Speaker 1: Before we dive in, here's another show you can enjoy
Speaker 1: in the True Story FM family of Entertainment podcasts.
Speaker 2: Ever, wonder where the Devil got his horns?
Speaker 1: How about those clove and hoovers for that pitch for
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Speaker 2: Love and His is Wah didn't al Pacino play him
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Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 1: There wasn't.
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Speaker 5: Listening to the devil on one shoulder and an angel
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Speaker 1: Then we're here to help. I'm Pete Wright.
Speaker 5: And I'm Tommy mess The third and this season on
Speaker 5: All the Feelings, we're examining the seven deadly.
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Speaker 4: Okay over, Hello, and welcome to this episode of the
Speaker 4: Superhero Ethics podcast. Today we're discussing the movie Thunderbolts. We're
Speaker 4: discussing the new Avengers. We're discussing what does it mean
Speaker 4: when you're supervillain just needs a big hug? And how
Speaker 4: is mental illness portrayed in Thunderbolts and a lot of
Speaker 4: other superhero media. I'm doing that with myself Riki Hayashi
Speaker 4: and returning regular guests Jessica Plumber. Jessica, how are you
Speaker 4: doing tonight?
Speaker 3: I'm doing good. How are you doing pretty well?
Speaker 4: Pretty well? We are two months out till baby arrives,
Speaker 4: so you know, our young Padawan, our young hero coming soon.
Speaker 4: So we're in the midst of crib making and basically
Speaker 4: all the IKEA projects from Hell, except they're much smaller
Speaker 4: because they're for a baby. And I do want to
Speaker 4: say a quick word on that, which is that I'm
Speaker 4: really excited to keep I'm really excited to keep bringing
Speaker 4: you episodes of both this and the Star Wars podcast.
Speaker 4: There's actually a third podcast that's gonna be starting soon
Speaker 4: focused on the idea of parenting with myself and to
Speaker 4: veteran parents Mandy Caplan and Pete Wright, both of the
Speaker 4: True Story family of podcasts. But I am going to
Speaker 4: be taking a hiatus for a while because there's a
Speaker 4: lot to do to get ready. There's a lot of
Speaker 4: cooking we want to do, there's a lot of getting
Speaker 4: the house ready we want to do, and it's just
Speaker 4: a lot to try and take on while also trying
Speaker 4: to not only record an episode a week, most episodes
Speaker 4: a week, but also edit them and all that kind
Speaker 4: of stuff. So this will probably be the last episode
Speaker 4: we put out for a while. The hiatus is going
Speaker 4: to be through June and July, possibly into August. Baby
Speaker 4: comes middle to late July and we will kind of
Speaker 4: see where things are. But by August or if nothing else. September,
Speaker 4: we will return hit the ground running, So please stay subscribed,
Speaker 4: please stay liked, and all that, and of course please
Speaker 4: sending us feedback on stuff that comes out over the
Speaker 4: summer that you want us to talk about. If nothing else,
Speaker 4: there's a movie about some fantastic people. Is it three people?
Speaker 4: Is it five people?
Speaker 7: That's a fantastic four.
Speaker 4: Four people, four people. So I'm sure we're gonna do
Speaker 4: that again and probably get Jessica back for that. But
Speaker 4: today we are talking about Thunderbolts, And just to make
Speaker 4: sure you.
Speaker 7: Feel officially sorry that it's Thunderbolts asterisk thunderbolts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how do you pronounce that? Thunderbolt set?
Speaker 4: Because asterix the name has changed, and we're gonna be
Speaker 4: spoiling some things from the movie to be clear. But
Speaker 4: also if you haven't seen the movie, don't worry. Neither
Speaker 4: has Riki Hakashi, because we're not. This isn't gonna be
Speaker 4: a review of the movie, as much as there's going
Speaker 4: to be a discussion of some of the topics that
Speaker 4: the movie raises. It has a lot to say about
Speaker 4: mental health, it has a lot to say about the
Speaker 4: nature of who is a hero and who gets to
Speaker 4: choose who is a hero. And that's kind of really
Speaker 4: the depth of the things we're going to talk about, because,
Speaker 4: as I've mentioned in the past, I think that there
Speaker 4: are sometimes where superhero media can engage with mental illness
Speaker 4: and do it very well and sometimes when it does
Speaker 4: it very badly. And so, Jessica, I'm just gonna start
Speaker 4: by asking you, my first thought walking out of the
Speaker 4: movie was, did they really just tell me that a
Speaker 4: sad white boy loner who is so emo that he's
Speaker 4: hurting everyone around him just needed the pretty girl to
Speaker 4: hug him and it would make him okay?
Speaker 3: Yes? And the question is I mean.
Speaker 4: Is that if I described that to you, I feel
Speaker 4: like you would normally find that fairly problematic. But I
Speaker 4: know you really like this movie, and so I want
Speaker 4: to kind of hear more about help me reframe that
Speaker 4: aspect of the movie in a way that doesn't make
Speaker 4: it seem quite So let's fix the poor male loneliness
Speaker 4: epidemic by ignoring how much hurt they're causing and just
Speaker 4: giving them a big hug.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I did not see the movie that way
Speaker 3: at all, Like that really, And you know when you said,
Speaker 3: because I knew before I went to see the movie.
Speaker 3: You saw it first and you told me you were
Speaker 3: on the fence about it, and I came out of
Speaker 3: it and I was like, what didn't Matthew like? And
Speaker 3: I thought it might have to do with that, So
Speaker 3: I see where you're coming from. But that was not
Speaker 3: my interpretation of it at all, and I think for
Speaker 3: two really crucial reasons. One is that the main character
Speaker 3: of this movie is Yolena. Like it is, it's an
Speaker 3: ensemble film, but she is the protagonist. It is her story,
Speaker 3: it is her journey. It is her mental health that
Speaker 3: is being explored word the most thoroughly. Literally, the opening
Speaker 3: scene is her monologuing about how depressed she is. And
Speaker 3: if it were if it were Bob's story, then yes,
Speaker 3: I think I would agree with your reading of it.
Speaker 3: But it's not. He is a supporting character who functions
Speaker 3: to illuminate her story. The other thing that I think
Speaker 3: really saves it is that their relationship is not romantic.
Speaker 3: There is no romantic dynamic between them. I'm sure some
Speaker 3: people came out of it and wanted them to kiss,
Speaker 3: but I don't think that was the intent of the filmmakers,
Speaker 3: and it wasn't the read that I got if it
Speaker 3: was a romantic dynamic again, I would be like, that
Speaker 3: was kind of gross. But my takeaway from the movie
Speaker 3: was not, oh, this poor sad white man who hurts
Speaker 3: everyone around him just needs somebody to hug him and
Speaker 3: tell him he's never done anything wrong ever in his life,
Speaker 3: but that we need each other, we need community, we
Speaker 3: need connection, and if we are depressed, we need to
Speaker 3: turn to the people in our lives and ask for help.
Speaker 3: Because Bob is not the only one who needs that.
Speaker 3: Every single character in the movie needs that. And I
Speaker 3: have specific scenes if you want me to go through them.
Speaker 4: For sure, for sure, And I think that does help
Speaker 4: reframe it somewhat, and I think kind of gives a
Speaker 4: good I say that kind of humorously because I've heard
Speaker 4: some of this from Jessica before, but it is something
Speaker 4: I'm a little wrestling with. But Jessica's got me somewhat
Speaker 4: more onto this understanding. But let's step back a bit
Speaker 4: and kind of set the frame of this. So and
Speaker 4: I'm going to give kind of a summary of the
Speaker 4: movie up to these kind of crucial points without going
Speaker 4: to too much detail. So, as you said, we start
Speaker 4: with Yolena, the character who was really introduced to us
Speaker 4: in the Black Widow movie as Natasha's sister, and who
Speaker 4: also really came into her own in the Hawkeye series,
Speaker 4: a series that is not great, but introduced two of
Speaker 4: my favorite female characters right now. Her an Echo, which
Speaker 4: I think is really awesome.
Speaker 7: No love for Kate Bishop.
Speaker 4: I think Kate Bishop's fine. I think Kate Bishop is
Speaker 4: a character I've seen a bunch of times before and
Speaker 4: that we also haven't really seen much from since then.
Speaker 4: But but anyway, like Elena is depressed, she's working as
Speaker 4: an assassin on behalf of the Countess. What what is
Speaker 4: her actual name?
Speaker 7: Just call her vow she has, Yeah.
Speaker 4: We're gonna call her she. She's played by Julia Luis Dreyfuss,
Speaker 4: also known as Vip, also known as Elaine from Seinfeld,
Speaker 4: also known as the woman who dances really badly in
Speaker 4: a really funny way in a great episode of that
Speaker 4: show that is really horrible actually a show, but anyway,
Speaker 4: we're gonna but has some great moments. Uh, And I
Speaker 4: say that as a New York Jew. There's a lot
Speaker 4: of complications around that show. Anyway, moving on, and she's
Speaker 4: doing these tasks and she's not really thinking about the
Speaker 4: morality of them. She's kind of thinking about how how
Speaker 4: she shouldn't be thinking about that she wants to kind
Speaker 4: of lose herself, and that she doesn't really feel any
Speaker 4: purpose because she doesn't feel like she's making the world better.
