Opinion: 'WandaVision’ was supposed to be about grief. But it copped out at the last moment.
Spoiler!
Opinion by
Sonny Bunch
Contributing columnist
March 8, 2021 at 12:57 p.m. EST
This column discusses the season finale of “WandaVision”; if you continue reading and complain about being spoiled, you shall be banished to the Hex by chaos magic.
In the eighth episode of “WandaVision,” the Disney Plus series featuring Marvel Cinematic Universe witch Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), her resurrected partner and android, Vision (Paul Bettany), and a lot of clever riffs on classic sitcom tropes, one line seems to have struck a chord: “What is grief, if not love persevering?” After a year of living under the threat of a pandemic, it seems viewers were looking for art that dealt with loss — and didn’t involve putting in the work of reading Russian literature.
But the rhapsodizing over that bit of dialogue concealed a larger, more difficult, point. In the end, “WandaVision” punted on its most interesting idea about grief: that wallowing in it can turn people into monsters.
Certainly, “WandaVision” makes the case that its titular character has suffered terrible losses. Wanda and her brother were orphaned as children and almost killed themselves; her brother died saving innocent people; and Wanda herself was later forced to kill Vision in an effort to save the world. But in “WandaVision,” Wanda is processing this trauma by taking an entire town hostage, trapping the people there in a variety of TV sitcoms as she tries to work through her grief by using magic to resurrect Vision and give them twin sons.
It’s a genuinely monstrous act, and for a moment, the show acknowledges that. Freed from Wanda’s curse by fellow witch Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), one of the townspeople begs Wanda to let her see her 8-year-old daughter again: The little girl has been locked in her home for the entirety of the so-called Scarlet Witch’s reign, a grotesque act of child separation. Another confesses he’s exhausted: She doesn’t let them sleep in natural cycles, a violation of the Geneva Conventions. When they are allowed to sleep, they suffer her worst nightmares. “Please let us go,” one character begs. And, failing that?
“If you won’t let us go, just let us die,” Sharon (Debra Jo Rupp) croaks after Wanda has literally choked them into silence.
And yet, the show feels the need to recast Wanda’s ultimate decision to give up her imaginary family, as well as her hold over the town, as an act of heroic altruism. “They’ll never know what you sacrificed for them,” says Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), a secret agent turned friend of Wanda, in the final episode.
Rambeau’s line is a moral atrocity, an effort to recast Wanda as the hero of the show, the savior of all these little people. But it’s not what she did for the people of Westview that matters. It’s what she did to them. And what she did to them is horrifying, a form of mind-rape and torture that extended for weeks, maybe months.
The only character who has the correct response to Wanda is the acting director of SWORD (Sentient Weapon Observation and Report Division), Tyler Hayward (Josh Stamberg), who calls in a drone strike on the monstrously wicked and dangerously powerful Wanda. Yet he is cast as a villain despite being the only person who recognizes the dangers presented by this overpowered war criminal. Longtime viewers of the Marvel Cinematic Universe know that this isn’t the first time Wanda has done something terrible: the onetime Hydra agent also induced the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) to destroy a large part of a Third World city.
Yet Hayward — who saw how Earth struggled to stave off collapse after a previous supervillain snapped away half of all sentient life — is the show’s antagonist for trying to stop an atrocity. Rambeau — who missed all that drama and appears to have her position in SWORD only because her mother was friends with a superhero — is hailed as the hero despite seeking to excuse it.
This is precisely backward, and the Rambeau-Hayward dichotomy highlights the biggest weakness of “WandaVision.” Everything that takes place outside of Wanda’s fantasy is either unnecessary exposition explaining what’s happening inside or an effort to make Hayward look like a clown. It’s as if creator Jac Schaeffer understood just how horrifying Wanda’s behavior was and needed to conjure up a mustache-twirler to distract from — and detract from — the show’s more powerful message: that our grief can make us do terrible things.
