One of the big problems with the Avengers movies in general is that they can’t accommodate all the arcs of the individual characters. Trying to cram six or more characters into three-ish hours and give them all their due is already impossible, and then there’s the added complication that these movies are often being written while their immediate predecessors are still being filmed. It can’t really be helped, but it is to the detriment of the larger continuity that they sold us on when we first started this journey. The Infinity War/Endgame script was being written while Thor: Ragnarok was in filming, so I expected to see some similar conflicts.
But I did not expect what they did to Thor.
Of everyone, Thor lost the most in Infinity War, especially because he had already lost so much in Ragnarok. His conversation with Rocket on the journey to Nidavellir was one of the most moving moments of Infinity War, and I knew the emotional fallout of failing to kill Thanos, making the sloppy tactical mistake of stopping to gloat instead of finishing the job, would take an even heavier toll on him. Thor never considered that he could fail and still live. And not only was Fate not on his side after all, but it turns out that he also did have something left to lose.
His mental health.
Endgame wasn’t prepared to handle such a difficult theme; it wasn’t prepared to handle many of the difficult themes it created for itself. But while a lot of those other themes are either ignored or hand-waved away, Thor and his very understandable struggle with grief, depression, and post-traumatic stress becomes a weird, ongoing series of comic relief moments.
When Rocket and Banner-Hulk find Thor in New Asgard, he’s holed up in a house with Korg and Miek, playing video games, threatening teenagers online, and drinking himself into a stupor. Not all of this is a bad narrative choice, mind you. It makes perfect sense that Korg and Miek are the only people he feels comfortable being around anymore, both because of their personalities as well as because they are basically the only people Thor knows who he doesn’t feel like he completely failed. It makes perfect sense that Thor would fall apart, that he would hide in drinking and darkness. But while Hemsworth gets a few moments to play this seriously, these are largely overshadowed by how the camera likes to zero-in on his big CGI gut.
I had a hard enough time with Thor threatening to rip a teenager’s arms off and stuff them up his butt over a video game. Because the way people threaten each other with violence over the internet is funny, right? An alien man who has slaughtered, in his own estimation, over 3,000 people threatening some teenager—who has zero chance of not having his own trauma from snap-related losses—with extreme violence is funny, right?
And you know what else is funny? According to this film, all fat people.
It was bad enough when Peter Quill’s friends hassled him over his weight in Infinity War. I let that pass as being more about Quill’s personal insecurities and shallowness than being an important assessment of his body, but it has sure come back to haunt us now. And as much as I cringed while people tittered and grinned at Thor yelling at that teenager over the headset, I pretty much fell apart when Thor turned, and the camera panned down over his bare torso and ratty pajama pants, and the audience laughed.
They laughed at him.
And they laughed at me.
A little over four years ago, I fell into a really deep depression. At my lowest, I shut down almost completely, losing the ability to share my thoughts with those closest to me. I struggled to do much more than watch mindless TV or play games on my phone, letting my life fall into disrepair. I also did a lot of comfort eating, as it was one of the few things that made me feel even a little bit good. I gained about thirty-five pounds, which made a big difference in how I looked and felt.
I’m not saying there’s objectively anything wrong with that amount of weight. But for me it was a big change, and now that I’m coming out the other side of that depression and slowly starting to piece my life back together again, those extra pounds have in some ways become a symbol of all the things that I’m still struggling to overcome. I’ve been going to the gym regularly for a year, but I haven’t been able to shed the weight—partially because of some medication I was taking for anxiety, partially because I still struggle with the impulse to comfort myself with food.
I’ve always struggled with body image for other reasons, including society’s general unrealistic beauty standards, and the fact that I’m a transgender person who suffers from pretty intense body dysphoria. But although I’ve experienced seeing myself as bigger than I am, I’ve never before existed in the category of people who are frequently shamed by others for their size and weight. But when the audience laughed at Thor in that moment, vulnerable and shirtless on screen, when I saw that even Bruce and Rocket, his friends who were being so gentle and compassionate with him, grimace in disgust… they might as well have been grimacing at me.
Look, Thor’s not handsome anymore. Look, Thor’s grief made him weak, and a joke, and we can see that because he has a belly, and a messy beard, and clearly doesn’t bathe regularly. But it’s funny! The camera tells you its funny, because it made a point of panning past his midsection continuously throughout the movie. And each time, people tittered.
