Paging Kevin Smith!

I’m no fan of Kevin Smith. Aside from his work feeling juvenile and self-indulgent, he comes across as somewhat arrogant. I know he’s popular with nerds, but he’s not for me. All the more reason why Masters of the Universe: Revelation shocked me with its quality. Yes: I enjoyed something Kevin Smith had a hand in. I’m as surprised as you.

That said, I only became interested because of its backlash. When the first 5 episodes debuted, the show immediately received criticism for its unexpected direction. It was so bad that fans of Smith turned on him, calling him a “sellout” for “going down the SJW rabbit hole”. Let’s discuss that.

By the way, spoilers.

The show’s first episode is typical He-Man: Skeletor wants to takeover Castle Grayskull and rule Eternia. Prince Adam is called to become He-Man and fend Skeletor off, which he does with the help of Cringer. It seems like another formulaic fight, and it is…until Skeletor reveals that he knows Castle Grayskull’s secret and heads to the basement to absorb its power. He-Man tries stopping him, but Skeletor nearly destroys an orb holding all of Eternia’s magic. He-Man then sacrifices his life to fix everything, and his sword’s shattered in half.

From here, the show focuses on Prince Adam’s best friend, a soldier for Eternia’s named Teela, and her decision live as a mercenary for hire. This is where everything really starts. It’s also where it becomes something special. I’m unsure if it’ll follow-through, it’s only been 5 episodes, but the possibility’s still there. And I’m excited, especially with that cliff-hanger ending!

Sadly, that’s not what many people think. Like its sister series reboot, Masters of the Universe: Revelation has received flak for not being like the He-Man of the 1980’s. It’s been called a betrayal, with fan reception differing from critical reception. It’s mind-blowing: this is Smith’s best-reviewed project in years, and it’s already being torn apart by fans? Go figure!

I’m not on board with the hate. I think it’s narrow-minded, and it smells of sexism and bigotry. It’s another reminder that nerds can be over-possessive, something I first became aware of with E3 2008 and the Wii. But despite being painful to relive that, I’ll try my best to be fair.

On one hand, I get it: He-Man, like She-Ra, means a lot to a lot of people. Despite originally being Mattel toys that were made into narrative advertising with lessons, the property had enough of an impact on young boys. It’s also had a few reboots, with one of them in 2002. He-Man, as ridiculous as this sounds, means something. And while it might seem strange, remember that entertainment’s often lauded when the pendulum swings in favour of social progress. This goes both ways, essentially.

It’s worth noting that the franchise tried instilling positive lessons. Were they “forced”? Maybe. Did they reek of the 80’s? Yes. But they existed. And they stuck with people.

So yes, I get why this could be off-putting. For one, it’s a new take on an old franchise, one people care about deeply. And two, it’s a departure from expectations, one no one saw coming. Add in that the trailers only showed select footage from the first episode, and it feels like false advertising. I sympathize.

One the other hand, this is still overblown. Ignoring the trailers, which I admit were misleading, the He-Man IP didn’t have much to work with before this. Remember, this was a property based on a toy line. Its entire point was narrative advertising, something it did well. It might have had heart, but that was never its objective.

It’s easy to see why Smith and company wanted something new. He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was a show with a cookie-cutter premise: Skeletor invades Castle Grayskull. Prince Adam transforms into He-Man. He-Man beats Skeletor and saves the day. Rinse and repeat. That can get boring after a while.

In fact, Smith knew this so well that he even parodied it in the opening episode. It’s also incredibly unsubtle, with everyone openly acknowledging their intentions before subverting them. It might not be what fans were anticipating, but is it worth the backlash? No.

Besides, what’s wrong with Teela? Teela’s awesome! She not only has motivations and an arc trajectory, but she has excellent chemistry with the other characters. I wouldn’t mind following her journey, not unlike how I was invested in Adora in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Even Teela’s haircut post-Episode 1, which I’m not a fan of on principle, doesn’t distract from that.