By the show’s end, Hayward is frog-marched to prison for trying to set free a town of victims, while Rambeau lets Wanda off the moral hook. That the writers refused to lean into grief’s darker side and refused to have the character we are supposed to identify with most, Rambeau, condemn the Scarlet Witch for what she has done strikes me as remarkably pat — and remarkably cowardly. Those crowing about the treatment of grief in “WandaVision” should remember how badly they blinked when asked to confront the emotion’s dark side.
She fled SWORD at the end, and the final shot is her doing spooky shit with the Darkhold. I don't think any of that shouts 'hero', regardless of Rambeau's throwaway line. [Reply]
Originally Posted by keg in kc:
She fled SWORD at the end, and the final shot is her doing spooky shit with the Darkhold. I don't think any of that shouts 'hero', regardless of Rambeau's throwaway line.
Agreed.
My interpretation of the final end credit scene was that she was following up on what she told Agatha, which was to learn all she could learn from the Darkhold.
I imagine that will come in handy when either working with or fighting against Dr. Strange.
Also, we didn't need to see everyone's character arc wrapped up in a nice, neat bow and package because the story of these characters isn't ending, it's just beginning. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Fish:
Wanda had a pretty shitty history in the comics...
Spoiler!
She and her brother were abandoned when they were babies. Wanda accidentally used her powers and burned down an entire village and killed her adopted parents when she was young. Which is how she earned the "Witch" title. So humans hated her for being a mutant. Her and her brother were experimented on. She was taken in by Magneto, who mostly just used her for her powers. Even after they found out that Magneto was her father. Magneto was a real dick in the comics. She and Pietro eventually decided to be good guys. But the X-Men/Avengers treated her like shit too. Literally took a vote on whether to kill her because she might be too powerful for anyone to control. All she really wanted was a small happy life with a husband and kids. Which she was eventually given in a comic run really similar to Wandavision. But it turned out that her kids were actually pieces of Mephisto's soul, and could only live in Hell. She ended up marrying Vision, but he had his mind erased and basically lost all emotion for her. When she found out that all the other X-Men/Avengers voted to kill her, she did M-day, and took away the powers of all mutants. She accidentally killed some Avenger members. So all the mutants now hated her too. Her magic feeds off her emotion, which is all trauma and pain.
It's pretty fucked up. I'm kinda curious now after Wandavision, whether they'll try and show her eventual mental breakdown and M-day drama in the MCU. That would be pretty bonkers.
Originally Posted by siberian khatru: Opinion: 'WandaVision’ was supposed to be about grief. But it copped out at the last moment.
Spoiler!
Opinion by
Sonny Bunch
Contributing columnist
March 8, 2021 at 12:57 p.m. EST
This column discusses the season finale of “WandaVision”; if you continue reading and complain about being spoiled, you shall be banished to the Hex by chaos magic.
In the eighth episode of “WandaVision,” the Disney Plus series featuring Marvel Cinematic Universe witch Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), her resurrected partner and android, Vision (Paul Bettany), and a lot of clever riffs on classic sitcom tropes, one line seems to have struck a chord: “What is grief, if not love persevering?” After a year of living under the threat of a pandemic, it seems viewers were looking for art that dealt with loss — and didn’t involve putting in the work of reading Russian literature.
But the rhapsodizing over that bit of dialogue concealed a larger, more difficult, point. In the end, “WandaVision” punted on its most interesting idea about grief: that wallowing in it can turn people into monsters.
Certainly, “WandaVision” makes the case that its titular character has suffered terrible losses. Wanda and her brother were orphaned as children and almost killed themselves; her brother died saving innocent people; and Wanda herself was later forced to kill Vision in an effort to save the world. But in “WandaVision,” Wanda is processing this trauma by taking an entire town hostage, trapping the people there in a variety of TV sitcoms as she tries to work through her grief by using magic to resurrect Vision and give them twin sons.
It’s a genuinely monstrous act, and for a moment, the show acknowledges that. Freed from Wanda’s curse by fellow witch Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), one of the townspeople begs Wanda to let her see her 8-year-old daughter again: The little girl has been locked in her home for the entirety of the so-called Scarlet Witch’s reign, a grotesque act of child separation. Another confesses he’s exhausted: She doesn’t let them sleep in natural cycles, a violation of the Geneva Conventions. When they are allowed to sleep, they suffer her worst nightmares. “Please let us go,” one character begs. And, failing that?
