Reading Joss Whedon

Joss Whedon Throws His Mighty Shield: Marvel’s The Avengers as War Movie

280 Joss Whedon Throws His Mighty Shield Marvel’s The Avengers as War Movie E N S L E Y F . G U F F E Y Marvel’s The Avengers (hereinafter The Avengers), written and directed by Joss Whedon, currently holds more all-time box-office records than any other f i lm. Furthermore, The Avengers is ranked the number-one film of all time for domestic opening-weekend receipts, having grossed US$207,438,708 in three days (Box Office Mojo 2012). With worldwide earnings totaling more than $1.5 billion in theaters (Box Office Mojo 2012), as well as positive reviews from 86 percent of top critics, and 93 percent of all critics, The Avengers is a true blockbuster (Rotten Tomatoes 2012). The film features action, humor, explosions, and beautiful stars in sexy clothing. It is based upon an enduring comic book title, and on the surface is yet another Hollywood big-budget, highest-common-consumer-denominator release. As with most projects helmed by Joss Whedon, however, first appearances are very deceiving. Beyond its global, mass-market success, The Avengers has allowed Whedon to combine many of the most profound influences in his creative life to create a work of art that transcends the superhero movie genre. Indeed, Whedon’s film is a true generic hybrid. Elements of possession by external forces via Loki’s spear, a Hulk so truly monstrous and frightening that for the first half of the movie the creature is not even named, and the physical otherness of the Chitauri and their toothy, eel-like “Leviathans” all bring elements of horror to the story (The Art of “Marvel’s The Avengers” 2012, 226). The ubiquitous intelligence/counterintelligence organization and advanced technology of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement , and Logistics Division (S.H.I.E.L.D.) add an enormous vein of hightech spy thriller to the mix. The superhero genre is front and center, of Marvel’s The Avengers ✴ 281 course, with a group origin story that forces the characters involved to come together and use their powers to confront a threat that is both too large and too powerful for conventional (or even unconventional yet merely human) forces to handle. Furthermore, The Avengers brings along the problematic baggage of five years of previous films dealing with the individual stories of four of the central heroes and forty-plus years of comic book continuity and memory. This brief sketch gives some idea of the difficulties facing the production of The Avengers and poses the question of how, exactly, Whedon managed to bring all of these elements and genres together into a mostly harmonious, effective, and—not least of all—successful film. Whedon himself was well aware of the difficulties he faced: It’s the same problem I had with Serenity and swore I’d never have again. Tracking the information you have to get across in the movie is more difficult . . . . You have to know how much people need to know, because some audiences come in knowing everything, and you don’t want to tell them too much, and some of them will come in knowing nothing (about the previous Marvel films) and you don’t want to tell them too much. You want some things to be inferred. It’s fun to see a movie that has texture beyond what you know. If you feel there’s a life outside the frame, then you feel good about it. You don’t necessarily have to lay everything out. Organizing was the most exhausting part of the film because it wasn’t all there. (quoted in Dawson 2012) Whedon’s solution for dealing with this inescapably rich text grew from his own education and creative experience. Simply put, he solved these problems with genre. According to Whedon, “from the start I wanted to make a war movie. I wanted to put these guys through more than what they would be put through in a normal superhero movie” (quoted in Dawson 2012). Specifically , Whedon gathered all the disparate elements of The Avengers within the generic form of the classic combat film as defined by his former film studies professor at Wesleyan University, Jeanine Basinger. In her book The World War II Combat Film: Anatomy of a Genre (2003), Basinger delineates the generic form of a combat film and traces its evolution, variants, and typologies from World War II to the twenty-first century. A devoted student of Basinger, Whedon has maintained a close relationship with...