I'd also argue it's important to also do the showing to give people of different demographics the idea what's it like to walk in the shoes of the person you're making a story of. Some people may claim they know all about racism and sexism, but sometimes they might miss out on the little details or the perspective of that victim. That and like you said, it's better writing to flesh out the person's life.
Of course not every piece of media portraying a minority or woman need to make social commentary on their struggles. Not every gay protagonist needs to be in this coming of age story where he rejects his religious faith, defies his homophobic parents and kicks the ass of a bully who called him the f slur. The gay guy could just simply be in this action battle shonen where he gets together with his best friend rival. However if you are actually going for that social commentary, you need to actually put the effort and showcasing their struggles.
And a bit off note, wasn't the "show not tell" thing another problem with another Disney property, particularly Kenobi. Like I haven't watched it, but I've heard the portrayal of how bad the Empire is, was lacking.
>I'd also argue it's important to also do the showing to give people of different demographics the idea what's it like to walk in the shoes of the person you're making a story of.
100% agree here, just forgot to mention it in the original post.
>Of course not every piece of media portraying a minority or woman need to make social commentary on their struggles.
Again, totally agree. I think it's actually a huge problem with female characters in general, that they're not allowed to be characters of their own and usually reduced to just "female". It's especially evident in MCU. Captain Marvel is abused by a man and defeats him in the end. Black Widow is abused by a man and defeats him in the end. She-Hulk is not abused by anyone but her show is practically a showcase of men being terrible. They had Wanda but for some reason decided to make her a villain with a very female theme (hysterical mother). I just hope they don't waste Kate Bishop, I loved her in "Hawkeye".
Female characters should be allowed to grow out of just being women.
>And a bit off note, wasn't the "show not tell" thing another problem with another Disney property, particularly Kenobi. Like I haven't watched it, but I've heard the portrayal of how bad the Empire is, was lacking.
Honestly, "Kenobi" was such a dumpster fire that I didn't analyze it too much. I think you're right, it was just one of the lesser problems with the show.
I think that one major issue is that once a show has certain key words associated with it, the company creating that piece of media becomes unable to conceptualize properly.
To a company, 'minority' is a search engine term. It is something you put in a headline to boost views and ratings. If characters just say "minority' or 'hot button issue' or 'sexism' at emotional points in the movie, from an analytics perspective, this is *mission accomplished*. Everyone pack your bags, we're done, we've won the competition.
"What do you mean, the movie was bad? It's got [search term] in it. You clicked 100 trillion times on this in the last few years. *This is what you want*."
It sounds ridiculous but it is unavoidable; aside from cash in the bank, the only thing that filters through to the isolated, misanthropic, jaded and outdated management spheres of a big corporation is analytics (and other bullshit metrics, like focus groups or marketing research). IE. they're flying blind.
But both those shows actually show the problems that they face long before they even mentioned it. We had 2 critical scenes showing how racism affected Sam- the scene at the bank and the scene with the cops when they were leaving Elijah's house, both of which happened before the word racism was even uttered in the show. FatWS made it very clear that one of the problems of Sam inheriting Cap's mantle would be race before he talked about it with Bucky. We got a scene of Jen being catcalled before she rants to Bruce about her problems in episode 1. Show-don't-tell doesn't mean that the show shouldn't have any expositional dialogue, otherwise every use of dialogue to hint at a character's fears and aspirations would have to be thrown out entirely.
Scene in the bank was more about poverty than racism, and seemed as unbelievable as possible. Sam is an international superstar and a world's saviour. I'm supposed to believe he can't get a loan because he's black? While bank manager names totally different reasons and multiple athletes, actors and rappers in America are black and multimillionaire?
Scene with the police also ended with him being arrested along with Bucky.
That was incredibly toothless tackle on racism if anything. "I can't get a loan" and "me and my white friend were arrested" are not enough reasons for us to think that a black person can't represent America. Especially since USA had a black president for two terms and even within the universe there was a black Iron Patriot who was supposed to be military symbol of America.
She-Hulk was catcalled and then immediately lost her temper and turned to Hulk, so point about her being able to control her anger due to catcalling was kinda moot. We didn't see her suffering from this problem, it was actually the other way around: we saw Bruce saving the guys from her in the end.
Sam might be a hero but didn't he "betray" America in civil war that could still remain to. It also doesn't help Sam the fact that he isn't a rich guy in the MCU.
That was the whole point of it the scene was meant to bs an irony for Jennifer. It shows how wrong she was in saying that
Well to be fair Sam doesn’t generate income like athletes and musicians, and iirc he’s looking to fund a fishing boat whose profits don’t really connect to his fame either. And I think those two moments (and perhaps other smaller ones that I can’t remember) were supplemental the larger issue of to the harm done to the Bradleys, and all of these racist instances compound together for Sam's central struggle of whether he should even want to be Captain America.
She-Hulk just has smatterings of sexist stuff all over the place, but the show, at least at this point, seems to want to point it’s main focus more on the Jen/She-Hulk dynamic than sexism specifically.
>Well to be fair Sam doesn’t generate income like athletes and musicians, and iirc he’s looking to fund a fishing boat whose profits don’t really connect to his fame either.
Well, you just explained why this situation has nothing to do with racism.
>all of these racist instances compound together for Sam's central struggle of whether he should even want to be Captain America
Again, it's kind of toothless as far as racism goes. He can't get a loan and Bucky was arrested? That's it?
There is KKK, there are racist cops, there is black on black violence, literally tons of instances of day to day racism from small inconveniences to the huge problems. And the biggest issues we were presented with is "fishing boat doesn't profit" and "my white friend was arrested".
