#elizabeth olsen

Some recent metas have shown a major bias that misinterpret Wanda completely. Wanda clearly wants marriage and children. She was in a relationship with an artificial intelligence who is now dead. By the relationship’s very nature (which is referenced in the nosy comments of being asked why they don’t have children yet), they are biologically incompatible. He’s not human. Do you understand why this desperation to follow the housewife emancipation narrative thus doesn’t make sense?

The show isn’t making fun of housewives who want marriage, children and a normal life or telling them to give up wanting those things because academia has decided for women that a traditional family life with a nurturer and a provider is unfulfilling. It’s also not making fun of historical time periods and their mindsets in a postmodern way (not the same criticism that Pleasantville made), but actually is looking back on those sitcoms and their tropes with a lot of love. The show creators actually had a sit-down with Dick van Dyke because they have affection for these shows and it showed in how accurate they got everything. At no point do they make fun of the eras or sitcoms of old, but rather reserve most of their poking fun (lovingly) at the characters themselves instead. Elizabeth Olsen herself is a sibling of sitcom royalty (the Olsen twins of Full House fame). Wanda herself has a lot of affection for those escapist shows that got her through hard times and she yearns for having a lot of the things depicted in them. Criticism of past media for not being currently relevant enough (this idea that the ‘50s sitcom world or even music of the era is creepy all on its own even before it unravels–sorry, but a lot of people still respect I Love Lucy, et al.) or of women who might actually yearn to imagine themselves into such a “normal” or “traditional” life with things they’ve always desired (yet are explicitly denied to them) or one free of tragic endings (yet at the same time acknowledging that we do suffer loss we have to accept) was completely the opposite of WandaVision’s message.

Wanda has been denied every single one of those things for her entire life and she’s in mourning for the life she thinks she’ll now never have because everyone she’s ever loved is now dead. She desperately wants to have children, a husband and family, to the point where she still hasn’t given up on creating them for real. And do note that she has to create them magically, whether Vision comes back or not.

Before she even lost either of these Visions or her imaginary children, she had already lost her own parents, home and twin brother. She’s been a young woman without family for years and Vision was the one being she had left (she didn’t have many Avengers she was close to and one she spent her entire life blaming for killing her parents), as unusual a couple as they were, until he was taken from her, too.

Hayward pushes her buttons constantly by using language that dehumanizes Vision (phrases like “back online”, rather than “back to life”) as he’s being stripped for parts while she’s using language describing a loved one she wants to give a human burial to. She has been judged for her choice in partner, just as the act of White Vision being stripped of Vision’s memories that were wrapped up in falling in love instead of strict programming without distraction (Vision injured War Machine in an act of friendly fire because he was distracted by Wanda) is deemed by Hayward to be an improvement. He sees Vision as nothing more than a very expensive weapon to be used. He even puts a price tag on him. The relationship between Wanda and Vision with Vision being capable of having feelings or sentience at all is thus treated as a programming mistake.

The denial of Vision’s personhood also mirrors Wanda’s own for years. Hydra and Ultron used her as a weapon, then the Avengers used her as a weapon until they spent more time treating her as a live nuke that needed to be guarded and imprisoned. It’s not much different than Wanda being told that Vision doesn’t even belong to her and even his own desires are irrelevant (he thus doesn’t even own himself); he’s mere property of an organization.

The last thing Vision wanted to be was a weapon and it shows in how he doesn’t defeat White Vision with a battle, but rather an existential philosophical debate.

Consider this when you realize that Vision was ready to flee the Avengers completely with Wanda to go live in a suburban lot in New Jersey when they were pulled into the mess with Thanos. Their attachment was to each other during those stolen moments for two years, rather than to some greater duty. It was Vision who bought that empty lot and was talking about the two of them running away from everything and pretending to be a normal couple. It’s the life that Vision was talking about in Infinity War that was taken from Wanda because he was attacked right after that scene and later died in that movie.

Interesting thing to note about Infinity War is that Vision was using a human form at the beginning of the film even when there was nobody around (even alone in their hotel room and even when the Mind Stone is bothering him–he doesn’t change form when she’s connecting with the stone in his forehead either). Throughout WandaVision, Wanda is constantly asking Vision to remain in his true form with her, such as when meeting his children for the first time. It actually contradicts the real Vision that we saw at the start of Infinity War who seemed to be wanting to be seen as a man instead, even in only Wanda’s presence alone.

