Anyone I see reblog that bullshit post about how Taika Waititi characterized Thor and Loki so much better than Joss Whedon because Taika has a Deep Pagan Understanding of Norse mythology while Joss is beholden to Bad Western Christianity and therefore thinks God is a fascist… you will be unfollowed. You are all hereby on notice.
(I just went looking through the notes to see if I could find my own comment, which I might reblog just to try to stem the idiocy, and saw another hot take, this one about how Taika’s compassionate understanding of gods reflects his Jewish heritage, and I am just… no. I’m about as proud to claim Adam Sandler as a landsman. At least he wrote the Chanukah song. Several of them.)
@philosopherking1887 taika’s jewish? I haven’t heard anything about that. There’s a plethora of jewish representation in the MCU, but I thought taika was part Australian Aboriginal. I have no great love for taika’s version of the odinson saga, but there were a few redeeming moments. I was really disappointed by the Russo brothers, because I held them in a much higher esteem. We watched IW again last night, and after my 3rd viewing I still find the firsr 10 minutes excruciating to watch.
He’s half Maori (New Zealand’s indigenous people), half Jewish.
I can’t decide whether I’m more pissed at him or at Markus & McFeely (who wrote IW) and the Russos. Well, Waititi shares my ire with Hemsworth, who brought him on and instigated the radical recharacterization, and Feige, who gave it the go-ahead.
As a fellow member of the tribe, I can’t exactly write him off, I’m proud of the Jewish representation in the mcu. I absolutely don’t agree with all the choices TW made in ragnarok, but there were some great moments. Do they outweigh the serious character assasinations that occurred? I don’t know, perhaps that blame rests with Kevin feige and the other powers that be.
I can hardly even appreciate the great visual moments because the assassination of the main characters was so egregious and insulting to fans of the previous movies. The way Thor, the supposed hero, behaves toward his supposed friends and the way Loki’s pretty clear signs of mental illness in prior canon are callously written off says nothing good to me about the ethical character of the creators. (And yes, it was more Waititi and Hemsworth riffing than the screenwriter’s screenplay.)
Here’s my obligatory mention of his hiring of Australian aboriginal workers. That was good. Doesn’t mean I like him personally.
Loki is the Philosopher King 