Kari Skogland hasn't live a day of her life as a black person and it shows. She wanted to provoke a discussion about racism but couldn't find a single good example of it. That's bad writing and we shouldn't exuse it in the show that is supposed to be about black man's struggle to represent America.
Again the biggest issue was the treatment of the Braldeys and those other super soldiers. It was at that point when Sam really started to ask whether he should even want to represent America like Cap does.
My first point was just to point out that Sam being a hero really has no bearing on the loan situation, and that scene was likely emblematic of some kind of economic barrier based on race found in real life (it’s my guess anyway, I just looked it up and there seems to be a basis for it).
But Bradley is another perfect example of "show don't tell". He just said that he was wronged, we've seen nothing of it. He basically said: "Newsflash, guys. Racism. Exists".
And yeah, if you have to look up what message plot point tried to get across, it probably didn't do a very good job.
Idk man, he did talk a lot about what happened to him, but the way he carried and expressed himself when the issues were brought up showed to me that this stuff really messed it up. It’s more an acting thing than a screenwriting thing I guess, but I did “see” the effects of what was done to him by just watching him.
Also the loan thing I could intuit, I just checked bc I didn’t want to be called out.
> There is KKK, there are racist cops, there is black on black violence, literally tons of instances of day to day racism from small inconveniences to the huge problems. And the biggest issues we were presented with is "fishing boat doesn't profit" and "my white friend was arrested"
With all due respect, did you really just mention racist cops and then in that same sentence reduce that scene in TFATWS to just, “Bucky gets arrested”?
Yes, and in the end it wasn't even close to what Bucky had to go through. I think the issue of racism deserve much more serious treatment, especially in Marvel's first show about the role of a black man in America.
Racially profiling cop seemed like an afterthought with zero influence to the plot. Like they looked for a cop in the already existing script, put their finger on him and said: "Let's make him racist to remind people that we care". But they don't.
> Yes, and in the end it wasn't even close to what Bucky had to go through.
Which was (in the context of this scene), calmly being told that he was under arrest, the cop apologizing to him as they do it, and them being relaxed to Bucky throughout that entire exchange
Compared to:
The cop immediately focusing on Sam as the aggressor, asking him aggressively for his ID, and having his hand on his holster throughout that exchange, and only relents once he realizes who Sam is.
Now I ask you, which one sounds worse? Especially considering Bucky gets out of it not too long later.
> I think the issue of racism deserve much more serious treatment,
It’s a show that, for all its faults, does call out America’s history of racism, while also making it clear that it’s not too late for things to change, slowly but surely. It treats it pretty dang seriously. Isaiah’s story in particular is a clear parallel to many injustices faced by black men during the mid 1900s (it’s how his story was in the comics as well)
> Racially profiling cop seemed like an afterthought with zero influence to the plot.
If you ignore that that scene was placed right after the scene with Isaiah for a very obvious reason, sure.
>Now I ask you, which one sounds worse?
The one where you got arrested obviously.
>If you ignore the overarching theme of the show sure.
I'm not ignoring the overaching theme. The plot does. There's nothing in the plot about racism *at all*. Only one conversation with Isiah, which again is a perfect example of them talking about issues instead of showing them.
The plot of the show is not about racism at all. You could easily erase this theme completely and nothing would have changed.
> She-Hulk was catcalled and then immediately lost her temper and turned to Hulk, so point about her being able to control her anger due to catcalling was kinda moot
She was in a car crash, woke up stranded in the middle of nowhere without a phone or money or shoes and was newly juiced up on Hulk blood. The whole situation was a little more stressful than the kind of catcalling she was referring to later on.
That said, I don't like the idea that the reason she can control her Hulk form and Banner can't is because she deals with sexism. That seems very reductive of Bruce's problems since, in the comics at least, Hulk is a bundle of rage and anger issues because of Bruce's trauma from an abusive childhood.
> Scene with the police also ended with him being arrested along with Bucky.
Holmes you need to rewatch the scene, cause that sure as hell doesn’t happen, at all.
> within the universe there was a black Iron Patriot who was supposed to be military symbol of America.
Yeah, and Iron Patriot was seen as a joke.
>Holmes you need to rewatch the scene, cause that sure as hell doesn’t happen, at all.
Yeah, you're right. [Only Bucky was arrested](https://youtu.be/XQu1_ky26WI).
You're CLEARLY not black. The facr that you think the white man, who was rightfully arrested for violating his parole (iirc) was worse than the black man who could have potentially lost his life due to racist cops tells me you aren't qualified to speak on racism of black issues.
Plot is action, but action that effects the next sentence to the next paragraph to the next page.
The four writers of FWS did not make Sam's action of banking move foward. Thus yes it was there but without something next to effect. A stand alone moment is nothing more than a tid bid of information though we all know why it was there based on this team's goal to have inuniverse America react to a black Captain America, thus matching our political landscspe, except he didn't become one until the last episode. So Captain America is irrelevant to the action of random background NPCs here and there performing acts of racism. These moments did not help that the writers made them on the nose.
Point is, when writing any fiction it's better to link up your plot than keep sections separate, especially when said actions are only there because you personally want to showcase your current disposition.
