Iron Man 3

[seekingferret]

I was rewatching Iron Man 3 last night and I noticed in an early scene that Happy walks through the lobby at Stark Industries and there's a giant menorah in the background.

CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE GIANT MENORAH AT STARK INDUSTRIES???


Obviously Iron Man 3 takes place at Christmastime and to a certain extent is a movie about Tony Stark discovering the Christmas spirit. So the menorah is a bit of set dressing as part of the overall set dressing of Christmassyness. Yay, I love it when my religion gets coopted like that.

But, like, what were the conversations like about putting a big menorah in the lobby at Stark Industries? Was it a Pepper decision or a Tony decision, or was it Pepper's goal to put a small menorah on the guard desk as a nice gesture for SI's Jewish employees and then Tony upsized it out of pure ego ("Those Chabad guys have a ten foot menorah, mine goes to eleven")? I NEED TO KNOW. ALSO, HOW IS GOOGLE TURNING UP NO META ON THIS?

And is this a new War on Christmas thing, or did Stark Industries always have a menorah in the lobby? Was this a Howard thing, a little nod to his crypto-Jewishness, and it's a once meaningful gesture that's become co-opted and corporatized, but only because it secretly reminds Tony of his father? Or maybe he doesn't even know why his father always had a menorah out, and it's just part of Tony's lost Jewish heritage that's somehow survived in the shadows? Maybe Tony's grown so used to the menorah that he doesn't even see it when he walks through the lobby anymore.

MAYBE THE GIANT MENORAH IS ALWAYS IN THE LOBBY EVEN WHEN IT'S NOT CHRISTMAS.

SERIOUSLY THIS IS THE BIGGEST ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF JUDAISM IN THE WHOLE MCU, I NEED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS.

Comments

[lannamichaels]

SERIOUSLY THIS IS THE BIGGEST ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF JUDAISM IN THE WHOLE MCU, I NEED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS.

I am informed, although I have not watched it, that in some Fantastic Four thing, there is a tiny menorah in the background of The Thing's house, which is the textual sign we all have earned to indicate that he is Jewish.

Therefore, what this means is that this is one-upping that. Someone else did a small menorah and got points for it, so they slap in a large menorah and assume points go up exponentially.

Even less serious answer: I have been wondering what year it is in the Marvel movies, since the internal timeline is a little overlapping, and every time I try to google it, I just get the timeline the movies came out, which doesn't help. This is therefore a timeline signal so you can check a Jewish calendar and find out what year Iron Man 3 takes place, since Christmas trees can be up for three months at a time, but menorahs often indicate what day it is. ...Until they don't, like the judaica store I went by recently that had an electric menorah in the window with all bulbs lit. IDK man. Maybe we did the time warp again.

[seekingferret]

Oh, sure, the mad Jewish points that The Fantastic Four earned. :P While earning basically zero other points of any sort. (Anyway, Fantastic Four isn't MCU)

[thirdblindmouse]

Iron Man 3 takes place thirteen years after New Year's Eve 1999, so it takes place in December 2012. Hanukkah was December 8-16, 2012, assuming the MCU's Gregorian and Hebrew calendars align with our world's. According to the voiceover narration, the story takes place a few days around Christmas, but that could be narrative license on Tony Stark's part.

[kass]

"Those Chabad guys have a ten foot menorah, mine goes to eleven"

That seems entirely plausible to me as a Tony Stark characterization. :-D

[seekingferret]

The best part is imagining the Chabad re-escalatation, because those guys don't back away from a fight. :P New Mitzvah Campaign to get every Jew at Stark Industries to lay tefillin, maybe?

And at some point Rhodey has to tell Tony that no, he can't install a Sukkahmobile on a tank.

[lokifan]

Was this a Howard thing, a little nod to his crypto-Jewishness, and it's a once meaningful gesture that's become co-opted and corporatized, but only because it secretly reminds Tony of his father?

Definitely my first thought, but I'll take all these explanations cos they can co-exist and the Chabad competition idea is HILARIOUS.