Speaker 4: She just feels like she's doing these things in half
Speaker 4: of someone else. And we interspersed that with people are
Speaker 4: starting to do congressional hearings about what Val is up to,
Speaker 4: including a new congressman from a guest New York because
Speaker 4: that's where I think he's from Brooklyn.
Speaker 3: They specifically say the freshman congressman from Brooklyn, And can
Speaker 3: I just say, as somebody who hasn't seen an MCU
Speaker 3: movie in a while, I felt like I had been
Speaker 3: in a coma for several years. I was like, Bucky
Speaker 3: is in Congress. Well, I felt like I had been snapped,
Speaker 3: Like I was like, what is happened? It was, I can't.
Speaker 4: I had a similar feeling. I've seen some of the
Speaker 4: recent MCU stuff, I've not seen all of it. I
Speaker 4: had a similar feeling. But anyway, so it turns out
Speaker 4: that all the other people who are part of the
Speaker 4: what we become the Thunderbolts have all been working for Val.
Speaker 4: They are all to this secret hideout place that she
Speaker 4: keeps somewhere in the American desert. I guess in the Southwest.
Speaker 4: I'm not really sure, but it's supposed to incinerate ridiculous action,
Speaker 4: high jinks and can the group work together? Yes, the
Speaker 4: group can work together and they all survive, but they're
Speaker 4: all now being hunted by Thou and okay, no they
Speaker 4: don't all survive. That is correct. One. Uh, we saw
Speaker 4: the movie here. I saw a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 4: and I didn't have the best experience seeing it. One
Speaker 4: of them task Master, who I guess is the character
Speaker 4: they never really figured out what to do with just
Speaker 4: flat up dies which.
Speaker 7: Changed with the story, Like she was supposed to have
Speaker 7: a larger part and they changed it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I figured it was a fake out, like they
Speaker 3: wanted us to think she was gonna have a bigger
Speaker 3: part and then they're like just kidding.
Speaker 7: I think in the original script, and I believe that
Speaker 7: they filmed some of this, there was supposed to be
Speaker 7: more of like a friendship between task Master and Go
Speaker 7: because they share like similar backgrounds of being used by
Speaker 7: a government agency, and so that was supposed to be
Speaker 7: like their connection, and they decided to change it up
Speaker 7: and have there be an early death of consequence, and
Speaker 7: it ended up being her and it's unfortunate, but.
Speaker 4: Okay, uh yeah, I kind of wish we'd had something
Speaker 4: more from her, but it, you know, I guess it
Speaker 4: sets look their are stakes. Yeah, So they all escape
Speaker 4: and they wind up finding this guy named Bob along
Speaker 4: the way, who doesn't really know what's going on with him,
Speaker 4: but he has some powers maybe possibly, and really all
Speaker 4: that Vou wants is to get her hands back on
Speaker 4: him because he apparently is the secret project that she's
Speaker 4: been working on. Lots of other people have died being
Speaker 4: attempting to make what they have made in Bob. And
Speaker 4: we get to a situation where Bob feels like he's
Speaker 4: been abandoned by the group and Vow is the one
Speaker 4: person who can talk to him, and she kind of
Speaker 4: convinces him to become this hero that she describes as
Speaker 4: a century, which I've now come to understand is s
Speaker 4: e n T s e n t r e Y
Speaker 4: or heavy for a century. I thought it was mister
Speaker 4: century century think they were hitting.
Speaker 3: I think it was a fake out because I thought
Speaker 3: they were saying Century like one hundred years every time
Speaker 3: they mentioned the project, because they talk about the Century
Speaker 3: project a lot during the movie, well before Bob is like,
Speaker 3: you know, puts on the Century costume and is revealed
Speaker 3: to be Century, and they don't give us his last
Speaker 3: name or anything for a really long time. So I'm
Speaker 3: like vaguely familiar with the character from the comics, but
Speaker 3: it took me, I think, until he not quite put
Speaker 3: on the costume but pretty close to that for me
Speaker 3: to be like, oh, they're saying Century. So I do
Speaker 3: think that they were buttsing it in their playing a
Speaker 3: little bit. I think they might have been doing that
Speaker 3: on purpose, Okay, or I just can't hear, which is
Speaker 3: also a true statement.
Speaker 4: Well, so let's talk about who is this character in
Speaker 4: the comics, because he is similar, but I think fairly
Speaker 4: distinct in ways that, particularly from mental illness perspectives, are
Speaker 4: very important to name. So who is he? Who is
Speaker 4: Century slash emo boy who I think is actually supposed
Speaker 4: to be He has a character the name of the Void.
Speaker 4: Who is he in the comics?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean Century is basically a Marvel superman, which
Speaker 7: you know, there are dozens of Superman and all of
Speaker 7: the comics now, but he's got the flight, he's got
Speaker 7: the in vulnerability. I believe originally it's not supposed to
Speaker 7: be a super super serum, which is what they used
Speaker 7: in the movie right to give him his powers, like
Speaker 7: it's a government super soldier program. I think it's supposed
Speaker 7: to be magic. But that's that's something that's not important,
Speaker 7: and they've probably changed the multiple times. The important thing
Speaker 7: is that in the comics, originally he suffers from a
Speaker 7: disassociated personality. It's disorder, so like Century and Void are
Speaker 7: different aspects of his personality. I do believe that like
Speaker 7: at times, they do have strong relationships to his depression,
Speaker 7: bringing some of this aspect out. And when he was
Speaker 7: introduced in the Marvel comics, it was actually originally like
Speaker 7: a story similar to Spider Man No Way Home, the
Speaker 7: most recent one, and I think that's why they didn't
Speaker 7: go with that story because it was too similar, where
Speaker 7: they the Illuminati, Doctor Strange, iron Man, et cetera, used
Speaker 7: like a Doctor Strange spell to make the world forget
Speaker 7: about Century and the Void, and as a consequence, like
Speaker 7: Bob Reynolds also forgets and he has these dreams, these
Speaker 7: vivid dreams where he's like, I had a dream that
Speaker 7: I was flying, I had a dream that I was
Speaker 7: a hero. Right, Well, they're memories that are actually manifesting,
Speaker 7: and so like, there's this journey of him rediscovering himself
Speaker 7: as century and then unfortunately rediscovering the Void.
Speaker 4: And I can see why that would get really confusing,
Speaker 4: especially not only because of Spider Man No Way Home,
Speaker 4: but also that sounds remarkedly similar to some of the
Speaker 4: ideas explored in Moonnight, which is another character who has
Speaker 4: disassociative identity disorder, which, for those who are not aware,
Speaker 4: is what is what was once known as multiple personality disorder.
Speaker 4: We have a better understanding of it now scientifically, I
Speaker 4: think that change happened about ten years ago. But just
Speaker 4: for anyone who's not quite quite understanding that we're talking about,
Speaker 4: you know. And there again we have a character who
Speaker 4: has that and is having dreams about things that his
Speaker 4: other personalities have done at some point in time, or
Speaker 4: that that he has done another point in time.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and there again, like comics are always changing things,
Speaker 7: reccon now, it's not's that. And there was also a
Speaker 7: period of time where the Void was like a demonic
Speaker 7: entity that possessed him.
Speaker 4: Right, And in this I think it's much more that
Speaker 4: he becomes kind of what I described as emo Doctor
Speaker 4: Manhattan in that he has like all the kind of
Speaker 4: that kind of like power that missed that Doctor Manhattan
Speaker 4: has from The Watchman to just kind of like snap
Speaker 4: people out of existence, not uh, like you know, Thanos snap,
Speaker 4: but just kind of like you know, to with a thought,
Speaker 4: they stop existing. And he is very depressed, very uh.
Speaker 4: He he wanted to stand up to the heroes, but
Speaker 4: he wanted them not to fight. He wanted them to
Speaker 4: kind of recognize how great he is. And he has
Speaker 4: this kind of like super happy like everything is great.
Speaker 4: And then when they fight him and he realizes that
Speaker 4: not only are they against him, but also that Val
Speaker 4: was using him and lying to him, he has what
Speaker 4: I think a lot of us can recognize as a
Speaker 4: depressive crash. And the words are never spoken, but I
Speaker 4: think this is and Jessica, let me know where you
Speaker 4: would put it. I mean, I'm not a training therapist.
Speaker 4: I don't think you are either, but it feels like
Speaker 4: it is much more evocative in this of bipolar, manic,
Speaker 4: depressive things like that or cerly at least deep depression
Speaker 4: than it is d id.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I certainly have no medical or therapeutic
Speaker 3: qualifications whatsoever. What I will say is that depression is
Speaker 3: a something that pretty much every main character in this
Speaker 3: movie is shown to have in common, Yolena, Bob Walker.
Speaker 3: I think you can definitely argue that Alexi and Bucky
Speaker 3: are shown like there's definitely a moment of Bucky like
Speaker 3: standing in his kitchen, just like not processing being in
Speaker 3: the world, the only one, the only nature character. I
Speaker 3: would say, we don't necessarily see it for as ghosts,
Speaker 3: but it's an easy extrapolation to make. But with most
Speaker 3: of those characters, I would say, Okay, what they've got
Speaker 3: going on is depression, and with I mean some of
Speaker 3: them also we know have PTSD, but they're managing it.
