#36 - No but like...the Marvel movies are actually really bad

Content Warning: This post discusses disordered eating and body image.

The last Marvel movie I saw was The Avengers. At midnight. It was the end of my junior year in college. For reasons that I still don’t have a super clear read on, I watched the first Iron Man movie every day my sophomore year. I wish I was kidding? I have no clue what I liked so much about it. Was it the wildly dissonant tone between acts one and two? Did I just find RDJ attractive at the time? (Like it would make sense that I was into a know-it-all with no emotional intelligence, that was 100% my type on paper.) Could it have been the script? Did I just run out of rewatches of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, and need something else in which RDJ played smart & smarmy and I just couldn’t get past the first three episodes of Aly McBeal? (Also, never saw Iron Man 3, which was the writer/director of Kiss Kiss and would have been me-at-the-times dream come true which like, ugh, so sad, dream bigger me of the past.)

I was late to the whole ~superhero thing~ so a bunch of other movies had already come out by the time this whole Iron Man special interest came about. Thor was really boring but kind of campy (but like, I’ll never forgive Kenneth Branaugh for what he did to Emma Thompson because I am oddly petty and hold weird pop culture grudges over things that happened when I was like five years old), Captain America was soooo boring and Chris Evan as a blonde does *nothing* for me. (But I liked Sebastian Stan since he was in the Santorini storyline in Gossip Girl & was the best part of The Covenant—an incredible Fílm about high school dudes who are come into their witch powers and are weirdly bitchy the entire time. Honestly, incredible use of leather pants in the Cov. That movie deserves more campy recognition.)

Iron Man 2 was also bad, the plot was horrendous and Scarlett Johansson’s hair was the worst it’s ever been. They also upped Goop’s screentime with a v poorly done ~romance~ plot (and tbh I get distracted whenever Gwyneth Paltrow is on any screen because she was an alumnus at my summer camp and everyone there was obsessed with talking about the fact that she wasn’t invited into the camp’s Stock company, but apparently, she commented about “that little camp in Vermont” after winning the Oscar so…they’re living in each other’s minds rent-free I guess). (One time during the Telethon—an event in which we had to call alumni and beg for money for this camp which now costs over $12,000 for eight weeks—I got to call her sister Lisi, who did not answer but her maid was authorized to give $1000 so that really helped my daily tally that one time.)

Now, since we’re detailing my incredibly bad taste of the time, I was also deeply in my Buffy Era™ and therefore was just so excited that Joss Whedon was writing and directing The Avengers. I coerced my little friend group to go to the midnight showing with me. I was forced to buy the tickets through Fandango and suffered years of unopened emails due to this decision. I love midnight showings of movies, they’re very ~pure~ places, everyone there just so excited to see whatever fílm that they’re staying up late and creating a moment and a memory. (The most batshit fun experiences were seeing the Twilight movies at midnight during high school. 10/10 would recommend, no one is better at dramatic gasps than a room full of teenage girls—who already know everything that’s going to happen because they read the books. Also, Dan used to holler at the screen whenever Jacob took his shirt off and all the horny moms thought it was the funniest thing that had ever happened in their entire lives.)

Anyway, The Avengers was so bad/boring that it fully broke my brain and I immediately snapped out the entire special interest and never looked back. The movies kept coming out, they kept not mattering, Disney kept releasing fewer films per year while buying other studios. (So now, the amount of low/mid-budget movies has all but disappeared in recent years except on streamers and those all have weirdly terrible semi-ironic scripts?)

And then Kumail Nanjiani got cast in one of the Marvel films. He released a photo of his New Body on Twitter and ~broke the internet~ for a bit. And then his entire press tour was just detailing how he “transformed” (we may have some vague body neutral language floating around the internet as well as, say it with me, unhelpful body positivity movements, but we will apparently be prying america’s obsession with celebrity body changes out of its cold dead hands). The usual suspects of “chicken breast and brocolli and my trainer” were trotted out, as if building that much muscle in such a short amount of time could have been done naturally, with absolutely no mention of the clear abject use of whatever regiment of Human Growth Hormone that all the Marvel men are on (& sworn to secrecy about).