“If you won’t let us go, just let us die,” Sharon (Debra Jo Rupp) croaks after Wanda has literally choked them into silence.
And yet, the show feels the need to recast Wanda’s ultimate decision to give up her imaginary family, as well as her hold over the town, as an act of heroic altruism. “They’ll never know what you sacrificed for them,” says Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), a secret agent turned friend of Wanda, in the final episode.
Rambeau’s line is a moral atrocity, an effort to recast Wanda as the hero of the show, the savior of all these little people. But it’s not what she did for the people of Westview that matters. It’s what she did to them. And what she did to them is horrifying, a form of mind-rape and torture that extended for weeks, maybe months.
The only character who has the correct response to Wanda is the acting director of SWORD (Sentient Weapon Observation and Report Division), Tyler Hayward (Josh Stamberg), who calls in a drone strike on the monstrously wicked and dangerously powerful Wanda. Yet he is cast as a villain despite being the only person who recognizes the dangers presented by this overpowered war criminal. Longtime viewers of the Marvel Cinematic Universe know that this isn’t the first time Wanda has done something terrible: the onetime Hydra agent also induced the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) to destroy a large part of a Third World city.
Yet Hayward — who saw how Earth struggled to stave off collapse after a previous supervillain snapped away half of all sentient life — is the show’s antagonist for trying to stop an atrocity. Rambeau — who missed all that drama and appears to have her position in SWORD only because her mother was friends with a superhero — is hailed as the hero despite seeking to excuse it.
This is precisely backward, and the Rambeau-Hayward dichotomy highlights the biggest weakness of “WandaVision.” Everything that takes place outside of Wanda’s fantasy is either unnecessary exposition explaining what’s happening inside or an effort to make Hayward look like a clown. It’s as if creator Jac Schaeffer understood just how horrifying Wanda’s behavior was and needed to conjure up a mustache-twirler to distract from — and detract from — the show’s more powerful message: that our grief can make us do terrible things.
By the show’s end, Hayward is frog-marched to prison for trying to set free a town of victims, while Rambeau lets Wanda off the moral hook. That the writers refused to lean into grief’s darker side and refused to have the character we are supposed to identify with most, Rambeau, condemn the Scarlet Witch for what she has done strikes me as remarkably pat — and remarkably cowardly. Those crowing about the treatment of grief in “WandaVision” should remember how badly they blinked when asked to confront the emotion’s dark side.
I thought they nailed the emotional part and I’m not in this for the emotional stuff. Wife is. I’m not. I’d. Rather see some excellent fight scenes . I think if they go full grief porn both wife and I would have been out. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Buehler445:
I thought they nailed the emotional part and I’m not in this for the emotional stuff. Wife is. I’m not. I’d. Rather see some excellent fight scenes . I think if they go full grief porn both wife and I would have been out.
I've read multiple "Think Pieces" on WandaVision since the finale and 95% completely miss the mark.
It's really amazing to me how purchasing a URL for a website suddenly gives people with no background in literature or storytelling credence. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Sure-Oz:
So do we assume her kids will be the same child actors and show up in future movies. I thought they did a good job
I'm assuming they won't be. My assumption is the next time she sees them, they'll be the young adult versions. Easier to lead into Young Avengers that way. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Bowser:
I'm assuming they won't be. My assumption is the next time she sees them, they'll be the young adult versions. Easier to lead into Young Avengers that way.
That does make sense. That will be cool to see. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Sure-Oz:
So do we assume her kids will be the same child actors and show up in future movies. I thought they did a good job
That's difficult to predict because so far, Wanda's only appearance set in the MCU's Phase 4 is in Dr. Strange 2, which will be released in March 2022.
She may not return until Phase 5, which is set for sometime after 2025, in which the Mutants and Fantastic Four will supposedly debut. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Bowser:
I should see if reallyterribleopinions.com is available. If it is, I should buy it and make fucking bank giving really terrible opinions, lol.