Also, what’s wrong with a shift in focus? The show isn’t about He-Man, it makes that clear with its title. Having a story focus on one character indefinitely makes its world feel small. Having it focus on side-characters, however, makes it feel bigger. And that’s what this show is doing.

Getting hung up on this shift is silly. Masters of the Universe: Revelation has a lot going for it aside from a fresh look. Like how the animation’s much more fluid than in the 80’s. Or how the voice-work, particularly Mark Hamill and Sarah Michelle Gellar, is top-tier. Or how those tacked-on, Reagan-era messages are gone, instead letting the show’s writing do the talking. This is all lost in the conversation.

I also think that there’s sexism and homophobia at play. A recurring complaint is that there’s a potential lesbian romance arc, which is “bad for children”. Firstly, Teela’s haircut isn’t inherently queer-coded. And secondly, so what? Lesbians are people too! And if Catradora’s anything to go by, then I’m not worried. Besides, plenty of kids are gay, and this kind of representation means a lot!

Above everything else, I’m worried this is yet another instance of a bold change being derided for the wrong reasons. Popular media’s so saturated in nostalgia that taking risks with established IPs is the only way to keep them exciting. Like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, it’s necessary if they’re to remain relevant. This is no different.

So yes, I think detractors are overreacting. Do I get why they’re upset? A little bit. But that doesn’t mean that Kevin Smith’s suddenly an “SJW shill”. Especially given his past behaviour! Or are we forgetting that?

Anyway, I’m looking forward to more. Seriously, 5 episodes…and you end on that?!

My Unorthodox Misfire

“Fundamentalist Escape Porn” is trendy these days. I get it: there’s an element of schadenfreude to seeing fundamentalists get their “just desserts”, as well as satisfaction in seeing someone “take a stand”. It’s exciting. But is it healthy or honest? I’m not convinced.

My Unorthodox Life is a new addition to this genre, assuming you can call it that. It follows Julia Haart, a former, ultra-Orthodox Jewess from Monsey, New York who’s now a CEO of a corporation. The show, told in 8, 40-ish minute episodes, is about her struggles with leaving, as well as how she relates to her family. It’s been called “gripping” and “exciting”. It’s also been heavily-criticized by many. Where do I stand? I tried watching one episode, got frustrated and stopped.

I won’t comment on how the show “gets Orthodox Jewish women wrong”, because that’s not my place. I also won’t talk about how this is another issue with portraying racial minorities, since I’m an Ashkenazi Jew. I won’t even talk too much about the show, because, like I said, I couldn’t sit through one episode. Instead, I’d like to discuss some misconceptions this show has brought to the forefront, and why they’re more harmful than helpful.

I didn’t grow up observant. My family was traditional, which meant going to services once a week, having Shabbat and Yom Tov meals, keeping some level of Kashrut and going to Jewish day school. Only once I hit teenage-hood, particularly after moving in my first year of high school, did my Jewish roots start to mean anything. And even then, it happened in stages. I didn’t start wearing a Kippah full-time until I was 16, and I didn’t start praying daily until university.

While I don’t identify with a particular label, because I find that reductive, I consider my Jewish heritage and its practices to be important. I’m fluent in literary Hebrew, I know many Jewish tunes and songs, and I can recite obscure laws and customs. I also routinely study Jewish texts, amassing information by the day. That said, I’m not ignorant to the world around me. I was secularly educated, I have interests outside of my background, and have several non-Jewish friends. I engage in reality because it’s important to do so, and I challenge my identity regularly.

This is what many Jews, even fully-practicing ones, experience daily. Contrary to misconceptions, religious Jews aren’t entirely closed-off and bigoted. Even the ones that appear more sheltered, the “black hatters”, have nuance and complexity to how they live their lives. I know this because I live in a religious community. I also know this because I’ve engaged with a spectrum of Jews.

I think the conversation around the frum Jewish community, which is diverse, needs to change. There’s a trickle-down effect going on that hurts Jews collectively. When people claim that “Jews are rigid”, they inevitably list off various rituals they not only don’t understand, but also ones that don’t exist. It’s a rabbit hole with no end, and it leads to harmful stereotypes that turn into harmful actions. It’s also a perpetual cycle.

