Ladies Doing Science
Dec. 7th, 2013 08:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee34I was supposed to post about Jane Foster yesterday for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
trobadora but I did not do that. LOL So I will do it today.
Caveat: I have only seen the first Thor movie once or twice (and some time ago), and I've only seen the second movie once so my thoughts about Jane are not as collected as they might be if I had spent more time with her character.
I like Jane a whole lot, and I get the sense that makes me somewhat of an outlier in the fandom. I see a great deal of meh regarding Jane and her relationship with Thor and that makes me pretty sad.
I am not a huge Natalie Portman fan which is weird when I start looking at her filmography and realize that I really, really like more of her movies than I thought I did (Your Highness (eleventy million stars!), Cold Mountain (so good, so hurty), Garden State (maybe her best role; I haven't seen Black Swan yet)). I think I just despise the Star Wars prequels so much that those feelings have colored my feelings about her as an actor. Bad Lorraine!
However, I am a total fan of her role in the Thor movies, and I don't understand a lot of the criticism I read about her. I'll address a little of that criticism and serve up some squee too.
1. I see a lot of criticism of Thor/Jane as a couple--it doesn't make sense; they have nothing in common; the pairing is only about putting two beautiful people in bed with each other; it's silly the way they like each other after only five minutes; and so on. I will admit remembering that I thought the first movie was rushed (and in general a weaker movie than the second). However, movie and TV time is always different than real people time. We often see couples start dating in movies what might seem really quickly in real life. That being said, though, I don't think it's weird that Thor and Jane start a relationship without knowing much about each other. I would venture to say that's what dating is for. You're attracted to someone (and it might be about the way she looks or the book you saw him putting in his backpack or the rant she delivered in US History), and many times initial attraction isn't about anything very deep or meaningful. When I met Josh, I felt this instant, visceral attraction to him and I didn't know any damn thing about him. I think the thought that I wanted to marry him even ran through my head at that moment. LOL I think Thor and Jane have added drama that causes attraction between them; they live through some weird shit together, and TV has taught me nothing if it hasn't taught me that going through weird shit together can be a fantastic basis for a relationship. Who else is going to understand the weird shit and how it changed your life except for someone who was there dealing with it alongside you? I also think that it's okay (even good) for partners to have widely divergent interests. Obviously, I don't think that relationships work very well without some points of commonality, but I don't see Thor and Jane as having that problem. I do think it's a problem of pacing in the first movie that we don't have more little moments that show some points of commonality between the two of them, but I think that's also one of those wonderful gifts to fandom and fanfic writers. I think now that Thor has clearly chosen Jane and being with her that it's incumbent on the writers of the movies to give us more of these moments in subsequent films.
2. The second criticism I see is that Jane just pines for Thor and that's all her character does. Okay. No. :) They meet, they have this intense experience together, and then Thor just leaves. I don't find it at all odd that she would still be hung up on him as result, or even just wondering what might have been even two years later. But she doesn't just pine for him. She continues her work. She moves to a different country to pursue said work and that must have involved some degree of adjustment and culture shock and *doing things that are not pining for Thor* even though we don't see them happen in the movie. She is also trying to date again (even if she's not all that into the guy she's on the date with; again, not necessarily a sign she's so hung up on Thor that she Can Never Love Again, but more a sign that she isn't feeling it for this dude).
3. I also have seen the idea that Jane is just some nothing with no agency in this movie which makes me WTF the hardest. She and Eric figure out the science behind what is happening with the Convergence. She and Eric use that science to save ALL THE REALMS! ALL THE REALMS! ALL NINE! Not Thor. Not Odin. Not Loki. Jane. And Eric. And Darcy and the intern even get a credit. Jane talks some smack to Odin, bonds with Thor's mom, slaps the shit out of Loki, and participates in a daring mutiny. I know she didn't kickbox Malekith (which if she had, the people making these criticisms would be decrying what a stupid Mary Sue she is), but that makes perfect sense for her character. She hid like Frigga told her to from the elf who wanted to use her to destroy everything and against whom she had no chance of winning in a fight.
As far as the squee-ful goes, I love Jane's optimism and her wide-eyed enthusiasm and her passion for understanding the way the world around her works. She's so endearing. I love that moment on the Asgard doctor's table when she's all beaming and telling them she knows what they're doing and they first dismiss her but then the one doc realizes, "Hey! The bug-ling knows what's what." And Jane is so happy and intrigued the entire time even though something is terribly wrong with her.
I love Jane/Darcy and Jane/Thor and Jane/Darcy/Thor. And I love all those fics where she and Thor live at Avengers Tower and she's part of the big ole Avengers family.
