*sits on hands*

[sholio]

I'm not responding to this on Tumblr because no good ever comes of arguing with people on Tumblr about things like this, but ... seriously ...

Cut for those who want to either a) avoid spoilers for Captain America: Civil War, or b) avoid discussion of the movie, period.


http://forlorn-kumquat.tumblr.com/post/162651541599/laylainalaska-reluctantheroine-sarah531

It's a cute Venn diagram of dads in the MCU ("good dads", "bad dads", "dead dads", "dads who are gods", etc) - contains spoilers for ALL the movies. And then there's the inevitable mostly-cheerful bickering in the reblog comments about which dad belongs where, which eventually leads to:

"I would protest Scott and Clint’s inclusions in the Good Dad category, because I’d say abandoning their families to break the law with Captain America, get arrested for breaking the law, and then going on the run qualifies them for Bad Dad status."

I ... just ... what. *flaily hands* I mean, Civil War is basically Superheroes Making Bad Choices: The Movie, but it's actually borderline alarming to think about someone watching that and coming away with the idea that Steve's side is Bad and Wrong because (and only because) they broke the law. Sometimes you just want to sit someone down and explain to them gently that just because something is the law, doesn't mean it's a good law. Or at least hope that they genuinely do already know that and are too getting caught up in partisan fandom bickering to really think about it.

Comments

[muccamukk]

Never get in an argument about Civil War on any medium. I've been doing it for 10 years now, and it's always been a bad choice.

But yeah. Agreed.

[sholio]

Yeah, instinct says that nothing good will EVER come of responding to something like this. But still. AUGH.

[muccamukk]

I think a lot of fandom is on a Sad Dad Tony squee high from Spider-Man, and I'm just planning to let them do their thing. Though I should direct them at The Next Avengers, which is ultimate Sad Dad Tony, and could use more fic.

[sholio]

The thought has also occurred to me that rarely has a fandom so epically missed the point of canon as happened with Civil War, the movie in particular, where the whole point was that taking sides and fighting over who's right is a bad idea, thus causing the fandom to ... take sides and fight over who's right.

[muccamukk]

Well, it's not like Disney wasn't milking the hell out of that one. On the bright side, I now have a Choose Your Side cutting board, which is a more or less endless source of amusement. Tony's side is the fruit board.

(As with the original CW, I'm on Team!CACW was badly written.)

[sholio]

HAHAHA. Okay, that's a brilliant bit of marketing. (And yeah, you have a point that the Disney promo department certainly didn't help matters any.)

[kore]

Disney totally fucking milked it with "Whose side are you on" blah blah. Altho there was the "United we stand divided we fall" chant in like the first teaser trailer, which I liked, but that wasn't really emphasized, except for Nat.

On the bright side, I now have a Choose Your Side cutting board

NICE

[kore]

Hahaha, flashbacks from Civil War 1 comics! //sobs

[sherylyn]

Uhhh... Yeah. What you said. Steve is about the most law-abiding member of the Avengers there is, but only as laws are "just" and good and... yeah. That.

Geeeeeez.

I agree w/the whole "do not start" online, but geeeeeez.

[sholio]

I mean, you can totally make an argument that Steve handled things badly (literally EVERYONE in the movie handled things badly) but it weirds me out to no end that there are people who came out of the movie thinking that breaking the law makes you automatically Wrong and Bad.

[sherylyn]

EXACTLY. And like you and others have commented, too, just b/c something is illegal doesn't automatically make the law just or even logical. Remember all those things about "laws still on the books"? Supposedly, it's still illegal to pour pickle juice on railroad tracks in Texas (among other things). I'm sure that probably wasn't a *good* thing for railroad tracks, but I can't imagine that being enforced these days, even as screwed up as our "leaders" are here (and they are *seriously* effed up here :-P) Were MLK and Gandhi (and a number of other examples) "bad dads" because they encouraged changes to the laws, often by (peacefully) breaking them?? Geeeeez.

There's a good reason I've never liked being right in the thick of things in any fandom: it exposes my brain to more of the nuttiness, and I can only take so much before I "NOPE!" right out of there!

[hellkitty]

*headdesk*

Okay, they admit they haven't seen Ant Man but...crikey.

Everything Scott Lang does in Ant Man is an attempt to redeem himself in Cassie's eyes--what better Dad hing is there than wanting your daughter to admire you? And he gloms onto Steve, as you say, because Steve is pretty much Good Personified. I think whoever said that on Tumblr didn't get the whole point of the movie, which is that moral and ethical right aren't always the same as legal right and good.

[sholio]

The "haven't seen Ant-Man" person is a different one. But ...

moral and ethical right aren't always the same as legal right and good.

YES. And also that some problems don't have a good solution -- I mean, you can make the argument that just about every character in the whole movie made some bad choices, but you have to be pretty far down the character stan tunnel to come out of that movie thinking that Steve is automatically bad because he broke the law.

[arduinna]

If they'd stopped at "abandoning their families", they'd have had a reasonable argument. But "he's a bad dad because he broke the law and went on the run" - ye gods. Don't let Les Mis fandom see that!

[muccamukk]

I feel like I have seen that from a few Very Dedicated Javert stens.

[sholio]

*FACEPALM* Why am I not surprised that there are hardcore Javert stans.

[kore]

//really cries

[sholio]

I'm just boggled that you could take the basic plot of the movie and twist it around into THAT. I shouldn't be surprised, because fandom. BUT STILL.

[sheron]

Word.

[sholio]

*high five*

[winter_elf]

*shakes cane at fandom - my way is the right way* Yea.... no good responding. At all. But we can have fun commenting with you :)

[sholio]

lol yeah, there is nothing good that can come of me commenting on tumblr. So I'll just complain in my own private journal instead ...

[rheasilvia]

Maybe she didn't really think about how she phrased it, and just meant an absentee dad in prison is not ideal...? Okay, perhaps not, given how she mentioned breaking the law twice... it would just make more sense to me.

It occurs to me that this is an especially blinkered view when taking the original context of Captain America into consideration. In his time, a lot of people who got arrested for breaking the law in Germany are considered brave heroes today.

Uncritical trust in any government is a very dangerous thing.

ETA: Edited to clarify the last sentence.

[yalumesse]

*sigh* Yeah. I saw that post yesterday and went, 'no.... reblogging that will never ever end well'. Some people just have to be vocal about everything. There's some really snappy quote about commenting that I wish I could remember. Would be perfect right now.

[roga]

Setting aside the Civil War discussion and even your point in the final paragraph (sorry for randoming!), this just reminded me of something I heard this year. This past Holocaust Memorial Day, I heard my grandmother's boyfriend speaking about his experiences in the war - he does a lot of speaking that time of year. He told his story, which included running away from a ghetto and joining the partisans in the forests of Lithuania, fighting at their side and later with the Soviets. And one of the things he says in his talk is that in a certain sense, he was lucky that his parents had been killed, and that he was separated from his sister - because as a single young man who only had to care for himself, he could take the risks he needed to to run away and to fight. Men and women who had parents, who were married, who had children... "I don't know if I would have done that," he said, though it would have likely meant death.

Anyway, this is honestly not to say anything about Clint or Scott's parenting at all, it's just something that post reminded me of (especially in the context of people passing judgement on who is a Bad Dad.)