Speaker 3: Like Bucky probably has more than just depression going on,
Speaker 3: but Bob clearly has additional mental health struggles, including, like
Speaker 3: explicitly stated in the movie, problems with addiction on top
Speaker 3: of the depression. That is sort of the baseline for
Speaker 3: every character in this film.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 7: You say they all have depression, but they also have
Speaker 7: like depression is just not a one size fits all
Speaker 7: They have differing degrees of how they are coping with
Speaker 7: it and how they are managing it, right, like different
Speaker 7: levels of functionality.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and like I would say, like for example, like
Speaker 3: I mentioned, like Bucky is masking really really well, And
Speaker 3: I think you can definitely draw a narrative of like
Speaker 3: Bucky is doing what he's supposed to do and he's
Speaker 3: being a normal person and he's you know, doing good
Speaker 3: without violence. He's in Congress now, and like that moment
Speaker 3: when he just like throws it all away to go,
Speaker 3: you know, do insane things on a motorcycle, like kind
Speaker 3: of reveals how much he has been masking who he
Speaker 3: really is. Where Alexi is also masking, but much more poorly.
Speaker 3: Like his his show of everything is great and I'm
Speaker 3: fine is much more transparent. Elene is not bothering Walker
Speaker 3: is awesome. I think it's it's actually really interesting that
Speaker 3: all of the men are masking and only Elaine is
Speaker 3: like this is it? This is how I feel?
Speaker 4: Right? No, I think it's very true. And I think
Speaker 4: you know, alexis shown not quite as what could possibly
Speaker 4: be addiction, but I think he is better understood is
Speaker 4: self medicated. You know, he is using alcohol and food
Speaker 4: and he might well be addicted to those things, but
Speaker 4: certainly right now they he is self medicating. He is
Speaker 4: using them to give himself the dopamine that his brain
Speaker 4: is not producing, which meets me. I think part of
Speaker 4: why this is such a depression is a word that's
Speaker 4: used so broadly. And as I said, I'm not a
Speaker 4: licensed therapist, I did have some of that training, and
Speaker 4: I want to kind of give a little bit of
Speaker 4: a breakdown as it was explained to me by both
Speaker 4: professors and my own therapists, of just some of the
Speaker 4: different terms we can use that that there is because
Speaker 4: I think people often hear the word depressed and don't
Speaker 4: know what means, and that there is. There is situational depression,
Speaker 4: which is a bad thing has happened to you and
Speaker 4: you are feeling really down about it, but presumably you
Speaker 4: will get back up and and that is often what
Speaker 4: the The analogy that was used for me was you're
Speaker 4: in a hole and there's a ladder and you just
Speaker 4: haven't figured out you have you're not ready to climb
Speaker 4: back up the ladder. Then there is like long term depression,
Speaker 4: which is you know you are down at that hole.
Speaker 4: There may be a ladder, but you're having trouble seeing it.
Speaker 4: You need help remembering to like use the latter, et cetera.
Speaker 4: And then chronic medical depression. I mean, all of them
Speaker 4: are medical to some extent. But and this is where
Speaker 4: like medical intervention becomes more important medication and things like that,
Speaker 4: which is where you're in the hole and there is
Speaker 4: no letter and you need to construct the latter to
Speaker 4: some extent, and I mean going to all the difference
Speaker 4: of like you know, with therapy versus medication, all that
Speaker 4: kind of stuff. But yeah, I think the movie does
Speaker 4: a really good job of showing lots of people at
Speaker 4: lost in different stages. And I don't want to say,
Speaker 4: like which one is it which, but all of them
Speaker 4: are dealing with just the general fucked upitness of the
Speaker 4: world in general, but also of their particular worlds. You know,
Speaker 4: all of them were people who thought they would be
Speaker 4: heroes to some extent or another, and they are not,
Speaker 4: and they're not being treated as such, and they're being
Speaker 4: perceived as such, and they're in a lot of ways
Speaker 4: really wrestling with who they are. And I do think
Speaker 4: you're right, Jessica, that a lot of what you know,
Speaker 4: the the what makes them come together. Is there is
Speaker 4: the idea of community and the idea that like each
Speaker 4: of them feels alone in their own way, and it
Speaker 4: finds that in the company of each other that they're
Speaker 4: not alone, that everyone is in their own shame room,
Speaker 4: but that they don't have to be they can be
Speaker 4: together and come out of it together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and well, so I do. I do want to
Speaker 3: There's a couple of things I want to say when
Speaker 3: I do want to sort of challenge how you framed,
Speaker 3: you know, the things that they're wrestling with, because I
Speaker 3: think for very few of the characters, it's actually how
Speaker 3: they're perceived that they're worrying about, Like maybe Walker and
Speaker 3: maybe bob Yolena does want to do more public super
Speaker 3: heroing and Alexi, I guess, but like that's because Alexi
Speaker 3: tells her when he was happiest. She's like, how do
Speaker 3: I be happy? And he says, I was happiest when
Speaker 3: I was a public superhero and she's like, Okay, let
Speaker 3: me try that. Like she's not in it for the glory,
Speaker 3: and I don't think it for I don't think it's
Speaker 3: ego for all of the characters, and I don't think
Speaker 3: it's ego even for the characters where it is ego,
Speaker 3: I don't think that's the primary driver because the thing
Speaker 3: that we're like, the climax has them bob as the
Speaker 3: void basically like nothing's all of them into or he's
Speaker 3: nothing people away, which, by the way, the special effects
Speaker 3: in this movie are great, like the effects that they
Speaker 3: have for the void, the way that they've animated him
Speaker 3: and CGI is really cool, and the way that people
Speaker 3: are erased is like genuinely frightening.
Speaker 7: Very a lot of sound design. Yeah, there's just a
Speaker 7: very brief scene in the trailer, but it's almost like
Speaker 7: a slump as they disappeared.
Speaker 3: It was the first time it happens. There's like a
Speaker 3: little girl that Alexi is just saved and you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: he saved her, and then she's gone. Everybody's fine at
Speaker 3: the end, like they all come out of it.
Speaker 7: But so that's so manipulative emotionally. On the they were well,
Speaker 7: and that's the thing.
Speaker 3: Like a friend and I saw this together, Becky who's
Speaker 3: been on the podcast, saw this together and afterwards were
Speaker 3: like breaking down the story mechanics because they're very it's
Speaker 3: a movie that has very clear mechanics, but they work
Speaker 3: so well. But yeah, so Yolena goes into the blackness
Speaker 3: to try and talk to Bob and get them to
Speaker 3: stop this, and then the rest of them all follow her.
Speaker 3: And what happens when you're in the blackness is you're
Speaker 3: confronted with terrible moments in your life, and specifically moments
Speaker 3: when you failed or were at your lowest. Like Yolena
Speaker 3: repeatedly sees herself as a trainee in the Red Room
Speaker 3: luring a friend a little girl. She is a little girl,
Speaker 3: her friend is a little girl to be murdered, and
Speaker 3: she sees this over and over and over again. And
Speaker 3: there's actually a great line when they all make it.
Speaker 3: All the other characters make it through to Yolena and Bob,
Speaker 3: and she's like, are you guys okay? And Bucky's like, well,
Speaker 3: I had a great life, so I'm doing fine. But like,
Speaker 3: they're very much plagued by the things that they've done
Speaker 3: and the things that they have not done. And I
Speaker 3: think that's important to note because again that question of like,
Speaker 3: is this a movie about, oh this poor sad man,
Speaker 3: or is it a movie about supporting one another? And
Speaker 3: I think the fact that they do take responsibility for
Speaker 3: their own wrongs is really key to what side of
Speaker 3: the coin the movie lands on.
Speaker 4: I think it's really fair. And first of all, you
Speaker 4: want to say, just on what you're talking about there.
Speaker 4: That's a reference to shame room, and that's the term
Speaker 4: they use at some points in the movie. And I
Speaker 4: do think for me, at least in my own I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't speak for anyone else but my own understanding
Speaker 4: and my own depression, that felt very, very real. You know,
Speaker 4: there was a period of time when I was trying
Speaker 4: to crawl out of depression at the when it was
Speaker 4: at its worst, when I started listening to podcasts in
Speaker 4: part because I needed to always have voices talking to
Speaker 4: me because or else, you know, not the voices in
Speaker 4: my head in a literal schizophrenic way, but just in
Speaker 4: terms of like my brain without active input would start
Speaker 4: remembering and would immediately take me back to those things.
Speaker 4: And that is something that happens in depression. And I
Speaker 4: thought all that was brilliant. I will say I had
Speaker 4: a very different response to the Special Effects. I laughed
Speaker 4: out loud because I did think it was so manipulative
Speaker 4: and bad and like, come on, how lazy is the
Speaker 4: writing here? But I'm really glad it worked for others.