In the course of these movies, I have looked to Thor often as an inspiration. Thor began his journey selfish, and short sighted, and blinded by his own too-big emotions. But then he grew to be someone who understood the price of his own power, both in the strength of his beefy arms and in the history of his family and his people. He is a man whose propensity towards violence and cruelty was bred in him through the patriarchal and imperial aspects of his culture, and who, in learning to unpack those aspects, discovered that in his core he was just a big marshmallow, full of love and humor, who also really wants to be a hero and do the right thing.
To have a character like Thor confront that past and choose to dismantle it is huge. To have him realize that loving someone (in this case, his brother Loki) means allowing them to be their own person is beautiful. I was actually planning to get a tattoo to immortalize for myself Thor’s mantra in Ragnarok—“That’s what heroes do”—because as I struggle personally with what it means to be a man, messages like these are much-needed guides. Messages like the importance of having a healthy relationship with your emotions. Of taking responsibility for your past and your mistakes and yet still moving forward. Of having courage and being stalwart in the face of hard choices, rather than focusing on a petty rivalry with Peter Quill, of all people.
I’m not saying that heroes have to be perfect. Far from it. Marvel, in particular, likes to tell the stories of heroes who are tremendously flawed, and that’s beautiful. But part of talking about characters’ flaws is showing how they grapple with them, how they confront their fears and foibles and do their best to rise above them.
Even without the body-shaming fat phobia that follows him around on screen, Thor is never treated with respect in this entire film. No other character gets a chorus of rolling eyes when they start talking about what they lost, as Thor does when he’s explaining the ether and gets distracted thinking about Jane. The fact that Thor is too drunk (alcoholism, also hilarious, right?) to speak clearly is treated with as much derision as his beer belly or his dirty clothes, equal parts joke and annoyance that his friends have to deal with while they’re all putting their pain aside to get things done. Even his mother—in a moment that the movie apparently intends to heal Thor’s wounds not only from Endgame, but also Ragnarok and The Dark World—can’t resist a departing potshot about salads. In the end, we need Mjolnir to fly in to show us that Thor is worthy, because the movie sure isn’t telling us that he is.
But I do believe he is. At the end of the movie, Thor is part of something greater, an epic battle in which everyone is an Avenger, and everyone is needed. The brash, angry young god we met in the first Thor might not have settled for being part of a whole that didn’t still revolve around him. And while I don’t love his decision to leave New Asgard at the end of the film, perhaps what his mother was really trying to tell him is that it’s okay not to be the one shouldering the heaviest burden, the central responsibility. That there is value in him even if he never understands the truth of ruling, as he has claimed he does not. I imagine he will soon return to his old pirate-angel looks, but whether he does or not, I hope the story allows him the dignity he deserves.
And I really hope that he and Quill don’t make their next competition all about dieting.
Sylas K Barrett is an actor, writer, and literary analyst. You can find him on twitter as @inland_sailor and read his other writing here on Tor.com, including his weekly series Reading the Wheel of Time.
If I never see Endgame again, it’ll be because of how they treated Thor.
I also had a big problem with how he was treated as a joke throughout the film. I was on board with him falling apart after Infinity War, but the way they used his trauma as comic relief was one of the things that knocked the film down for me. i was hoping that the scene with his mum would have made him clean himself up and stride forward with a new determination, but the whole section was wasted.
I want to start this comment by saying that I in no way intend to invalidate the opinions of the author. Having a character you identify strongly with treated the way Endgame treated Thor is a terrible feeling. With that said…
I am an overweight male, if not outright obese, and I laughed at the overweight Thor when first shown. I certainly didn’t continue laughing, especially when it was clear he gained that weight due to crippling depression, something I myself have dealt with (and probably ~40lbs of my current weight are to blame for), so I don’t want to defend those continuing to laugh as the movie progresses and the jokes continue coming.
But that initial reveal was funny. Not because he was fat, but because it was unexpected, and most, if not all, instances of humor are due to being confronted with the unexpected. So yeah, I laughed when Thor’s body was first shown. I expected sad Thor, I expected drunk Thor, I did not expect overweight Thor.
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be an MCU film without mishandling something though.
Matt Goldberg has a wonderful defense of the treatment of Fat Thor on Collider, in which he makes a reasonable claim that the way Thor is treated is not in fact fat shaming: http://collider.com/endgame-fat-thor-explained
One thing I really disliked about Thor:The Dark World was how they played Sellvig’s mental illness for laughs. So I’m not exactly surprised by this. Disappointed, yes; surprised, no.