And then I watched in absolute horror as he began outright binge eating during his interview with Jimmy Kimmel.

Jimmy Kimmel lowers down the foods that we have all collectively decided should be feared (pizza, cake, pasta, the classics) and Kumail loses his mind. He hasn’t eaten carbs in months. Remember, he’s been living solely on chicken breast and broccoli. (A regular statement that doesn’t at all point to some heavily disordered eating already. Also, not a meal that contains close to all of our daily nutritional needs!!)

The joy and color return to his face. He is thrilled. He is clamoring for this food. He is alive. He is indulging. He is binging in front of a live audience.

When it comes to men, we will do back handsprings in order to not diagnose them with ED’s. But honestly, what is Gym Bro Culture if not just a bunch of dudes sharing their pro-ana tips? What is “cutting” if not restricting? What are “cheat days” if not sanctioned binges?

Chris Hemsworth’s legs are teeny tiny because he only needs to bulk his upper body on film.

Tom Hardy is the only actor who has ever really impled the use of PED’s while on a press tour for a superhero movie (and his was in the DC Universe so Disney’s super-secret script snipers didn’t get him for it) and he was apparently punished for daring to make that joke about how he got in shape by “taking Smarties” when a reported asked about it.

And look, there’s a lot to be said about our cultural acceptance that people fucking with their own bodies is their own choice and as long as people using Performance Enhancing Drugs aren’t entering into any sanctioned competition then the use of those drugs is none of our business and we shouldn’t shame people for wanting their heads to grow really big because they want faster gains to impress the crowd at their local Planet Fitness. But the problem the problem is that they lie about it. They go on press tours and act as if anyone could emulate their physical transformation if they just…went on a super restricted diet that clearly cuts a lot of joy and pleasure from their life and hire an expensive trainer! And…that’s just not true!! And it’s harmful messaging to the kids these movies are allegedly aimed at (we all know its millennial comic book nerds but the complete lack of sex in all of them makes them certainly feel more “family-friendly”) AND it’s just weird! If it’s okay to use PED’s, if we all know that this is just the equivalent of real-life Photoshop for these dudes, then why are they lying? Why are these actors signing these contracts? How do they reconcile the deceit and their status as Role Models?

Oh? Does the millions of dollars help soothe all of those worries? Got it.

I mean, that money is doing a LOT of work considering that Marvel movies can barely be considered acting. The people on screen have seen out-of-sequence script bits that they perform to no one in front of large green screens. If acting is reacting, and there’s no one to react to…they are just performing broken monologues that they have no emotional context for because apparently knowing if a superhero lives or dies or an actor ~revelaing~ a bit of information about the plot is the worst thing that could happen to these movies. (And I know a lot of the green screen of it all is to outmaneuver unionized workers by just forcing non-union CG/special effects workers to do all of it, but that’s why these movies genuinely hold no weight or water and look terrible. Practical effects forever!!!!!)

Goop finding out that she was in a Spiderman movie is top-tier classic content though. She’s so surprised!

Anyway, I hate Marvel movies. For a lot of reasons. They’re not fun, the scripts are super boring, they rarely can be watched as their own single film, they’re sexless, unfunny, and they’ve caused a stable of men to develop years-long eating disorders. What do they provide societally? Because they’re not artful, they’re not giving us deep or meaningful messages about friendship or love or even fucking comradery amongst co-workers. I am so siiiiick of getting these massive budgeted movies that make millions back opening weekend and leave no mark on the overall culture because there is no story being told.

You can still reference Titanic and people get it. Try to reference Avatar. Just try! Oh, you can’t because that movie has no emotional storyline that wedged its way into the hearts of millions around the world and made all of us aware that great love does exist and it can change you by just imagining what it could look like?? Cool cool cool. Let’s definitely make more movies like Avatar, said the entire movie industry, including James Cameron, who of all people should know better.

James Cameron once flew a helicopter underneath a highway overpass. Where’d that guy go? Because I yearn for him. Yearn I tell ya!