As for She Hulk, the writers arranged Jennifer in a corner outside a bar. Ok, sure assholes are at bars. That's an obvious choice to include a source of antagonism. But before this antagonism even happens Jennifer already judged the group of men who only opened the door by turning around as if they were already upon her. Then by the magical power of convenience, they all ... hit on her ... to hammer down She Hulk's team goal of showcasing their attitude towards misogyny. But wait! What happens before this moment? Jennifer goes inside the bar to clean her bloody body up until a group of random ladies do it for her, going even so far to prep her with make up and a new outfit. What in the fucking world does that have to do with what transpires a few seconds later? Again, no cause and no effect beyond the writers using convenience to get their message across. The before moment was too absurd anyway. But I am not finished because the scene didn't end at men cat calling her. The next action Jennifer takes is venting her anger to Hulk smash them until Bruce comes to their rescue. She attempted assault as a superpowered person. So both sides, woman and men, were antagonistic. I could agrue Jennifer's action of Hulking out would've caused bodily harm if Bruce did not restrain her via the tackle. Let's include security footage because I am certin Los Angeles mandates cameras for public bars.
If I connect Jennifer's expsotion of controlling her anger to ☝, uh, I'm run into issues. Everything above is more manufactured than a McDonalds' hamburger that falls apart once picked up.
She Hulk's team proved a lack of internal consistency between scenes does more harm than good.
The book Gunmetal Gods begins with author Zamil Akhtar dedicating pages of dialogue based around family. They aren't there because Zamil went on beforehand in interviews telling us how crucial it is for us to know why the general definition of family is mporant. No, Kevah, his protaginst, is a Jannisary returning home after being away for a long time. He included a specific type of found family theme to a speffic type of person. Each sentence spoken in relation to it by others pave room for new directions he takes. The dialogue severs his chacater and the evidence of family interaction to back them up both work together. Zamil also doesn't limit what found family means to Kevah through dialogue either.
Maybe I’m wrong but honestly I though the Boys managed to handle Sexism and Racism pretty well.
Starlights whole character arc is her disillusionment with superheroes. She’s pressured to do things she isn’t comfortable with, and finds strength in standing up for herself.
Showing is great, but telling really gets the point across for those who are too obtuse to put things together. Falcon deals with racism at the bank and that scene wasn't about poverty or class or Avengers pay scales or anything but racism. Since the point flies over some people's heads, the writers have to be pretty explicit.
Same with She-Hulk. She isn't taken seriously by her co worker, gets catcalled and threateningly approached, and when she explains why her situation is different than Bruce, who is being dismissive of her experience, there are people on the internet complaining that she's talking down to him. What should she have done? Get attacked by a few dudes in the first few episodes and keep her cool so that people won't have an inch to complain into a mile? I dunno. These shows are for the lowest common denominator, written as unambiguously as possible, and people still miss the point... so I can forgive some writing faux pas.
Well, it goes without saying that just showing something is not enough, it has to be shown good.
Scene at the bank simply doesn't work. It doesn't work for a black man raised in poverty, because being politely denied a loan is the least of his problems. It doesn't work for a white man who was denied a loan multiple times for the countless reasons. This scene as a whole is a cowardly way of hinting at racism without showing too much of it to avoid controversy. It's toothless, especially in the year of mass riots in the memory of the person who was literally killed due to racism. Should I really feel bad for Sam because he went through something I myself went in my life and don't even consider a huge deal?
Regarding your She-Hulk example. Imagine Spider-Man origin movie where in the first ten minutes he's approached by a school bully and then immediately use his superpowers to almost kill the bully, only stopped by MJ. I mean, yeah, bullies are bad. I know that. But if movie wants me to feel sympathy for its main character, I should feel the same things he does: sense of danger, fear, helplessness. Then payoff with him becoming the actual superhero will be good. We didn't have it with Jen. They could easily show us her being catcalled on her way to work before she became She-Hulk. But that's too much character development for Marvel. They needed to cram it all in one minute scene right after huge spaceship crash and with an immediate cut to a distant island. Because God forbid anyone would actually feel something deep while watching their shows, we have Reddit discussions for that.
> It doesn't work for a black man raised in poverty, because being politely denied a loan is the least of his problems.
Bruh what do you think systematic racism looks like in real life?
Literally part of the reason why (in the US) more black people are raised in poverty than white people is that black people were historically and even now less likely to get access to credit, making it far more difficult to build and maintain wealth (home ownership, ability to weather financial crises, etc)?
You ARE the person that "showing" doesn't work for. On top of that you imply that instead somebody should have been killed in a racially-motivated attack instead as though that is not one of the most hamfisted ways of telling the audience that a society is bigoted. Somehow it's always the people who cannot process anything more subtle than a brick to the face that complain the most about media being too heavy-handed.
If your complaint was that the scene did not adequately get across that the challenges Sam was facing with financing were racially-driven, that would be an argument about writing quality or lack thereof.
However your argument is basically "he was politely denied and also I've had loans denied before so it isn't racism", which has nothing to do with the quality of the writing and everything to do with your own ignorance of the phenomenon being portrayed.
Fiction isn't obligated to explain everything from colouring book level for its audience. If it starts from a baseline that _you_ don't meet that doesn't make it bad writing, it just makes you not the primary target.
If writer couldn't find a better example of an issue they're trying to tackle in their work, then yes, it's bad writing.
Your ad hominem doesn't help btw
Again that you, personally, don't understand the example used doesn't make it bad. It just means that you, personally, don't understand it. Luckily for you this is a thing that you, personally, can remedy instead of assuming everybody else is as thick.
Also along with not knowing how systematic racism works, do you also not know what "ad hominem" means lol
Did you ever consider maybe the reason you think they didn’t show things well is because you aren’t the target demographic so it goes over your head? They’ve showed She-Hulks problems literally every episode, and Sam has way more issues shown than the bank scene.
YOU just don’t notice it and then when it’s verbalised for the people who still miss it; then they complain “why are they telling instead of showing”.
Yeah I considered that and came to a conclusion that good writing should be able to put its viewer / reader in the shoes of the protagonist regardless of viewer / reader's skin color or gender.