Take the concepts of Jewish ritual slaughter and male circumcision. Both have been hot topics for years, with people making cases for them being cruel and barbaric. For the latter, the debate is still inconclusive. For the former, it’s led to a ban of Kosher meat production in The EU. In both cases, the debate spreads ignorance and is more about control.

I’m not joking, either. Every time I’ve discussed these topics in a general forum, the copious amounts of ignorance I hear is mind-boggling: “Jews torture animals and babies!” “Jews are barbaric!” “Circumcision is mutilation!” The list goes on. And whenever these debates arrive at the desks of politicians, laws are discussed or passed that cause harm to Jews.

That’s the issue: the ignorance surrounding Jewish culture, particularly Orthodox Jewish culture, is harmful. We deserve better, and we’re not getting it when mass media fetishizes exodus stories. Because media has an impact on our lives, and if the narrative is skewed it leads to dire consequences. Sometimes these consequences can even be death. It sounds like I’m being hyperbolic, but I’m not.

It also does little to raise my self-worth. I’m not saying the frum world doesn’t have issues. It does: sex education is often bare minimum. There’s an Agunah, or “chained marriage”, crisis. Kosher food is expensive, as is Jewish education. And we’re not immune to Me Too scandals. These are all worth discussing constructively.

But to turn around and claim that there’s no inherent value to anything? That’s unhelpful. It’s unhelpful because religious constructs can be healthy if utilized properly. In fact, religion can help you be content with not being content. I know that sounds self-defeating, but it’s true.

It’d be nice if a piece of media discussing Judaism’s follies would balance it out with its strengths. Because those exist too: Shabbat allows me to unwind from daily life for 25 hours. Shabbat dinners and lunches with family make me engage and bond with them, which is healthy. Learning Tanach has helped me understand a foreign language. Even communal prayer has a social component to it. These are valuable, so why shame them?

As a final note, not everyone who “leaves the fold” leaves Orthodox Judaism. And not everyone who’s “off the path” no longer cares about Judaism. There are approximately 15 million Jews worldwide, and while Orthodoxy might not be for everyone, that doesn’t mean it’s for no one. Saying so is both dishonest and a form of Antisemitism. Because remember, we’re not monolithic. We never were.

So yes, I’d like shows like My Unorthodox Life to acknowledge this. Does that mean that I should discredit Julia’s story? No, she has her own struggles that need respecting and validating. But I wish more self-awareness came with that. Because to the uninitiated, it sends a bad message and leads to ignorance. We have enough ignorance to deal with without our own adding fuel to the fire.

Marvel's "Adaptation Sickness"

Let’s be clear: The MCU isn’t above criticism. It has its share of problems and shortcomings, subtle and unsubtle, that are worth discussing. Even I’ve made that known before. But I find that people look for the wrong reasons to be critical of it anyway. This is especially the case with comic book fans.

I liked Black Widow, even with the extra money I shelled out to keep current with the conversation (nearly $40 CDN). It wasn’t perfect-it cribbed plot beats from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and it felt like an overdue outing for the titular character-but it was quite enjoyable. I especially liked how it filled in the gaps between Captain America: Civil War and The Avengers: Infinity War without contradicting either movie, and how it gave me new characters to root for. I also liked how it touched on constructed families in a respectful way, and I thought it worked as a commentary on the sexism of Natasha Romanov’s character. Basically, I approve.

And that’s where my spoiler-free discussion ends. The one aspect that has people up in arms is the twist-reveal of its focal antagonist. More-specifically, how said antagonist was built up VS how said antagonist was utilized. So let’s dissect that. Let’s discuss Taskmaster.

