By David Futrelle
You can always count on the dude who calls himself One Angry Gamer to have a highly nuanced reaction to developments in the gaming and comics worlds. For example, take his reaction to the news yesterday that the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder movie will feature Natalie Portman — a LADY — as none other than Thor himherself.
“This is the kind of news that strips the threads away from the very fabric of your soul,” he declared in a post on his One Angry Gamer site, really leaning hard on that fabric metaphor. “As always, Marvel is moving the dial ever further Left.”
Well, not that much further left, in that Portman played Man Thor’s gal pal in several past films, and that there already has been a series of comics in which Thor was a lady. But as One Angry Gamer sees it, those comics sucked and the movie will too:
For those of you unfamiliar with the Female Thor, it was as bad as everyone said it was, laced with the sort of propaganda that the Marvel comics have become infamous for … and included blatant agitprop such as Jane sharing an interracial kiss with Falcon after beating up some “racist” agitators.
But it didn’t end there… Jane ended up sleeping with the Falcon later on.
Oh my goodness, the comic book characters are miscegenating!
It’s the sort of thing that makes you sick to your stomach; churning your insides with a nausea-inducing swirl, as if you were butter in a theki.
If interracial sex makes you feel like butter in a sort of centrifuge used ito churn butter in Nepal, you might just be a teensy weensy bit of a racist.
“But it gets worse,” the Angry Gamer continued.
There were misandrist threads throughout the female Thor run, including one where a female villain refused to let another male villain fight female Thor out of “respect” for what she was doing. This is not even a joke.
Er. what? I’m having a hard time even parsing what exactly he’s mad at here.
But wait… it gets even worse!
According to ScreenRant’s tweets, actress Tessa Thompson said that as the new king of Asgard, the Valkyrie has to find a queen, since she’s obviously a lesbian!
I had to stand up and then sit down for a moment.
It’s a lot to take in. It’s like a hammer to the gut.
By Grabthar’s hammer, what a dingus.
If the news that a character in a comic book movie might be lesbian hits you “like a hammer to the gut,” you may be taking comic book movies just a teensy bit too seriously. And also you pretty definitely are a huge homophobe.
But it turns out Mr. Angry Gamer is just getting warmed up.
Starring [sic] at the floor, I began to realize that whatever good the Marvel Cinematic Universe brought to the world would be undone by the heathens of Hollywood.
Whatever memories or joy that you thought you could embrace from the previous three phases of storytelling, are gone.
Your joy is being systematically erased by the diversity agenda, and Phase 4 will taint these legacy characters… forever.
Ah bloo bloo bloo.
I wish there were words that could express the sadness that envelops my heart, to see Marvel wielding an axe of destruction for which all that you loved will be torn asunder and ripped apart like a pig’s intestines in a slaughter house; all for the sake of brainwashing the masses with their agenda.
Angry Gamer dude really loves working those metaphors, huh?
But there are no words… just bleakness and the realization that cultural entertainment is on the cusp of crumbling due to these degenerates.
Ah, I was waiting for him to work the word “degenerate” in there somehow, as if anyone had any doubts about his basically fascist sensibilities.
Anyhoo, after the Nazi dogwhistling, our Angry Gamer boi predicts the end of the world:
The end is nigh, and it will be ushered in with trends, claps, and applause.
The San Diego Comic-Con was the messenger of Armageddon, and you get to stand at ground zero to witness the complete and utter annihilation of comic-book movie culture.
Take some deep breaths, dude, you’re losing it. I don’t think even fans of Bewitched in the 1960s were this upset when they replaced Darrin with a whole other Darrin without saying a word.
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@Alan:
Thanks! TIL
Scanisaurus:
I would be fine with the “steve” thing if it was established. I definitely wouldn’t demand a woman be called Stephanie if there was a previous line of Steves.
Look at the name Dean. It’s a mostly male name, and it’s also a job/position. The Dean of a university. I do not demand a woman get the job title Deanna. The Job Dean and the Name Dean are independent of each other. At this point the Role/Mantle of Thor exists separate from the person Thor Odinson.
In Sweden, aren’t there any Jobs/Roles that are also given first names? Are they always strictly gendered?
I mean, wasn’t Alan just advocating for James Bond as a woman? I thought you said you were a feminist? But you take issue if someone has a name that doesn’t “match” their gender? Why? Who is harmed by this? How does it affect you in any way? Why is it jarring when a name doesn’t “match” the gender? Why should anyone care whether a name they’ve always associated with a man is now assigned to a woman or vice versa?
@Alan Robertshaw
Great that you posted that link!
