#this whole scene was just tony being a thirst trap

[doux-amer]

The reason Wandavision ultimately was a big disappointment was that it didn’t say anything new or add any depth to Wanda. Some people have argued that we shouldn’t have expected much because this is the MCU we’re talking about, but I hate that logic for two reasons: 

Marvel is using the Disney+ series to expand upon characters and plots that they couldn’t/didn’t get to explore in the films

This dismisses the existence of MCU works that have, while dealing with the trappings of being a blockbuster/studio film or “just” a superhero film or show, tried to go beyond that with their stories and characters

You can’t ignore Marvel’s goal with D+ nor can you paint all the works with the same brush.  

This was Marvel’s opportunity to give a side character who has been given such shoddy writing the growth she sorely needed. We didn’t get that. Wanda is very much the same person she was in Age of Ultron; we still barely know anything about her besides the fact that she’s powerful and traumatized. She is very much defined by that. Who is she outside of that? Who is she outside her grief? Why, for instance, does Vision love her so much? We know why she loves Vision. In fact, I’d argue that the star or at least the heart of Wandavision was Vision because we learn more about him and see him grow. 

There’s no movement, either positive or negative, here. Wanda continues to behave the same way, never learning or truly being shaped by her actions for good or bad in any significant way, and the MCU refuses to commit to making her anything. She isn’t a good hero. She isn’t a good antihero. She isn’t a good villain. They want to make her someone complex, but we’re left not understanding if we’re supposed to root for her despite her troubles or see that this is a troubling evolution towards emotional and moral corruption. Is she a messy hero? Or is she a sympathetic villain?

As a recap, here’s what we’ve seen of Wanda and why I’m saying she hasn’t had any meaningful growth:

Wanda volunteers for Hydra. You know, Nazis? If you want to quibble about whether they’re “technically” Nazis, whatever; they’re still a terrorist organization, and Wandavision explicitly states it as such. Here was a chance to address the awful decision Whedon made, but we get a white woman nonchalantly excusing her voluntary involvement with the world’s most famous terrorist group with a blasé “We wanted to change the world.” This is the most we get from her about this.

Wanda mentally violates and assaults the Avengers. She forcibly traps them in their worst nightmares. She coerces Bruce into transforming into the Hulk against his will, ripping him of his agency and sanity. When Bruce confronts her about this later in AoU, she straight up refuses to apologize. Wanda has yet to apologize to any of the Avengers.

In her thirst for vengeance, she decides to use the Hulk to hurt innocent people, most of whom are black, in Johannesburg. The only reason people aren't killed is that Tony tries to get people out of harm's way, get Bruce away from civilians, and help Bruce regain control before subduing him when he fails. We never see Wanda thinking about what she did in Johannesburg.

Wanda knows Ultron is evil and follows him, standing by as he hurts Helen Cho, yet another innocent civilian POC. She only cares about Ultron’s destructive nature when she reads his mind and realizes he wants to commit global genocide. Wanda is also arguably one of the Avengers most responsible for creating Ultron. Without her, there is no Ultron. Without her interference, we get Vision. We don’t ever see her grappling with her culpability. This is not the case with the others who made Ultron.

Wanda therefore plays a huge role in the destruction of her home country of Sokovia and the countless resulting deaths including Pietro’s. We see her sad, but we don’t see any guilt. We don’t even see survivor’s guilt.

Because she can’t control her power, Wanda commits manslaughter, killing innocent black people in a Lagos hospital. Other than seeing her react in horror at the scene and turn away from the video that Ross shows later, we don’t see how this impacts her or the way people treat her as an individual. She’s briefly detained under house arrest, essentially grounded, a logical response to what happened. 

Despite the damage she caused, she flees the compound with Clint to the airport even if Clint doesn’t give her a valid reason for doing so, not before slamming the person she cares about the most, Vision, through dozens of feet of concrete and earth.

Rather than seeing Wanda be reluctant to use her powers after learning she doesn’t know how to control herself, we see her chiding Clint for being soft and taking it easy on the other side. The Avengers are doing that because they’re fighting against their own teammates and friends; they’re acting to escape or subdue. She doesn’t care if she gets people hurt while trying to stop them as evidenced by what she says to Clint and her actions thereafter. 