Speaker 4: I think what I meant by the hero thing and maybe, actually,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna say it again, I think, actually, you're right,
Speaker 4: and I think you've got me to see the hero
Speaker 4: thing in a different way. It's not that they all
Speaker 4: want to be heroes. It's that again, in a way,
Speaker 4: they're self medicating of they don't have the self validation
Speaker 4: that humans need, and that they don't also have the
Speaker 4: validation of their immediate friends and family and loved ones,
Speaker 4: and as happens a lot myself very much included, and
Speaker 4: I've had to be careful with this podcast not to be
Speaker 4: doing this, but there I think Alexiascally and Walker they're
Speaker 4: seeking it from strangers. You know a lot of people
Speaker 4: who you think about that person who is just seeking
Speaker 4: the cheers of the crowd while alienating all the people
Speaker 4: close to them. That's very much a depressive trait and
Speaker 4: can be linked to narcissism, but can just be depression
Speaker 4: of you're craving that validation that you don't get from yourself,
Speaker 4: and you're craving it from strangers. And it can be
Speaker 4: you know, serial friendships, serial relationships, or trying to get
Speaker 4: ten thousand likes, because if you just get a thousand
Speaker 4: more likes, maybe your mother will stop braiding you for
Speaker 4: the thing that she braided you about twenty years ago
Speaker 4: that you can't forget, you know. And I do think
Speaker 4: that you write they capture that very well and have
Speaker 4: you'll Lena doesn't have that the way the others do,
Speaker 4: and I think that's really interesting how that plays out.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The other thing that you said that I was like,
Speaker 3: I was like, well, this is really relevant is when
Speaker 3: you were li likening like the different kinds of depression
Speaker 3: to being trapped in a hole and how do you
Speaker 3: get out of the hole if there's no ladder? That's
Speaker 3: literally in the movie. Yeah, Yeah, there is a sequence
Speaker 3: in the movie. It's when they're escaping this like death
Speaker 3: trap that Valentina has sent them all into and they
Speaker 3: there is an elevator shaft, but there's no elevator and
Speaker 3: there's no ladder, so how do they get out of it?
Speaker 3: And it's Bob actually who comes up with the idea
Speaker 3: that they all link arms and press like back to back.
Speaker 3: There's four of them at this point, It's Yolena, Bob, Walker,
Speaker 3: and Ghost. They link arms, they back up and then
Speaker 3: they like walk up the walls bracing against each other,
Speaker 3: and like the metaphor could not be any more blatant,
Speaker 3: like how do you get out of this? You have
Speaker 3: to lean on each other, Like it's it's really extremely explicit,
Speaker 3: and it's I mean, this is not the first movie
Speaker 3: to use that as a metaphor for teamworking connection and
Speaker 3: like being a better person by making friends. The Umperor's
Speaker 3: New Groove does it beautifully. And it's only when they
Speaker 3: get to the top and Walker just he needs to
Speaker 3: be the hero because they when they get to the top,
Speaker 3: they're like, wait, now, how do we get to the doorway?
Speaker 3: And Walker decides that he's going to like do this
Speaker 3: big hero moment and he's gonna jump for the doorway
Speaker 3: and he almost kills everybody else because he's thinking as
Speaker 3: an individual instead of how they support each other and
Speaker 3: like coming up with a collective plan. So yeah, the
Speaker 3: movie is really really unsubtle, like how do you get
Speaker 3: out of the hole? Julian on each other?
Speaker 7: But I love that. I don't know, like not everything
Speaker 7: needs to be subtle, and no, that that metaphor can
Speaker 7: easily be missed, right, you can just view it as
Speaker 7: a action set piece moment well.
Speaker 3: And I didn't. I did miss it. I didn't think
Speaker 3: about it until I was thinking about like what we
Speaker 3: were going to talk about in this discussion, and I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, dang, okay, because it happen pretty early
Speaker 3: in the movie before the theme of depression is really
Speaker 3: expanded on, before you really see it for every character,
Speaker 3: and I was like, oh, oh, okay, And you can
Speaker 3: compare it to there's a scene during the climax before
Speaker 3: the little girl gets nothinged, when basically they've just fought
Speaker 3: Bob in Avenger's Tower and now they're back on the
Speaker 3: street and he like takes that I think a helicopter
Speaker 3: and it's causing all these building parts to fall down
Speaker 3: onto the street and so they're like protecting civilians, which
Speaker 3: was a very funny scene for me to watch because
Speaker 3: I used to walk down that exact block every single day,
Speaker 3: twice a day to go to work, and like, if
Speaker 3: you're in the MCU, maybe don't ever go to Midtown
Speaker 3: ever because it's not safe. But there's this moment where
Speaker 3: I think it's Alexei who some there's like a huge
Speaker 3: slab wall and it's falling over and it's about to
Speaker 3: land on a civilian, and Alexei, who is a super
Speaker 3: soldier like goes and catches the wall and is holding
Speaker 3: it up, but he can't. He's not strong enough to
Speaker 3: hold it indefinitely, and he's not strong enough to push
Speaker 3: it back. And this civilian is just like hanging out
Speaker 3: and not running.
Speaker 7: Right outside.
Speaker 3: Move, move, and then I think it's maybe Walker or Bucky.
Speaker 3: Like all the other characters one by one come over
Speaker 3: and also hold up the wall, and there's no distinction
Speaker 3: made between who had a super soldier serum injected into
Speaker 3: them at some point and who didn't. Like I'm like,
Speaker 3: what's Yolena gonna do? But they're all it's the only
Speaker 3: way that they can save this person. And nobody has
Speaker 3: like a moment of ego in this. They are genuinely cooperating.
Speaker 3: And when they do flip the wall over and not
Speaker 3: only does it work, but then all the civilians start applauding.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean I like that. I feel like if
Speaker 7: they wanted to be unsubtle, they could by adding dialogue
Speaker 7: like we'll do it together or you can lean on me. Yeah,
Speaker 7: that to me is unsubtle, But like the visual, I
Speaker 7: really like the what you're describing about the visuals.
Speaker 3: I thought it was done very elegantly, and they it
Speaker 3: helps that all of these characters are very sarcastic and
Speaker 3: like don't really like each other. I mean, they do
Speaker 3: their friends at the end, but like also they don't
Speaker 3: like each other, and so every time you have a
Speaker 3: moment where it could be like we did it thanks
Speaker 3: to teamwork, they'll just insult each other. And you know,
Speaker 3: they it allows you to have the visual, which is
Speaker 3: more important in movie language anyway, without it becoming belabored
Speaker 3: or cheesy because they they undercut it with the sarcastic remark, right,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 4: I think that's true. And I think especially Elena and
Speaker 4: Alexi have a few moments of like genuine emotional connection
Speaker 4: in ways that I think have really that both of
Speaker 4: them have clearly been hungering for in terms of this
Speaker 4: father daughter relationship that was several years ago in part
Speaker 4: by the right Room, but in part by Alexi himself
Speaker 4: and then by her rejecting him for instantable reasons and
Speaker 4: stuff like this, And there was a really beautiful connection there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I thought, like, to me, that was the
Speaker 3: emotional turning point of the movie. And again like in
Speaker 3: terms of this being Yolene's movie, that is the moment
Speaker 3: where like, again, the structure of this movie is very transparent.
Speaker 3: They have their low point at the end of act
Speaker 3: two when they have gotten their asses kicked by Bob.
Speaker 3: They have totally lost They have no way to stop him,
Speaker 3: they don't know what to do. Elena says extremely cruel
Speaker 3: things to every single member of the Thunderbolts and walks
Speaker 3: away from them, and Alexi catches up with her and
Speaker 3: is like, I'm sorry, I wasn't there for you, like
Speaker 3: and like states the pain that they are both in
Speaker 3: and they're like both crying and it's a really nice
Speaker 3: scene and it is what gives her the Like, again,
Speaker 3: you hit the low point at the end of act two,
Speaker 3: and then you have that moment where you rally emotionally
Speaker 3: so you can go in and fight the bad guy
Speaker 3: in act three, which is exactly what happens. Because she
Speaker 3: had that moment with Alexi, she has the emotional fortitude
Speaker 3: to go into the darkness and try to share what
Speaker 3: she has just gotten with somebody else.
Speaker 7: Yeah, this is nice. I like this movie.
Speaker 3: There's one more scene that I'm just like dying to
Speaker 3: talk about. And then I promise I'll stop.
Speaker 4: Please please do I have a big critique I want
Speaker 4: to bring, but I want to hear more the positives,
Speaker 4: So please go ahead.
Speaker 3: Okay, So the you know, in terms of like, oh,
Speaker 3: the toxic masculinity and he just needs a hug and whatever.
Speaker 3: I do think that the movie actually explicitly rejects that.
Speaker 3: And I don't think it rejects it with Bob. I
Speaker 3: think it rejects it with Walker because his Bob has
Speaker 3: this ability to touch people. This is before he really
Speaker 3: knows that he has powers, and nobody knows what's going
Speaker 3: on with him, but he can touch people, and he
Speaker 3: can see those dark memories that they're trying to hide.
Speaker 3: Like that's the first time we see the flashback of
Speaker 3: Yolene as a child, luring her friend into a trap,
Speaker 3: and so he touches Walker, and earlier in the movie,
Speaker 3: Walker was bragging about how he has the best life
Speaker 3: out of any of them because he has a wife
Speaker 3: and a kid and like his life is complete and
Speaker 3: they're all losers. So Bob touches him, and we see
Speaker 3: a flashback of Walker sitting in his house. He's right
Speaker 3: next to the crib. The baby is screaming, and his
Speaker 3: wife is like, can you can you do something? Can
Speaker 3: you help? Can you you know, like calling from the
Speaker 3: other room, John, can you do something? And he's just
Speaker 3: staring into space, like just totally checked out, ignoring his
Speaker 3: crying child, ignoring his wife who is begging for help.