This isn’t meant as a full response to the piece overall, but: I think it may be worth mentioning that when it comes time for battle, Thor’s altered physique doesn’t seem to slow him down at all. Which makes sense, since, in the comics at least, that is basically how Volstagg looks.
@5, that’s something Marvel has had problems with the entire time, and it goes all the way back to the first Ironman movie. Cap’s line from AoU could apply to all of it. “If you get hurt, hurt them back. If you get killed, walk it off.” Sure, that’s typical soldier talk, but the vast majority of the main characters are not soldiers. They haven’t been trained for this. Even Thor, for all that he is a fighter, doesn’t have the discipline of soldier training. He’s also not used to losing. Hawkeye was still dealing with his brainwashing in Avengers, to the point that losing his family flipped him over that line entirely. Probably the only people who could “walk it off” were Cap, Fury, Nat, and Carol. The rest shouldn’t be expected to, but the entire franchise pokes fun at any major character who can’t immediately shake off their problems and move forward.
I suppose, in this way, art imitates life. For all that we try to move things forward and teach sensitivity, people still make fun of those with mental issues, or physical disabilities, etc. I guess anyone that isn’t in perfect fighting trim, both in body and mind, gets mocked.
At the time I didn’t think it was fat shaming. I thought it was proving that even a “god” can be like us. I thought exactly the same as that Collider article; that Thor is used as one of, if not the, sexy beefcake character in the MCU, so having his depression shown in this way was a good narrative choice. Hemsworth’s body is unattainable to most of the population, but depressed Thor is someone we can relate to.
I’d have to watch it again, but wasnt Rocket (who is already set up as a callous, protheses-stealing rabbit) the only one who made a fat joke? There were a lot of moments so I could have missed it. But Banner sees his friend suffering and so do the other Avengers. Thor’s mom suggested a salad, but all the ones I know make annoying “helpful” comments like that and I assumed that’s what that was a call to. She did say the future hadn’t treated him kindly. I just thought she meant his locks and unkempt clothing because she was looking at his face when she said it, but in hindsight it was probably everything.
The teenager I thought was “not that deep”. There’s a reason I don’t play MMOs and it’s because the things people say are disgusting and outrageous. I think that was the joke. That, and also reinforcing that Thor is at a low point.
Clearly many people felt differently about this though and it’s good for me to read someone giving specific movie points that they noticed as problematic when I didn’t notice them.
It is not the !FatThor that I had a problem with. It was the handling of his PTSD/depression. I thought the were going to address it after the first scene when !ProfessorHulk was obviously concerned about his friend. However, no one stopped to talk to him, to listen to him or to give him the help that he needed, until his mother. And then she makes (probably well intended) suggestion that he eat a salad. Not helpful, he knows that he has lost his physical fitness, but he can’t bring himself to care enough to do anything about it. Despite all of that, when the time comes, he does what is right, as an overweight man, fighting through his pain and anguish.
I think this is a bit unfair, and I think that you have to give the characters time to simmer in a certain place in our collective understanding. He is a fictional character. He shoots lightening out of his eyes. Maybe we need a few years of fat, depressed, weepy Thor to get to the things he really needs. The movie itself wasn’t about sitting down and talking, but they even made time for that with his mother. The other characters were sensitive and understanding if a bit distracted by their mission.
Thor needs more than what he got, but he got some good stuff. He got real love and appreciation from his family and friends. It’s a movie. There’s other stuff to do, but they didn’t kill Thor or age him 60 years or render his arm un-usable… they gave him a vision of future purpose, a little bit of redemption, and a new family. His story isn’t over. Of the original Avengers he’s the only one to likely still have a real future.
Maybe don’t expect his depression to be fully appreciated, understood, or cured in a 3 hour movie about aliens. He’s in James Gunn’s more-than-capable hands now. Just you wait.
Be sad for Thor. That’s your lesson on depression for today. Let Thor be sad. Let it be hard.
@9 especially since Steve is right there and the movie tells us he has stopped Avenging and is a grief counselor. I honestly felt Steve was going to address it and try to help but nope didn’t happen.
