@aph-japan / aph-japan.tumblr.com
Andrew Garfield on consent and privacy
bucky has a disability??
he doesn’t have an arm.
seriously this is what we're doing now? If you get this report as spam. Don't take it to heart. It's spam. Report it so AO3 can take steps to block this shit.
I think it's really weird that Marvel movies became the go-to poster for shady film industry practices when a lot of shit Marvel pulls is pretty industry standard. The entire industry is built on rotten foundations, which is why there's a big strike happening that you may have heard about.
Like, Marvel Studios are a horrific den of abuse, but they're not uniquely terrible, and the fixation on Marvel feels like a reaction against how popular The Avengers was with teenage girls on tumblr from like 2011-2018. It went from the fandom on tumblr, to being the go-to thing people fixated on when they make those annoying "watch another movie" posts. There are so many more studios making movies exactly like Marvel does.
Marvel Studios could go under tonight and there would still be an entire industry of shitheads who want full freedom to abuse entertainment workers. It's not a "Marvel movie" issue, it's an industry issue.
In the response to a person asking why you don't move to the US, one of your reasons for staying in Britain was "The entire US entertainment industry is about to move to Britain!". Is that a thing that's happening that I just haven't heard about? Or was it a joke?
Oh that's real. Almost everything is filmed here now. All the Marvel stuff, all the Disney stuff, Barbie, Venom, House of the Dragon, it's all done here because we have very low wages, tax breaks for production companies, and very strict anti-union laws. You've also got Europe on your doorstep, which is great for location shoots, and Romania is a cheap place to film too - Wednesday is all shot in Bucharest and Django was filmed both there and in Transylvania. The notable exception is The Last of Us - Season 2 is going to shoot in Canada 'cause they need snow. It is, no jokes, cheaper to make a British street look like Las Vegas than it is to film in Las Vegas. Pinewood Studios in London is building an extension that'll make it the biggest movie studio in the world. I think the WGA and SAG strike victories will probably accelerate this trend: they can't replace Americans with AI, so they're going to replace them with Brits!
Which might sound good in theory to Brits cause it means jobs, but not if those jobs are exploitative. The stars, director, and the bosses will be Americans, but the drivers, makeup artists, crew, caterers, background artists, supporting players, editors and so on will be underpaid, overworked Brits, and the profits will go primarily to American companies.
I talked about this on tiktok a while ago:
Abuse of CGI artists is much more widespread than a single studio or two, and using "Marvel" as a shorthand for "exploited effects artists" does a disservice to all the exploited workers who have never set foot on a Marvel production in their lives.
If Marvel got their shit together today, right this second, and started leading the industry in rights for effects workers, the industry itself would still need attention and support.
It's not a single-studio problem. Just as Netflix is not the sole studio being struck by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA, Marvel is just a single studio in a much bigger, deeply exploitative industry. It goes so much deeper than "this single studio is bad."
A white woman playing a love interest is not groundbreaking for you. I get it. White women in films are often cast as love interests. That does not mean that a Black woman playing a love interest isn’t groundbreaking for Black women. We aren’t cast often in the first place, and when we are we are often Mammy, Jezebel or Sapphire. Feel free to look those stereotypes up. You’ll notice that none of them are shown the slightest hint of care, concern, or even the most basic compassion. In case you need references feel free to visit the writing for Kendra on Buffy, Bonnie on The Vampire Diaries, or Tara on True Blood.
Tessa Thompson playing a Black woman with super powers who is loved is not something that has happened in live action MCU or DCU. You will either grab onto that feminist flag & understand that what’s good for us does not have to be good for you in order for you to support it, or you will get read for filth every time you advance the argument that a Black woman being loved is bad storytelling.