@Tessa
Some jobs still have a gendered word for it, like the Swedish words for fireman or Seaman, but there is only one word that’s both a job and a name, and that’s “Bonde” which means farmer, but that’s an incredibly rare name that’s only used in Scania, and I’ve never seen any currently living person with that name, I’ve only heard of people living a century ago having that name, and while bonde is a gender-neutral job today, back when Bonde was used as a name it was an exclusively male title and any woman running a farm was called a “bondmora” or “farmwife”.
So yeah, with the exception of a handful of gender-neutral names, all other names in Swedish tradition are either exclusively male or female, but with feminine/masculine equivalents for most of them, and job titles used as first names practically non-existant.
@Scanisaurus, Not seeing why that means an American comic book you haven’t read has to follow Swedish naming conventions.
@kupo
I thought I already explained my stance in my previous comments, I’m not sure how to explain it further.
I’ve also already explained my cultural background in my comment right above, but I would have liked it if the masculine name had been a deliberate part of the new Thor’s characterization, like if it was to explore them being genderqueer or similar, rather than just a woman picking it up because it was the previous guy’s name.
And I’d be all for a female James Bond (I’d pay all the money to see Tilda Swinton in the role), though I wouldn’t find the name James as weird on a woman due to English-speaking countries not having the same divide between gendered names as Scandinavian languages.
@Hippodameia
I’m not a fanboy demanding anything, just stating that I disliked that particular choice and explaining why I found it so jarring.
Scanisaurus:
According to Statistics Sweden, there are currently 11 women in Sweden with the first name Thor. And 4 with Tor. Have you spoken to them about how they should change their name?
https://www.scb.se/hitta-statistik/sverige-i-siffror/namnsok/Search/?nameSearchInput=thor
It’s not that I don’t understand what you said. I’m asking you, from a feminist perspective, to maybe examine your prejudices. That you don’t like people having names that don’t conform to your notions of which gender or set of genitalia or what-have-you doesn’t mean people aren’t allowed to have those names and fictional people aren’t allowed to be given them.
So sorry people don’t want to adhere to your strict gender rules. It’s truly heartbreaking.
@Tessa
I wouldn’t pick that name for a woman (and 11 out of the entire population of Sweden is hardly a popular choice), but at no point have I ever demanded that anyone should change their name, I stated my opinion on a creative choice I didn’t like for a fictional character, the same way I’d critique what I’d think would be a tacky superhero costume or bad script.
Besides, weren’t you arguing that Thor in the Marvel media was a title anyway?
No, Scanisaurus, you’re just lecturing everyone self -righteously (again) on a subject you don’t know much about. It gets tedious.
Scanisaurus:
You are correct, you didn’t demand anybody change their name and I apologize about that. But while not popular, it’s hardly exclusively male.
And I have said it was a title AND Thor’s name.
Anyway, the point has always been this. It’s all intertwined. Thor is the god of thunder. There was never a god of thunder named Tora or Thora. Other men have been Thor as The god of thunder. But when a woman wields the hammer, you want her to be called something else. That’s othering her. “Sure, she can wield Mjolnir, but she’s no Thor.” You’re taking away what the men had by default, just because she’s a woman.
@kupo, Hippodameia, Tessa
Thanks, I accept your apology.
I get your point about restrictive gender roles in names and how it’d be unnecessarily limiting on people, but I’m still bothered by the double standard in how taking up a male title or name or profession is automatically treated as an upgrade for a woman, but doing something feminine is almost always treated as demeaning for a man, and a man being given a feminine name or title is often used as a straight-up insult to said man. Maybe I wouldn’t be as bothered if there were male heroes picking up a feminine title passed on from a female hero and it wasn’t played for laughs.
You have the patience of Job, Tessa. By my count this is the fourth time you’ve explained this, so maybe it’ll stick?
For some reason this seems relevant to the discussion; I’ll leave it to someone cleverer than I to figure out if so, and why.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Clarke_(Black_Rod)
Oops. Guess it’s not exclusively male after all.
So why do you keep arguing for exclusively male names?
Because
even though several people in the thread have pointed out that this isn’t true, and Marvel itself explicitly disagrees with you?
https://www.tor.com/2014/07/15/thor-is-now-a-title-not-a-name-and-the-new-thor-is-a-woman/
This is the reason you (finally) give
Well, maybe that stems from all the exclusively male names that women aren’t allowed to use. Maybe that leads to thinking that there should be exclusively male titles and exclusively male professions. Maybe the solution is to stop using gendered language instead of reinforcing it.
Kupo asked
Think about it.
edited to fix spacing
As Tessa pointed out, Ashley started as a male name but became female, but it never happens the other way around because femininity is taken as an insult to a man in most cases, and when the exchange is that one-sided it often only ends up reinforcing the status quo of anything male being seen as better than anything female.