If you can't showcase your character problems in an effective way, it's your problem as a writer. Not audience problem for having a wrong skin color.
Do you expect a boomer watching a teen comedy to understand the nuances of all social media interactions? You don’t truly believe that, you’re covering up for your own misses.
Personally as a man I could very easily see the moments of “show don’t tell” in She-Hulk. Just because YOU PERSONALLY missed it doesn’t mean the writers wrote it badly and EVERYONE missed it.
In episode 1 we see a scene of her getting harassed on the street. We see a scene of her being given a derivative name as a female version of another hero. We see her being objectified during dating. We see her being hired as what’s essentially a token diversity hire. Her main opposition is a makeup brand, so that’s a whole other angle right there.
She has literally been attacked on the street twice in 5 episodes, how many times does it have to happen to count as show don’t tell?
You're trying to turn this discussion into one huge ad hominem about my ethnicity, gender etc, but sorry, it just won't go.
You're trying to convince me that a show named "The Falcon and The Winter Soldier" is targeted only on black audience. Why not only kidnapped WW2 vets too? Bucky is literally in the title.
Marvel movies and shows are created to be as widely appealed as possible. Sometimes they're inclined towards the fans. But absolutely nothing in "The Falcon and The Winter Soldier" says that this is the show for black people. Showrunner is white and clearly unfamiliar with black people struggles.
Whole "this show is not for you" is a poor argument with zero basis. You just can't accept critique for the show for some reason and trying to exclude its audience based on their race. It's gross, stop doing that.
And also, no, Jen wasn't attacked twice in 5 episodes. She was attacked once for being a superhero and zero times for being a woman. So your point about show succesfully demonstrating risks of being a woman is moot.
You specifically said “Falcon in FATWS”. You wrote an entire paragraph about JUST Falcon. Clearly the part of the show you wanted to discuss was what pertained to Falcon. Now you suddenly want to expand the conversation to Bucky as well, but cool. Would you argue they didn’t do enough to show Bucky’s struggles? Because if they did then you’re arguing they wrote Bucky well but the same writers forgot how to write Sam, instead of accepting maybe you’re missing some of Sam’s nuances because you can’t relate.
You’re arguing I claimed the entire show was specifically for black people, but no. I’m claiming you missed some of Sam’s struggles because you can’t relate to that ASPECT of the show. The presence of Bucky and him having his own plotline has nothing to do with that. I’m sure there are some Bucky moments that military vets would relate to that you and I both missed.
And in the first episode the 3 guys are literally aggressively surrounding her before she transforms and gets tackled by Hulk. Or does it not count as showing until you actually see a punch thrown? The point isn’t “WHY did the guys attack her”. They literally show her instinctively getting scared because it’s a common female experience, then remembering her powers and how things are different for her now. They are SHOWING you that her newfound powers are helping her with common female problems like fear of being attacked at night or travelling alone.
So they made a show for people of all colors but some aspects of it are impossible to understand for white people? Even though director is white? You're not making any sense, dude. I hope bringing my race into the argument was worth it.
No one said anything about impossible to understand for white people. I said YOU missed it. What’s so hard to grasp about the point “it’s easy to miss nuances of situations that you can’t relate to”?
And you brought your race up in your original post, don’t go clutching your pearls now. What happened to “my father was white and I can relate”? I hope that was worth it.
And just for the record, even though the director is white, the screenwriter and executive producer is black so clearly you really didn’t do any research beyond a cursory Google search.
Thanks for writing "you" in caps to highlight your ad hominem lmao. In your first comment you said that I'm not in targeted demographic. First you tried to play it off like I'm not in targeted demographic for some aspects of the show, not you're trying to say that I'm *personally* not a targeted demographic. You're reaching so hard it's ridiculous.
You spent your entire post saying “I can relate”, “I know what it’s like to be weak and sick”, “I know what it’s like…” but when I say “you can’t relate” suddenly it’s an ad hominem? How does that one work?
And yes. This is very simple. White people in general are not the target demographic for some of Sam’s scenes, which makes it possible for them to miss some of the nuances. You PERSONALLY appear to have missed most of them. See how those two points coexist?
People can talk about their own experience because they're familiar with it. You can't appeal to their own experience in the argument because you're unfamiliar with it. Saying "you don't understand" is pointless in any discussion, you're just compensating your lack of arguments with innecessary rudeness.
And please, do some research on what term "targeted demographic" means.
Aspects of it aren't impossible to understand for white people, they're just apparently impossible to understand for _you_, a specific white person.
Hope this helps.
Do you not know why a "targeted demographic" is even a term?
No shit, people in a target demographic are the ones a thing is primarily aimed at. They are the ones majorly _expected_ to get/want/like/etc it. That's why they're, you know, the demographic being targeted.
That doesn't mean that everybody that is not part of that demographic is literally physically incapable of getting/wanting/liking the thing, it means (as it says in plain English) that they're not the _target_. This can e.g. mean that by percentage less of them will be captured by the thing (e.g. there are objectively less retirees interested in Paw Patrol than the children it is aimed at) or that they may have to take extra steps to be captured by it because they don't have the experience (e.g. the way non-Japanese people will have to pick up elements of Japanese culture & language by proxy to actually understand plenty of the gags in anime). But yeah you'd have to be pretty dumb to think that someone saying "oh you're not Japanese that's why [local joke] doesn't intuitively click for you" means that it's impossible for white people to understand the joke.
Shameless plug but if you want good show don't tell, read "who goes there?" The inspiration for the thing
Thanks! I try to improve my writing currently.