Wanda takes a whole town hostage and mind controls them. All of the people whose identities she wipes and whom she turns into her puppets are in extreme pain. While what occurred happened instinctually rather than as a deliberate, conscious choice, she becomes aware of what she’s done at some point (Dottie’s cry for help, Wanda’s refusal to listen to Jimmy’s message, Monica breaking free of her conditioning, Vision bringing it up, etc.). She doesn’t let them go. She refuses to believe that they’re in pain even when she’s told that. Only when she’s backed into a corner does she let them go. She then never apologizes or even speaks a word to them. (It doesn’t matter whether or not she thinks they’d accept her apology; you don’t apologize on the condition that you’re heard and forgiven. You do it because you should, even if it doesn’t change anything for the people you hurt. She only apologizes to the one person whom she knows will accept her apology/be lenient on her.)

When Monica starts to remember the real world, Wanda gets hostile and slams her through multiple houses, past the ends of town, and through the reality boundary.

When Vision becomes aware of the problem at hand, she repeatedly gaslights him and tries to control what he can/should and can’t/shouldn’t do. She gets upset when he doesn’t act the way she wants him to. She doesn’t apologize to him beyond saying she should have told him earlier which is only part of the problem.

Wanda tells Agatha the difference between them is that while Agatha did what she did intentionally, she didn’t. This isn’t true.

What Agatha says about Wanda is true; she’s cruel. For the third time in a row, Wanda decides to violate someone’s mind and control them. She essentially murders Agatha, even if it’s bloodless and reversible (and she only says she’ll reverse it if she wants to use Agatha).

After the fight is over, she decides to leave Westview rather than face any consequences or help clean up. She leaves the Westview residents with all their trauma and the destruction of their town without a word to them.

In the post-credits scene, she has fled the country and is isolated in a remote cabin, reading a book she doesn’t understand about concepts she doesn’t understand instead of seeking help when she has a terrible track record of self-teaching or understanding her powers.  

When you put all of this together, everything screams “villain,” but as I said, the writers refuse to come out and say that she’s that. They refuse to say anything, and maybe you can argue that they don’t have to make it clear right this moment. You can argue that Wanda should be allowed to be messy, just like many other characters in the MCU are. 

The thing about that line of reasoning, though, is that those other characters who are messy? The writing acknowledges that, and we see them deal with the ramifications of their actions and they’re held accountable to them. We see them apologize. We see them try to be better people. We see them work to make up for their mistakes or sins. We need to see Wanda do that if we’re supposed to see her as a hero. Or if she isn’t (and there’s nothing wrong with that! Wanda doesn’t have to be a hero, and in fact, she could be a compelling antagonist or villain which can be exciting), well, she still needs to face consequences. 

She doesn’t. She is, by far, the uncontested champion in getting away with what she does; yes, we get some handwaving for certain things other characters do, but no other character has nearly all of their deeds and behavior ignored to the extent Wanda does. It’s extremely frustrating to see. We keep seeing a cycle:

Wanda is full of anger/vengeance and/or grief. 

She acts from a place of trauma and prioritizes her desires. 

Something bad happens.

Often, it’s something she didn’t mean to happen or she didn’t mean to go that far.

She’s horrified or sad.

Very occasionally, she gets a slap on the wrist, but it’s so brief and doesn’t actually change anything that it might as well not have happened. Most times, it’s as if she never did anything and the story never brings up what she did again (unless it’s to show how she’s sad or powerful).

She doesn’t do anything. She does the same mistakes/crimes again. Wash and repeat.

It’s so unbelievably vexing and tiresome. Despite all my issues with Wanda up until Wandavision and, most importantly her casting, I wanted to like Wanda, whether it was as a hero or villain or someone in between. BUT WE GOT NOTHING NEW. I don’t know anything about Wanda even now beyond “vengeful, sad, powerful white woman who is traumatized and clings to family because of that”! This is the SAME EXACT THING we’ve been dealing with since the beginning, and it’s so frustrating. Wanda deserved better.