The thing that’s bothering me is that there has been plenty of heroic stories about women disguising themselves as men or taking up a man’s mantle around for centuries, but oftentimes those characters are seen as heroic because those women are “trading up” by adopting something traditionally masculine, while being feminine is still seen as a downgrade to men, and in some cases even in women, with “strong female characters” showing how “strong” they are by proclaiming that they’re not like other girls or hate anything deemed girly.
So I ask, do you think that Jane Foster Thor being given the female variant instead would be demeaning to her just because it was a feminine version of the name? Would you be as bothered if a male character took up the mantle of a female superhero with a feminine title but changed it to a gender-neutral or masculine version for him?
That’s how it’s done since forever*, so at this point it would be a goddam breath of fresh air if the name wouldn’t be changed for him.
* In the case of female characters too. So you’re literally advocating for keeping things as they always were. See the “What If…” form the 80’s (I think), where Jane Foster first lifts the hammer and gets the name Thordis.
Dax is still Dax, regardless of whether they are residing in Jadzia or in Curzon.
@ malitia
Is there anything you don’t know about comics!!! 😀
Oh, loads.
But that issue was used as filler* in the second collection of Jane!Thor comics (Thor volume 02 – Who Holds the Hammer). Also now that I check it it was from 77 so I even misremembered when it came out. ^^;
* They needed filler because that run was cut short thanks to the Secret Wars (2015) event, so only had 8 issues and an annual. 5 were in the first collection, and only 3 + the annual were left for the second.
Scanisaurus:
This was NEVER the issue. Let me try to make this clear again. Thora and Thor (nor Tora and Tor) are not equivalent because there is no God of Thunder named Thora (or Tora). So rather than agreeing that she is another in a line of Thors, you are just giving her some other name. It would be the same if they decided she would call herself Jake or Nathan.
This isn’t about Masculinity vs Femininity. This is about changing the rules when a woman joins, so that she’s different.
If there was a hero Diana, Goddess of the Hunt, and there was a history of other women gaining her powers and being called Diana, then if a man was the next Diana, I darn well would expect him to still be called Diana.
Look, men barge in and steal women’s professions all the time. Then they push women out and everyone perceives it as more “prestigious” and suddenly it pays better. Then suddenly the profession is male-coded. The only reason anyone doesn’t realize thise professions were originally female-coded is because men erase women from history.
Look, I understand being frustrated that women are seen as lesser but saying a woman can’t have a man’s title and/or name because of this is not the way to fix that. But I don’t think limiting women, even fictional ones, is the solution to that problem. And, as a woman who has been told her whole life she can’t do things or wouldn’t like things because she’s a girl/woman, it’s downright insulting to hear someone say Jane can’t be Thor because Thor is a man’s name, no matter what the motivation behind it.
I don’t have to cater to the perception that I’ve “moved up” by working in a field that men once roped off for themselves. I can instead challenge the idea that there was anything specifically masculine about that field in the first place.
Marvel, to its credit, decided there was nothing specifically masculine about using a magic hammer, and made “Thor” a unisex title open to anyone who used the hammer. Having a comic book acknowledge that heroism isn’t gendered is far better than othering the first woman to wield the power of Thor, no matter how many Swedish naming conventions it violates.
Well, Scanisaurus is very invested in the sexist bullshit of “traditionally masculine” and “traditionally feminine.” A woman who apologizes really hard for going into an area men have roped off, and carefully makes it clear to everyone that she is a lady person doing a traditionally masculine activity is fine, but a woman who says “fuck this, no-one’s swinging that magic hammer with a penis,” is upholding men at the expense of women by . . . Not othering herself and rejecting the idea that heroism has a gender, apparently.
I can see your point about there not being a thundergod with an equivalent female name, and how you’d see a feminine version as a weaker substitute based on that.
I suppose I’m biased from mainly reading about Thor from different sources than Marvel, but to me as a Swede I didn’t see why changing Thor to Tora would be a more egregious change than the Scandinavian spelling of Tor to the anglo-saxon version of Thor, or any of the other regional name changes, and in Norse mythology most of the gods already use many different variants of their names and nicknames whilst still being the same person, and I didn’t realize it’d look different to people only knowing the god under the English name Thor.
@kupo
The way I saw it, I didn’t see how calling her a feminine variant of the name would prevent her from being literally exactly the same version in every other aspect, or how that would be a worse change than having Jane Foster wear a slightly different costume than Donald Blake.
If you think that those unfamiliar with any other variants of Thor wouldn’t be able to see this version of Thor as an equal to her male predecessor because of a spelling change in the name, I won’t argue this more.
@Hippodameia
I think your interpretation of my words are unfair, I never said I had a problem with a woman taking up Thor’s mantle or doing the same stuff he did, the only thing I questioned was the name/title.