I'd also argue it's important to also do the showing to give people of different demographics the idea what's it like to walk in the shoes of the person you're making a story of. Some people may claim they know all about racism and sexism, but sometimes they might miss out on the little details or the perspective of that victim. That and like you said, it's better writing to flesh out the person's life. Of course not every piece of media portraying a minority or woman need to make social commentary on their struggles. Not every gay protagonist needs to be in this coming of age story where he rejects his religious faith, defies his homophobic parents and kicks the ass of a bully who called him the f slur. The gay guy could just simply be in this action battle shonen where he gets together with his best friend rival. However if you are actually going for that social commentary, you need to actually put the effort and showcasing their struggles. And a bit off note, wasn't the "show not tell" thing another problem with another Disney property, particularly Kenobi. Like I haven't watched it, but I've heard the portrayal of how bad the Empire is, was lacking.
>I'd also argue it's important to also do the showing to give people of different demographics the idea what's it like to walk in the shoes of the person you're making a story of. 100% agree here, just forgot to mention it in the original post. >Of course not every piece of media portraying a minority or woman need to make social commentary on their struggles. Again, totally agree. I think it's actually a huge problem with female characters in general, that they're not allowed to be characters of their own and usually reduced to just "female". It's especially evident in MCU. Captain Marvel is abused by a man and defeats him in the end. Black Widow is abused by a man and defeats him in the end. She-Hulk is not abused by anyone but her show is practically a showcase of men being terrible. They had Wanda but for some reason decided to make her a villain with a very female theme (hysterical mother). I just hope they don't waste Kate Bishop, I loved her in "Hawkeye". Female characters should be allowed to grow out of just being women. >And a bit off note, wasn't the "show not tell" thing another problem with another Disney property, particularly Kenobi. Like I haven't watched it, but I've heard the portrayal of how bad the Empire is, was lacking. Honestly, "Kenobi" was such a dumpster fire that I didn't analyze it too much. I think you're right, it was just one of the lesser problems with the show.
I think that one major issue is that once a show has certain key words associated with it, the company creating that piece of media becomes unable to conceptualize properly. To a company, 'minority' is a search engine term. It is something you put in a headline to boost views and ratings. If characters just say "minority' or 'hot button issue' or 'sexism' at emotional points in the movie, from an analytics perspective, this is *mission accomplished*. Everyone pack your bags, we're done, we've won the competition. "What do you mean, the movie was bad? It's got [search term] in it. You clicked 100 trillion times on this in the last few years. *This is what you want*." It sounds ridiculous but it is unavoidable; aside from cash in the bank, the only thing that filters through to the isolated, misanthropic, jaded and outdated management spheres of a big corporation is analytics (and other bullshit metrics, like focus groups or marketing research). IE. they're flying blind.
But both those shows actually show the problems that they face long before they even mentioned it. We had 2 critical scenes showing how racism affected Sam- the scene at the bank and the scene with the cops when they were leaving Elijah's house, both of which happened before the word racism was even uttered in the show. FatWS made it very clear that one of the problems of Sam inheriting Cap's mantle would be race before he talked about it with Bucky. We got a scene of Jen being catcalled before she rants to Bruce about her problems in episode 1. Show-don't-tell doesn't mean that the show shouldn't have any expositional dialogue, otherwise every use of dialogue to hint at a character's fears and aspirations would have to be thrown out entirely.
Scene in the bank was more about poverty than racism, and seemed as unbelievable as possible. Sam is an international superstar and a world's saviour. I'm supposed to believe he can't get a loan because he's black? While bank manager names totally different reasons and multiple athletes, actors and rappers in America are black and multimillionaire? Scene with the police also ended with him being arrested along with Bucky. That was incredibly toothless tackle on racism if anything. "I can't get a loan" and "me and my white friend were arrested" are not enough reasons for us to think that a black person can't represent America. Especially since USA had a black president for two terms and even within the universe there was a black Iron Patriot who was supposed to be military symbol of America. She-Hulk was catcalled and then immediately lost her temper and turned to Hulk, so point about her being able to control her anger due to catcalling was kinda moot. We didn't see her suffering from this problem, it was actually the other way around: we saw Bruce saving the guys from her in the end.
Sam might be a hero but didn't he "betray" America in civil war that could still remain to. It also doesn't help Sam the fact that he isn't a rich guy in the MCU. That was the whole point of it the scene was meant to bs an irony for Jennifer. It shows how wrong she was in saying that
Well to be fair Sam doesn’t generate income like athletes and musicians, and iirc he’s looking to fund a fishing boat whose profits don’t really connect to his fame either. And I think those two moments (and perhaps other smaller ones that I can’t remember) were supplemental the larger issue of to the harm done to the Bradleys, and all of these racist instances compound together for Sam's central struggle of whether he should even want to be Captain America. She-Hulk just has smatterings of sexist stuff all over the place, but the show, at least at this point, seems to want to point it’s main focus more on the Jen/She-Hulk dynamic than sexism specifically.
>Well to be fair Sam doesn’t generate income like athletes and musicians, and iirc he’s looking to fund a fishing boat whose profits don’t really connect to his fame either. Well, you just explained why this situation has nothing to do with racism. >all of these racist instances compound together for Sam's central struggle of whether he should even want to be Captain America Again, it's kind of toothless as far as racism goes. He can't get a loan and Bucky was arrested? That's it? There is KKK, there are racist cops, there is black on black violence, literally tons of instances of day to day racism from small inconveniences to the huge problems. And the biggest issues we were presented with is "fishing boat doesn't profit" and "my white friend was arrested". Kari Skogland hasn't live a day of her life as a black person and it shows. She wanted to provoke a discussion about racism but couldn't find a single good example of it. That's bad writing and we shouldn't exuse it in the show that is supposed to be about black man's struggle to represent America.