But the movie wants the audience to laugh at Thor. There are good and useful readings of the movie for people to find empowering and encouraging. But the movie wants the audience to laugh at Thor. Because he’s fat; because he’s drunk; because he cries and is cowardly. The movie wants the audience to laugh at the veteran with PTSD who drinks all the time, doesn’t wash his hair, can’t focus on important tasks, and avoids his triggers. And the audience laughed.
So if I watch the movie again, I’ll probably skip the scenes where the movie expects me to laugh at Thor’s suffering because I don’t think it’s funny.
Honestly I think Frigga’s “and eat a salad” quote is taken out of context by most people. She says it right at the end, as he is leaving, and in much the same tone that my mother goes “you can call us you know”. It’s a combination of affection and reminder, to be acknowledged but not expected to be followed.
All the heavy psychiatric lifting has already been done, this is the mother speaking.
And nobody else in the Avengers says *anything* about his body shape except Rocket, and Rocket is offensive about everything. The rest acknowledge that he is clearly hurting, give him space, but also stress that they still need him. Once he gets back with the stone he’s free spirited and fighting fine, despite carrying the extra weight. Heck his magic armour even adapts to fit properly.
I think the audience you watch something with makes a huge difference. I spent most of the movie feeling pity for Thor, and even the obnoxious guy next to me who stream of consciousness narrated his every passing question or thought only said “whoa! He got fat.” I took the focus on his unkempt physique to be about emphasizing that Thor Is Not Okay, not “you should laugh here.”
I’m reminded of the time when I went and saw Book of Mormon, which was incredibly popular and during which I was super uncomfortable, and it took a lot for me to unpack whether I disliked the treatment of the Mormon Faith because the actual show was doing something unethical, or whether because the audience was doing something unethical, and in the end I decided that if I’d seen the show with different people or in a different context I might have not have had any trouble with it, because I can imagine a world in which an audience reacted like I and my friends did, with respect, laughing with instead of laughing AT, whereas the people I watched it with were laughing AT things that I’m pretty sure, in retrospect, weren’t actually meant to be as rude as people were acting.
I’ve not seen this movie. Are the Thor scenes anything like the 1980 movie Fatso? Because it does a good job showing the struggles of being overweight in a funny, satiric, yet sympathetic light.
I’m sorry you had to struggle with depression and mental unhealth. But:
I believe your read of the character arc misses the point. Yes, the initial reaction of fat Thor was played for laughs, and I did laugh (because Hemsworth has mastered Thor by now). But, I also saw pretty much straight away how broken and traumatised he was. Showing Thor in that light led to some incredible moving character interactions. Banner trying to bring Thor back to the team, being like “You got me out of the hole I was in too,” was moving. Rocket’s “everyone’s lost someone” exchange with Thor in Asgard was moving. Those bits weren’t making Thor the butt of fat jokes at all.
The fact that Frigga said “Eat a salad…” 1) Isn’t that what all moms do? It’s almost like how moms show they care. Its probably different if someone has a eating disorder, but all moms are either like “you’re too thin” or “you’re getting fat.” 2) It came in the middle of a scene when Thor finally gets some closure for all the losses he’s taken over his entire MCU arc. And Frigga recognises how much he’s hurting and tells him exactly what he needs to hear to start getting him back on his feet. It was beautiful.
Most importantly, you forgot that, after 5 years of drinking and brokenness and PTSD, he was STILL WORTHY TO WIELD MJOLNIR. That Fat Thor was still worthy is proof to me that Marvel’s depiction of Thor wasn’t belittling him or fat shaming him in any way. Everyone reacts to trauma differently, and you can react like Thor did and still retain his heroism and character. If Mjolnir thought Thor was worthy, what could anyone else possibly say?
I missed that OP had mentioned Thor still being worthy to wield Mjolnir. However:
“In the end, we need Mjolnir to fly in to show us that Thor is worthy, because the movie sure isn’t telling us that he is.” This doesn’t make sense. The movie shows us Thor is still worthy. That was the movie telling us he is worthy!! No matter how Thor has been depicted up to that point, that was the movie telling us, inside, he is still Thor.
The looks that his friends are giving him, that you might think are judgemental…you forget, they’ve ALL been through this. They’ve all had 5 years worth of grief and what-ifs and PTSD. Yet they’re all here, trying to put that pain and trauma aside because they now have a chance to make things right again. This is the second chance they’ve spent 5 years wishing they had. So they want Thor to get his head back in the game, because THEY NEED HIM. They know he’s worthy.
