(no subject)

[seekingferret]

"Jews do not dance in this movie" was a joke, but it was also an embedded rant that ghost_lingering got full-blast Sunday.

Because the MCU is a series of movies based on some comics by Jewish creators, principally Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, big fucking Jews. And they definitely had assimilation anxiety and they definitely coded a lot of the Jewish representation in their comics rather than always making it explicit, but they also had actual real Jews in their stories. One of my favorite scenes in all of 616 is the issue of the original Sgt. Fury comic where the Howlers (including Jewish Howler Izzy Cohen) are ordered to attack a Nazi naval base and on the way, they just happen to accidentally liberate a concentration camp. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby understood that showing your heroes fighting Nazis wasn't about fighting generic villains in menacing uniforms, it was about dismantling an anti-semitic, fascist regime.

And the MCU has systematically written the Jews out.

Pietro and Wanda? Not even ambiguously Jewish anymore.

Izzy Cohen? Not featured at all as a member of the Howling Commandos.

Agent Carter gave us Ana Jarvis, Actual Jew (tm), and then the movie made a big show of making Edwin Jarvis the only TV-only character to transition to the movies... with no sign of Ana in sight.

Steve Rogers, Hitler Punching Jewish Wish Fulfillment Machine? Given the line "Hail Hydra" in this fucking movie.


And this has bothered me for a while, but what made it particularly infuriating this time around is the way that the MCU has spent the past six months with increasingly lavish tributes to the legacy of Stan Lee A"H. The more they beatify Stan Lee, the more painfully egregious the removal of textual Jews from the MCU is. It is implicitly saying that the Jewish contribution to the MCU is valuable as long as anything actually visibly Jewish about it is hidden.



Me? Not hiding who I am anymore.

Comments

[naraht]

So I'm not a follower of MCU or comics in general (most of my knowledge probably comes from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay) – but this post is really interesting and man, that's egregious.

I want you to know that you've had an influence on me: whenever I watch ballet videos of Maya Plisetskaya on YouTube, I find myself thinking "Jews dance in this movie"!

[cahn]

Heh. Me too. I was watching the musical Falsettos and thinking, "Jews dance in this musical!"

[seekingferret]

The mind virus spreads!

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

The comic books have been doing some pretty horrible things to Captain America over the past while (up to and including The Thing that Didn't Happen).

Offers you Ben Grimm and Kitty Pryde (I know, not in MCU.)

I'm just living in the house that Jack built.

[seekingferret]

https://seekingferret.dreamwidth.org/196250.html

https://seekingferret.dreamwidth.org/135806.html

https://seekingferret.dreamwidth.org/134529.html

(among many other posts on these topics)

[melannen]

Every time I read one of your superhero movie reviews I feel an honest surge of disappointment that Jews don't dance in that movie. We are all counting down the days until you get to say yes.

(It shouldn't be that hard! They were so close with Spiderverse even but couldn't quite get up the courage.)

[seekingferret]

The MCU could do with more dancing in general, IMO, but yes, it should not be this hard to get the barest minimum of Jewish representation in the MCU.

[melannen]

Yeah, I feel strongly about "let the superheroes have time to dance!" as well as "let superheroes be Jewish!" So it's a very useful review all around!

I was trying to remember if anyone other than Deadpool had danced in a superhero movie since Tony and Pepper in Iron Man, and not having much luck. And Deadpool did it while killing people.

[seekingferret]

Off the top of my head- Stark Expo dancers in Iron Man 2, parallel Stark Expo dancers in The First Avenger... And of course, [spoilers for the end of Endgame].

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Guardians of the Galaxy.

Phil Coulson and Melinda May in Season 2, though Phil only dances as well as a rich white man (which, Melinda deserves better. And, doesn't it make more sense that Camilla Reyes and Phil Coulson 'bonded' over her getting a safe dancing partner? The Babe of the Week was so redolent I thought Jim Ellison was in the room.)

Everyone around Doctor Strange's ego.

[seekingferret]

It finally happened, by the way! If you are willing to go out on a limb, at least.

Kate Bishop stays at her aunt's apartment, which has a mezuzah on its door. Kate's aunt's sister is Kate's mother Eleanor Bishop. Eleanor Bishop dances with the Swordsman. If you are willing to say "Fine, that's as close as Disney is ever going to get to having an actual Jewish character," then there has now been Jews dancing in the MCU!

[batdina]

Due to health reasons, I don't go to the movies in the theatre any longer. (I'd rather use my lungs for the symphony, etc.) So I have seen none of the MCU movies on the big screen.

I have, however, seen them multiple times on the screen in my living room. I've been watching and wondering why things have felt so off to me, and this post puts at least part of my wonderings to rest.

We made this! We were written into this. So where the fuck are we?

[sanguinity]

As you say, it is a very deliberate writing-out, and it is wrong.

[alexseanchai]

^