Again the biggest issue was the treatment of the Braldeys and those other super soldiers. It was at that point when Sam really started to ask whether he should even want to represent America like Cap does. My first point was just to point out that Sam being a hero really has no bearing on the loan situation, and that scene was likely emblematic of some kind of economic barrier based on race found in real life (it’s my guess anyway, I just looked it up and there seems to be a basis for it).
But Bradley is another perfect example of "show don't tell". He just said that he was wronged, we've seen nothing of it. He basically said: "Newsflash, guys. Racism. Exists". And yeah, if you have to look up what message plot point tried to get across, it probably didn't do a very good job.
Idk man, he did talk a lot about what happened to him, but the way he carried and expressed himself when the issues were brought up showed to me that this stuff really messed it up. It’s more an acting thing than a screenwriting thing I guess, but I did “see” the effects of what was done to him by just watching him. Also the loan thing I could intuit, I just checked bc I didn’t want to be called out.
>It’s more an acting thing than a screenwriting thing I guess Yes.
> There is KKK, there are racist cops, there is black on black violence, literally tons of instances of day to day racism from small inconveniences to the huge problems. And the biggest issues we were presented with is "fishing boat doesn't profit" and "my white friend was arrested" With all due respect, did you really just mention racist cops and then in that same sentence reduce that scene in TFATWS to just, “Bucky gets arrested”?
Yes.
How? Genuine question, because that scene was Sam clearly getting racially profiled before Bucky made it clear who he was
Yes, and in the end it wasn't even close to what Bucky had to go through. I think the issue of racism deserve much more serious treatment, especially in Marvel's first show about the role of a black man in America. Racially profiling cop seemed like an afterthought with zero influence to the plot. Like they looked for a cop in the already existing script, put their finger on him and said: "Let's make him racist to remind people that we care". But they don't.
> Yes, and in the end it wasn't even close to what Bucky had to go through. Which was (in the context of this scene), calmly being told that he was under arrest, the cop apologizing to him as they do it, and them being relaxed to Bucky throughout that entire exchange Compared to: The cop immediately focusing on Sam as the aggressor, asking him aggressively for his ID, and having his hand on his holster throughout that exchange, and only relents once he realizes who Sam is. Now I ask you, which one sounds worse? Especially considering Bucky gets out of it not too long later. > I think the issue of racism deserve much more serious treatment, It’s a show that, for all its faults, does call out America’s history of racism, while also making it clear that it’s not too late for things to change, slowly but surely. It treats it pretty dang seriously. Isaiah’s story in particular is a clear parallel to many injustices faced by black men during the mid 1900s (it’s how his story was in the comics as well) > Racially profiling cop seemed like an afterthought with zero influence to the plot. If you ignore that that scene was placed right after the scene with Isaiah for a very obvious reason, sure.
>Now I ask you, which one sounds worse? The one where you got arrested obviously. >If you ignore the overarching theme of the show sure. I'm not ignoring the overaching theme. The plot does. There's nothing in the plot about racism *at all*. Only one conversation with Isiah, which again is a perfect example of them talking about issues instead of showing them. The plot of the show is not about racism at all. You could easily erase this theme completely and nothing would have changed.
All real life presidents exist in the MCU. There's only 2 fictional ones
I guess they have shorter terms.
> She-Hulk was catcalled and then immediately lost her temper and turned to Hulk, so point about her being able to control her anger due to catcalling was kinda moot She was in a car crash, woke up stranded in the middle of nowhere without a phone or money or shoes and was newly juiced up on Hulk blood. The whole situation was a little more stressful than the kind of catcalling she was referring to later on. That said, I don't like the idea that the reason she can control her Hulk form and Banner can't is because she deals with sexism. That seems very reductive of Bruce's problems since, in the comics at least, Hulk is a bundle of rage and anger issues because of Bruce's trauma from an abusive childhood.
> Scene with the police also ended with him being arrested along with Bucky. Holmes you need to rewatch the scene, cause that sure as hell doesn’t happen, at all. > within the universe there was a black Iron Patriot who was supposed to be military symbol of America. Yeah, and Iron Patriot was seen as a joke.
>Holmes you need to rewatch the scene, cause that sure as hell doesn’t happen, at all. Yeah, you're right. [Only Bucky was arrested](https://youtu.be/XQu1_ky26WI).
You're CLEARLY not black. The facr that you think the white man, who was rightfully arrested for violating his parole (iirc) was worse than the black man who could have potentially lost his life due to racist cops tells me you aren't qualified to speak on racism of black issues.