#wandavision spoilers

[oddsfiche]

So, Die Deutsch Rock Szene, we’ve covered it before, discussed it, referenced it and even become a part of it but what is it and how did it affect the whole Prog Rock movement or at least a good part of it?

Personally I love, LOVE it because it’s so avant-garde and beyond left field at times you don’t know where you will end up and sometimes just be let off the cosmic bus somewhere to wander on your own. In the late 60’s music was too pop and bubble gum for a lot of German musicians and Berlin, Hamburg et al had had its fill of the Beatles playing and rehearsing. The Reeperbahn in St. Pauli’s district in Hamburg where the nightlife and red-light services collide and bands like the Beatles and Tony Sheridan made a name for themselves and in the late 60’s and early 70’s bands like Black Sabbath and The Pink Floyd began to start to wander over from the island and blast their monstrous sounds to the unknowing Deutsch publik. This was all well and good but the German music scene was still in it’s embryonic stages and fast evolving in to a cult underground scene that was growing out of control and with good cause to it as well. Bands like: Amon Düül, Can, Embryo, Faust & Kraftwerk were creeping through the vines of streets and playing clubs and venues bringing the people the “Die deutsche Rockszene” to life. Crowned as Krautrock by the English, the moniker stuck and that’s what it’s been since. ‘Kraut’ being a derogatory term for a German and just for the record, I’m not a big fan of the term “Krautrock”, a moniker invented by the U.S. and U.K. to reference the German bands that were evolving out of the 60’s and 70’s and was a slanderous term the US Army gave the Germans in WWII so yeah not liking that title at all. The German Rock groups weren’t the first to pull out the experimental card but they made it more well known and out there where musician artists like Iannis Xenakis from Greece was doing this type of music in the 50’s and American artists, Pauline Oliveros was expanding the musical spectrum in the early to mid 60’s but it was fashionable and hip to be German in the 70’s now that the whole Third Reich thing was long behind them and they were once again cool to hang out with according to the world and wars were being fought 10,000 miles away in Vietnam, so Germany, why not?!

A good number of German artists had by now left Berlin as it was becomming too much of a hot zone for commercialism and their identity was being lost to it so they moved out and scattered to other cities like Dusseldorf, Cologne, Hamburg etc to harness their raw energy and power of sound. Berlin was a touristy town for English bands and caravaning hippies to converge upon and take in the sites, sounds and smells of the great city of Berlin. Bands like Kraftwerk were hard at werk(!) designing their sound that would later become the grandfather of techno and electronica industrial music decades later through their genius and ingenuity of creation. Thought their first album when they were known as Organisation and the subsequent pylon albums referred to as Kraftwerk one and two (two, green pylon album is still my all time favourite record by them) were played with guitars, drums flute and keyboards and it wasn’t until 1973 where the two founding members Ralf and Florian branched off keeping the Kraftwerk name and the remaining members forming NEU! releasing several albums that was pretty much where KW would have gone musically had they stayed together as a band.

Most people associate the German rock scene with Kraftwerk because they became a household name by the mid 70’s with the huge impact that 1974’s Autobahn Lp made and they toured more extensively than other bands aside from Tangerine Dream throughout both Europe and North America. Tangerine Dream brought us the hypnotic sounds of what synthesizers can do and by having a massive rig to set up they brought forth an all encompassing sound that would have audiences in rapt attention with their looping riffs of four or five notes that were swallowed up by the swirling synthscapes that would go on for the entire performance making it in to one long piece for each show. No two shows are really alike and the bootleg series Tangerine Leaves is proof enough of just how different the band could be live every time. Very much like UK band, Gentle Giant, Tangerine Dream did release albums but they were a live band as opposed to a studio record experience but their albums were still a joy to listen to and escape in to the world of fantasy and make believe. Bands like Can and Amon Düül were tripping minds with their unique style of sound that had a variety of members and different musician styles brought in to one format creating music that was not even thought of overseas. Damo Suzuki was busking on the streets of Berlin when he was found by the band Can and asked to join them and for a few albums Can had some pretty notorious sounds to compete with and their iconic 1971 album Tago Mago is a perfect example of what it’s like to have a band stretch the limits and beyond of the conventional record you brought home from the shoppes. What also gave Can an edge was that Damo is Japanese and in those times it wasn’t very common to see a Japanese person in Germany let alone the lead singer of a band and he’s even mentioned it in several interviews over time how comical it was for people to stare at him whilst on stage because well he looked pretty different to them I guess! By the mid 70’s Damo had left the group and they petered in and out but didn’t have the same grip on sales and the audiences as they did in the early 70’s. but for German bands it was more about the music and not so much about the sales of albums they could do. The listening experience was what it was all about and not Ch’Ching! Though that did help along the way I’m sure.