Speaker 3: And she finally walks into the room, picks up the
Speaker 3: baby and is like what is wrong with you and
Speaker 3: walks out, And later we learn that she's actually left him,
Speaker 3: like they're separated, right, And this this could be a
Speaker 3: scene that's like, oh, poor Walker, like his wife is
Speaker 3: such a bitch, but it's not. This is a memory
Speaker 3: that's laden with profound shame for him because he is
Speaker 3: failing as a husband and father, because he is failing
Speaker 3: in domestic responsibilities. He is not comforting his child, and
Speaker 3: he is not helping his wife. And the movie has
Speaker 3: sympathy for him, like he's it's clearly not because he
Speaker 3: doesn't care. He's clearly depressed. And the movie I felt
Speaker 3: like that it managed to have sympathy for his depression
Speaker 3: without excusing his failure to again be reliable in a
Speaker 3: domestic sphere. And I think that that really is saying
Speaker 3: something against that sort of toxic masculinity idea.
Speaker 4: I think that's really fair, and I had a lot
Speaker 4: of these in terms, but in many ways it is
Speaker 4: a very i think intentional counterpoint of Alexi, who also
Speaker 4: failed his child, failed as a father, and now is
Speaker 4: trying to an exact opposite to Walker, who's denying that
Speaker 4: and is more worried about other people thinking of him
Speaker 4: as a good father than actually being a good father.
Speaker 4: Alexis trying to is acknowledging that he was a shitty
Speaker 4: father and is trying to do better as someone who's
Speaker 4: two months away from becoming a parent and had an
Speaker 4: abusive father. This is all hitting really close to home,
Speaker 4: and I remember, Yeah, I was sobbing during that scene
Speaker 4: because it's one thing actually that they've drilled into us
Speaker 4: in a couple of baby classes and books that I've
Speaker 4: been reading, is like, no matter what you do, sometimes
Speaker 4: your baby's gonna cry and there's little, really nothing you
Speaker 4: can do to stop it, and that you're going to
Speaker 4: feel like a failure. And I'm sitting here thinking about, Yeah,
Speaker 4: for someone like John Walker who can stop bullets, who
Speaker 4: can is so much more powerful than anyone else, the
Speaker 4: idea that even he sometimes can't stop a baby from crying,
Speaker 4: and would go into that kind of fugue state un
Speaker 4: thus stop trying instead of like continuing to show the
Speaker 4: baby love and affection and doing what you do until
Speaker 4: it does stop crying on its own for whatever reason
Speaker 4: or with what you're doing. It hits really hard, for sure.
Speaker 4: Here's the so, I think you all have talked me
Speaker 4: out of some of the toxic masculinity stuff that I
Speaker 4: was seeing it, and I admit I think I am.
Speaker 4: You know, it's kind of like some of the conversations
Speaker 4: we've had in earlier podcasts about Burrier Gaze or fridging,
Speaker 4: where the problem with these tropes is that things that
Speaker 4: kind of look like it or rhyme with the trope,
Speaker 4: it's easy to see them as the trope and react
Speaker 4: badly to that as well because of that, And I
Speaker 4: I would admit that for me, I hear what you're
Speaker 4: saying about Elena, it did feel like it made Bob's
Speaker 4: emotional journey the focus and everyone else have to deal
Speaker 4: with to sort of subsume their emotional feelings for Bob's
Speaker 4: emotional feelings. I didn't I didn't love that, but I
Speaker 4: agree with you it's nowhere near as bad as I
Speaker 4: first thought it was.
Speaker 7: Well, I had to describe a question if I may,
Speaker 7: because you described it as a pretty girl gives him
Speaker 7: a hug, right, But isn't this a group hug.
Speaker 4: It starts with just Jolena, Yeah, and it's very much
Speaker 4: a go ahead, but.
Speaker 7: They all they all hug together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so so Bob is. And that was another thing
Speaker 3: that I thought was really again unsubtle, but really interesting.
Speaker 3: So in the climax, they're in the lab, they're not
Speaker 3: really in the lab. They're in this like mindscape of
Speaker 3: Bob's of the lab where he was turned into century,
Speaker 3: which is also it's like ground zero for his issues,
Speaker 3: and it's also kind of ground zero for Yolena's because
Speaker 3: that's where the opening scene of the movie is where
Speaker 3: she's monologuing about her depression. And we basically the Void
Speaker 3: shows up like we have regular Bob and then the
Speaker 3: Void shows up and he is like using telekinesis to
Speaker 3: like hurl bits of the lab at the rest of
Speaker 3: the team. So they're all pinned against the wall. I
Speaker 3: think Walker maybe has like something stuck through his shoulder.
Speaker 3: Like they're pretty injured by it and they can't move,
Speaker 3: they can't intervene, and so Bob is like fighting the
Speaker 3: void and he gets the upper hand and he's like
Speaker 3: on top of the void, punching him over and over
Speaker 3: and over again, and you can see the blackness of
Speaker 3: the void is creeping up over Bob, and I think
Speaker 3: it's Bucky who's like, this is wrong, which was another
Speaker 3: point that I really appreciated, Like, the solution is not violence.
Speaker 3: The violence does not solve the problem in this movie.
Speaker 4: And then he teaches that like if you accept depression,
Speaker 4: which of first you're not supposed to, but if you do,
Speaker 4: you can beat it by being strong. You can man
Speaker 4: up right depression. Right that You're right. That scene is
Speaker 4: a brilliant way of showing how wrong all that is.
Speaker 3: It's the solution is not physical strength or like any
Speaker 3: kind of like being stronger, and the solution is not
Speaker 3: hating yourself. And so Bucky is like this is wrong,
Speaker 3: and they're all like oh yo, like this is clearly
Speaker 3: not the solution. So Yolena and Alexi are actually pinned
Speaker 3: beneath the same piece of metal, and she looks at
Speaker 3: him and he kind of nods at her, and then
Speaker 3: he pushes harder against it. And takes all of the
Speaker 3: weight so that she can slip out, which is yet
Speaker 3: another moment of teamwork, right, so she can run to
Speaker 3: Bob and like she pulls, like she's not running to
Speaker 3: hug him. She's running to pull him off of the void,
Speaker 3: which turns into a hug. She's like pinning his arms
Speaker 3: so he stops doing this. It is also a hug, absolutely,
Speaker 3: and then the metal kind of loosens its grip and
Speaker 3: everybody else can run forward and like jump into the
Speaker 3: hug too.
Speaker 4: I think even before that, I mean she gets to
Speaker 4: him first, yes, and that's to me it felt like
Speaker 4: at first the moment between that. But again I'm trying
Speaker 4: to move past that one. But to what I think
Speaker 4: is cause I think, like I said, you've turned me
Speaker 4: around on that one, but I think there is still
Speaker 4: one part of it that hit me wrong. And there's
Speaker 4: a number of great articles about this movie, some that
Speaker 4: are very praising of it. And I want to be clear,
Speaker 4: like the experience that some people have had with this,
Speaker 4: including myself, of it not ringing true, does not negate
Speaker 4: the fact that it rings true for many people. And
Speaker 4: as I said, even for me, many parts did ring true.
Speaker 4: There's a great article on how the movie is apparently
Speaker 4: an expression of CBT cognitive behavioral therapy, something I haven't
Speaker 4: been through, but I know it's really saved a lot
Speaker 4: of lives. But there's an article in Polygon called Thunderbolts,
Speaker 4: Big Depression metaphor hit me hard, mostly for the wrong reasons.
Speaker 4: What Marvel Studio's latest gets right and wrong about living
Speaker 4: with depression. It's by Tasha Robinson, and she talks about
Speaker 4: having depression and how this movie hit her, and I
Speaker 4: just want to read a couple parts of it because
Speaker 4: it really was effective, and it's talking about all the
Speaker 4: things that the movie gets right and says, but it
Speaker 4: misses one big issue with depression. The aspect of the
Speaker 4: movie that most made me shrink in my seat in
Speaker 4: the theater, the sense of shame that comes with needing
Speaker 4: this kind of help and with putting this much weight
Speaker 4: and demand on other people. There's a comforting fantasy in
Speaker 4: the idea that even though everyone in Thunderbolts is navigating
Speaker 4: major traumas of their own, they're all capable of temporarily
Speaker 4: setting aside their own issues to focus on comforting and
Speaker 4: supporting Bob. Granted they don't have much choice, given that
Speaker 4: he's encompassing the world in nightmarish darkness. Still, the film
Speaker 4: frames that group hug as an act of caring and empathy,
Speaker 4: not desperation or grudging heroic obligation. He has easy ability
Speaker 4: to absor the orb of that comfort when it comes, though,
Speaker 4: to take on Yo Lana's message of companionship as a
Speaker 4: real fix for his loneliness, and to do it without embarrassment.