If you’re focusing on Frigga’s “eat a salad” comment being a potshot, you’re choosing to ignore what that moment was meant to convey overall.
I wish Endgame had allowed Thor to go further in processing his depression and trauma. After the initial shock laugh at the Fat Thor reveal, they could have turned the humor uncomfortable, do more to focus on the fact that this is a person in great pain. I wonder if it’s possible that was the intent but Hemsworth is simply so funny that they ended up leaning into the laughs more than was planned.
I do think it’s a point in the movie’s favor that he never turns back into a sculpted god. He enters the final battle as Fat Thor and can still go toe to toe with Thanos. The weight hasn’t made him any less of a warrior or a hero.
@17 Except it’s not until Mjolnir shows up that we know Thor’s worried about being worthy. It makes sense in retrospect but the movie spends too much time poking fun at Thor.
@19 ‘I do think it’s a point in the movie’s favor that he never turns back into a sculpted god. He enters the final battle as Fat Thor and can still go toe to toe with Thanos. The weight hasn’t made him any less of a warrior or a hero.’
I immediately noticed that too and liked the fact that he did not suddenly snap back into his old form when pulled himself together (I half expected that he would, and that the movie would just go ‘he’s a god, he can be thin again without effort’). It showed that even though he’s back fighting, all the trauma is not suddenly forgotten. He’s still changed by his experiences and will probably carry that luggage forever, but he’s made the important first steps to getting back out there and finding meaning in what he does.
If I’m honest, while I was watching the movie I never thought of what they did to Thor as fat shaming. I did laugh at what the movie intended to be funny, but at the same time I felt terrible for Thor because I could totally understand why he felt, acted and looked the way he did. I guess it really depends on how you frame things for yourself. I’ve read reviews from overweight people who loved the movie and felt like they could be Thor, but also people who felt offended. How you react to it is not a conscious decision, and I think it was a risky decision by Marvel to go down this road. Mental health and weight are sensitive subjects, so there will always be people who don’t like the choices they made. But there are also loads of people who feel like they can relate and find support in this. It’s a fine line…
Personally I have struggled somewhat with my mental health over the past few years, had a few ups and downs and had to get over a trauma I didn’t realise I had (nowhere near like losing as much as Thor lost, but enough to experience problems in daily life and my relationship). I personally did not feel the movie mistreated Thor, I felt for him and could relate to him. I liked that they didn’t just give him an ‘easy god-fix’ for his problems, but that he really had to live and fight through them and find his way back, like us mere humans would all have to in a similar situation. But I also understand that it’s easy to interpret the movie and its treatment of Thor in a different way, which is equally valid. Like I said, we’re all different (and that’s a good thing!).
I am going to have to respectfully disagree.
Speaking as someone who is overweight, doesn’t have much of a sense of humor, and has absolutely zero tolerance for things like fat jokes, I really have to disagree.
Yes, Thor got fat after he couldn’t cope with his failure. That’s what some people do when they are depressed. The entire Thor arc felt authentic to me, not played for laughs.
I felt the same way about the movie, and about Thor. I’ve suffered trauma as a veteran. When I came back from from a 2 year deployment in the Middle East, I’d experienced a number of horrible events. I lost a friend, I engaged in two firefights. When I came back to the U.S. I started drinking, I put on weight, and when I saw the movie I almost walked out. I had tears in my eyes, not for Scarlet Witch, or Tony Stark, but for the reminder of what I’d become when I returned home.
Re: The characters didn’t comment on Thor’s weight much
Maybe not but the photography and direction played it for laughs. Comedy can come from plenty of sources outside dialogue. The way it was filmed said, to me, “you’re supposed to laugh because Thor isn’t classically handsome anymore. Mental health struggles that spill into physical health are funny.” Even the compassion the other avengers showed Thor was supposed to be funny.
The initial surprise was funny because subverting expectations is funny, but then the film harped on it over and over and over. We get it. Thor’s fat now. How radical would it have been if no one mentioned it at all? People gain weight in five years of not flying around the galaxy punching things, it happens. I know Thor’s often the comedic relief, but then maybe don’t make his character arc such a serious topic.
