This Is Not News

I finally got around to watching Iron Man over the weekend, and I liked it a lot. Definitely the best superhero origin movie I can remember, and considering how much of the movie Robert Downey, Jr. has to spend talking to himself, that’s pretty impressive. But there has been something nagging at me since I finished the movie and started looking at some of the deleted scenes: there’s a really ugly attitude toward women present. I know Tony Stark has the whole playboy lifestyle, but we’re going beyond a guy who dates a lot of women to a guy who employs flight attendants whose job appears to be to double as strippers who are willing to sleep with Stark and anyone he’s flying on his jet. And almost every woman in the movie appears prepared to drop whatever they’re doing to hop into bed with Stark. Even the reporter who antagonizes Tony, confronts him with evidence of his company’s wrongdoing, and questions his cover story sleeps with him. And after she does, she gets catty with Pepper Potts – seemingly the only woman who has avoided sleeping with Tony – and Pepper returns the favor. My sense is that this is all supposed to be a joke – that Tony is an irresponsible hedonist ramped up to the nth degree and the movie wants to showcase that excess. But I can’t help but be a little worried about people who don’t pick up on the joke, or who think Tony has it right in the first place.