fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2839 ]

[ SECRET POST #2839 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2839 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

__________________________________________________

08.

__________________________________________________

09.

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 060 secrets from Secret Submission Post #406.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Goddammit, I HATE how negative parts of his character are swept under the rug. Like, the entire, PREMISE of Iron Man is a libertarian fantasy and his fans seem to completely ignore that. The whole point of the Washington scene in Iron Man II was to drive that home. When he says "I've successfully privatized world peace" that should be the biggest hint.

And he's always painted as a Democrat when…um…hello? RDJ has basically said that Tony Stark is a cooler version of himself and RDJ is conservative.

This wouldn't bother me nearly so much if they didn't try to paint Steve as a conservative who treats Tony like some kind of worthless slut.

Steve grew up during the Depression in New York and fell in love with a woman who was in the military in the 1940s. I'm PRETTY sure, between him and Tony, HE's the one with liberal leanings.

Or the fact that people act like Steve was SO MEAN to Tony in the Avengers film -- as though Steve isn't the one who was recently fucking defrosted after 70 years and lost his entire world and almost everyone he knew and loved.

I'm not saying Steve's behavior was perfect in that film (annoyingly, he came across as a bully in some scenes which…just no) but Tony is far from some poor victim that Steve needs to go grovel to.

Steve was also disabled, raised by a single mother, poor, and son of Irish immigrants. And (despite being in the military) not all that great at following the orders of his superiors.

And looking back at The Avengers (after watching TWS and falling in love with Stever Rogers) I really hate how Joss Whedon characterized him.

I actually watched The Avengers before the first Captain America movie and so I HATED him. He struck me as a bullying stick-up-his-ass self-righteous prick. Which shocked me when I watched The First Avenger because there he was…the opposite -- hated bullies, humble, had humor and grit, looked out for the people around him. Just an all-around stand-up guy without being condescending. He made me want to be a better person. Whereas in The Avengers, I just wanted to tell him to take his orders and go fuck himself.

But I dislike Joss Whedon's writing so perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised.

Yeah, I blame that all on Whedon's script/directing. I was the same way (though I still dislike the First Avenger). But as the credits rolled on TWS, I thought "I love Steve Rogers. Where has he been all my life???".

I love Cap, but characterizing him as a condescending prick isn't something that Joss Whedon came up with.

For the MCU it is. The Avengers is grossly OOC compared to the Cap movies. Hell, Loki as Cap felt more OOC to me than Avengers Cap. At least Loki!Cap had a sense of humor.

I didn't really feel Whedon characterized him in a bad way, though? It made sense for him to act the way he did, what with recent massive trauma and loss and all, and I found him very sympathetic.

He felt like such a bully (were they trying to make us feel sympathetic towards Tony?) and alpha male to me. Which is not what we see in The First Avenger or TWS. Had I never seen TWS, I would dislike Steve right now.

That's exactly my problem with it too. He was such a bully, which is the exact opposite of what he's supposed to be. I get that he's dealing with LOADS of shit, but he didn't act like that after he lost Bucky AT ALL. It just felt completely out of character. I got the sense that it was done purely to prop up Tony's character -- have Steve doubt him and be antagonistic so that we would cheer for Tony and be so happy when, in the end, he does actually make the "sacrifice play" and prove Steve wrong.

Urghh

UURGHH INDEED!

Did he even mention Bucky in the Avengers movie? I don't think he did.

That movie sucked so many balls.

Re: Tony Stark

kaijinscendre - 2014-10-11 21:33 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Tony Stark

iceyred - 2014-10-11 21:37 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Tony Stark

kaijinscendre - 2014-10-11 21:42 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Tony Stark

ketita - 2014-10-11 21:41 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Tony Stark

kaijinscendre - 2014-10-11 21:44 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Tony Stark

ketita - 2014-10-11 21:46 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Tony Stark

kaijinscendre - 2014-10-11 22:13 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Tony Stark

(Anonymous) - 2014-10-11 21:42 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Tony Stark

kaijinscendre - 2014-10-11 22:07 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Tony Stark

kallanda_lee - 2014-10-11 22:26 (UTC) - Expand

ayrt

Hmm, I saw First Avenger before The Avengers, so I guess I already knew what Steve was normally like, so the contrast in his behavior between the two movies made me feel more sympathetic to him, not less, because it was like "wow, that's how badly affected he was?"

Oh man, I agree. I also hate those fics where Tony is schooling Steve on his old-fashioned social values, like a regular hippy-ish social justice liberal. As if.

Er, RDJ isn't a conservative. He leans Republican on some things, but he can't really be described as a conservative. Though even if he was, that really doesn't mean jack shit.

IA with the rest of this comment, though.

It says here:

http://hollowverse.com/robert-downey-jr/

That RDJ is a conservative Republican.

There's also his response on reddit's recent AMA:

[–]Aznb01p 3398 points 4 days ago
Would you be willing to elaborate on how going to prison made you lean conservative?
In 2009 Downey conveyed his politically rightward drift to N.Y. Times reporter David Carr. “I have a really interesting political point of view, and it’s not always something I say too loud at dinner tables here, but you can’t go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary and really understand it and come out a liberal. You can’t. I wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone else, but it was very, very, very educational for me and has informed my proclivities and politics ever since.”
Also the marketing for The Judge is very strange. A couple of months ago, it looked like a serious drama and now more like a legal comedy.
Thanks.

