#I don’t empathize with parents who experienced ‘gender disappointment’

[froody]

more than once????? lol?????

#I don’t empathize with parents who experienced ‘gender disappointment’ #especially parents who kept trying for a baby if a certain sex after being ‘disappointed’ their older child was not that sex

[mothermaidenclone-blog]

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 or Sisters Are Doing it For Themselves

I came into Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 expecting an irreverently fun film filled with witty quips and near constant mild violence, and I was not disappointed. However, I was caught unawares by how emotional some parts of this film are and also by the complexity of the characters in a franchise whose main selling points involve swearing animals and eighties tunes. Just because the eponymous guardians now share a mythical destiny it doesn’t mean that all of their relationship issues and personal traumas are immediately fixed, which was important to see.

*Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 spoilers follow*

The film starts with yet another beautiful female alien falling head over heels for Peter (Chris Pratt) for no real reason, and I thought that was going to set the tone for the rest of the story, but thankfully it was an isolated incident. Peter’s affections are focused solely on Gamora (Zoe Saldana), whose own feelings seem somewhat more complicated. She obviously likes Peter, but it unclear to what extent exactly, and due to her horrific history of abuse at the hands of Thanos, it is no surprise that she is unwilling to open herself up to that kind of intimacy and possibility for further pain. Therefore, it makes complete sense that she remains guarded and I’m personally very glad that she doesn’t end the film in Peter’s arms.

The person that Gamora chooses to pursue a relationship with in this film is her sister, Nebula (Karen Gillan). At the end of the film, Peter gives a speech in which he says, “Sometimes, the thing you’ve been looking for your whole life is right there beside you all along.” He turns to look at Gamora, obviously as an expression of his romantic feelings towards her, but she immediately leaves to try and reconcile with Nebula, realising that she is the most important person in her life. Her parting words to Nebula are, “you will always be my sister.”

Sister, however, is a very loose term here for the birth-daughter of a genocidal maniac and the girl he took prisoner after murdering her real parents, both of whom were subject to mental and physical torture at his hands. In the first film, Nebula was a bit of a one-dimensional vengeance machine, a ready made antagonist running on the vague fuel of jealousy and hatred, but the specific horrors of her past are revealed in this sequel, making her motives clear. It turns out that Thanos pitted them against each other as children and every time Nebula lost a fight to Gamora he replaced a piece of her with machinery. Gamora managed to escape these horrors and find herself a new family but Nebula, having been disappointed by Ronan in the previous film, has been left to rattle around the galaxy alone with nothing to do but stew in her own anger and single-mindedly pursue vengeance. Therefore, it is no surprise that she spends most of the film trying to blow Gamora up and only after another cosmic apocalypse is narrowly avoided does she have the strength to face Gamora and admit, “I just wanted a sister. You were all I had, but you just needed to win.” Once again, this is a realistic representation of someone who has experienced dire and repeated trauma - of course she isn’t going to run to Gamora with open arms straight away, nor is she going to immediately take her up on her offer to join the Guardians of the Galaxy. However, they do share an embrace, which shows the beginnings of a recovery, leaving the audience not with an and they all lived happily ever after - there is no magical instant healing, but the arguably more satisfying resolution that things are organically starting to get better.

The other main female character (we get three? What a treat!) is Mantis (Pom Klementieff). Seemingly not wanting to break the streak of everyone having a turbulent past, Mantis has been living alone on a planet with a man literally called Ego (Kurt Russel) who has been using her pretty much as a tranquilliser and forcing her to abet him in repeated entrapment and murder. Unsurprisingly, she appears to have basically no self-esteem. Once again, a road to recovery is presented, this time in the form of Drax (Dave Bautista), with whom she begins to develop a friendship - possibly the first of her life. Drax is very supportive, telling her, “You don’t have to believe in yourself because I believe in you”, as well as asserting that she is beautiful on the inside. However, the latter is because he also calls her “disgusting” and makes retching noises at the thought of a sexual relationship with her. Their platonic friendship is a wonderful thing, but it doesn’t need to be justified like this - two adults of different genders are allowed to have a loving friendship separate from sex for reasons other than finding each other physically repulsive.

In addition to being presented as three dimensional people, the women in this film are also well represented visually. None of their costumes are too ridiculous by superhero movie standards and in fact we see more male semi-nudity due to Drax being constantly shirtless and Peter taking his top off at one point for no real reason other than a display of his body apparently. Furthermore, Nebula and Gamora (particularly the latter) repeatedly show remarkable displays of physical strength and Mantis has the unique and valuable power of being an empath - they all have skills and abilities that the men simply do not possess.

Overall, the women in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2  are presented as complex human beings. They are recovering from traumas in their past, meaning that sometimes they make bad choices, but sometimes they save the day. They are strong and capable but also allowed to show emotions, and not just romantic love for the leading man but sisterly affection and platonic friendship. The same can be said of the men; everyone is treated as a three-dimensional human being with flaws and feelings, even the talking raccoon and sentient tree.

And now for some asides:

I was not expecting to cry at this movie, especially not at the line, “I guess David Hasselhoff did kinda end up being my dad after all.” I can tell that one’s going to get me every time, it’ll be up there with, “I am no man” in Return of the King.

I cannot wait to see the lady Ravager gang, please do not tease me with that then leave me hanging.

I love how much of a point they made of not killing people at the beginning because the whole gold fleet was remote controlled, then they straight up murdered everyone on that Ravger ship, nice try keeping it child friendly.

I don’t care how much of a marketing ploy it is to sell tiny plastic trees, baby Groot is the cutest thing in the universe.

#guardians of the galaxy #guardians of the galaxy vol 2 #spoilers #guardians of the galaxy spoilers #Film Review #movie review #feminism #sci-fi #science fiction #women in cinema #mothermaidenclone #tw: abuse #tw: trauma