you're allowed to have villains make accurate critiques in mass media as long as their solution is "and that's why innocents must die" instead of any sort of systemic change or collective action
He's also not real. They Killian essentially took all literally real shit both irl and in universe and built a character to explain his experiments. Which honestly is a brilliant way to slip that stuff it, Mandarin does not actually have a "and that's why innocents must die" moment, because he doesn't exist. But those pretenses are real, the president's corruption which he uses as a show for removing him is real, but in actuality Killian just killed those soldiers and tried to kill the president for 1 reason, he needed cover for the errors in his MIC shit.
So the film not only does not refute that shit, it piles on that the people using the pretext of how awful america is, are also just other american imperialists trying to stir fear of terrorism to bolster weapon sales. IM3 was fucking awesome, and should get credit for being an exception sorta to that marvel trope. Oh they never pretend like if he was real Mandarin would be correct to them, but they also singularly have american empire be the villain
edit: just to add to that, the Mandarin character makes clear he is the result of american empire, and in reality he is even more the creation of american empire than the character lets on. The fiction belies not angry people america hurt, but america itself making fictional enemies and pretenses to fuel a war machine
The second Captain America movie is explicitly about how modern US hegemony is inherently fascist and needs to be dismantled.
They made a movie about how the CIA/NSA is full of Nazis and also Obama's drone program was immoral and wrong.
It is, but I'd argue that the movie directly refutes that point. Once they have a clearer idea of who's Hydra and who's Shield, Nick Fury is laying out a plan about how to salvage the system and Captain America stares him down, makes the point that they were only able to infiltrate because the system is rotten to the core, and says "it all goes." Sure, it's not like they have him blowing up the Pentagon, they play it a bit more coy by using Shield as a stand-in for the MIC so they don't alienate the general public, but it directly shoots down the idea that the machinery of empire just needs to be put in more delicate hands.
If you can call half of SHIELD, which is a stand in for the entire alphabet soup, being avowed literal Nazis "bad apples"
Infiltrated, but only in the sense that it was a result of doing paperclip and letting the explicit nazi ideology intermingle with the power structure of a budding MIC and intelligence agency
I'm sure its just a coincidence it's the least popular Iron Man movie with angry reactionary nerds who are butthurt the Mandarin is not a yellow peril character (or caricature) complete with Fu Manchu mustache like in the comics.
Favorite marvel film, easily. Its still "cape-shit" and lib, but it certainly helped radicalize me a bit. Just remember throughout the idea of theater. My friend has been on and off working on a video essay about it an metaphorical modern dragons and knights which everytime I watch the film I realize was intentional, but that's a whole other thing connected to the fictional heroes and villains and kfabe of american politics/war
It’s also a Shane Black film who wrote Lethal Weapon, The Monster Squad, The Last Boy Scout, Last Action Hero, and The Long Kiss Goodnight.
Also wrote and directed Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and The Nice Guys in addition to IM3.
Haven’t actually seen Iron Man 3 but based on how good LKG and Nice Guys are, and your added descriptions, might give it a try some time.It is very Shane Black, so much so that it is set at christmas for no real reason, as all his films are
Such a fucking good speech. Never thought someone could make "America is like a fortune cookie" sound badass
Is there a term for, like, watching a movie combatively or in opposition to it's message?
Like watching the Warriors and rooting for Cyrus?
Actually... Is Cyrus supposed to be the good guy, or is he supposed to scare white audiences?
I don’t know if there’s a term for it but I find myself doing it almost constantly.
