Warning: This post contains minor spoilers about “Deadpool 2.” No major plot points will be given away, but some minor details will be discussed. Consider yourself warned.
No one should be really surprised that “Deadpool 2” bumped “Infinity Wars” off its throne as the primo numero uno movie in all the land. No one at all. Comic book movies are big business, after all.
For years, I wouldn’t go see a movie on opening weekend, but recently, I’ve been relenting. In this case, my son and I were at a Saturday show and eager to see if Ryan Reynolds could capture the magic of the first one.
In the process, though, I saw a movie that actually got me thinking about leftism in the media and how “Deadpool 2” actually poked at it with a certain amount of gusto.
First, let’s talk about Negasonic Teenage Warhead. She was a hit in the first movie with her angst, her foul-mouthed attitude back to Deadpool, and her ability to kick serious ass. None of that really changes, but she now has a girlfriend.
That’s right. She’s a lesbian.
Of course, this is par for the course in the media these days. Every show and almost every movie seems to have at least one gay character, representing them in media at a higher rate than they are in the real world. For many, it was an eye-roll moment that simply couldn’t be ignored.
However, “Deadpool 2” did something that is kind of unusual for Hollywood. They almost completely ignored it.
While Negasonic made the obligatory “this is my girlfriend and you’re a bigot if you have a problem with it,” comment, Deadpool responded with a joke about how he was just amazed that she found anyone to date, and the subject pretty much dropped from there. It was actually kind of an ideal way to handle an LGBT character, in my opinion. Why? Because not only was she not the subject of hate, she simply carried on with her job and no one really seemed to care… kind of like in the real world.
Perhaps the most interesting thing for me was the running gag of Deadpool acting like Cable was a racist. While nothing Josh Brolin’s character did was truly racist, Deadpool continued to contort minor comments into racial bigotry by taking them grossly out of context.
While some leftists are celebrating that “Deadpool 2” takes on racism, they’re forgetting that pretty much every comment about race comes about because of some mangled attempt to take an innocent comment and construe that it was racist. In the process, it puts a lampshade on the concept of microaggressions, which are literally the exact same thing.
At one point, Deadpool even makes reference to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s famous dream that people be judged “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
Of course, this thinking is currently out of vogue in so-called anti-racist circles where such thinking is now deemed “racist.” Which makes its inclusion in “Deadpool 2” rather interesting.
Now, I’m not saying “Deadpool 2” is some stealth-conservative film. It’s not. There are plenty of shots taken at the expense of the right as well, after all, and that’s fine. I don’t want my entertainment to play favorites, as a general rule. Just keep me entertained and so long as you’re not going out of your way to offend people like me, I don’t mind.
“Deadpool 2” does it well, and in the process, it does some very interesting things I don’t think Hollywood leftists may have meant for it to do.
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