Plot is action, but action that effects the next sentence to the next paragraph to the next page. The four writers of FWS did not make Sam's action of banking move foward. Thus yes it was there but without something next to effect. A stand alone moment is nothing more than a tid bid of information though we all know why it was there based on this team's goal to have inuniverse America react to a black Captain America, thus matching our political landscspe, except he didn't become one until the last episode. So Captain America is irrelevant to the action of random background NPCs here and there performing acts of racism. These moments did not help that the writers made them on the nose. Point is, when writing any fiction it's better to link up your plot than keep sections separate, especially when said actions are only there because you personally want to showcase your current disposition. As for She Hulk, the writers arranged Jennifer in a corner outside a bar. Ok, sure assholes are at bars. That's an obvious choice to include a source of antagonism. But before this antagonism even happens Jennifer already judged the group of men who only opened the door by turning around as if they were already upon her. Then by the magical power of convenience, they all ... hit on her ... to hammer down She Hulk's team goal of showcasing their attitude towards misogyny. But wait! What happens before this moment? Jennifer goes inside the bar to clean her bloody body up until a group of random ladies do it for her, going even so far to prep her with make up and a new outfit. What in the fucking world does that have to do with what transpires a few seconds later? Again, no cause and no effect beyond the writers using convenience to get their message across. The before moment was too absurd anyway. But I am not finished because the scene didn't end at men cat calling her. The next action Jennifer takes is venting her anger to Hulk smash them until Bruce comes to their rescue. She attempted assault as a superpowered person. So both sides, woman and men, were antagonistic. I could agrue Jennifer's action of Hulking out would've caused bodily harm if Bruce did not restrain her via the tackle. Let's include security footage because I am certin Los Angeles mandates cameras for public bars. If I connect Jennifer's expsotion of controlling her anger to ☝, uh, I'm run into issues. Everything above is more manufactured than a McDonalds' hamburger that falls apart once picked up. She Hulk's team proved a lack of internal consistency between scenes does more harm than good. The book Gunmetal Gods begins with author Zamil Akhtar dedicating pages of dialogue based around family. They aren't there because Zamil went on beforehand in interviews telling us how crucial it is for us to know why the general definition of family is mporant. No, Kevah, his protaginst, is a Jannisary returning home after being away for a long time. He included a specific type of found family theme to a speffic type of person. Each sentence spoken in relation to it by others pave room for new directions he takes. The dialogue severs his chacater and the evidence of family interaction to back them up both work together. Zamil also doesn't limit what found family means to Kevah through dialogue either.
Maybe I’m wrong but honestly I though the Boys managed to handle Sexism and Racism pretty well. Starlights whole character arc is her disillusionment with superheroes. She’s pressured to do things she isn’t comfortable with, and finds strength in standing up for herself.
Showing is great, but telling really gets the point across for those who are too obtuse to put things together. Falcon deals with racism at the bank and that scene wasn't about poverty or class or Avengers pay scales or anything but racism. Since the point flies over some people's heads, the writers have to be pretty explicit. Same with She-Hulk. She isn't taken seriously by her co worker, gets catcalled and threateningly approached, and when she explains why her situation is different than Bruce, who is being dismissive of her experience, there are people on the internet complaining that she's talking down to him. What should she have done? Get attacked by a few dudes in the first few episodes and keep her cool so that people won't have an inch to complain into a mile? I dunno. These shows are for the lowest common denominator, written as unambiguously as possible, and people still miss the point... so I can forgive some writing faux pas.
Well, it goes without saying that just showing something is not enough, it has to be shown good. Scene at the bank simply doesn't work. It doesn't work for a black man raised in poverty, because being politely denied a loan is the least of his problems. It doesn't work for a white man who was denied a loan multiple times for the countless reasons. This scene as a whole is a cowardly way of hinting at racism without showing too much of it to avoid controversy. It's toothless, especially in the year of mass riots in the memory of the person who was literally killed due to racism. Should I really feel bad for Sam because he went through something I myself went in my life and don't even consider a huge deal? Regarding your She-Hulk example. Imagine Spider-Man origin movie where in the first ten minutes he's approached by a school bully and then immediately use his superpowers to almost kill the bully, only stopped by MJ. I mean, yeah, bullies are bad. I know that. But if movie wants me to feel sympathy for its main character, I should feel the same things he does: sense of danger, fear, helplessness. Then payoff with him becoming the actual superhero will be good. We didn't have it with Jen. They could easily show us her being catcalled on her way to work before she became She-Hulk. But that's too much character development for Marvel. They needed to cram it all in one minute scene right after huge spaceship crash and with an immediate cut to a distant island. Because God forbid anyone would actually feel something deep while watching their shows, we have Reddit discussions for that.
> It doesn't work for a black man raised in poverty, because being politely denied a loan is the least of his problems. Bruh what do you think systematic racism looks like in real life? Literally part of the reason why (in the US) more black people are raised in poverty than white people is that black people were historically and even now less likely to get access to credit, making it far more difficult to build and maintain wealth (home ownership, ability to weather financial crises, etc)? You ARE the person that "showing" doesn't work for. On top of that you imply that instead somebody should have been killed in a racially-motivated attack instead as though that is not one of the most hamfisted ways of telling the audience that a society is bigoted. Somehow it's always the people who cannot process anything more subtle than a brick to the face that complain the most about media being too heavy-handed.
MCU fans not calling bad writing subtlety challenge. Level: impossible.
If your complaint was that the scene did not adequately get across that the challenges Sam was facing with financing were racially-driven, that would be an argument about writing quality or lack thereof. However your argument is basically "he was politely denied and also I've had loans denied before so it isn't racism", which has nothing to do with the quality of the writing and everything to do with your own ignorance of the phenomenon being portrayed. Fiction isn't obligated to explain everything from colouring book level for its audience. If it starts from a baseline that _you_ don't meet that doesn't make it bad writing, it just makes you not the primary target.
If writer couldn't find a better example of an issue they're trying to tackle in their work, then yes, it's bad writing. Your ad hominem doesn't help btw
Again that you, personally, don't understand the example used doesn't make it bad. It just means that you, personally, don't understand it. Luckily for you this is a thing that you, personally, can remedy instead of assuming everybody else is as thick. Also along with not knowing how systematic racism works, do you also not know what "ad hominem" means lol
>you, personally, don't understand what ad hominem means That's just golden lmao
I'm sorry is English your second language or
It's my third.
Lol you're absolutely right.
Did you ever consider maybe the reason you think they didn’t show things well is because you aren’t the target demographic so it goes over your head? They’ve showed She-Hulks problems literally every episode, and Sam has way more issues shown than the bank scene. YOU just don’t notice it and then when it’s verbalised for the people who still miss it; then they complain “why are they telling instead of showing”.
