortunately not intended to be a form of sociopolitical allegory or commentary. Rather, it is meant to stylistically embody what a woman like Wanda Maximoff envisions "a perfectly normal life" to be like. This series is centered around how certain people handle grief, with Wanda gaining such a power upgrade that she can literally run away into her own sitcom fantasy land, and the show-within-a-show jumps to more modern and meta eras as Wanda loses control of the fantasy around her and as reality seeps in.
Pleasantville this is not. And I can see why one would be disappointed coming in with that expectation, as this show by no means reaches that bar nor did it ever really intend to.
Correct. And it never was going to be, I don't think. Again, "Kevin Can F*** Himself" sounds like what you were expecting - but they make that premise explicit.
There are such things as wrong takes and this is one of them.
the sitcom world is the *central problem* of the show for people both inside and outside of it. Even if the commentary isn't "sitcoms are bad" (it is true that people watch and enjoy them!), it's absolutely playing with the idea that "sitcoms are fake."
at no point did it ever set out to do that though. no one involved has ever said this show was supposed to be a commentary on old sitcoms, while they made every effort to indicate that they were going all in on paying homage to them and did so quite captivatingly. it simply wasn't a goal of the creators to provide some high level critique or commentary on them, but to use them as the veneer through which Wanda sees an ideal life with Vision that can keep her satisfied and from wanting to leave the Hex
I don't know if you can consider Wandavision a commentary on 50's and 60's sitcoms themselves, but it's certainly a dark mirror of them. All the actors on those shows were forced to smile through clenched teeth as they made an informercial for an idyllic white suburban paradise that completely denied the realities of the time. As much as we mock the Very Special Episodes of 80's and 90's sitcoms, I think you would be hard pressed to find any sitcom from the 60's or 70's that really confronted any kind of social issues.
In some broader sense, it speaks to how these shows allowed audiences to deny reality and think that they needn't be concerned with or a part of the era's major social upheavals. As MLK marched on Washington, most people just went home to watch The Donna Reed Show and My Three Sons. The effects of this programming were strangely iterative -- actors on TV pretending they live in a perfect world allowed people watching at home to also pretend they live in a perfect world.
Is there some reason Monica thought that an astronaut rover vehicle might be able to penetrate the force field? Or any reason for her to believe that she could press through without succumbing to Wanda's mind control? Those parts of this episode made the least sense to me.
Darcy gave her specs of a vehicle and suit she theorized could make it through the hex, keep in mind this was before the hex changed, and Darcy got swallowed up before she could study those changes - and Monica and Agent Woo aren't aware. So it's not unreasonable to think Monica believed she'd make it through and be fine.
the nature of the hex is still kind of up in the air. Monica was able to touch it before so she may have thought that a vehicle could drive right in. they used a rover i think because then it would at least be protected from the radiation of the hex despite changing form (like her bullet proof vest turning into bullet proof pants).
and she only temporarily got bested by Wanda's power once inside because she wasn't using her own very much, she's still gotta get a handle on what she can really do.
I guess that's the other thing I wasn't really sure about -- did Monica always have super-powers? Or did she get super-powers by spending time in and out of the hex?
Space-faring vehicles are designed to protect you, not only from the lack of oxygen, but literal cosmic radiation that can fuck you up. It's not an insane theory that it might block out other energies.
she just got them in the moment she was pushing through the hex. exposing herself to its radiation that third time (despite the risk of it just outright killing her) pushed her body past its natural limit for exposure to cosmic radiation and changed the makeup of her body entirely. she can now essentially match her body's physiology to any form of energy on the electromagnetic spectrum (hence her superhero name, Spectrum). It's what Darcy was warning her about earlier.