Alexander Pierce + healthy villainous emotions
And here I thought we could go without romanticizing one more white male villain smh
I would argue there is a difference between acknowledging that a character is a fantastic, multifaceted villain and romanticizing them.
Pierce is cold. He is calculating. He knows how to manipulate people into doing what he wants. He’s not afraid to use pawns and sacrifice them accordingly. God, he is an awful person. A terrible one. He’s an abuser and unapologetic and willing to take out millions of people for his vision, however fucked up that vision is, of the greater good.
Recognizing that he is one of the most terrifying villains that marvel has rolled out with does not equal romanticizing him. He’s the kind of evil that creeps up without you noticing and by the time you do it’s too late. He’s smiling as he stabs you in the back. Pierce is important because he’s the bad guy who can actually exist in the world today. There aren’t people building giant robots, there aren’t Norse gods or nazis peeling their faces off. What there are in this world are politicians in positions of power who abuse that power and nothing is more dangerous than that.
Those tags are great because if you go against Pierce in a battle of wits you WILL NOT WIN. Plain and simple. Literally the only way to stop him was pure force.
TLDR - pierce is a despicable human being but recognizing why and how he is an excellent villain for this day and age does not equal romanticizing him.
I actually just used the wrong word, I meant glorifying not romanticizing
I’d still argue though that he’s not being glorified? Everything within the post is canon.
I think everything you need to know about Pierce is in the line “the man turned down a Nobel Peace Prize.” He had literally everyone so fooled that not even NICK FURY suspected him until far too late. I’m not trying to put Pierce on a pedestal or anything like that, but he was winning at a game that no one else even knew they were playing.
Like I hate Pierce. I HATE him. Like I said, he is an abuser and a terrorist and a terrible person. But Talking about his effectiveness as a villain in context of a movie still doesn’t equal glorifying him.
For a villain to be effective, they must be the hero of their own story.
THAT’s what makes a good villain. THAT’s what makes a villain terrifying. THAT’s what makes Pierce terrifying. Because Pierce is the best villain Marvel has given us because he is real. He’s in congress; he’s leading our troops; he’s in the Senate; he’s sitting in the UN; he’s at the head of a multi-billion dollar corporation and he’s drafting laws and hey, did we forget that we already have a project insight? Because what’s the difference between the helicarriers and drones?
What makes CA: TWS such an amazing piece of storytelling is that it is absolutely a sociopolitical thriller disguised as a superhero movie. And if Pierce wasn’t the cold, smart, dispassionate, well-spoken, insidious bastard that he is, he wouldn’t be nowhere as effective. Even after Steve gives his passionate speech at the Triskelion, even when the World Security Council turns against him, Pierce still thinks he can win by spinning things his way. He absolutely believes he’s doing this for the greater good. No villain worth his screen time ever looks at the things they do and thinks ‘ah yes I am such a terrible person, doing these evil, awful and morally wrong things.’ Every single villain must absolutely think they are absolutely in the right, and the hero is their villain. Or they become stereotypes and caricatures.
Discussing the type of villain Pierce is has nothing to do with glorifying him or romanticizing him. It has everything to do with recognizing the Russos’ clever, brilliant writing, which shows us that real, true evil doesn’t need to have a red skull or an army of chitauri. Real evil exists, we are steeped in it, and we don’t even fucking know it until it’s too late.
also, don’t think for ONE INSTANT that casting Robert motherfucking Redford — All-American roguish Good (white, blond, CLONE OF CAPTAIN AMERICA) Guy Robert Redford — wasn’t possibly the most deliberate casting choice made in this movie. Robert Redford is a Good Guy, and you know it. How do you know? Why, just look at him! Look at his blond good looks! Look at his nice suit! Look how perfectly uber-American and…and…and he just LOOKS like he should be in charge, um, because he’s so. White. And Perfect. And. Rich. And uber-American and…we let those kinds of people get anything they want…oh.
whoops.
Reblogging for commentary.
Alexander Pierce really is the absolute best villain Marvel’s done to date, and could well be the best they’ll every do, because of this. He’s utterly terrifying, and hits far too close to home.
All of this — I love Alexander Pierce, in the sense that I fear and loathe him: He is the real deal; he is the kind of person you do find in glass-and-steel high-rises, in backrooms of clubs with panels of dark wood, in all the exclusive places where powerful people gather. Because these people, these people are still mostly older white men with the “right” kind of origin story and, yes, looks. Not to mention the whole meta commentary of casting Robert freakin’ Redford: this idea of, beyond the sheer acting, of what he can evoke in others. Someone else commented that had Captain America been made almost fifty years ago, this would have been Steve Rogers.
The thing that works about him, really, is that he’s like the villains we have in real life America. Slick and wealthy and powerful and white.
Making Robert Redford the villain was possibly the most terrifying casting choice because he is usually Mister Hero, or at least not a bad guy. And You can’t really go into this movie without knowing at least a little who he is (or like me both on & off screen) and that plays into your expectations of his character. And then his villainous aspects just hit that much harder, and you realize that (to quote above) it is absolutely a sociopolitical thriller disguised as a superhero movie.
I think Pierce is terrible, he is clearly irredeemable, and I think his ending was the only way to take him out of play. I love how he was portrayed, but not him.
upthread we see a tumblr commenter basically failing to understand that it’s possible to talk about why part of a story works really well without automatically having some kind of boner for the character i didn’t want that part to get lost in the discussion
Stories should have good villains. Villains you can like/admire for their villainy. A hero needs a foil and a story can be made or broken by how effective its villain is.