As someone who had only seen a single Marvel movie (The Avengers) and only watched Jessica Jones season 1 for David Tennant (while hating nearly every other character in it), which had none of these characters, I only watched WandaVision precisely because it dared to break the mold and be even remotely ambitious instead of doing the same old CGI cartoon fest over and over. And somewhat because of what Marvel has done to the film industry, television has completely and utterly overtaken film as where emotional, dramatic storytelling now happens.

And okay, I happen to have had a major TVLand addiction growing up and binged a ton of the shows referenced in WandaVision long ago (yep, those very same ‘50s-'80s sitcoms). I couldn’t pass up the retro. Love at first sight. Combine that with what promised to be a tragic, human/non-human romance. Sold. I knew little else about the characters.

For a long time, I’ve seen female fans (in particular) comment on how part of the reason they write fanfiction for Marvel is that they have to read between the lines just to add the implied dramatic content of the relationship focus variety that never quite gets developed in canon (certainly not up to the standard of what a fic reader expects). I saw a few comments that pretty much described WandaVision as exactly that: a fix-it fanfic before tragic reality invaded Pleasantville. Wanda’s whole Hex was essentially a glorified fix-it fanfic.

For this reason alone, I can only hope the success of WandaVision gets them to create a season 2 that is dedicated solely to Wanda trying to put her family (Vision) back together that does the tragic romance justice in a way that giving them side parts in other people’s movies just isn’t going to cut it.

I feel like Vision’s ultimate resurrection or even Wanda’s struggle with her grief is better left to her own headline story, whether be it film or television. Television is the only medium that is going to allow the actors to really sink their teeth into this sort of star-crossed, tragic drama and not have it relegated to a minor side-character plot. Either give Wanda and Vision their own movie (hopefully, with heightened focus on character development as a lesson learned from television) or wait to integrate the mind and body of Vision in another season that gives both of them center stage with room to develop it.

Them having their twins for real might also be worth a season 2 in a way that probably wouldn’t even work on film, as showing such a feminine pregnancy storyline would be a helluva departure for a Marvel movie that goes from action set piece to action set piece.

I wouldn’t even hate it if Wanda’s sitcom comfort zone made a few more appearances, even if it is merely the occasional domestic fantasy or dream/nightmare, so there is a way to not completely divorce a potential season 2 from season 1’s “gimmick”. It could be merely as simple as her pointedly doing something Sam/Jeannie-esque with her magic. Cooking with floating kitchen items would be an easy nod.

Probably not what Marvel is thinking of doing, but as a non-Marvel fan, WandaVision has a real opportunity to pull in new viewers with very different tastes that have so far managed to give the films a wide berth. It would do so much better as a show.

Go the route of giving these characters their own headlined projects and Marvel could have a real juggernaut of a 'ship, as well. My impression was that WandaVision got a lot of fans talking about the characters and their relationship in a way that the previous films and comics had not; some even making comments they had barely paid attention to the characters before the show.

IMO, the mere character descriptions sound like some of the most interesting and fleshed-out characters Marvel has got right now with real opportunity for real dramatic depth. And that’s putting aside that Scarlet Witch is one of the most powerful characters on the entire Marvel roster. Making a whole television season about a character going through the stages of grief and about a woman who just wants the family she lost back (a woman who desperately wants a husband and children, no less) was very different territory for Marvel. Human/non-human, in addition to having the level of doom that makes tragedies very, very memorable.

There’s tropey drama potential there that hasn’t been mined with the non-human who becomes more and more “human” (it’s the stuff of fairy tales and sci-fi both). Hayward or someone like him could easily be used as a character who doesn’t see Vision as equal to humans, for example. Delve into the sort of existential questions about artificial life achieving consciousness no less feeling than a human’s that stories like Data on Star Trek, Blade Runner and Bicentennial Man pose. That species difference without the magic of sitcoms could be mined for a gorgeously dramatic plotline. What it means to be human explored through the non-human–one of my favorite tropes.

And of course, it’s the stuff of fairy tales–most notably Pinocchio (the once-inanimate learning to and desiring to become real by proving himself worthy and because it fulfills the greatest wish of the person who loves them most), combined with the interspecies romance elements of The Little Mermaid (tragic ending or not–see also the desperate acts taken to achieve this cosmically-denied togetherness, only for such a tragic ending to come of it in the original work).

Given that the MCU movies just lost a bunch of their A-listers, they need something big like this. Marvel needs philosophical and character-driven meat on its meager dramatic bones. Here are two actors who could carry something more ambitious and pick up an entirely different audience. Marvel could get an even bigger female audience with these two, IMO. And it wouldn’t be cheap girl power pandering either (I say this as a girl). These characters are legit with incredibly warm, likable, endearing performances behind them. This chemistry works 100%.

