Iron Man 2 and the Hype Letdown

I hadn't been extremely excited about the first Iron Man movie when it came out -- my previous experience with the hero was some crossovers, a few of the old comics I'd read off a CD of the first 10 issues of all of the major Silver Age titles and the '90s cartoon, which was just okay. (I mostly watched it for the Julia Carpenter Spider-Woman, who was incredibly dull.) Plus, I was cynical about comics in general at the time. Nevertheless, I ended up loving the film and, temporarily, became an enthusiastic comics fan again. I even found myself raising my hands and making a "wooo!" noise when the after-the-credits scene ended.

Not many feminist comic bloggers at the time agreed with me. While not a female-focused movie, I thought it made some strides in the right direction. Love interest/secretary Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) had the willpower, intelligence and wit to match the hero/her boss Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and she was crucial to multiple elements of the crusade to save the day. I also appreciated greatly how the female journalist who Tony Stark loves-and-leaves in the beginning is not just dismissed as a stupid floozy but is the one to call Tony Stark out on his attempt to sell Iron Man as his bodyguard and not his alternate identity. I thought it undercut Stark's sexism from earlier in the movie. Others, though, thought the movie didn't do enough in that area and that Stark's sexism was still celebrated, and thus condemned the movie. I respect the opinion, although I'm still mystified why Iron Man was given the thumbs-down for something that might be a parody but The Dark Knight's use of the most cliched plotline for girlfriend characters (i.e. kill them for maximum angst) and shunting aside of a young potential Barbara "Batgirl/Oracle" Gordon in favor of a son who doesn't exist in the comics was pretty much ignored.

Anyway, I get off track. While I suspected I wouldn't like Iron Man 2 as much as I liked the first -- no hype can replicate the surprise of the first movie -- I nevertheless thought the women would continue to be awesome. So I'm sad to say I came away a bit disappointed.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the movie. It's fun. Downey is fun. Paltrow is fun. Cheadle is fun. Rourke is fun. It's a wish-fulfillment fantasy of the highest order -- I don't think anyone really believes a billionaire's spectacular super-suit would bring peace to the Middle East -- but the original comics require a large amount of suspension of disbelief as well. (I remember talking to a non-comics fan about the first movie and she told me she couldn't get past the terrorists letting Stark build his super-weapon right under their noses. I couldn't argue with it.) Overall, I liked it.

Still, I couldn't help but feel that Pepper lost a lot of her edge in this movie. I very much hated the last scene, when Pepper in full freak-out mode tells Tony she can't continue to be CEO because she worries too much about him and can't take the pressure. Then they kiss.

This came as a shock, and at the time I wondered where it had come from. Whenever I remembered Pepper in the previous scenes, particularly the one where Tony tries to win her favor with strawberries as apology for when he got drunk, made an ass of himself and fought with Rhodey. To me, it seemed like her curt refusal was evidence of her staying tough with a guy who hasn't quite done the right thing yet, even if she may be a little regretful about having to do so. Was I supposed to have seen it that way? Was that scene actually supposed to be about how she is clearly cracking under the pressure? Did I have an expectation of Pepper as a strong woman that perhaps did not exist?

I don't mean to say that Pepper isn't allowed to have moments of weakness. Far too often, lazy writers often try to show women are strong by making them flawless, and that doesn't make them compelling heroes. In fact, I'll admit it, I don't quite know who won that argument in the last scene. She did go through a lot -- maybe is deserving of a little bit of a freakout, and if she stays on as CEO for Iron Man 3 I really don't have much to complain about. Still, I found the last scene left a bad taste of my mouth.

And speaking of women who are shown to be strong by not having any flaws and being amazing law student/underwear model/trained in all manner of fighting arts/computer hacker/super spies ...

There is a lot to like about Natasha Romanoff/The Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), but as my friend Kayleigh said after we both saw the movie the same day, her character was mostly just "boobs and asskicking." I (and she) appreciated how the movie ended up beating the famous Bechdel's Law and had Natasha and Pepper work together and talk in a non-competitive manner, yet I felt a little let down. Even her big fight scene wasn't too much more than we already saw in the trailers. I'm happy she'll be in the Avengers movie, I suppose, but at this point that's only because the filmmakers seem to have no interest in adding The Wasp onto the roster.

I guess in the end, when it comes to women and this movie, I remain feeling let down, albeit not in a manner I expected. There were elements of the first movie that I could defend in contrast to Tony having stripper flight attendants in his jet, yet I don't know if I could totally argue that Pepper and Natasha redeem the sexy Iron Man dancing girls in this one. Oh well, at least War Machine only improved from his first appearance.