The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special 11/25/22

[NORM]

You’re a mean one, Mr scribb. You have termites in your smile.

[CTVampSlayer]

I thought it was cute, but didn't love it. I was happy to see Mantis get more spotlight but I'm not as taken with Gunn's work as everyone else is. He always throws in a randomly misogynistic moment or two that take me out of the film. Christmas is my favorite time of year but I preferred the Halloween Special.

[NORM]

Which moment was that?

[CTVampSlayer]

Which moment was that?

This could just be a me thing, but in the first GOTG, Drax calls Gamora a green whore for absolutely no reason. In the second, there's the running gag about Drax calling Mantis ugly. In the Christmas Special,

Spoiler! :

Mantis has Drax toss her over a fence seemingly only so Gunn can have a scene where he physically abuses her, since they're both super-leaping over obstacles a few minutes later. There's also a shot where Mantis sneers at the Captain Marvel cosplayer, when the characters' reactions to the other cosplayers were not as hostile.

I took a Media Literacy course in college and it pretty much ruined me for not noticing those types of trends.

[Prophet924]

I think it was more just classic three stooges physical humor. Drax is just violence. So hus humor is about inflicting pain, threatening it, or laughing at it. I found the throwing over fence more Drax not being in the moment and just heard her say throw me and did.

Thwipp!


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[NORM]

Thanks for pointing out the spots, CTVS. I guess my programming runs so deep that those scenes did not register with me. I did notice them, but did not infer their intent.

[Ru_1977]

Thank you from me too, CTVampSlayer. The green whore thing always bothered me but I never thought hard about why. And I'm fine with vulgarity and insults etc, but it just felt out of nowhere. Hating her for her connection to Thanos and Ronan makes sense but I dunno. My brother-in-law got into it with a woman in traffic last week and jumped all over her for being ugly. Like, come on man, her behavior's plenty to attack, what does that have to do with it?

[fac]

I enjoyed it -

Some random things I liked:

Spoiler! :

Mantis jumping on Steve Rogers.

Cosmo in general.

Go-Bots killed Drax's brother! (or cousin...I forget)

I like how Star Lord got the look of "oh no" when the giftbox started moving. I like that he is being written as continuing to grow in each appearance - I won't say he is smarter, but really aware of his team's quirks, more of a leader, less goofy.

Not sure I agree that Drax's behavior is misogynistic - he is meant to be lacking in any form of politeness, discretion, tact, and self-awareness and acts very impulsively and literally - I think Drax directs that towards everyone, not just female characters. I also don't think the audience is supposed to agree with Drax about Mantis being ugly - that he keeps saying it actually makes us more sympathetic to Mantis, so I don't see that as being an attack on the character (or actress).

Spoiler! :

In about 10 minutes screen time while on Earth Drax pummels the Go-Bots guys and flips a car with two male police officers - his over-the-top physicality is played for laughs quite often, including throwing Mantis. I don't see misogyny per se in these instances given all the characters are broadly drawn and males and females and trees and racoons all get insulted, hurt and have personality quirks we are expected to be amused by. In other words, I don't see it directed mainly or only towards female characters.

I am not defending Gunn, who I think when he isn't constrained by the PG-13 rating is actually a lot less funny and I suspect is not a guy I would get along with in real life - I dislike the often cavalier body count he racks up in his films for "fun", but then tries to have his cake and eat it too by trying to be poignant when someone like Yondu dies - even though Yondu is basically remorseless about killing people at other points - but that might be me as I never bought the Yondu/Peter relationship as a good thing. Kind of the same in Peacemaker - too many deaths just done as jokes, which to me makes the sentiment seem artificial when he directs it towards certain characters, like suddenly it is a "very special episode" for a few minutes and the audience in this instance is supposed to find the pain and suffering is no longer a joke. But I digress.

[NORM]

I think that the misogyny isn’t really about it being intentional from Drax, or about his lack of tact and inability to interpret things any way but literally being played for laughs. It’s that the examples of misogyny exist at all because of the way Gunn writes/directs these characters and these situations. There’s no point in defending or attacking Drax’s actions, because he’s just the character. It’s the responsibility of the creators to write stories in such a way that excludes the misogyny. They can do better. The examples CTVS brought up don’t add anything to the plot. Should those gags have been included at all?

[RoyalCollector]

I really liked that they showed Mantis as a formidable fighter. She was kicking ass in the background in Endgame and I was disappointed we never got a closeup.

[CTVampSlayer]

I think that the misogyny isn’t really about it being intentional from Drax, or about his lack of tact and inability to interpret things any way but literally being played for laughs. It’s that the examples of misogyny exist at all because of the way Gunn writes/directs these characters and these situations. There’s no point in defending or attacking Drax’s actions, because he’s just the character. It’s the responsibility of the creators to write stories in such a way that excludes the misogyny. They can do better. The examples CTVS brought up don’t add anything to the plot. Should those gags have been included at all?

Yeah, that's exactly how I always take it. It's not the fault of the character or the actor, it's the Writer/Director who can't help but to insert pointlessly gendered humor into his scripts. If Drax called Peter a beta male cuck with a small dick, the rest of the gendered comments he makes wouldn't register as misogynistic. It irritates me because otherwise, the GOTG films are pretty tight and well made, for the most part. The Captain Marvel moment got an eyeroll from me because James Gunn and Brie Larson are at opposite ends of the spectrum of personalities fanboys find acceptable so it felt like a wink-wink nudge-nudge to all the abuse that actress has suffered at the hands of the fandom specifically because she is "an evil feminist."

[JPC]

I did notice Mantis' face at Captain Marvel, and figured maybe it was because she could see this person up close was NOT Carol Danvers - it was an ACTOR.

And ACTORS ARE TEH WORST.

[CTVampSlayer]

Could be! I like your interpretation more. It makes the world a nicer place.

[sepster]

I did notice Mantis' face at Captain Marvel, and figured maybe it was because she could see this person up close was NOT Carol Danvers - it was an ACTOR.

And ACTORS ARE TEH WORST.

That's how I took it.

[fac]

I almost wonder if they cut a line or two where Mantis and Drax more explicitly realized that both of the Caps were "actors"...and their annoyance about that. Maybe it telegraphed too much how they would feel when they learned the shocking truth about Bacon.