The Wall Street Journal interviewed Mark Ruffalo about his role as Bruce Banner / The Hulk in The Avengers. Ruffalo likened the movie to Americans:
“You have all these disparate egos, superheroes in this and that, and they refuse to give up some of their positions in order to make a more perfect union and to join the team. That’s really what the whole movie is about: subjugating your own best interest momentarily to further that of the whole.”
Subjugating your own best interest? How’s that about America? We’re all about getting a bunch of money and sticking it in our ears (like ya do) and blowing raspberries at everyone who didn’t stick a bunch of money in their ears. (An action transvestite taught me this.)
As Ruffalo sees it, the film’s message speaks to the times. “I didn’t know it a year ago that it was going to speak to so many of the issues we’re having here in the United States and throughout the world, the same kind of theme.”
Ruffalo has spoken out on behalf of the Occupy movement quite a bit and campaigned against hydraulic fracturing, so I can understand him putting it through his own filter. Plus, he won me over with this:
“These movies reach a lot of people, they’re our modern mythology. […] I think a lot of the beliefs I have and cherish were fostered by the decency of our superheroes, and what they were about and what they were fighting for.” [WSJ]
Yeah, we can totally be friends. Just don’t make that face anymore. It reminds me of the time my roommates died in a freak gasoline fight accident.
[Sources: Wall Street Journal, Coming Soon, LATFG]