Speaker 4: To me, that felt harder to believe than MCU. Multiverses
Speaker 4: are magic and almost toxic itself and its lack of
Speaker 4: weight or complexity. I've been through this kind of crisis myself,
Speaker 4: facing my own mental health struggles, or trying to help
Speaker 4: friends navigate theirs. And shame is often a major factor,
Speaker 4: both as an oncoming part of the larger weight of
Speaker 4: depression and in moments like these where long simmering melancholy
Speaker 4: reaches a boiling point. It's hard to accept help, it's
Speaker 4: hard to admit problems. The societal view of depression holds
Speaker 4: that everyone should be strong, independent, and self contained, and
Speaker 4: that should be embarrassing to demand other people's time, attention,
Speaker 4: or love. And I mean stop, stop, stop reading it,
Speaker 4: and I don't want to kind of let her words speak.
Speaker 4: But one thing she goes on to talk is that
Speaker 4: it was really frustrating that at the end Bob has
Speaker 4: no memory of this because he kind of therefore escapes
Speaker 4: the sense of like, wait a minute, when everyone else
Speaker 4: was going through their own stuff. Not only but I
Speaker 4: kind of like started hurting everyone to the point that
Speaker 4: they had to stop dealing with their stuff and help
Speaker 4: me with mine. And for me, that felt very, very
Speaker 4: real of the sense of like, and it's part of
Speaker 4: the shame spiral and the way you know, our brains
Speaker 4: lie to us in depression or the kinds of mental illness,
Speaker 4: because the reality is your friends are glad to help you.
Speaker 4: The people in the movie are happy to help Bob,
Speaker 4: They want to help Bob, they want to help each other.
Speaker 4: But it just felt like the phrase alone in a
Speaker 4: crowd is one that I really related to a lot
Speaker 4: in the midst of my worst depression of like, yes,
Speaker 4: I had all these friends around me who loved me,
Speaker 4: who wanted to take care of me, but it didn't
Speaker 4: help at all. It just continued the shame spiral downwards.
Speaker 4: And so I think that's the only part of it
Speaker 4: that I think still continues to ring false to me.
Speaker 4: Is and hero Artica I think is great and I
Speaker 4: want to I'll put it in the show notes. I
Speaker 4: want to kind of put it to you all of
Speaker 4: kind of your perspective on that of the like this can.
Speaker 4: And I think for some people depression is absolutely helped
Speaker 4: by having lots of people like people come to them
Speaker 4: with love and affection and caring. But that sometimes that
Speaker 4: can actually backfire or or that that that that can
Speaker 4: uh not, it doesn't always ring true the way it
Speaker 4: does in this movie.
Speaker 3: I mean, first of all, I want to say, like,
Speaker 3: you don't need to apologize for not liking this movie
Speaker 3: as much as I do, because I came onto your podcast,
Speaker 3: I came into your home many times and said I
Speaker 3: don't like Superman seventy eight or The Dark Knight, and
Speaker 3: you were still friends with me.
Speaker 4: So that's true. This is true. This is true.
Speaker 3: We can disagree and it's okay. I definitely like I
Speaker 3: I it sounds like a really interesting article and I'm
Speaker 3: going to look it up after we're done we're done talking,
Speaker 3: and I I think those are really interesting points. As
Speaker 3: someone who has also struggled with depression, I would agree
Speaker 3: that like shame is a huge, huge factor in it,
Speaker 3: and it's a huge factor that prevents you from being
Speaker 3: able to turn to others and say, hey, this is
Speaker 3: what's going on with me. And it's definitely something that
Speaker 3: I very much struggled with and have historically struggled with.
Speaker 3: And I do think it is something again like shame
Speaker 3: is a huge emotion in this film. It's something that
Speaker 3: it hammers home repeatedly. I will say, you know, I
Speaker 3: don't think it's like the minute the characters are offered
Speaker 3: a helping hand, they immediately accept it like it's a
Speaker 3: two hour movie. And I think that that is the
Speaker 3: journey from being unable to make those connections, Like they
Speaker 3: don't like each other at the beginning, they can't get along.
Speaker 3: That is part of the journey being able to accept
Speaker 3: that help and to like they Yes, they literally lean
Speaker 3: on each other towards the beginning of the movie, but
Speaker 3: they cannot emotionally lean on each other until the end.
Speaker 3: But I also think, like I mean, even right in
Speaker 3: the movie, they depict multiple experiences of depression and none
Speaker 3: of them are exactly the same. And I just I
Speaker 3: think it's when you're telling a story about something that
Speaker 3: is so so loaded and so personal and so difficult.
Speaker 3: It's not going to work for everybody. It's not going
Speaker 3: to work for everybody's experience. And I often find media
Speaker 3: depictions of depression. I very rarely connect with them. I
Speaker 3: very rarely see my own experience reflected in them. And
Speaker 3: I remember, I mean this was like ten years ago now,
Speaker 3: but I remember once reading a review of the Mark
Speaker 3: Wade Run on Daredevil, which is about Daredevil struggling with
Speaker 3: depression and masking, and somebody was reviewing it and said, like,
Speaker 3: that's what I do to mask my depression. I smile
Speaker 3: like a good little extrovert, and like, to this day,
Speaker 3: the phrase good little extrovert like gets the water works
Speaker 3: going for me in a way that, again, you know,
Speaker 3: the sort of typical depiction of here's this person who
Speaker 3: can't get out of bed, right doesn't. So I think
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't think this movie can be everything
Speaker 3: to any to everyone, And I I think it's that's fair,
Speaker 3: very worthwhile to say, like, this didn't work for me
Speaker 3: because this is my experience, because that's the only way
Speaker 3: that we can understand each other.
Speaker 4: I think that's a really good point. And I think
Speaker 4: that like we have been focusing more in this movie
Speaker 4: than I planned to, and and we've been going for
Speaker 4: a while, so it won't go too much longer. But
Speaker 4: I mean, we can use this kind of expand out
Speaker 4: a bit, which is that you know, earlier in the
Speaker 4: article they kind of talk about like, should a movie
Speaker 4: like this try and wrestle with something as deep as
Speaker 4: depression and mental illness while also having you know, action
Speaker 4: scenes and quips and funny jokes and set up of
Speaker 4: the villain. I would have liked a more believable or
Speaker 4: at least in some tiny way relatable villain we get.
Speaker 4: I think someone who twirls a mustache even more so
Speaker 4: than Emperor Palpatine. Neither one of them have mustaches, but
Speaker 4: you get my point.
Speaker 3: But I think Valentina would rock a mustache.
Speaker 4: I think that's very She would stroke a beard so.
Speaker 3: Well, she'd be so good at it.
Speaker 4: But I feel like I having had this conversation, I
Speaker 4: feel like I am glad this movie is moving the
Speaker 4: conversation forward. I may not love the things that it's
Speaker 4: adding to the conversation, but if it like, I feel
Speaker 4: like it's asking really good questions. Even if I don't
Speaker 4: love the answers that it's proposing, and that's I don't
Speaker 4: think I can ask anything more of media, Like I
Speaker 4: think that's exactly what we want to see. And a
Speaker 4: lot of what this podcast is about is saying, how
Speaker 4: can you have things that have fun action scenes and
Speaker 4: quippy dialogue and a lot of humor. Though I didn't
Speaker 4: think this movie is a funny as a lot of other people,
Speaker 4: but that's putting aside, but like, how about that and
Speaker 4: still deal with with serious issues.
Speaker 3: I think part of why this movie is because like
Speaker 3: most of the reaction I've seen has been like, Wow,
Speaker 3: this is so much better than I expected. Wow, this
Speaker 3: is real, Like people were surprised. I was surprised, And
Speaker 3: I think a lot of that is because the MCU
Speaker 3: has reached a point where a lot of these products
Speaker 3: that they're creating and I use the word product deliberately
Speaker 3: rather than like stories or movies or TV shows, feel
Speaker 3: like we need to keep the IP going. We need
Speaker 3: to like put out our requisite number of Marvel products
Speaker 3: in this year. We made this thing by committee based
Speaker 3: on who is under contract, and it's like it just here,
Speaker 3: it is. It came out of sausage factory and so
Speaker 3: to see a movie that is about something and is
Speaker 3: trying to say something, even if it's something it's saying
Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily work for everyone. I think really is is
Speaker 3: a reason for that, like surprise pleasure of oh oh wait.
Speaker 3: I liked this, this, this, I connected with this, which
Speaker 3: was also how I felt about Agatha all along, which
Speaker 3: I thought was like a shameless money grab, like we're
Speaker 3: really doing a TV show about a song from a
Speaker 3: different TV show, And then it really had something to
Speaker 3: say and I found it very moving.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's definitely true, and it will just kind
Speaker 4: of as a side because Agatha along a lot of
Speaker 4: it is about motherhood and things like that. I am
Speaker 4: so so so glad that Elene's depression and her shame
Speaker 4: moment in the Shame Room and all of this never
Speaker 4: had anything to do with the forced tystectomy that oh
Speaker 4: my god, yes, because that was such a painful thing
Speaker 4: with her and Natasha over a couple different products. So
Speaker 4: glad to avoid that. Riggi, where do you kind of
Speaker 4: fall on this? Having having heard this discussion, what's kind
Speaker 4: of your thoughts on movies like this that are that
Speaker 4: are not meant to be, like, you know, two hour
Speaker 4: Navel gazing explorations of our deepest, darkest mental demons, but
Speaker 4: then are wrestling with such hard issues amongst the fight
Speaker 4: scenes and the quips and the fun stuff.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I have a couple of thoughts. I mean I
Speaker 7: should have written some of these down. So the first
Speaker 7: thing is like that the Polygon article and Bob forgetting right,
Speaker 7: forgetting about what he did as the Century and the
Speaker 7: Void is like going back to being true to the
Speaker 7: comics version of him. And I think part of it
Speaker 7: is a conceit that you have to depower him until
Speaker 7: the next crisis, right, it's like the whole Superman problem,
Speaker 7: And it's like if you have the Century as part
Speaker 7: of the Avengers, like, wouldn't he just solve everything immediately?