Some bands never left their home turf like Kraan, a free form jazzy Prog band that again like a good number of their counterparts was more of a live act than an album’s band. They did do some minor travelling to Denmark and once to the USA for NEARfest in New Jersey in 2001 to much acclaim but it’s in their homeland of Germany that the band found their solace and stride. Being a four to three piece over the years they decided to call it quits last year but that was short lived and the band was back playing live again. Once you get bitten by the touring bug you can’t give up the ghost on it, it’s a part of you, in your blood and soul to the very core forever. As a musician I know that feeling of not wanting to stop playing even if it means playing the same thing twice which has happened a couple of times for me because people arrive late and wanted to hear a particular song so the audience was fine with hearing it again and you do that for your listeners when you can. Kraan pretty much is not a household name over here in North America aside from small clusters of people who venture outside the Top40 clap trap that plagues the airwaves. Speaking of Cluster, there’s another band that flew under the radar of North America and is relatively unknown but they released albums right in to the 80’s and one of them collaborating with Brian Eno which is no surprise as he is truly one of the more well known experimental musicians out there who has released albums on his own and with Robert Fripp as well as many other artists throughout the last few decades.

Some of the other lesser known bands like Eiliff that not a single live bootleg album can be found anywhere and all we have to go on is stories and two studio and two official live albums to their legacy leaves us thirsting for more of the band as they were that German Jazz Prog sound that was a blending of everything under the sun as far as song structure and style, sound and experimentation. Their albums are definitely well worth seeking out and played on a regular basis!

We could write an entire book on this of which there is a great one called Krautrock, Cosmic Rock and its Legacy which is worth seeking out! Of course the German Prog scene has continued to evolve and develop with bands like Traumhaus and Rotor to name a couple and still a lot of bands like Kraan still pack in places and give you your money’s worth in a show despite the fact that they tried to call it a day the other year but just couldn’t stay away and will play until they all drop dead on stage or something because once you’ve played live you can’t get off that stage, trust me I know! So many of the German bands tend to have to take a back seat to their UK and US counterparts globally I find but yet they still play and put out some amazing albums that you just cannot deny their brilliance and have last tried and true over the years.

Ideally I would love to see the remergence of the German Rock scene in North America like it partially had in the 70’s but sadly due to over saturated pop culture music making it more difficult for new and up and coming bands to get any headway through the market over here but at least in Europe and Asia bands have the ability to explore the masses and expose their music to a wider and more attentive audience base. Here there are of course the fan base that has allowed a small portion of the album sales to get through to our living rooms and with sites like Bandcamp helping artists, including yours truly, get exposure and albums and songs out there has been a great advantage to musicians.

Explore the world of German Rock and Prog Rock bands and discover what the Germanic countries have to offer because they’re well made, beautifully crafted musicianship and music that continues to take Deutsch Rock to new levels and keep the Old Guard well held high!  ~Enjoy

      ~fin

DEUTSCH ROCK and The Birth of Experimental Sound So, Die Deutsch Rock Szene, we've covered it before, discussed it, referenced it and even become a part of it but what is it and how did it affect the whole Prog Rock movement or at least a good part of it?

#Agitation Free #Amon Duul #Ash Ra Temple #Berlin #Blackwater Park #Can #Cluster #Conrad Schnitzler #Dusseldorf #Eiliff #Eloy #Embryo #England #experimental jazz #experimental music #Faust #Floh de Cologne #free-jazz #German Oak #German Rock Music #Guru Guru #Hamburg #Harmonia #Iannis Xenakis #instrumental #Jazz Prog #jazzrock #Klaus Doldinger #Kollektiv #Koln