CultureCow: Loki and Questlove have your weekend plans covered
by Devin McCue, Sumner Newscow — Happy Friday. We’re barely over the halfway point of 2021 and Disney+’s Marvel shows are three of the top 50 new series according to Rotten Tomatoes.
Apart from consolidating the mountain of content Disney owns and forcing people to shell out cash for yet another streaming service, these Marvel programs are one of the founding reasons for the platform. Marvel is quickly becoming one of Disney’s most profitable properties and they clearly hope to expand the MCU through (better) TV shows.
While WandaVision and Falcon and the Winter Soldier each had significant lulls in their six-episode runs, Loki, the latest series, didn’t. Loki leaned much more into the funny side of its story and trusted actors like Tom Hiddleston, Owen Wilson, and Sophia Di Martino to carry the load.
Marvel, and comic books in general, are usually a lot lighter than the MCU has been up until now. We’re starting to see a shift to a more humorous tone with the Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant Man franchises, but the rest of the MCU was still very serious with its super-powered muscle men.
Thankfully, Loki and the new Black Widow movie are starting to change that tide. But, just because the tone is lighter, doesn’t mean this series didn’t have major implications for the rest of the Marvel universe.
WARNING: there will be Loki spoilers for the next seven paragraphs.
The two biggest bombshells came down Wednesday during the series finale where we learned two important things:
- Our new multi-movie, Thanos-esque villain is Kang the Conqueror played by the immaculate Jonathan Majors.
- We’re doing the multiverse baby.
If you’re unfamiliar with Kang and his work, you aren’t alone. He doesn’t carry the same name recognition as our big purple baddie from the last phase of the MCU, but he’s arguably even scarier.
He’s a former scientist from Earth who discovered time travel and the multiverse only for other versions of himself (or “variants”) to wage war to rule all the timelines. Eventually, only one Kang remained (the one we saw on Wednesday’s episode) and created a restrictive, if not controlled, timeline.
Well, Sylvie, our new Loki variant, decided that was too oppressive (which it might have been) and ended that tyranny by killing the man in charge. Now, the timeline is free to branch out and explore every possibility in an infinite number of realities.
This means the MCU has free reign to do literally whatever it wants. Bring back a dead hero/villain? Sure. Make a crazy new Dr. Strange movie? Of course. Finally, incorporate the X-Men? God, I hope so.
The MCU lost a lot of fans who only cared about the original Avengers from 2012 so they had to do something big to lure people back. If infinitely expanding the universe and signing Jonathan Majors to an 11-movie deal is the way to do it; I’m all the way in.
END OF SPOILERS
If comic book movies and TV shows aren’t your things and your taste is a little more refined. Firstly, get over yourself and secondly, Summer of Soul (or when the revolution could not be televised) is exactly what you’re looking for.
In his filmmaker debut, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, masterfully tells the story of the best music festival you’ve never heard of. The summer of 1969 wasn’t just for the white hippies at Woodstock. There was an incredible jamboree called the Harlem Cultural Festival happening just down the road.
How come we don’t talk about it in the same breath as Woodstock? Well, because it was organized, performed, and attended by Black people and this is America.
And you don’t have to take my word for it that the talent was comparable, if not surpassing, the Woodstock bands because the lineup speaks for itself. Some of the acts included Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Nina Simone, B.B. King, the Fifth Dimension, and many more.
Summer of Soul is about much more than a music festival, however. Questlove took to the documentary medium like a fish to water by weaving in the cultural and political significance of the event. The film expertly explains how complicated organizing the festival was due to the lack of enthusiasm by the city of New York and the issues it faced since the police department refused to provide security among other things.
Don’t worry though, community activists under the Black Panther Party had it covered.
Summer of Soul (or when the revolution could not be televised) is one of the best documentaries to see this year. It premiered as one of the featured films at Sundance, but it’s currently streaming on Hulu. Check it out now before the Oscars nominate it for three awards.
On the lighter side of the news, America’s richest oligarch and dumbest rich person, Elon Musk, disproved his genius for the millionth time last week.
In case you forgot, in addition to SpaceX and Tesla, the son of the South African Apartheid emerald miner owns another company named Boring Company. Boring Company is known for having the dumbest name possible and building a death-trap tunnel designed to save rich people from a 25-minute walk in Las Vegas.
Well last week, Musk got approval to build another tunnel that only takes Teslas in Ft. Lauderdale, of all places. The project will receive $30 million in tax-payer funding and will mark the 4th such tunnel built by the company.
The publication, Scientific American, named Miami the most vulnerable city worldwide to rising sea levels. It also determined that it would endure “100-year floods” every few years. Miami is 31 miles from Ft. Lauderdale, for context.
It’s not just me (and every climate change specialist) who sees what a stupid idea this tunnel is either. In January 2020, residents of Ft. Lauderdale called on city officials to stop all new development until it figured out how to fix the existing underground infrastructure. This came after the city’s sewage system (which is made up of smaller “loops” if you think about it) kept flooding with ocean water.
You know, building an underground tunnel in a place that will experience massive flooding in the near future sounds like a stupid idea to me. But, what do I know, I’m not a genius.
Meme of the week
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