Deadpool is Awesome

1/22/2017—I don’t normally blog about cultural matters like movies, but I have to say that Deadpool is a clever and funny experience. From the self-referential opening credits to the shooting of the British villain in the face of the uplifting speech, “you were droning on,” the movie is ironic without being mean. Nor in any way does it trash good and evil, despite its stated willingness to do so. Deadpool is like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, when asked by his wife, Jamie Lee Curtis, in True Lies, whether he had ever killed anybody, responded, yes, but they all deserved it.

What also struck me in watching Deadpool was a reference to God. As described in the New York Times, “During one gory scene, when Deadpool’s arm is geysering blood, he quips: ‘Are you there, God? It’s me, Margaret,’ referring to the 1970 Judy Blume book about a sixth grader anxiously awaiting her first period.”

Now I have been on a movie watching binge the last two days—Erased, Sisters, Deadpool and How to be Single—and that is the only reference to God I remember. God has simply exited most movies. The portrayal of American life, for youngish people especially in How to be Single, reflects a life utterly without depth and guide beyond the vague self-help book type references. In the last scene, Alice achieves her goal of watching the sun come up in the Grand Canyon. Even there, her earlier explanation of this goal, is that doing this would show that she is willing to actually live, rather than learning anything about beauty or transcendence from the experience itself.

One last thing—-Marvel did not make Deadpool nearly hideous enough. Or maybe he looked worse at some points than others in the movie. It was more fun, but not satisfying, that Meghan would obviously be able to adapt to life with him. The animated version of Beauty and the Beast was more honest in rendering the hero not really human. Of course the outside face was supposed to be merely the physical reflection of the inner reality that Deadpool was a different person, not easy to love. But, the movie had no intention of demonstrating that—-Deadpool did not seem to change at all.