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  • #91


    Marvel may not be done with the world of WandaVision yet.


    A spinoff of the Disney+ series that would focus on Kathryn Hahn’s character, Agatha Harkness, is in the early stages of development at the streamer. Jac Schaeffer, the WandaVision head writer who has an overall deal with Marvel and Disney’s 20th Television, will write the script.

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    • #92
      I lowered my rating on IMDB from an eight to a one. I have found myself having two core issues with this show:

      1)

      The show's motivation for the sit-com scenario is that Wanda used to watch sit-coms from the United States, when she was a little kid in Sokovia (which is in Eastern Europe). The more that I think about it, the more it feels like American writers are imprinting their own life experiences (of having watched stuff like the Dick Van Dyke Show growing up) onto this Eastern European woman. You know, I grew up in Northern Europe (a place that's had access to American entertainment since forever), but I didn't grow up watching The Dick Van Dyke Show, Family Ties, etc. Okay, I grew up with some shows from the States (the ones that were on the channels that I had)... but I also grew up with domestically made shows, British shows, Norwegian shows, Danish shows (including a crime show starring a young Mads Mikkelsen), Australian shows, Japanese shows, shows from some other countries. Then you look at a place like Sokovia, which is Eastern Europe (and would've thus been part of the Soviet Bloc, when Wanda was born). Wanda's parents wouldn't have grown up on these American sitcoms, and then sat down to watch the reruns with their children. There's even the question if the sitcoms in question would've even been airing in Eastern Europe, when Wanda was a little kid (and even if her parents had gotten their hands on some foreign DVDs (which would've required region 1 DVD players to play the disks), would she have been able to continue watching, after she's ten and sent to the orphanage?). It would've been one thing if they had established that Wanda had developed a love (obsession) for American sitcoms, after coming to the States in Age of Ultron (and joining the Avengers). That I could buy. She now lives in North America, and watches their TV channels... some of which are bound to air reruns of stuff like sitcoms (and, both not knowing anyone, and wanting to understand the culture of the place that she now lives in, she stays in and watches the American shows). Instead, they had an Eastern European girl grow up loving American sitcoms (including Malcolm in the Middle, which didn't start until the year 2000, while Wanda's parents were killed in 1999), five minutes after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They even show a flashback to young Wanda and Pietro celebrating Halloween, and going trick or treating... Yeah, that's not a thing in Europe (certainly not Eastern Europe in the 1990s).

      2)

      Its refusal to acknowledge Wanda's Romani heritage. I grew up reading Marvel in the 1990s and early 2000s, and her being Roma is vital to the foundation of the character. Going back, looking at Avengers comics from this time period, both her civilian clothes and one of her costumes highlighted her ethnicity. Not that you could tell from her MCU incarnation. It feels a bit hypocritical. Loki established the titular character's bisexuality. Falcon and the Winter Soldier devoted a lot of time to discussing African-American history, and their place in society (the upcoming Disney+ shows Ironheart, Armor Wars, and Wakanda series, will likely explore more of that). Ms Marvel isn't even out yet, but the first trailer's already established her ethnicity and religion. Then you come to Wandavision... and there's nothing. No visible Romani flag in their house, Wanda's room at the Avengers compound, or the Maximoffs apartment. Agatha comments on Wanda joining Hydra, but makes no indicator that Wanda would belong to an ethnic group, that Hydra (an organization with ties to the Nazis) might have a problem with (somewhere between 500,000 and two million Romani were killed in the Holocaust). When Wanda sings to her babies in episode 3, she does it in what the subtitles identify as Sokovian (a fictional language), and not the Romani language. Honestly, the closest we get to an ackowledgement is her dressing up as a "Sokovian fortune teller" for Halloween (which, if anything, I take as an indicator of her not being of Romani heritage. If you're Romani, you're likely more annoyed with people who dress up as Romani fortune tellers for Halloween. Same as with Native Americans and people who dress up as the stereotypical image of them).

      I can only hope that they will ackowledge it in Multiverse of Madness, because when you look at the very diverse line-up in both films and Disney+ shows coming up (and incoming characters), it seems weird that they'd put all the effort into that... while also refusing to ackowledge the ethnicity of Scarlet Witch (who has got to be the highest profile Romani superhero out there). In the MCU, everyone gets superheroes who represent them. Children of all types (black, Asians, Native Americans, gay, lesbians, bisexuals, Latinos, deaf, etc.) can look to the MCU, and see superheroes like them... unless you're Romani. Does Romani children not deserve the same as all other children? DC doesn't get off the hook with this either. When they had Madame Xanadu be on the short-lived Swamp Thing TV series, they changed her from Romani to Africa-American. They're currently developing a Madame Xanadu, live-action, series for HBO MAX, where I heavily suspect that they'll change her to African-American again (given that they've hired an African-American filmmaker to write and head the series). There are not a lot of Romani superheroes out there (the number gets even smaller, when both DC and Marvel insists on changing the few that does exist into something else). The DC superheroine... whose name is a racial slur for Romani people (and showed up on The Flash, where they had her be Latina) isn't actually Romani (just some lady, who appropriated the stereotypical image as a costume/superhero persona).

      Wandavision could've been, should've been the Romani Black Panther. Instead, it carries on the erasure of Wanda's Romani identity (possibly even cementing that they're never going to ackowledge it. As, if they can't even do it in her solo series, what odds are there in stuff where she's a secondary character?). It also represents another example of American writers being oblivious to the outside world, as they seem to think that an Eastern European woman would've been raised with the same shows and traditions as them. Potentially stripping her of even her identity as a woman from that region (even outside of the erasure of her Roma identity), as she spends the entirety of the series as being entirely assimilated in American culture (she's not even allowed to have an accent). No Sokovian/Eastern European traditions (certainly no Romani traditions, as that would require her to be acknowledged as Romani). It's all American, despite her not being, you know... American. She didn't even come to America until 2015 (Age of Ultron. Being born in 1989, she would've been like 26, at that time), then had to leave the country barely a year later (Civil War). Then seemingly spent the next few years in Europe, before she blipped for five years (with this show being set mere weeks after she returned).
      Last edited by jon-el87; 12-13-2022, 05:04 AM.

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      • #93


        I had completely forgotten about some of these things in phase 4.* Wait, did Sam really tell a senator to stop calling a terrorist organization "terrorists"?

        Think that the video is pretty enjoyable. Though, I do think that Ryan missed the obvious question with Wandavision: what are the odds that an Eastern European woman would've been raised exclusively on American sitcoms (or even exclusively on American content. You know, the various European countries all have their own film and television industries))?

        * Though, full disclosure: I've never really rewatched any of the MCU movies (not counting in the early days, which was years ago). You know, I watched them in the movie theater. Then bought the DVD/Blu-ray, maybe rewatched it when I first got the DVD/Blu-ray. Then put it on the shelf... and forgot about it.
        Last edited by jon-el87; 12-13-2022, 05:27 AM.

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        • #94
          Background actors on Disney+'s WandaVision series accuse Disney of using their likenesses for AI and digital replicas without their permission.


          Background actors on Disney+'s WandaVision series accuse Disney of using their likenesses for AI and digital replicas without their permission.

          A background actor from Marvel Studios' Disney+ series WandaVision accused Disney of the unauthorized use of AI during the production.

          In a report from NPR, several actors who worked on the Disney+ series WandaVision came forward with stories about Disney and Marvel's use of AI technology. One such background actor, Alexandria Rubalcaba, shared her experience about the actors having their bodies and faces scanned without their knowledge or consent. According to Rubalcaba, she and dozens of other background extras were brought to a trailer on set, where their faces were scanned and recorded.

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