[–]Robert_DowneyJr[S] 4256 points 4 days agox3
I'll answer the second question first.
Over the course of lead-up to releasing The Judge, the audiences were telling us that yes, the evocative, dramatic aspects of the film were primarily what was holding their attention, however as our test scores were going higher and higher, much of that was due to the giddy dispersion of moments of laughter and release, situations and characters who behaved in a funny manner. And so Team Downey and the studio decided it was natural to lean into that. At its core, you could call it a drama. It's a surprisingly humorous movie. In other words, it's not a bleak nihilistic downer. It's quite uplifting.
Over the last 10 years, the world has changed, and I'm no exception. What I love about America is that your political views are not fixed by nature. It's natural that I would see the downside of liberalism while housed in an institution, as it's not an uncommon occurrence for people to take advantage of a system that caters to its psychological needs. To be pointed, humanity (myself included) is not above manipulating a democratic situation to suit its own selfish short-term goals. I hope that offers an explanation.

And this is what he said about Tony: "The first Iron Man was essentially wrapping the character around a cooler version of "me.""

So I think it IS a valid point.

That is some weird characterization. Tony Stark's a businessman. Those are usually found in the GOP.

Steve is the guy who made sure the two minorities on his team were standing next to him in every photo so they couldn't be cropped out. The positions, parties, and issues have changes between 1940 and 2014. What was considered liberal back then is considered civilized and normal now, but Steve doesn't strike me as the type of guy to fixate on whether or not someone else is sleeping around.

No, super-rich businessmen often don't give a shit about the GOP. Businessmen who are concerned about taxes and regulations cutting into their bottom line like the GOP. Billionaires do not care unless they are on a roll to take over the world. People like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckerberg...you better bet they give no fucks about supporting the GOP. Tony always struck me an anti-all politics ever, tbh (or pre-Afghanistan, totally indifferent to politics). But he definitely opposes war and heavy duty military-industrial complex stuff. And supports environmentally friendly energy. Those are really the only hints we get of his politics. He's pretty apolitical.

Also, what's true for a majority isn't true for everyone. Not every businessman on earth is a Republican.

Thread starter here. I posited that he was conservative because RDJ is and he's claimed that Tony Stark is basically a cooler version of himself.

And he might be against war, but note that some Republicans, like Ron Paul, are as well. That and Iron Man is definitely written with a libertarian lean at the very least.

I agree with you. I'm not an expert on the character, but I can see definitely interpret Tony Stark's character a having libertarian lean. Even though libertarianism is a right-wing political view, it's still "progressive", in the fact that it sees government involvement as hindering social and individual freedom.

it's still "progressive", in the fact that it sees government involvement as hindering social and individual freedom.

There may be a geography-based difference in our understandings of the concept, but, uh, the progressive movement in the US is not one that has disparaged government involvement in anything/everything, historically speaking. Nor do I think that many of the people in and surrounding the Libertarian movement would classify themselves as such.

That's why I stuck a 'usually' in there. Also, being in favor of energy efficiency and anti-war doesn't make anyone a Democrat/liberal. Eisenhower famously spoke out against the military-industrial complex, and have you ever heard of the Bipartisan Energy Savings Performance Caucus? Rep. Cory Gardner (R) is a founder.

Yeah, canon-Stark is basically (usually) a Goldwater Republican and canon-Steve is an FDR-Democrat.

That said, I wouldn't classify Tony Stark as particularly conservative, except perhaps when it comes to emotional maturity, but I've pretty much given up on people who aren't wonks remembering that "conservative" and "Republican" aren't automatically interchangeable.

I can totally understand why Avengers would have pissed you off, although I find it easy enough to handwave due to Steve being under the influence of Loki's Glowy Stick of Dickishness and Tony's buttons being painfully obvious and easy to push. Of course, I also thought that they were both assholes for much of that movie, so it annoys me when Steve alone is cast as a villain for it.

Maybe not conservative. But I still think his political views tend to be REALLY glossed over and mischaracterized by fandom.

The Avengers was just a horrible introduction to the MCU. I would have become a fan so much sooner if I'd started with something else.

I just wish fandom wasn't SO VERY Tony-centric. I understand Tony has issues and I think there's great fics dealing with it. But so much of fanfic is centered around him and, especially when it's Stony fanfic, I just can't help but get annoyed at how Steve is (in my opinion) shorted to bolster Tony.

Since I feel like that's what the Avengers film did in the first place.

Man. I have found my people. It is so hard to find Steve-centric pairing fics. Like, even though I adore Bucky/Steve (and I know Bucky has gone through some shit), I'd still like to see some tiny part of your Stucky fic that addresses the fact Steve is also going through some shit.

But it's not Steve VS Tony in Avengers. Anyway Avengers was so successful financially that you can't say it's a bad movie.

My headcanon is that he isn't interested in politics. MCU is kinda removed from reality so it doesn't have any bearing on RL anyway.

Ehh, I like groveling fics no matter who does the groveling. We need more of those.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only