Anyway. I don’t think it’s exactly fair that I use Kumail as an example and hold him to a higher standard than any of the five Chris’s that came before him, but I think the reason it happens is because it feels like he should know better. I don’t expect Chris Evan’s to have a moral issue with lying about how he got his body to look the way it does—his entire career has basically revolved around his body. (Picture him in Not Another Teen Movie. We’re all thinking of the same scene now. Isn’t that fun?) But I have also never watched in abject horror as one of the Chris’s binged on television and everyone treated it like a funny joke.

We shouldn’t be afraid of food. I know it’s not easy to deprogram anyone who was alive during the “fat-free” era but like…it’s not great that entire staple crops are considered “bad” for us now. Carbs are neutral! (Seriously, what did potatoes ever do except be the only vegetable in which all of our nutritional needs can be met if a fat source is added to them??)

I feel like we had finally moved past the Oprah era of interviews during which actresses had to detail their restricted diets (and of course, I still remember the “cleanses” that those actresses detailed which were always met with admiration and applause instead of shock and horror), and I know that Oprah wasn’t trying to cause irreparable harm, but unfortunately, she often used her platform to broadcast her insecurities and that resulted in a ton of information that should not have been presented as neutral into living rooms across America every single day. And while we’ve moved away (kinda) from asking women these questions, we have not evolved at all when it comes to asking them of men. It’s almost like we maxed out how obsessed women can be with their bodies, and then someone realized there was an entirely untapped market out there. Oh no! The worst misogynistic standard Uno Reverse card!

Also like, idk, we make these movies, we could just get over the obsession with only putting the thinnest or most ripped versions of people on screen? That’s always an option. Make movies in which people look fuckable again! Human sexuality is actually not that narrow!! We LIKE uniqueness in faces, it’s weird that no one ever has slightly crooked teeth, please please let someone have some part of their body that jiggles when they move!

(There’s also the option of telling ANY OTHER kind of story?? Superhero movies are bad when live-action because the medium through which the original story was expressed was a drawn fantasy so you know what medium works really well for superhero films? Animation! The only good superhero movie of the last ten years is Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse. I have no issue with unrealistic body standards for cartoons!)

It is terrifying how quickly Disney has been able to snatch up other production studios under their one umbrella. We are going to experience an absolute dearth of movies because they are operating as a monopoly whose only interest in creating art is to maximize shareholder profits, and those motherfuckers are greedy. Seems like something that could have been avoided if we had…government regulations around conglomerates destroying competition through purchase? Maybe? Could we maybe just have a little regulation as a treat??!?

There’s no reason for these men to be suffering the way that they do. There just isn’t. It’s not a new problem, it’s just become increasingly apparent, especially as men’s bodies go under similar scrutiny to what women in Hollywood have gone through for years. But there’s another option, which is actual body neutrality and a hard stop at commenting on other people’s bodies. Or what foods they’re eating. There are so many more interesting things to talk about, and yet, we have such a fixation that it can feel impossible to overcome. Maybe actors need to start pushing back more when asked questions about what they did or how they “achieved” their bodies for certain roles? Maybe producers need to stop asking for impossible standards? Maybe it’s okay to not eat food you hate every single day? Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson hates salmon, but eats it all the time because “it’s a great fish in terms of health and fitness.” I just…you know…maybe he could find something he actually loves eating instead?

I want to watch press interviews where the casts of movies are happy, and spent time together on set, and are not all in the throes of EDs that have sunk so far into their lives they can’t recognize how broken their concept of nutrition and what food provides us is. I think it would be a decent trade-off, slightly less muscle mass for a whole lot more joy. That sounds better than what we have now. Right?

The movies that they’re making all these sacrifices for aren’t even good and I know that’s not the point but it feels pertinent to mention anyway!! Stop making suffering the crux of Great Art. And none of these movies are considered anything besides internationally appealing cash grabs!! So what’s it all for?

More regulations on corporations! Fewer regulations on daily diet regimens for actors! Let’s gooo!!