I think White Vision having an existential crisis where he’s questioning what he is if he has all the memories of a being who clearly can feel every human emotion (the idea that we are our memories), but at the same time knowing that he’s only artificial life, would be an interesting lead-up to Vision being fully restored with his full consciousness in addition to the added memories of what he experienced inside the Hex.

A restored Vision would have to reconcile what Wanda did in her grief over him and her family. It’s also a glimpse at the life Wanda wants with him, which included something that isn’t biologically possible, though it likely is through her own abilities of creation. There’s also the idea of balance that he’s the one who might hold her back from the brink of going down any further dark paths as a figure of ordered stability for her, while she is key in the chaos of his becoming more “human”. The to-be parenthood story is obviously hanging over them.

The situation with Hayward intending for White Vision to remain a mere machine that can be manipulated and used as a weapon in a way that an independently-thinking Vision can’t be is also a path to go down. As I said, there’s a potential storyline about prejudice regarding artificial intelligence, even if it has all the emotional capability of humans.

And on top of that, Vision is in a relationship with a human, even if it’s one who could potentially be the key to restoring his consciousness through her own link with the original Mind Stone. It also furthers Wanda’s role as a mother and creator if she can give him back his life in this way. While the heroic Avengers might not question them being “an unusual couple”, who says everyone else would be so kind?

I really think he needs to be brought back. Wanda desperately needs him for her story to continue.

Y/N: I can explain!

Wanda: Can you?

Y/N: If you give me 30 seconds, I can think of a lie.

Wanda: This may shock you, but not everyone here likes you.

Agatha: Sounds ridiculous, but go on.

One opportunity that Multiverse of Madness did miss IMO was having a full Wanda vs Wanda fight. I mean Wanda squared up against basically all characters in the movie (and rightly f**ked them up) but Alt!Wanda was surprisingly tame considering any Wanda would do anything for her children. You would think that she’d know how not to let her mind be infiltrated or at least know something was up. And she didn’t even put up a fight once Wanda was really there. Maybe Wanda targeted this one specifically because she saw that this Wanda had dialed back on the magic (and thus was perhaps the happiest and the ‘weakest’) but yeah .. if there was any character who could hold their own against Wanda… it would be another Wanda

This is the story of Martha (Elizabeth Olsen, in a debut role), who becomes alternatively ‘Marcy May’ and ‘Marlene,’ and, with a great tremulousness, steps back towards Martha again. It’s the story of a fractured identity, and the things that get in the cracks made when a name is detached from a person. It’s the story of fractured sibling relationships, paranoia, and of the significance and dissonance of place in respect to human tensions. Martha Marcy May Marlene also made me gnaw off the tips of all my fingernails while watching, and then have to take a walk afterwards in an attempt to shift all that tension lingering against my skin like a cool, menacing vapour.

Early one morning, a girl runs away from a white farmhouse full of sleeping bodies. She darts into a gap in the woods, a gap that hangs waiting for the next scene, one beat too long. From a payphone in a small nameless town, she calls her sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson), her voice hesitant and cracking, head down low. She doesn’t know where she is exactly. Can Lucy come and pick her up?

Lucy (Sarah Paulson) takes her to the lakeside house in Connecticut where she and her architect husband Ted (Hugh Dancy) are spending the summer. It’s a huge place, baffling Martha – just for the two of you? she asks, as she and her sister face one another in the gigantic kitchen. Yes, says Lucy, mildly defensive and with a hint of a patronising tone. Martha remains tight lipped, incredulous.

It’s hard not to explain the plot, which quietly and ambiguously unravels at its own pace, in terms of the contrasts of place and house interiors. The element linking these two very different places is the barely-hinged Martha herself. She has run from one life into an utterly different world, and the contrast between the lingering, slowly-shot landscape of green pastures and leaning, plain farm buildings, and the riches of the large summer house and its smoothly rippling lake make this starkly clear. Worldviews manifest in the choice of dwelling and decoration. Selfhood defined by the choice, or lack of choice, of dress.

Jolts into flashback let us see all that Martha does not tell her sister: Life at the farmhouse from which she has run, we become immediately aware, was not idyllic. The men of the farm all eat first, and only after they file out from the dining room, are the women allowed access. The women share all their sweet farm dresses in rotation, keeping them hanging together in a spare room. The leader of the group, Patrick (John Hawkes), is an intense, charming wire of a man. He is the one who says to Martha, ‘You look like a Marcy May,’ sings for the group a song called ‘Marcy’s song,’ and from then on, that is what she is called. We see fairly quickly that the group at the farmhouse is nothing more than a cult, but what was it that brought Martha into that awareness, and what made her decide to leave?

