TobyTree

But consider

The equally nude Eridians at the end of the movie? Rocky set a trend. If the savior of the stars did so naked why do I have to go to college wearing clothes, question? Teacher Grace dont give a shit.

for the record i love the story, it's beautiful and silly in the best way and made me feel so much for its characters and the stakes of its plot, it's just little things that were taken for granted that i nevertheless picked up on. such as the everyman character who audiences are supposed to be able to relate to and root for being a white american man (and, despite being textually expendable, being the only member of the crew to survive, subtextually implying that his nonwhite and non-american colleagues were narratively expendable). the only major female character also being white. rocky, a foreigner - a literal alien - having his speech translated into simplified, childlike english, reflecting the stereotype of non-native english speakers (especially nonwhite) being too stupid to learn the language and resorting to dumbed down caveman speech for comedic effect. also rocky being assigned male despite there being neither biological nor sociological evidence to necessarily support that, simply because masculinity (+ patriarchal hegemony) is the unquestioned default in most people's minds.

I started in the tags but god I could go on about how different mediums require different techniques to get across the same topic. The book is narrated from first person, and the movie script was derived wholly from his perspective. From his perspective, he would much rather be in a buddy comedy than a tragedy about his own selfishness. I wish they would have read the subtext better and made the movie version of him more obviously selfish. I know that's not profitable marketable etc but one thing I really liked about the book as a tragedy enjoyer is that everyone else KNOWS he is selfish and cater their interactions with him accordingly; he just doesn't see it and thus it isn't put into the movie. By essentially telling the entire movie from his perspective we normalize his bigotry and selfishness. Not that the book is perfect, Andy Weir tries to diversify his characters but does often fall into the trap of a diverse cast of stereotypes (smart Indian, strict dutch woman, drunk Russians, chinese stoicism, etc). It's like a 60s-american-scifi-style "all earth working together (under America)" worldview. I do love the book and the movie, but it did irk me that the movie plot rewarded a white male character for his bigotry, whereas in the book plot he is punished for it.

Also additional tag taken from a similar watsonian/doylist point by @stupid-elf :

Little did they know…

thoughts?

The man that has been on the internet for over a decade?? The man that had to deal with getting harassed and shipped with his friends for years?? That man?? That man over there???

like it’s giving dad for some reason

Sometimes, Grace will do it without thinking. That’s how Kiddo and Buddy got their nicknames. Often, Grace will nickname students after their coloration. Gaia got his nickname because he’s blue and green, and apparently looks a lot like Earth. Violet got hers because she’s purple. (She was initially disappointed since color means nothing to Eridians, but then Friend Grace showed them violet flowers and said that humans often associated purple with wealth and royalty, and she changed her tune.) Most of the time, Grace will give his students what he calls “regular human names” like Abby, Carl, or Martin.

But the most coveted nicknames are ones named after Earthen creatures. When ♩♪♬ 🎵 ♩♪♬ 🎵 first introduced themselves, Friend Grace immediately perked up and shouted “Robin!” After a bit of explaining himself and a few videos of bird calls, Robin was trilling and chirping happily, excited at having a nickname that felt like a 1-to-1 translation of their own.