I LOVED Thor’s character in Endgame. I identified more with Thor than any other character. I have A. Felt like a failure B. become extremely depressed and gained weight because of it and C. had panic attacks because of anxiety – all of which are things Thor experiences in the film. I didn’t see the film as making fun of Thor for those things; it was just funny and delightful because you didn’t expect that from this super mighty god of thunder figure. It was also really touching precisely because he’s the god of thunder. You think – if it can happen to Thor, it can happen to me, and I have nothing to feel bad about. Also, I loved, loved, loved his interaction with his mother. How he still needs his mom even though he’s a grown man, and how she sees straight through him and knows exactly whats wrong (like my mother would do) and knows exactly what to say to make him feel better. That was such a precious moment, and my very favorite moment in the whole film. Even though jokes were made about Thor’s weight, I didn’t see them as offensive. I laugh at myself for the weight I’ve gained. It’s important to be able to laugh at yourself, but it does require a certain amount of security in knowing that your worth doesn’t revolve around your weight.
While the initial reveal was played for laughs, and I did laugh, it was clear that it wasn’t meant to be seen that way. People just brought themselves very much into how they viewed Thor.
For me, I saw that even Mr Perfect went through what I went through when I lost four of my family members in quick succession and fell into a depression and weight issues that I’m still fighting. I saw his pain and struggles and I saw that his worth was still there and acknowledged, not just by some magical hammer, but by his own self as he started to pick himself up and move on.
The movie was great, but Thor in the movie was exceptional, and I personally (and my husband too) found him to be an inspiration. I’m not saying other people need to feel anything except what they did, but they also need to understand that their reactions are personal to them and not universal. For some of us, Thor was a good thing.
Several commenters have pointed out — correctly, I think — that the cinematography and direction of the film focus on Thor’s visual appearance in a way that’s (a) deeply uncomfortable to a significant part of the audience, and (b) skewed toward the comic. Others have noted — also correctly — that the dialogue and narrative for Thor in the film focus honestly on his psychological depression and mental state, mostly (though not entirely) not commenting on his physical appearance.
This is confusing in and of itself; the visual cues and the aural material are badly out of sync with one another, and that’s hard for viewers to process in a movie that’s already really crowded with action and full of other people’s character arcs. But it’s also problematic because the visual cues are simply wrong for Thor.
What we get from Thor’s outward appearance is the classic look of a human alcoholic — flabby, unkempt, and audibly fuzzy. But it’s well established in the MCU that Asgardians, by way of the Viking warrior motif, have a different relationship with alcohol than humans do (see, as others note, Volstagg of the Warriors Three). Their tolerance is far higher than that of ordinary humans, and moreover, they can be drunk without losing their sense of style and attention to basic grooming. It’s not unreasonable for Thor in this movie to be out of shape and sad…but it is unreasonable for him to become as visually sloppy as he looks, because that’s out of sync with established Asgardian standards. Even drunk and depressed Thor, as an Asgardian, would still be able to keep his hair and beard in better trim than we see it throughout the movie (especially considering that none of the bearded humans in the movie get that much scruffier as the film progresses).
As a person that struggles with PTSD, depression & anxiety, and who gained weight during some portion of it (I was also grossly underweight for a long while), I didn’t have much problem with Thor’s portrayal. It was funny because it was so unexpected: he’s the super tough guy that never gets bothered, always healthy, and to see him like that was jarring and humorous. As many above said, it made him more human, more relatable. I saw a bit of myself in him because of it. I’ve been there, I’ve felt an utter failure and wallowed in self-pity, and now I can look back on those days and laugh about it.
Most of the characters didn’t react negatively towards him, they engaged with him and brought him along, actively needing him. Rocket being the outlier, because he’s non-human/alien and kind of an asshole. None tried to force Thor to talk about it, which in my experience, works so much better. It made his need to talk to his mother so much more visceral and real to me, as most people really can’t accept help until he/she knows it is needed and reaches out. Which he did, and it helped him to get back to who he used to be, and who he realized he wants to be.
I had a different response to the same scenes. It seemed to capture perfectly to me the struggle with self identity and self worth that I feel being over weight. I have an amount of self deprecating humor but the frequent reminders of his shape reminded me of the daily inescapable fact that I weigh more than I should. The best thing to me is that with all that the hammer still came to him. Not because *inside* he is still skinny beefcake Thor but because even in his current broken state the hammer judged him worthy in ways that the beefcake from the first movie was not.
Not to say your feelings are wrong but just as another viewpoint of a subjective matter.