I don’t want to give too much away about the plot. Unlike Stoker, where the turn of the story is not so much key as is the sense of character, Martha Marcy May Marlene depends on suspense - on waiting to see what exactly it is that Martha did, or had done to her, which has made her into the wreck we meet at the beginning of the film. We know more is coming. We will not know what it is until the film chooses to show Martha remembering it, to show how abuse builds up over time, how an abuser takes advantage of a sense of loss or need in his victim or victims, giving and giving, providing shelter, songs, companionship, before calling in the ‘loved ones’ debt to him, whenever, and however often he chooses. Another thing the film asks of us – will Martha really be able to run from what has happened?

Elizabeth Olsen is incredible in the central role, full of tensions and small outburst, sullen and swamped in fear and vulnerability and self-righteousness, without ever feeling theatrical. Not that there’s anything wrong with the unreal – it’s just that in a quiet film, an unquiet performance, such as the one Olsen delivers, is quite a risk. My hat off too to Steve Durkin, who both wrote and directed a piece with an unquiet girl, a barely-contained tornado, at its centre.

How often it seems that the scripts for women in many mainstream films tend to forefront likeability (this discussion, endlessly, everywhere, in literature too). The typical heroine is hurt, but never shrill. Devoted to an ideal, a principle. Fights back. Is a tough, empowered character. Saves herself, has revenge. How by the end of the movie, she will stand over the bad guy, or bad group, or bad situation, often with a look of defiance, however worn out she is, however drenched in blood. Or she might do this in a neat outfit, the victory a social one. What does this mean in actuality – what’s so wrong with the overabundance of likeable, successful female characters? Don’t I want a role model?

Well, sure. I want to think, yes. I could do that. By proxy, become the hero. Or the victorious villain. But not always. Sometimes this presentation of the indefatigable heroine serves to minimise pain – to trivialise it, to allow that little voice in to say, if she could do it, why can’t you? What’s wrong with you? Why are you so sensitive? Why are you still stuck in act three? Act four’s already here, pick yourself up and kick some ass already. A muttering which comes from the outside, but can invade our inner monologues as well.

For another thing, this charted path of suffering-defeat-self-discovery-rise towards success is just not how life is, a lot of the time. There is no map of progression, no time limit on illness or disability. And it’s quite often the case that people struggling with mental health problems or having just come out of an abusive situation AREN’T likeable. Aren’t winsome. At all. And that’s fine. As has been mentioned elsewhere anywhere women are speaking for each other, there is no obligation on anyone to be perfect at all times. Sometimes you are suffering from delusions, or from an eating or anxiety disorder and you can’t just pull yourself out of that to formulate a nice front. Down beneath your surfaces (whatever they are doing) your self might be in turmoil, or exhausted past its limits. You need care, to learn techniques, to find the right and wrong medications for you, in short, time – time with no restrictions on it. Time with no judgements on it.

What I like about this film is its sense of time. Time is slow. Recovery isn’t even on the agenda at first. Lucy and Ted expect it, even demand it, but they have only a dim awareness of what’s happening, and it takes time to even begin to understand a person from whom you’ve been estranged, or who doesn’t yet want to acknowledge they need help, exactly. We see their pain, recrimination, indignation, horror, confusion, the complexities of loving someone in distress, a girl who hasn’t been a part of their life for a long time, and who may be suffering this way because at some point in the past, Lucy were not there for her, because she didn’t know how to be. At one point, Martha says to Lucy, who is trying for a baby: ‘You’ll make a horrible mother.’ Here is the low point - of cruelty, acid oozing out of a wound. Lucy’s job as elder sister, after their mother died, was, at least in part, to look after Martha, and she has failed. Because failure is possible. There’s no quick-witted comeback. No sweeping forgiveness. All they can do is move forward, carrying this burden. Those lines in Anne Carson’s The Glass Essay, on memory:

You remember too much,

my mother said to me recently.

Why hold onto all that? And I said,   

Where can I put it down?

We don’t know if Martha is going to be alright. Neither do Lucy or Ted. By the end what do we know? No woman is born to be a perfect mother, perfect sister. No gesture out of kindness is guaranteed to heal. Forgiveness isn’t something you can flick on like a switch. Pain is ugly, and it doesn’t get put aside when the next thing and the next come on, demanding your attention. And that events in life remembered become part of the landscape, part of the body, part of the fabric of your life, altering and animating it all in painful, confusing ways. If all this sounds too grim, this film also tells us that the girl is here, is living, and that time with or without our knowing is steady moving onwards, that nothing is over, yet.

Review by Helen McClory.