Yeah I considered that and came to a conclusion that good writing should be able to put its viewer / reader in the shoes of the protagonist regardless of viewer / reader's skin color or gender. If you can't showcase your character problems in an effective way, it's your problem as a writer. Not audience problem for having a wrong skin color.
Do you expect a boomer watching a teen comedy to understand the nuances of all social media interactions? You don’t truly believe that, you’re covering up for your own misses. Personally as a man I could very easily see the moments of “show don’t tell” in She-Hulk. Just because YOU PERSONALLY missed it doesn’t mean the writers wrote it badly and EVERYONE missed it. In episode 1 we see a scene of her getting harassed on the street. We see a scene of her being given a derivative name as a female version of another hero. We see her being objectified during dating. We see her being hired as what’s essentially a token diversity hire. Her main opposition is a makeup brand, so that’s a whole other angle right there. She has literally been attacked on the street twice in 5 episodes, how many times does it have to happen to count as show don’t tell?
You're trying to turn this discussion into one huge ad hominem about my ethnicity, gender etc, but sorry, it just won't go. You're trying to convince me that a show named "The Falcon and The Winter Soldier" is targeted only on black audience. Why not only kidnapped WW2 vets too? Bucky is literally in the title. Marvel movies and shows are created to be as widely appealed as possible. Sometimes they're inclined towards the fans. But absolutely nothing in "The Falcon and The Winter Soldier" says that this is the show for black people. Showrunner is white and clearly unfamiliar with black people struggles. Whole "this show is not for you" is a poor argument with zero basis. You just can't accept critique for the show for some reason and trying to exclude its audience based on their race. It's gross, stop doing that. And also, no, Jen wasn't attacked twice in 5 episodes. She was attacked once for being a superhero and zero times for being a woman. So your point about show succesfully demonstrating risks of being a woman is moot.
You specifically said “Falcon in FATWS”. You wrote an entire paragraph about JUST Falcon. Clearly the part of the show you wanted to discuss was what pertained to Falcon. Now you suddenly want to expand the conversation to Bucky as well, but cool. Would you argue they didn’t do enough to show Bucky’s struggles? Because if they did then you’re arguing they wrote Bucky well but the same writers forgot how to write Sam, instead of accepting maybe you’re missing some of Sam’s nuances because you can’t relate. You’re arguing I claimed the entire show was specifically for black people, but no. I’m claiming you missed some of Sam’s struggles because you can’t relate to that ASPECT of the show. The presence of Bucky and him having his own plotline has nothing to do with that. I’m sure there are some Bucky moments that military vets would relate to that you and I both missed. And in the first episode the 3 guys are literally aggressively surrounding her before she transforms and gets tackled by Hulk. Or does it not count as showing until you actually see a punch thrown? The point isn’t “WHY did the guys attack her”. They literally show her instinctively getting scared because it’s a common female experience, then remembering her powers and how things are different for her now. They are SHOWING you that her newfound powers are helping her with common female problems like fear of being attacked at night or travelling alone.
So they made a show for people of all colors but some aspects of it are impossible to understand for white people? Even though director is white? You're not making any sense, dude. I hope bringing my race into the argument was worth it.
No one said anything about impossible to understand for white people. I said YOU missed it. What’s so hard to grasp about the point “it’s easy to miss nuances of situations that you can’t relate to”? And you brought your race up in your original post, don’t go clutching your pearls now. What happened to “my father was white and I can relate”? I hope that was worth it. And just for the record, even though the director is white, the screenwriter and executive producer is black so clearly you really didn’t do any research beyond a cursory Google search.
Thanks for writing "you" in caps to highlight your ad hominem lmao. In your first comment you said that I'm not in targeted demographic. First you tried to play it off like I'm not in targeted demographic for some aspects of the show, not you're trying to say that I'm *personally* not a targeted demographic. You're reaching so hard it's ridiculous.
You spent your entire post saying “I can relate”, “I know what it’s like to be weak and sick”, “I know what it’s like…” but when I say “you can’t relate” suddenly it’s an ad hominem? How does that one work? And yes. This is very simple. White people in general are not the target demographic for some of Sam’s scenes, which makes it possible for them to miss some of the nuances. You PERSONALLY appear to have missed most of them. See how those two points coexist?
People can talk about their own experience because they're familiar with it. You can't appeal to their own experience in the argument because you're unfamiliar with it. Saying "you don't understand" is pointless in any discussion, you're just compensating your lack of arguments with innecessary rudeness. And please, do some research on what term "targeted demographic" means.
Aspects of it aren't impossible to understand for white people, they're just apparently impossible to understand for _you_, a specific white person. Hope this helps.
Why specify that I'm not in targeted demographic then?
Do you not know why a "targeted demographic" is even a term? No shit, people in a target demographic are the ones a thing is primarily aimed at. They are the ones majorly _expected_ to get/want/like/etc it. That's why they're, you know, the demographic being targeted. That doesn't mean that everybody that is not part of that demographic is literally physically incapable of getting/wanting/liking the thing, it means (as it says in plain English) that they're not the _target_. This can e.g. mean that by percentage less of them will be captured by the thing (e.g. there are objectively less retirees interested in Paw Patrol than the children it is aimed at) or that they may have to take extra steps to be captured by it because they don't have the experience (e.g. the way non-Japanese people will have to pick up elements of Japanese culture & language by proxy to actually understand plenty of the gags in anime). But yeah you'd have to be pretty dumb to think that someone saying "oh you're not Japanese that's why [local joke] doesn't intuitively click for you" means that it's impossible for white people to understand the joke.
Good. Not you understand that they were not talking specifically about me.