I thought Thor’s story was interesting. He learns that he can change and choose who he really is, that he doesn’t have to be defined by his failures, and that he is still a hero, worthy of Mjolnir. After all, he fights in that overweight body. Also, it’s not about the absolute weight: his body is a symptom of his depression, his diet certainly is not healthy and it isn’t helping him getting better. People shouldn’t shame people for being fat, but helping them stay on their self-destructive spiral is not good either (Thor was right to advise Valkyrie to reduce her drinking in the previous movie, and I hope she’ll be sober for leading her people). Frigga treats him with compassion, but the one thing people remember from that scene is that she told him to eat a salad…
That being said, it’s interesting that the reveal that Thor was depressed and fat didn’t get the same reaction as Tony being stick thin and having panic attacks when he comes back to Earth.
One last point: the other character who is mocked in the movie for what he eats is Rocket Racoon.
Oh, what a bundled assortment of emotions to unpack.
First off, and just for point of saying it… that title, whilst not intended to be a spoiler, actually did spoil things for me… and all I’d done was browse through Tor. I went into the film knowing something was afoot, if not exactly what, and whilst I’m far less angry about it now (only a week after release day?), it still irks me. Ball dropped Mods. Ball, dropped.
#DontSpoilTheEndgame to #TorKindaSpoiledMyEndgame. *sigh* Anyway:
As a man with depression, that has struggled with self esteem and eating problems and weight and body image issues for the last 20-something years as a result of that, I get exactly what you’re saying and I can’t accurately express my rage at what they did to Thor in this film (I know, I should be used to not being able to express myself by now, but that actually makes it worse).
Absolutely, Thor would turn to Korg and Miek, because of the reasons you’ve said, and because they’re not so much the right kind of friend to deal with a depressed Thor: they’re enablers. Instead of offering constructive help, or challenging and assisting Thor to work through his problems, they just allow him to wallow. This is not their fault, and I’m not going to portion blame to them. Nor am I going to portion blame to anyone: Thor needed help, but so did everyone. He needed Valkyrie and the Avengers, but they literally couldn’t find the time, dealing with the immediate fall-out of the Infinity War, and by the time they got back on their feet, reorganised and able to give him support, it would have been too late.
Not portioning blame doesn’t stop me being pissed at them. If anything, I’m even more annoyed with Valkyrie, Rhodey and Cap here: they know better than most what those kinds of Mental Injuries that Thor took can do to a person (there’s a reason Vets tend to stick around with Vets).
As for his regression, whilst it is expected that what we consider to be childish personality traits come to the fore in and after stressful situations, and I understand the Russo’s didn’t really know what happens in Ragnarok that well, they even managed to reverse some of the character growth from Dark World and left Thor in the same kinda douchey place he was at the beginning of that film. I really, really hope the GotG can drop him off somewhere before their next film as that’s a set up I really don’t want to see through to any conclusion. In fact, now that Thor needs to go back on his own personal growth journeys, I think he’s going to need a new set of his own films.
Lastly, the only poke at Thor’s weight that I found remotely acceptable was Frigga’s. Unlike the other instances, that was not her turning her nose up, it was her saying that it’s okay, but now’s time to get back to work on yourself, in the most parenty way she knew. It was not a joke at Thor’s expense, it was one she invited him to join in with (seriously, we’ve seen what an Asguardian feast looks like: massive and protein heavy but with a lot of other things on the menu too).
I’ve read this article before I watched Endgame and kept wondering about what I was going to watch. After I finally watched the movie, I have to say I strongly disagree with this author’s views. I didn’t feel the approach on Thor’s mental health was disrespectful at all. Didn’t see any “fat shaming” neither. And if my “credentials” are necessary, I speak as someone who knows depression and compulsive eating disorder. I think the way Thor’s mental health was addressed in the movie was very humane and fairly thoughtful. In the scene in which it was revealed that he has gained weight, sure the audience, including myself, either gasped or laughed a little, but it wasn’t a “bully” laugh, it was a surprise laugh. It was unexpected, especially from a character like him. But I’m pretty sure the overwhelming feeling after that was of sympathy. The way Hulk talks to and worries about him afterwards was so kind and caring, it inspires the same feelings on the audience. We all are led to care about him.
