Thor Love and Thunder: What Marvel Tells us about our Leaders
We Create Monsters when we refuse to take care of each other
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I watched the movie, “Thor, Love and Thunder” for the first time since it was released in theaters. By most accounts, this movie was a dud. It suffered from a combination of negative reviews for its choice to tap female actress, Nathalie Porthman as the next Thor, and anger from fans upset about it’s “over emphasis on humor” Chris Hemmingsworth, the feature actor even admitted that it might have been “too silly.” So sure, it grossed $700-million dollars world wide, but we probably won’t be seeing anymore Thor movies with that tone or style of storytelling. To most marvel fans this is wonderful news, I find it disheartening.
Love and Thunder had its flaws, specifically in the visual effects, but under the shaky CGI, and slapstick humor, there was an important message. The movie opens through the perspective of a man named GORR. He is traveling with his young daughter; the two of them have escaped a dying village and are searching for a paradise promised by their God.
The journey they undertake is brutal, and we spend most of the opening scenes watching them traverse through a waste-land absent of food, water or proper shelter. After several days of struggling, they begin to succumb to fatigue and sickness. GORR’s daughter is the first to go. He’s forced to watch her die, and continue the journey on his own. Just as he is about to meet his end, he reaches a forest so lush with resources, he believes that he is dreaming. Once reality sets in, he cries in relief and begins to hungrily eat the fruit around him. His moment of salvation is interrupted when he hears the voice of a powerful man confused by his presence there.
Thinking he has found his savior, GORR cries while explaining his predicament to the God. He tells the God that his people have “lost everything” the God scoffs at GORR then tells him that “suffering is the least mortals can do for Gods” he then demands GORR leave the premise so that the God may continue celebrating the death of a a wretched “god killer”. This moment pushes GORR to anger and he publicly rebukes him. Enraged by this “Disrespect” the God grabs GORR by the throat and attempts to choke him to death, but GORR is able to turn the tables when he discovers a sword that allows him to kill even the omnipotent. He slays the God with one strike, and that is when we learn the true nature of the weapon that saved his life. It sends GORR dark messages, encouraging him to “take back everything he has lost” it champions GORR for his decision to slay the God. With nothing else to live for, and a heart full of resentment and anger for all that he has been through, GORR dedicates his life to slaying every single God he can find.
Gorr’s origin is a single wave in the ocean that is Thor Love and Thunder. Truly, the movie centers around Thor, who after helping to defeat Thanos, doesn’t know who he is, or what he wants to do with his life. He spends his day’s theatrically lazing around, while looking for the thing that will fulfill him. While he goes on this tone deaf journey of self discovery, Jane Foster, Played by Natalie Portman, is facing deaths door after a cancer diagnosis deteriorated her health. It is only after rediscovering Thors hammer, picking it up herself and becoming a God that she is able to cheat death. But only for as long as she is willing to hold the mantle. This precarious dilemma leads to the former couple reuniting, and while the world suffers, they try to see if there’s a spark left in their relationship.
While Thor and Jane work on figuring things out, GORR is on a war-path that will set him on a collision course with The two of them. That eventual confrontation forces Thor to come face to face with the ways he has fallen short as the God of Thunder. While he sat in a basement, drinking beer, gaining weight feeling sorry for hisself and avoiding his problems, the planets he promised to protect were left without any support and had suffered greatly. While Thor had never forgotten the importance of his title the “God of Thunder” he let his arrogance get in the way of living up to the values of that role. And it wasn’t just him, Gods all over the galaxy had become fat, greedy, lazy, and disconnected from reality while their people suffered. This was a painful realization for Thor and Jane when they went to Olympus for help in defeating the God killer.
Besides Thor and Jane, no one with actual power was willing to stand up and fight, so the two of them were forced to face the manifestation of their failures alone. I wont spoil the movie for you, instead I’ll get to the point. Love and Thunder was poorly received because under the cheesy humor, and CGI, there was a mirror facing society, and many of us did not like what we saw. The plot of Love and thunder is very much the reality we live in today. As you read this, a handful of people with unlimited money and limited views run our country. Their form of governance has been to target the vulnerable, steal our wealth, and disappear anyone they view as a threat. While they’re doing this, our “leaders” are writing “Strongly worded letters,” complaining about being asked to do their jobs, and running from every fight. Unless of course they’re fighting to protect the interest of their benefactors. While it’s easier to ignore the truth, what this Thor movie did better than most was tell us what many already know. Our country is in crisis.
When those who have been blessed with power become drunk off of it, people will take things into their own hands. As confidence in our leadership continues to decrease you will see an increase in rogue activity, because someone has to do something. And as more people suffer, the concept of GORR will no longer be an idea on paper, it will be a reality. In the U.S. our gods are the ultra wealthy, corporations, and their many ambassadors.
While they make money hand over fist, many of them doing so while exploiting the most vulnerable, more and more people are taking things into their own hands. In reality, the God killers are people like Luigi Mangione, and Rodney Hinton Jr. Luigi allegedly killed the CEO of United Healthcare, many people believe this happened because of the healthcare company’s predatory treatment of its patients. Rodney Hinton, two hours after watching body cam footage of police murdering his son, allegedly killed a retired police officer. If the courts can prove these two men are guilty of the actions they are accused of, it would be clear example’s people responding to a system that does not care for any of us.
And where does that get us? In truth, nowhere. No matter how hard things get, or how much our leaders fail us, the response can never be violence. But, If things continue to go the way they are, and those who have been trusted to represent us refuse to make a change, what do you expect people to do? Why should voters put their trust in Hakeem Jeffries or Chuck Schumer when they spend more time criticizing a Democratic Socialist, than they push back against a racist, white supremacist agenda? Why shouldn’t the poor white man in Middle America join the proud boys, a group grounded in hatred and discrimination, but one that gives him community and something to fight for, when his elected representatives have done nothing but bash trans people, complain about affirmative action, and vote away his rights so that some corporations could make a couple of extra million dollars a year? If you strip people of opportunity, and remove all hope, humans don’t just stop living, they adjust to their circumstances. In Thor, GORR became a God killer because he lost everything, and decided to make the entities who promised to protect him pay with their life.
In the real world, we are watching the idea of America collapse under millions of disillusioned, and heart broken citizens. If something doesn’t change we may end up destroying each other, and this country. At the end of Love and Thunder, GORR chose love, the love he had for his daughter and family were stronger than the hurt he felt after being abandoned and ridiculed by his Gods. That love saved Thor and his friends, but their conclusion was built within a structure of a movie that must give closure. We can package a happy ending in a movie without much effort, but if we want things to be different in reality, we will need to make some serious changes. If we want to put an end to the rise of GORR’s all over our country, we need to clean house in our leadership, and center our politics on protecting communities, investing in people and valuing life. If we refuse to make this change, there will be nothing but more God killers, and endless suffering.