Bloffle

vee vee, vee vee, vee vee! vee! vee! veevee vee! veevee vee! veevee vee! vee! veevee vee! vee!

In 1943, a team of ingenious Italian doctors invented a deadly, contagious virus called Syndrome K to protect Jews from annihilation. On October 16 of that year, as Nazis closed in to liquidate Rome’s Jewish ghetto, many runaways hid in the 450-year-old Fatebenefratelli Hospital. There, anti-Fascist doctors including Adriano Ossicini, Vittorio Sacerdoti and Giovanni Borromeo created a gruesome, imaginary disease.

“Syndrome K was put on patient papers to indicate that the sick person wasn’t sick at all, but Jewish” and in need of protection, Ossicini told Italian newspaper La Stampa last year. The “K” stood for Albert Kesselring and Herbert Kappler — two ruthless Nazi commanders.

The doctors instructed “patients” to cough very loudly and told Nazis that the disease was extremely dangerous, disfiguring and molto contagioso. Soldiers were so alarmed by the list of symptoms and incessant coughing that they left without inspecting the patients. It’s estimated that a few dozen lives were saved by this brilliant scheme.

The doctors were later honored for their heroic actions, and Fatebenefratelli Hospital was declared a “House of Life” by the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation.

Doesn’t straightwash queer characters! this was a big one. (marvel movies have a huge problem with straightwashing*)

Deadpool is canonically pansexual, and the movies reflect this! Reynolds doesn’t shy away at all from Deadpool’s sexual interest in men.   

(head injuries bring out deadpool’s romantic sexy feelings it seems. in the first movie, knife to the head = romantic montage with vanessa. in the sequel, fencepost to the head = deadpool sensually trying to go down on Colossus.) 

(semi-related, both movies have some cute references to deadpool enjoying being on the receiving end in the bedroom.)

(yeah, it’s canon, Deadpool enjoys being pegged)

Oh hey, a healthy romantic relationship based on mutual respect and love! and with a fully developed female character with personal agency! A love interest who doesn’t just function as a plot device. 

POLAR OPPOSITE OF TOXIC MASCULINITY. This really shines through in their marketing

(yes that pillows says “FEMINIST”) 

(yes that is deadpool in heels dancing to celine dion)

Diverse casting! Characters who are poc just because poc exist! 

Hey look, a cute lesbian couple treated with respect and one of them’s asian!

 Holy crap i don’t say this enough but i love Domino. What a badass. Sexy-but-not-sexualized black female action hero who is probably the coolest person in the movie. 

Deadpool 2 took a run-of-the-mill white character design and made her interesting! 

Her trademark eye patch is now vitiligo! She has awesome natural hair. And look, body hair exists! On a person who is a woman! Which shouldn’t be unusual, but here we are. Also, she’s fun

Portrayed by the talented Zazie Beetz. Did I mention how much i love this character?

Oh look, another much improved character design!

We’ve got your humdrum blondie cleft-chin stereotype replaced with a heavyset maori teen actor (Julian Dennison, who incidentally was in Taika Waititi’s indie movie Hunt for the Wilderpeople).

Overall themes: The movies have a lot of dirty humor and innuendo. But the overall takeaway is actually pretty sentimental. The Deadpool 2 themes in particular gets to me: 

Not repeating the mistakes of the previous generation. “Kids give us a chance of being better than we used to be.” 

The loss and recovery of family. Accepting friendship in the midst of tragedy. See also: Cable’s story arc. 

Letting go of loss and bitterness to try to save a child who’s been abandoned by the world. 

I’m honestly so excited about the choices the director & producers have been making for this franchise. They’re setting the narrative standard for modern superhero films. Can’t wait to see what the next movie has in store. 

*see more on straightwashing in the mcu below

I know it sounds flippant but… certain things are fundamentally performative.  And other things are so close as makes no difference.

Kindness is performative.  Actions are kind, and people are kind by performing those actions.  You can’t “pretend” to be kinder than you are, you can only perform kindness or not perform kindness, and choosing to perform kindness is always worthwhile, no matter how much you may second-guess your motivations.

Strength is so many things.  It takes strength to pretend a strength you don’t feel.  And the way to achieve strength is to exercise it, so long as you do it in enough moderation to not strain or break anything.  Being able to affect strength when necessary while being able to put it down again when that in turn is necessary is healthy.  Everyone starts weight training with the littlest weights.  It’s not fake or pretending to do what you gotta do in any given situation.

Funniness lives in the interlocutor, not in the speaker.  It doesn’t matter how funny you think you are (or think you are pretending to be) - that’s not how it’s measured.  At what point are you “pretending” to be a musician if the music still gets made?  And often what it’s tempting to describe in first person as “pretending” is more accurately described in the third person as “practicing” - which is of course the way you cause things to Be.

Sociability is also performative.  Pretending to be sociable is just…being sociable, despite a disinclination towards it.  It’s making an effort towards something you value.  So long as the effort is not so great that it backfires into resentment, there’s no practical difference.  

Qualities or activities or whatever are no less worthy because you have to actively choose to perform them.  If anything, the worthiness lies in the act of choosing.  It’s not “pretending” - it’s agency.

tl;dr: ain’t nothing wrong with “fake it till you make it.”  A plastic spoon* holds just as much soup as a “real” one