In other news, I got the sweetest card fromkaleecat. Made my day, sweetie.
trobadora but I did not do that. LOL So I will do it today.Caveat: I have only seen the first Thor movie once or twice (and some time ago), and I've only seen the second movie once so my thoughts about Jane are not as collected as they might be if I had spent more time with her character.
I like Jane a whole lot, and I get the sense that makes me somewhat of an outlier in the fandom. I see a great deal of meh regarding Jane and her relationship with Thor and that makes me pretty sad.
I am not a huge Natalie Portman fan which is weird when I start looking at her filmography and realize that I really, really like more of her movies than I thought I did (Your Highness (eleventy million stars!), Cold Mountain (so good, so hurty), Garden State (maybe her best role; I haven't seen Black Swan yet)). I think I just despise the Star Wars prequels so much that those feelings have colored my feelings about her as an actor. Bad Lorraine!
However, I am a total fan of her role in the Thor movies, and I don't understand a lot of the criticism I read about her. I'll address a little of that criticism and serve up some squee too.
1. I see a lot of criticism of Thor/Jane as a couple--it doesn't make sense; they have nothing in common; the pairing is only about putting two beautiful people in bed with each other; it's silly the way they like each other after only five minutes; and so on. I will admit remembering that I thought the first movie was rushed (and in general a weaker movie than the second). However, movie and TV time is always different than real people time. We often see couples start dating in movies what might seem really quickly in real life. That being said, though, I don't think it's weird that Thor and Jane start a relationship without knowing much about each other. I would venture to say that's what dating is for. You're attracted to someone (and it might be about the way she looks or the book you saw him putting in his backpack or the rant she delivered in US History), and many times initial attraction isn't about anything very deep or meaningful. When I met Josh, I felt this instant, visceral attraction to him and I didn't know any damn thing about him. I think the thought that I wanted to marry him even ran through my head at that moment. LOL I think Thor and Jane have added drama that causes attraction between them; they live through some weird shit together, and TV has taught me nothing if it hasn't taught me that going through weird shit together can be a fantastic basis for a relationship. Who else is going to understand the weird shit and how it changed your life except for someone who was there dealing with it alongside you? I also think that it's okay (even good) for partners to have widely divergent interests. Obviously, I don't think that relationships work very well without some points of commonality, but I don't see Thor and Jane as having that problem. I do think it's a problem of pacing in the first movie that we don't have more little moments that show some points of commonality between the two of them, but I think that's also one of those wonderful gifts to fandom and fanfic writers. I think now that Thor has clearly chosen Jane and being with her that it's incumbent on the writers of the movies to give us more of these moments in subsequent films.
2. The second criticism I see is that Jane just pines for Thor and that's all her character does. Okay. No. :) They meet, they have this intense experience together, and then Thor just leaves. I don't find it at all odd that she would still be hung up on him as result, or even just wondering what might have been even two years later. But she doesn't just pine for him. She continues her work. She moves to a different country to pursue said work and that must have involved some degree of adjustment and culture shock and *doing things that are not pining for Thor* even though we don't see them happen in the movie. She is also trying to date again (even if she's not all that into the guy she's on the date with; again, not necessarily a sign she's so hung up on Thor that she Can Never Love Again, but more a sign that she isn't feeling it for this dude).
3. I also have seen the idea that Jane is just some nothing with no agency in this movie which makes me WTF the hardest. She and Eric figure out the science behind what is happening with the Convergence. She and Eric use that science to save ALL THE REALMS! ALL THE REALMS! ALL NINE! Not Thor. Not Odin. Not Loki. Jane. And Eric. And Darcy and the intern even get a credit. Jane talks some smack to Odin, bonds with Thor's mom, slaps the shit out of Loki, and participates in a daring mutiny. I know she didn't kickbox Malekith (which if she had, the people making these criticisms would be decrying what a stupid Mary Sue she is), but that makes perfect sense for her character. She hid like Frigga told her to from the elf who wanted to use her to destroy everything and against whom she had no chance of winning in a fight.
As far as the squee-ful goes, I love Jane's optimism and her wide-eyed enthusiasm and her passion for understanding the way the world around her works. She's so endearing. I love that moment on the Asgard doctor's table when she's all beaming and telling them she knows what they're doing and they first dismiss her but then the one doc realizes, "Hey! The bug-ling knows what's what." And Jane is so happy and intrigued the entire time even though something is terribly wrong with her.
I love Jane/Darcy and Jane/Thor and Jane/Darcy/Thor. And I love all those fics where she and Thor live at Avengers Tower and she's part of the big ole Avengers family.
In other news, I got the sweetest card from
kaleecat. Made my day, sweetie.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-08 05:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-09 01:03 am (UTC)I don't see it on my flist either, thank goodness. I have to venture into the wilds, which is as it should be. LOL
no subject
Date: 2013-12-08 07:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-09 01:03 am (UTC)Thanks. :)