Speaker 7: So I think you have to like depower him and
Speaker 7: sit him on the bench in this form. So it's
Speaker 7: like an unfortunate product of like what you have to
Speaker 7: do with this character, like between movies.
Speaker 3: And I can gag about that too at the end
Speaker 3: when they're like, Okay, we gotta fight crime. Can you
Speaker 3: like do something and he's like, I don't remember how
Speaker 3: to anymore? Guys. Sorry.
Speaker 7: Yeah, as a as a product of as Jessica was saying,
Speaker 7: like the MCU machine, I think to me, like, you
Speaker 7: look at the names involved in this movie and what
Speaker 7: they have done previously, it really shows that they put
Speaker 7: a lot more trust back into the creators. I got
Speaker 7: their names right here. So Joanna Callo is one of
Speaker 7: the writers. She's a writer on The Bear, which is
Speaker 7: just like a multi Emmy winning show and deals with
Speaker 7: a lot of you know, similar issues of like people
Speaker 7: under pressure and like how they react to that and
Speaker 7: then the other on the other side. Jake Schreier, the
Speaker 7: director Hit. One of his last projects was Beef, which
Speaker 7: is a Netflix show. I actually went and watched the
Speaker 7: first episode just to see what it was like, like tonally,
Speaker 7: and it really struck me that Beef is a show where,
Speaker 7: like the two main characters are going through some some
Speaker 7: kind of depressive episode and it's leading to them acting
Speaker 7: out in ways that are you know, not not good
Speaker 7: for them. And to bring bring all that together in
Speaker 7: a superhero movie is kind of stunning, and I would
Speaker 7: not have expected it from the MCU, like even a
Speaker 7: year ago. Right, Yeah, So it sounds to me like
Speaker 7: this is the like the best representation or the best
Speaker 7: exploration of depression in the MCU, which is a low bar,
Speaker 7: probably like Iron Man three, right or that was a
Speaker 7: little bit more PTSD, but but similar tone. It's a
Speaker 7: low bar, but they they set the bar further, is
Speaker 7: what it sounds like. They move the bar.
Speaker 4: If we're separating out the Netflix MCU, then yeah, I
Speaker 4: think I would agree. I would definitely put dare to
Speaker 4: put but anyway I started vision.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, absolutely so on the movie side, like this
Speaker 7: is this is the best. It's a new bar that
Speaker 7: sounds like a good thing to me, and the fact
Speaker 7: that it is getting accolades just as a movie in
Speaker 7: general while accomplishing then is a positive step forward. And
Speaker 7: the fact that like they it seems like they let
Speaker 7: the creators like tell the story for the most part
Speaker 7: that they wanted to tell, and there are elements where
Speaker 7: they have to set up the next movie in the
Speaker 7: next movie obviously, but I'm actually shocked, so, like I mean,
Speaker 7: the the big spoilery thing about the Asterisk is that
Speaker 7: at the end they are introduced as the New Avengers
Speaker 7: by Valve right right, And I'm shocked that that is
Speaker 7: the conclusion just from a from a franchise standpoint, because
Speaker 7: they've been setting up, you know, Sam Wilson's supposed to
Speaker 7: be putting the New Avengers together. They've had teasers about
Speaker 7: Miss Marvel and Kate Bishops being the young Avengers, and
Speaker 7: this just came out of nowhere. It's like, Oh, they're
Speaker 7: the Avengers and and and and to give these characters
Speaker 7: that mantle in this moment in the franchise history is
Speaker 7: kind of stunning to me and says something about the
Speaker 7: trust that they put in these performers.
Speaker 4: Right, I think that's overstating at somewhat, and I want
Speaker 4: to go too into this. There is a totally different issue,
Speaker 4: but it just you can tell me if you disagree.
Speaker 4: But to me, it did not, in any way, shape
Speaker 4: or form, feel like the MCU was saying these are
Speaker 4: the new Avengers.
Speaker 3: It was it was saying about it at the end.
Speaker 3: They're so sam issuing them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was saying that val is that the United
Speaker 4: States is saying they're the new Avengers, the same way
Speaker 4: they're saying that John Walker is the new Captain America. Like,
Speaker 4: I don't think that these are the stars of Avengers
Speaker 4: Doomsday or whatever it is, but it probably thought that
Speaker 4: they're gonna be in it for sure, and they became
Speaker 4: the Avengers team. But I think I think the idea
Speaker 4: is that in universe the term Avengers is now being
Speaker 4: in conflict, not that the MCU itself is sort of
Speaker 4: in a meta way saying these characters are the Avengers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, although to be fair, who's on Sam's team?
Speaker 4: Yeah, like that.
Speaker 7: At this point they are more the Avengers than you know, Sam,
Speaker 7: Joaquin Falcon, Shan Chi like Captain Marvel, Like she's off
Speaker 7: planet again, right, and that's how they get rid of
Speaker 7: her until the next movie. She's always off planet. Like
Speaker 7: they're not a team, Like this is much more of
Speaker 7: a team after this movie than anything else going on.
Speaker 4: Well, let's get to that when we get to our
Speaker 4: next Avengers movie, because I'll be really disappointed, I think
Speaker 4: if that's actually what they do. But just going back
Speaker 4: to the mental side of it, I I hear what
Speaker 4: you're saying. I do think as I think about it,
Speaker 4: that there's a lot of other movies, even in the MCU,
Speaker 4: that I think handled depression of mental almost better. I
Speaker 4: think Black Panther two does a lot with it. I
Speaker 4: think Avengers End Game, especially in the character of four,
Speaker 4: does an awful lot with it. And with Tony you.
Speaker 3: Say better though, because I know there was a lot
Speaker 3: of unhappiness about particularly thor and like Chris Hemsworth in
Speaker 3: a fat suit, like didn't know.
Speaker 4: So for me as someone, the main way that my depression,
Speaker 4: the main way that my I've talked about this before,
Speaker 4: but the main way that my depression should have like
Speaker 4: exerted itself in the outer world was me gaining a
Speaker 4: lot of weight and him getting me heroic without losing
Speaker 4: the weight was I thought incredibly cathartic for that perspective.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I agree that it's controversial, but I'm just
Speaker 4: saying that I to me, this hasn't set the new bar,
Speaker 4: but I'd say it rises to the bar that a
Speaker 4: couple of others have hit that a lot do not
Speaker 4: come close to.
Speaker 3: Well, And that I think is also a great example
Speaker 3: of how, like, yeah, differently, we need these multiple depictions
Speaker 3: because things are going to hit different for different people
Speaker 3: with different experiences.
Speaker 4: For sure, And I think, to me, that's kind of
Speaker 4: my My biggest takeaway is I feel like this movie
Speaker 4: tried something it didn't just to be like this is
Speaker 4: what you were saying, Jessica, It wasn't just more hollywoods,
Speaker 4: you know. It wasn't just another factory produced by the
Speaker 4: Numbers superhero movie that was kind of soulless and had
Speaker 4: nothing to say. This tried something like I love the
Speaker 4: TV show The Acolyte. It was trying something totally new
Speaker 4: in Star Wars. I don't think it was totally successful.
Speaker 4: I do wind I did wind up loving it, though,
Speaker 4: but I think even if I hadn't, I was really
Speaker 4: glad that it tried something. And I think that's kind
Speaker 4: of what I feel about this is I think this
Speaker 4: was like, let's try something. I think it failed to
Speaker 4: try it, but I think I'm much happier having it
Speaker 4: try and for me fail and for a lot of
Speaker 4: other people succeed, then for them to just give us
Speaker 4: another soulas you know, by the Numbers kind of thing
Speaker 4: that has nothing to say and it's just an excuse
Speaker 4: for big, shiny things, and you know, the newest actor
Speaker 4: to be in the tight Suit whatever it is.
Speaker 8: Yeah, absolutely, speaking of the newest actor in the Tight Suit,
Speaker 8: I would be remiss if I did not talk about
Speaker 8: the fact that originally Stephen Yung from Beef and The
Speaker 8: Walking Dead, among other things, he was originally cast to
Speaker 8: be Sentry and it was.
Speaker 7: Only because of the writer strike, kind of like throwing
Speaker 7: all the schedules out of sync. Then he had to
Speaker 7: drop out of this project because he had other commitments
Speaker 7: that he that he had to honor. So I would
Speaker 7: have loved that. Like I again, I watched the first
Speaker 7: episode of Beef, and I like saw this Bob character,
Speaker 7: like the depression and also like parts of the anger
Speaker 7: like in this and I was like, yeah, like I
Speaker 7: could totally have seen him as this role. I've seen
Speaker 7: some concept art where they give him the blonde hair
Speaker 7: because that's like a very key part of century like
Speaker 7: the power of a thousand suns or whatever, a million maybe,
Speaker 7: and so like his hair is like golden blonde. Like
Speaker 7: what I wanted to see is Steve in you like
Speaker 7: with the blonde diet here. I don't know, maybe we
Speaker 7: could change that part, but I would have enjoyed that
Speaker 7: a lot to see him in this role.
