Wandavision. Yeah, I’ve been going through Disney+.
I’ll blame Neil Gaiman since he’ll get in less trouble. But he had described male vs. female fantasy. It was regarding his very earliest Sandman comics.
Male fantasy is like The Boys tv show. Homelander. Unbelievably powerful, corrupt, dangerous. Just kills people. Nearly every main god in every religion. Zeus, Odin, Ra, Christian God, whatever. Omnipotent. Badasses. All The Boys boys are male fantasy. If you give men stupendous power they become stupendous assholes inflicting stupendous, direct harm. Walking around in capes and costumes. It’s their life, but they’ve just been supersized.
Neil Gaiman said the female version is like alternate realities. Little Orphan Annie–where her life is suddenly made fantastic by being adopted by a zillionaire. You’re really a fairy princess. It’s a different reality. You aren’t inflated with god powers, you’re swept away to a whole new life.
Wandavision was such a slow burn, odd tale. And I was pretty intrigued because it was Marvel in a very unusual way. And as I was watching, I just felt it was this dichotomy. Homelander was a horrendous monster. But dude, if he was mad at you, he’d just kill you. Rip your arms off. Wanda kidnapped an entire town and mind controlled them into living cookie cutter fake lives to please Wanda. She re-created her dead husband, made fake (maybe) children.
And it was kind of what Neil Gaiman had talked about. But no one pretends Homelander is nice or cool or misunderstood. Yeah, he grew up in a lab and he’s a nutter. But he’s an adult.
In Wandavision, they’re all running around saying, “I can save her. Don’t let [bad govt man] turn you into the villain.” But dude, she’s horrible. It’s Super Karen of the Say No To Drugs and Homeowners Association controlling every aspect of your life and identity. Everyone is miserable. They’re even worse off than slaves, because they have no free will but are conscious of everything. However, because she’s not laser beaming anyone in the face, they still paint Wanda as the hero. She was depressed so she found a random town with random people and took away their free will.
Seems fair, right?
This is always one of those pet peeves of mine. There’s different kinds of badness. Punching someone in the face tends to get a lot more attention than being passive aggressive. And for good reason.
But because Wanda isn’t declaring herself Queen and smashing people doesn’t mean she’s a hero. Hell, doesn’t mean she isn’t a monster. She’s an adult who is responsible for her actions. The fact she was sad and a cute gal seems all the justification required for making slaves out of thousands of people. Like, leave her alone, she’s had a rough couple weeks.
So while the show is interesting, it’s frankly shocking to me they have tried to portray her as a victim. Agnes Shmagness, Wanda is responsible for 99% of the evil that has happened.
I browsed a few reviews and everyone is like, “her trauma.” Even when they know she has inflicted thousands of times more trauma on entirely random, innocent strangers. I don’t get that.