Also, he didn’t get a “chorus of rolling eyes” from the other characters. I think we may not have seen the same movie or at least not with the same eyes. Other characters looked awkward, sure, but not cruel/indifferent/eye-rolling. Seeing what Thor was going through was heartbreaking and perhaps he should have got more support from others but everyone was dealing with loss, stress and an impending battle, so. Though it is a super hero movie, characters, as real life humans, don’t have an obligation to act perfect. People very often don’t know how to deal with a person who’s dealing with depression, and the depressed person themselves can shun off anyone who tries to get closer and help, or simply deny what they’re going through.
The humor involved in Thor’s situation wasn’t bully humor, it was a lighthearted way to address his mental health. Any jokes are not made “at the expense of” Thor’s pain. For me it was one of the most touching things in the movie, I really enjoyed seeing him dealing with his fragilities, his human side, his broken ego, working towards maturing and accepting who he was and what has happened. It was beautiful.
It really bothers me how people sometimes seem to want these issues to be put inside a protective, untouchable dome. No jokes with mental health allowed. I don’t agree with this view. It’s possible to make jokes involving mental health issues without being disrespectful. Humor and comedy are great, powerful tools to address difficult subjects, and even promote healing, by promoting a more lighthearted perspective. I value that. Of course, not all people will agree. But I believe we need to be careful to not arbitrarily choose to have a view in which we’re easily hurt and offended by the rest of the world, a hurt sometimes caused by our own bias. Having had such a radically different experience watching the movie than the author of this article, I have to say sometimes we just see what we want to see.
You’re making this overly dramatic man. Thor’s arc in endgame was both amazingly funny and resonant. Like dealing with his problems doesn’t have to be over dramatic. The humour is what makes it more human because that’s generally how we deflect and try to cheer up people, by looking at the funny side of things. Plus you’re downplaying the impact of him summoning his hammer. I thought that was a powerful moment. When he’s at his lowest, to realize that he is still worthy almost brought me to tears. He realized he was still good, he can still be a hero. That’s who Thor is.
It was a really shitty take that have left a bad taste in my mouth since watching the film. I have no problem with Thor falling apart. I have no problem with him starting to drink or growing fat. That is ok.
But.
Thor is a hero. When he gets a chance to save billions that died, what will get him to come is that they have beer on the ship? When they have an enormously important mission, he falls apart *after* it has started and starts to talk about going to the wine cellar? He fails at absolutely everything in the movie, makes no noticeable impact and is outshined by Captal America using his hammer.
Thor is supposed to be a hero. He should have had at least one awesome moment. But he got none. And left. A failure.
We are talking about Thor here who in the sagas knew that everyone was going to die in Ragnarök, and still kept on fighting.
It was just so badly written and so bad take for the character.
I am sorry that that was your experience, and I have to agree that it was poorly done.
I disliked it too. I laughed initially out of surprise, but immediately afterwards my reaction was dislike and frustration.
I expected a broken Thor, and found it completely believable that he would isolate himself, and became angry and despairing. What we got instead was tragedy played as a farce – not just comic, but ridiculous.
And I did feel that the other characters dismissed Thor’s tragedy.
I attribute part of the problem to Thor: Ragnorak, a film which I strongly dislike because it makes tragedy and loss into ridiculous comedy.
This (along with Black Widow’s treatment) was definitely something that left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. It’s not so much that they showed him suffering real grief and depression and letting himself go, but, as you say, the way the camera treats it. Even the Honest Trailers spoof seemed to get at this.
That said, I do appreciate that even the end, he hasn’t just reverted back to perfection. If we get more of him in a future GotG movie, hopefully there will be some more time to devote to his arc.
I see your points and while I don’t agree with all of them, I can’t say that you’re exactly wrong, either. I give Marvel and the Russos props for bringing up PTSD head on – most notably Tony and Thor (but not Cap, which strikes me as strange, since Cap hasn’t had stability since … well, ever) – but others as well. They didn’t get it 100% right but they did try. I love that Thor stayed fat and disheveled and got the job done anyway.
Most of all I love his growth. I don’t agree that Thor reverts the self-centered bombastic brat he was at first. He is a person in pain who tries to use humor and irreverence to hide his pain and deflect his friends’ concern.
You write “The brash, angry young god we met in the first Thor might not have settled for being part of a whole that didn’t still revolve around him.” This is true. But more so, that Thor would not have been able to countenance anyone else being worthy of Mjolnir (in fact, he looks nervous when Mjolnir stirs for Cap in AoU).
This Thor cheers him on.