Speaker 4: And I will say I think for me and I
Speaker 4: think probably I was letting the context in which I
Speaker 4: was seeing this movie play too big of a role
Speaker 4: because right now, in the political world and stuff, we
Speaker 4: are seeing an awful lot of like but think of
Speaker 4: the poor straight white CIS men. You know, like what
Speaker 4: about their feelings and they're not getting into Harvard enough
Speaker 4: and so that's driving politics, and like, you know, they're
Speaker 4: being oppressed every time people talk badly about them on
Speaker 4: social media. And so in that context, for me, asking
Speaker 4: me to think that all the characters should care about
Speaker 4: a straight, white CIS guy, and maybe he's not straight
Speaker 4: or cis, but but that's certainly I we portrayed so
Speaker 4: far that his emotional problem should be the thing that
Speaker 4: everyone has to focus on. It just hit me wrong,
Speaker 4: and so I would have loved to see that difference.
Speaker 4: But I think, you know, I'm willing to step back
Speaker 4: and say, that's probably me reading too much of my
Speaker 4: feelings about the rest of the world onto this movie,
Speaker 4: because yeah, all people's feelings do deserve attention and care
Speaker 4: and things like that. It doesn't mean that Bob shouldn't.
Speaker 4: It's just that to me, it's not the high priority
Speaker 4: that I think the movie made it.
Speaker 3: I do think that, like as established, we didn't have
Speaker 3: the same read on the movie. But I do think
Speaker 3: that if they had cast a non white actor as Bob,
Speaker 3: it would have changed some of that subtext for sure,
Speaker 3: or even stuff like so Riki, you talked about Sentry
Speaker 3: being blonde. There is actually a gag where Valentina makes
Speaker 3: Bob dye his hair blonde because that's the look she
Speaker 3: has in mind for a century.
Speaker 4: Ok.
Speaker 3: And I think, and it's a gag like it's he's
Speaker 3: it's supposed to be ridiculous that he would do this
Speaker 3: that like he feels uncomfortable about it. I think that
Speaker 3: gag lands very differently if she's making an Asian man
Speaker 3: die his hair blonde. Yeah, a certain way.
Speaker 7: Like that may just be an artifact of that original casting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, well, that's interesting. That would have been
Speaker 3: really interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the joke felt a little weird. I was like,
Speaker 4: why is he so bothered by this? And I think, yeah,
Speaker 4: that would have been very interesting with different casting. I
Speaker 4: really want to wrap up. This actually inspires me to
Speaker 4: ask a different question, Jessica, and for Eureki as well.
Speaker 4: How do you think it would have affected the movie
Speaker 4: if they hadn't given us the Bob character. If if
Speaker 4: the movie really was focusing on Yolene's mental health journey
Speaker 4: and she was the one who became the void.
Speaker 7: That's such a loaded question for me, just because of
Speaker 7: the comics connection of it, Like I tolerate changes. I'm
Speaker 7: not one of those people. It's like it has to
Speaker 7: be exactly like the comics. But Century and Void are
Speaker 7: like inextric but inextricably connected. So I guess you would
Speaker 7: if they had changed the name.
Speaker 4: Oh I'm saying if they made her both Century and Void.
Speaker 7: Oh oh yeah, I wouldn't have been able to tolerate that.
Speaker 7: I guess that's like that's one step too far. Like
Speaker 7: I don't know where the lines are right, but it
Speaker 7: would be like what if you what if you made
Speaker 7: like this other human being who's not Bruce Banner the Hulk,
Speaker 7: which again, like comics have done lots of other Hulks
Speaker 7: and lots of other people, but I'm talking like original
Speaker 7: the Hulk. Like no, then just like make it one
Speaker 7: of the other characters, is how I would be.
Speaker 3: Like it would be like if after Iron Man two
Speaker 3: they gave Tony Stark Super Soldier Saramon. They were like,
Speaker 3: he's also Captain America. Now it's like an established character
Speaker 3: who has this storyline, and now it's also going to
Speaker 3: be this.
Speaker 7: Other Yeah, it's it's it's tough, I know, Matthew, Like
Speaker 7: where you're trying to go with the question and of
Speaker 7: like dealing with with the gender issue of it all.
Speaker 7: But ultimately like these are these are ips that have
Speaker 7: to they have to but.
Speaker 4: They yeah, there's a larger narrative that they Yeah.
Speaker 7: It's it's hard for me to disconnect that and this.
Speaker 4: Walking out of the movie theater, I said to my partner,
Speaker 4: who had seen the movie with why didn't they just
Speaker 4: make it all about Elaine's emotional journey? Why not have
Speaker 4: her be the one who gets sort of inner depression,
Speaker 4: gets talked into this be a hero thing by Val
Speaker 4: and then has the crash. And then once I realized
Speaker 4: that because I having watched it, I had no idea
Speaker 4: that Void's century was a thing, And when coming out
Speaker 4: of it, I was like, oh, okay, there's this longer thing,
Speaker 4: so plugging you Lane into it wouldn't quite make sense.
Speaker 4: But yeah, that's that's kind of where the question came from,
Speaker 4: and that that's.
Speaker 7: Like the MCU of it, right. They have to like
Speaker 7: get to a certain point within the next X movies
Speaker 7: of like introducing certain characters that they know they're going
Speaker 7: to want to have and like the big crossovers.
Speaker 3: So see, for me, like I I don't care about
Speaker 3: this at all, Like I've read comics with him, but
Speaker 3: never like you know, that's never been my focus in Marvel,
Speaker 3: So I don't have Like there are plenty of characters
Speaker 3: who I would be like, no, but that's not how
Speaker 3: it is in the comics. Like I very relatable feelings there,
Speaker 3: but Sentry is just not one of them for me,
Speaker 3: and neither is Yolena. That the way this movie is structured,
Speaker 3: like it would have to be a completely different movie.
Speaker 3: It would not be like just a case of like
Speaker 3: that climax is different like that, among other things, we'd
Speaker 3: have to introduce the idea that Elena has been subjected
Speaker 3: to intrusive medical experiments, which I don't don't really want
Speaker 3: to introduce here, ye, or like you know, you can,
Speaker 3: like there are other ways you could, you know, if
Speaker 3: you're totally decoupling the whole narrative of Bob Sentry Void,
Speaker 3: then you can find other ways, some other mcguffin that
Speaker 3: triggers her turning into the void. But for me, I
Speaker 3: still go ahead, go ahead. I still think it remains
Speaker 3: her movie the whole way through. I do not think
Speaker 3: I did not watch that movie and feel like it
Speaker 3: became Bob's movie, Like, among other things, in that climax,
Speaker 3: we go through three different memories of Yolena's that are
Speaker 3: like horrible traumatic memories. We glimpse part of Bob's through
Speaker 3: a crack in the floor, like we don't we don't
Speaker 3: get his story because this isn't his story. And I
Speaker 3: to me, there's two halves to Yolena's journey and or
Speaker 3: to her to her being able to start healing, and
Speaker 3: the first half of that is Alexi reaching out to her,
Speaker 3: and the second half of that is her reaching out
Speaker 3: to someone else, and they are equally im important. Like
Speaker 3: I think the fact that she chooses to do this
Speaker 3: is I don't think it's about him. I think it's
Speaker 3: about what she needs. And I can see that coming
Speaker 3: off as like it's really important for women to be
Speaker 3: nurturing or something, but that is that's just that's not
Speaker 3: the read I had on it. Like, I do think
Speaker 3: that her deliberately forging that connection is crucial to her
Speaker 3: character development in her narrative. So I do think it
Speaker 3: would be interesting to see a movie where Yolena becomes
Speaker 3: a cosmic being. I support her in those right, those journeys,
Speaker 3: but I don't think it would I don't know that
Speaker 3: it would be a worst movie, but I don't think
Speaker 3: but I don't personally feel like I need that version.
Speaker 4: Okay, now, I think that makes all the ten of sense.
Speaker 4: And this is exactly why I wanted to have conversation
Speaker 4: and I well, I was excited for you to see
Speaker 4: the movie, and Riki, I'm so glad you were able
Speaker 4: to bring so much this conversation. This has really helped
Speaker 4: me shift my perspective on the movie. Listeners, As always,
Speaker 4: we want to know what you think. We will still
Speaker 4: be collecting feedback. Like I said, we're going on hiatus
Speaker 4: for a while. I'm going to keep recording episodes and
Speaker 4: part what we want to do is have a backlog
Speaker 4: because right now, a lot of times when I record
Speaker 4: an episode, I then have to turn it around in
Speaker 4: twenty four hours and I'm trying to That's just not
Speaker 4: possible right now, and it's going to be even more
Speaker 4: impossible when I I'm trying very hard not to be
Speaker 4: the father John Walker. So yeah, so we will keep
Speaker 4: getting feedback. Let us know what you think all the
Speaker 4: informations in the show notes. Rieki Jessica, thank you both
Speaker 4: so much for being a part of this to our listeners,
Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: We have