In the movie’s first-act, Yelena asks Natasha how she broke free of Dreykov and The Red Room. Natasha, of course, mentions Budapest and Clint, but she zones-in on the day she supposedly assassinated Dreykov and his daughter. Fast-forward to the third-act, and Dreykov, who survived the explosion that supposedly killed him, requests that his silent assassin, codenamed Taskmaster, remove their helmet. Taskmaster does so, and Natasha sees the now-disfigured and adult face of Dreykov’s daughter staring back at her.

Cue the fan rage.

Despite Taskmaster being a popular Spider-Man villain in the comics, he was never as big as Doctor Octopus or The Green Goblin. He was never even as big as Venom! But that didn’t stop the outraged that such an iconic antagonist was “done dirty”. Like The Mandarin in Iron Man 3, The MCU butchered another baddie for the sake of a “woke agenda”. In this case, “girl power”.

I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t a fan of The Mandarin’s reveal in Iron Man 3. I thought it left-field in execution, lacked build-up, contradicted what was established prior and substituted a potentially cool villain for a lame and half-baked one. It might’ve had mild foreshadowing early on, but it wasn’t executed well. This is also ignoring his comic book origins, because I don’t care about them. So yes, I get the ire there.

I don’t, however, get the ire over the Taskmaster reveal. I don’t get it for two reasons. The first is that it works relative to what was built up to. This was a ghost from Natasha’s past coming back to haunt her. Considering that Natasha’s whole arc was atoning for the red in her ledger, Taskmaster was a way of reminding her that the red wouldn’t go away so easily. It’s also, judging by the face behind the reveal, chilling to see.

The second reason is that it makes Dreykov a better antagonist. Dreykov has no qualms with manipulating women for his own, selfish goals. He’s so committed to the part that he’s even made his own daughter his puppet. It takes a real sociopath to do that, furthering my detest for him. This is how I think The Mandarin should’ve been handled in Iron Man 3: make the advertised baddie a helpless pawn for the actual baddie, and make that baddie threatening.

By the way, Taskmaster’s reveal actually fits with my plot-twist litmus test: it makes sense in context, and it progresses the story. Could it have been executed better? Maybe, but I think we got a decent enough version here. So much so, in fact, that Gail Simone liked it! How about that?

Anyway, this drives home a bigger issue with the comic fandom: so many people are insistent on “accuracy”, even when it clashes with the story at hand. We saw it with Mysterio in Spider-Man: Far From Home and the multiverse, and we saw it with Ralph Bohner in WandaVision. Both times, the twists, while silly, fit the themes of their respective stories. And now we saw it again with Taskmaster. But because it “wasn’t accurate”, it angered die-hards.

That’s a problem. For one, the source material isn’t that important when doings adaptations (though it shouldn’t be discounted). And for another, Marvel tells good stories because it discounts its source material when it clashes with their vision. It’s why Mantis doesn’t look like an ancient goddess with antennae in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and why Thanos’s motives were changed to population equilibrium in The Avengers: Infinity War. Sometimes, for the betterment of a story, certain concepts have to be discarded. This is no different.

And you know what? That’s okay! The MCU hasn’t hit the level of bloat that Marvel Comics has because they streamline their best ideas into mostly-contained narratives. It doesn’t always work, but The MCU has often been at its worst when acting as connective tissue instead of genuine craft. That’s something I wish more people understood.

Even if Taskmaster hadn’t worked, I still think fans are overreacting. Does it suck that Taskmaster from the comics is absent in Black Widow? I guess so. Do I wish that Taskmaster had more screen-time? Sure! But do I think this is a “disgrace”? Absolutely not!

But what do I know? I confessed to not reading Marvel’s comics!

Age of Dorfftron

Hollywood has serious issues. Aside from action movies costing a fortune to make, the industry has a tendency to underpay/overwork VFX artists, misrepresent minorities and whitewash cultures. This is in addition to frequently releasing sequels, reboots and remakes, as well as the racism, sexism and queer-phobia behind the scenes. And don’t get me started on the impropriety that permeates the industry. Basically, there’s lots to criticize.

