Thor:Ragnorok spoilers
Nov. 13th, 2017 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
not_my_sandboxSo, I made a comment on Twitter that got orphaned because of an earlier deleted comment by someone else. I don't know whether the comment was deleted because of embarrassment or because my comment was spoilery and orphaning my comment was an effective way of hiding it away. Anyhow it had to do with the plot of Thor:Ragnorok, Hela's intentions, and smashing corrupt colonialist powers, so
Several articles have been written already about how subversively anticolonial that Thor:Ragnorok turned out to be, perhaps inspired by Taika Waititi's life experiences. And yes, it is anticolonialist: Asgard profited greatly from an expansionist war against what it calls the Nine Realms and faces a reckoning because of that past. But that was the past, a past that was white-washed so that Asgard could call itself the benevolent patron of the Nine Realms. As for Hela (in the MCU timeline), she is the reckoning with that past, not because she wants to smash the colonial power for its past sins, but because she was the engine of that expansionist war and wants to return to that glorious past. She does not smash colonialism; she smashes the whitewashing that makes colonialism pleasant and comfortable for peaceniks and other benefactors of colonialism.
She might as well have worn a red trucker hat instead of her crown/battle headdress. She literally wanted to Make Asgard Great Again.
I think folks who skimmed the articles and only watched the trailers or the movie itself at a shallow trailer equivalent level may have been hoping that Hela was going to smash both patriarchy and colonialism. However, Hela is only admirable because she is yet another demonstration of how powerful Asgardian women are. Smashing the patriarchy isn't the same thing as smashing colonialism. Intersectionality, sadly, is never the default. It is the wonderful exception.
If you want to celebrate the hero that smashes colonialism, look not to Hela, the agent of colonialism. Look to Surtr.
Several articles have been written already about how subversively anticolonial that Thor:Ragnorok turned out to be, perhaps inspired by Taika Waititi's life experiences. And yes, it is anticolonialist: Asgard profited greatly from an expansionist war against what it calls the Nine Realms and faces a reckoning because of that past. But that was the past, a past that was white-washed so that Asgard could call itself the benevolent patron of the Nine Realms. As for Hela (in the MCU timeline), she is the reckoning with that past, not because she wants to smash the colonial power for its past sins, but because she was the engine of that expansionist war and wants to return to that glorious past. She does not smash colonialism; she smashes the whitewashing that makes colonialism pleasant and comfortable for peaceniks and other benefactors of colonialism.
She might as well have worn a red trucker hat instead of her crown/battle headdress. She literally wanted to Make Asgard Great Again.
I think folks who skimmed the articles and only watched the trailers or the movie itself at a shallow trailer equivalent level may have been hoping that Hela was going to smash both patriarchy and colonialism. However, Hela is only admirable because she is yet another demonstration of how powerful Asgardian women are. Smashing the patriarchy isn't the same thing as smashing colonialism. Intersectionality, sadly, is never the default. It is the wonderful exception.
If you want to celebrate the hero that smashes colonialism, look not to Hela, the agent of colonialism. Look to Surtr.
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Date: 2017-11-13 07:59 pm (UTC)