I think it’s overlooked sometimes how political Guardians of the Galaxy 2 actually got.
Thor Ragnarok and Black Panther are both about an evil thing, colonization, taking something not yours to take and fashioning it to your own needs. But Guardians 2 forms the first part perhaps of Marvel’s anti-colonization trilogy. Ego is the ultimate colonizer, having no purpose in his life other than taking things and making them into more of himself. To this end he’s become the ultimate eugenicist, too. Every time he creates offspring – potential second versions of him, not even people in his eyes – he tests them and if they’re not what he wants he kills them. He’s a slaver (he owns Mantis in every way that matters) a killer, a manipulator, an absolute monster behind a smiling face.
There’s a running theme in GOTG 2 about the evils of treating people as things.
The Sovereign do this too – they’re gold in colour, but they’re essentially white supremacists. (The slight satire of them also being basically really hardcore video gamers, who sit behind drones and make mass murder into a competition, was not lost on me either.) And Yondu, Rocket, Gamora and Nebula are all where they are because they were treated as things – slaves, experiments, disposables. The movie explores their traumas, and makes it clear that they’re justified in their rages.
GOTG 2 does with Ego what Infinity War somehow didn’t manage to do with Thanos, and completely and utterly kill the monster at the end of its story. Peter is granted by Ego all the power he could possibly want, as well as the promise of the family he’s always craved. But once he discovers that it’s all built on bones, he rejects it utterly, even at what he thinks is the cost of his own life. Ego’s not given an ounce of mercy or sympathy, not even from Peter, his own son.
Essentially GOTG2 follows almost an identical path to Thor: Ragnarok – a god (alright, demigod in Peter’s case) discovers that the powers granted to him came from a place of evil, and rejects them in favour of something better. Those two films and Black Panther form an epic “dismantle oppressive systems, even if they benefit you” triple-bill.
so i went to target earlier and i was looking through the men’s clothing section and was comparing two shirts and this woman came up to me and literally said “oh, how nice! you must be shopping for your boyfriend”. and i, without thinking, replied: “nothing i do in life is ever for the sake of men”.
girls don’t like boys, girls like the pastoral escapist fantasy of living in a large house with many friends and several pets on a beautiful chunk of land with no financial, political, or medical anxieties. also, bread.
As some of you might already have guessed, I’m a fan of Japanese girl idols. One of the many, many idol groups in existence today in Japan is NMB48, a Osaka-based spin-off group of the (in)famous AKB48. NMB has a weekly show that’s surprisingly entertaining as well as educational called NMB to Manabu-kun, in which the members of NMB and a few comedians listen to guest lectures by experts in various fields.
Back on May 15th, the theme of the episode was pataphysics/the science of sci-fi. One of the topics of the lecture held by university professor Yanagita Rikao was the age-old question of “WHY ARE MAGICAL GIRLS NEVER ATTACKED WHILE TRANSFORMING???”
This was his answer, based on the magical girl series Futari wa Pretty Cure.
Question: The transformation scenes in Pretty Cure are very long, so why don’t the bad guys attack the girls in the meantime?
“Even when I was little, I was thinking ‘Hey! Attack them now!’”
“I found this odd as well, so I watched the transformation scene many times. And what I noticed is, when the Pretty Cures yell ‘Dual Aurora Wave!’ and transform, a rainbow-colored column of light shoots up from the ground, going BOOM!”
“And then the Pretty Cures levitate, and go up into the air. Based on this, I believe the protagonists of Pretty Cure are being held up in the air by the power of light.”
“When we think of light, we usually think it heats up things or lights up things. But in reality, light has the power to hold up things as well.”
“When the sun is beating down on us in the summer, the human body is being pressed downwards by the sun beams with a force of 2/100,000g.”
“But this is only about a one-hundred of the weight of a mosquito, so no matter how hot it is, we don’t feel that sunlight is heavy.”
“So that means the light holding them up must be extremely strong. If we assume that the two Pretty Cures each weigh about 45kg and do some calculations…”
“It means the light during the transformation must have the energy of 2,100,000,000kW per 1m2.”
“While the entirety of power that Japan is capable of generating is only 100,000,000kW.”
“So they’re using 21 TIMES the amount of energy the whole of Japan can generate.”
“So what would happen if a bad guy jumped in to try to sabotage their transformation?”
“He would EVAPORATE INSTANTLY.”
“DEATH AWAITS ANYONE WHO DARES TO DISRUPT A PRETTY CURE TRANSFORMATION.”
“So this means the best thing to do would be to transform close to any bad guys.”
“Yes. They are the strongest while they transform, and are practically invincible.”
When you apply science to magical girls, you find out just how strong and horrifying they really would be.
Yes this could have to do with the fact that Freya the Norse Goddess of love, beauty and fertility drove a chariot pulled by cats.
So, if I ever get married, I fully expect a catmobile.
One of the other reasons why they gave cats to each other was for their valuable skills as mousers. Cats were able to control rodent populations around their properties.
Also, Norse myths are thought to have the earliest literary descriptions of the Norwegian Forest Cat. They were described as large, strong cats that drew Freya’s chariot and were so heavy that not even Thor, God of Thunder, could lift them from the floor. (Source)
They kinda live up to the legend, too. Your average Norwegian Forest Cat is twenty pounds of solid muscle, with claws large and strong enough to climb solid rock. They’ve been known to attack bears when defending their territory. And yet they’re one of the cuddliest breeds out there, particularly noted for being patient with small children.
I have a Norwegian mix, and can attest that she is the cuddliest cat but also insane enough to try and fight a bear.
Viking cats “FIGHT ME”
Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, still could not lift this cat.
Abusive men pave the way for lazy men to get wives and girlfirends.
Lemme clarify, how many times have you heard your overworked female friends and relatives say “Yeah, Jerry drinks beer every evening after work while I cook dinner and clean up after everyone and does the bare minimum to help me raise the kids but he’s such a nice guy. He’s never beat me in my life. I couldn’t ask for a better guy in my life.”
Like no, Sally, your husband is a common stone among turds and you know it.
I try to explain this conceptually to people as a thing that happens not saying that this is good but it’s a thing that happens.
This is what male privilege is and how all men benefit from it.
This is why you are not exempt from statements about “all men” even if you are overall good.
You benefit from the bar constantly being lowered by systemic issues within the gender.
The expectations on you are always lower than they should because “at least you’re not X”.
That…is the best response I’ve seen to the “not all men” thing. Thank you.
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