Unfortunately, it seems like people, even in the industry, frequently pick the wrong targets to direct their ire. This is especially the case with The MCU, which has gotten lots of pushback lately. Be it James Cameron or Martin Scorsese, it can never catch a break. And now, thanks to Stephen Dorff, it’s happened again. Go figure!

In a recent interview, Dorff criticized The MCU for being subpar. To quote Dorff:

“I still hunt out the good shit because I don’t want to be in Black Widow…It looks like garbage to me. It looks like a bad video game. I’m embarrassed for those people. I’m embarrassed for Scarlett! I’m sure she got paid five, seven million bucks, but I’m embarrassed for her. I don’t want to be in those movies. I really don’t. I’ll find that kid director that’s gonna be the next [Stanley] Kubrick and I’ll act for him instead.”

Hmm…

So I’m not accused of being unfair, most of what Dorff’s criticizing isn’t a problem. Not wanting to be in Black Widow, or any MCU property, is a sentiment many people in Hollywood have. Additionally, wanting true game-changers, whatever that means, is understandable in an industry increasingly becoming homogenized. And the video game criticism, while weird, is one I can see, even though there are other movies more guilty of that. Basically, I’ll give Dorff the benefit of the doubt.

That said, I don’t think he’s being entirely fair. Therefore, I’m going to prod and explain why I don’t agree with him. See, The MCU’s a product. And like every product, it, in theory, caters to a certain market. In this case, that happens to be comic book, superhero and action fans. The franchisees know this.

The MCU’s also incredibly-successful. So successful, in fact, that The Avengers: Endgame temporarily held the record for being the highest-grossing film ever. The executives at Disney, who own the brand, know what they’re doing. Factor in that most of the films are critically-successful, and they have no reason to stop making them. I’m not kidding about the latter part.

I really think that Dorff’s being unfair here. It’s one issue if the films were universally panned, because they’d be taking up unnecessary head space. It’d be another if audiences didn’t like them, because they’d be a waste of time. But when the films are adored by audiences and critics, it seems like Dorff’s jealous. And that’s not a good look.

It’s especially not a good look given Dorff’s resume. In case you to forgot, Dorff was in a Marvel property in the late-90’s. He was in Blade. Sure, it wasn’t The MCU, but I think that works against it. Because the Blade films, while loved by some fans, weren’t critically-praised. They were actually panned, and their box-office returns were modest. It seems like Dorff might be compensating for that. It’s also hypocritical.

I actually consider Dorff’s remarks to be insensitive. Scarlett Johansson doesn’t mind playing Black Widow, or she’d have left the role a decade ago. Besides, the role pays well. Most MCU roles do. And in an industry where money speaks, why would she pass that up? It doesn’t make sense.

Dorff should really know this, too. He’s been acting for decades. And given that acting’s a job, and Hollywood’s an employer, he should recognize that jobs pay bills. You can argue that Hollywood salaries are too high, but acting’s still a job. And sometimes that means taking parts you don’t love.

I’m also miffed because, as with many critiques of The MCU, Dorff’s complaints ring hollow and petty. There are legitimate reasons to critique the franchise: outside of how it’s run, The MCU often comes across as imperial propaganda. It also is littered with casual racism and sexism, and has yet to openly have a queer character. Not to mention, many of the films have runtime bloat. But when the criticism doesn’t take any of the above into account, I wonder if it’s in good-faith.

Perhaps this is a waste of time. Stephen Dorff, apparently, hasn’t had much to his credits in recent years, and this feels like a shameless attempt at trying to stay relevant. But while he’s entitled to his opinion, he’s retreading a lot of the bad-faith attacks that so many detractors use. It’s not honest, essentially. And because it’s not honest, I can’t let it go.

Look, The MCU will eventually fail. It’s run by people, and people are flawed and limited. Sooner or later, be it lack of vision or audience boredom, the franchise will cease to resonate. But that hasn’t happened yet. And as long as it’s not happening, I think it’s safe to enjoy what it offers, even if it’s not to everyone’s liking.

So yes, this was me saying that I disagree with Stephen Dorff. Make what you will of that.