I think you know me by now. This is a long post.
*Major Spoilers for Avengers Infinity War and AoA*
I can’t believe I hadn’t read and reblogged this before… so much of it is so perfect, I kind of want to highlight the whole thing, but I’ll keep myself to a few paragraphs:
“Why do we care so much? Because we see ourselves in Loki. We, who felt different, were different, and were alone because of it. We, who knew how it felt to be ridiculed, rejected, vilified and despite all our efforts, never accepted, never loved for who we are. We, who hide all our hurt and pain under a mask but at some point we just couldn’t take it anymore and exploded. So we identified with Loki. …
“To a number of fans and audience, especially male audience with beliefs from a toxic masculinity culture this seemed threatening that a queer coded and/or feminine coded villain gets more female fans than heavily masculine coded heroes. They hated him. And they started to belittle his fans, by implying that Loki was only popular because of Tom or because he is pretty! That Loki’s fans are a bunch of fools that only lust after him for his looks. It seems they deliberately don’t want to understand. Still, it doesn’t really matter, right? Marvel won’t force the ideas of toxic masculinity on us, right? Wrong!
“Ragnarok happened.
“Ragnarok happened and it stepped on everything that was Loki. His characterization, his arc, his powers, his goals, his fans. Ragnarok ridiculed Loki in every possible way. It insulted us, made fun of us, told us that we were a bunch of fools for caring for Loki because he is just a stupid troublemaker. Ragnarok was a disaster of toxic masculinity.
“We saw it. We saw everything that was wrong with Ragnarok and pointed it out. But what were [I amend to: ARE] we called? Stans, apologists, haters, antis. …
“He didn’t deserve to die as a plot device to give Thor sth to avenge. We didn’t deserve this. We deserved to see the god of mischief in all his trickster glory. ‘No resurrection this time’ was directed to us, not Thor. They were telling us that you can rage and try to fight, but at the end, you are nothing, you will be broken like a ragdoll so the real hero can be heroic. The story is not about you, it was never about you. You are just a tragedy, you don’t deserve happiness, you can only be redeemed by sacrificing yourself. …
“The fate of Gamora and Nebula is also angers me. One gets killed in a disguise of love and the other gets tortured. The two characters that deserved to avenge themselves more than anyone, to get a chance for a proper fight, was used as plot devices. It’s disgusting! Gamora, Nebula and Loki, all feminine coded and/or queer coded characters were crushed by their masculine coded abuser. Toxic masculinity.”
Ragnarok and Infinity War were the triumph of toxic masculinity. For the people who will no doubt reply, “But Ragnarok was so great for queer representation!”… many people, some of whom are queer (I’m bi myself), strongly disagree. At the same time that Loki was more overtly coded as gay, he was made to look ridiculous, shallow, and incompetent. The other gay-coded character, the Grandmaster, was also depicted as ridiculous, and morally repugnant besides. This is not revolutionary; this is perfectly standard villainous queer-coding (thanks again, @fuckyeahrichardiii). The implied relationship between Loki and the Grandmaster cannot be anything other than predatory and opportunistic, which further reinforces negative stereotypes. Valkyrie’s bisexuality was not made explicit, unless you count the flashback scene with her presumed lover dying for her, which, again, is not revolutionary in any way (tragic dead lesbians, yay!).
Contrary to what a lot of Tumblr seems to think, white men do not have a monopoly on toxic masculinity. I’ve been seeing people make a point of adding “white” when talking about men who feel entitled to women’s bodies and attention – probably with the (admirable) aim to counter the *equally false* notion that non-white cultures are uniformly more misogynistic than white culture. Toxic masculinity manifests differently in different cultures, but the basic phenomenon crosses lines of race. We cannot assume that Ragnarok must be exempt from it because Taika Waititi is not white (or wears pineapple rompers); and a careful consideration of its characterization and tone – as well as the decision to replace Jane Foster, a woman whose strength is her intellect, with a woman who is “more Thor’s equal” because she can beat people up (adding Valkyrie would have been a much better decision, but we can’t have more than two central female characters, can we?) – yields the diagnosis that it drips with toxic masculinity.
Loki is the Philosopher King 