Ironheart Is Out. Was It Any Good?
What could one say about a show starring a Black woman genius in Chicago? A whole lot.
The “Internet” was prepared to hate.
As soon as Ironheart was announced, some people began sharpening their weapons.
Before it touched the airwaves, they were saying this show will fail. They took dumps on Riri as a character. They said her existence would make Iron Man look weak. They used all the racist words of the day and said, "Ironheart is a woke, DEI, scam that Marvel is doing because they have to, or 'you people' would get mad." Once Ironheart came out, some people review-bombed it. They wanted anyone who might enjoy Ironheart torn away from our collective digital teat and thrown upon the ground.
That is how much they hated a show that had not come out yet. That is what they tried to do after it did.
Some of us understand this attitude. Some of us know where it comes from. We can't talk to those people about it without them saying we "make it about race" or whatever. Many don’t want to bother, but I will do it right here.
Their attitude comes from hatred.
"A Disney television show starring a BLACK WOMAN in an IRON MAN-inspired suit will be BAD. There is no way it could be GOOD. I am never WRONG. Everyone who likes it is a corporate "SHILL."
These people don't see themselves at all. It doesn't matter if they try to deny it. That's another group doing their best to steal Black joy, and we should not let them in any of our spaces (unless they're ingers). Not anymore.
Let those people enjoy the all-white Avengers or the all-white Thunderbolts. We don't have to make things about race. The corporate shills and these… people will do it for us.
Wow... So, is Ironheart good?
In my opinion, Ironheart was spectacular.
It has its own vibration. Ironheart was dark and stressful. It attempted to induce the same kind of panic attacks in us that Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) experiences in the show.
There is also optimism that slides through at a low hum. You can feel it back there despite how terrible Riri's life becomes after getting kicked out of MIT. In six episodes, they take Riri Williams on quite a journey that leads to... something twisted and unexplained.
Riri Williams is too logical to let anyone in. Like a Black Mr. Spock in an iron suit, Riri speaks, but you have to think too much to get it. She doesn't seem to like much other than the suit; she focuses on building that got her into Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. She lives with the pain of losing her stepfather and best friend at the same time, in a freeze state remaining unable to help either. Riri's life is hard and unfair. Due to her monstrous intelligence, she tries to cut out all the things that have traumatized her.
In many ways, "trauma" is what Ironheart is all about. How do you get over a world that wants to destroy you? How do you make a life amongst people who continue to hate you for things you cannot change? How do you deal with rampant unfairness in a world without two of your most important people in it? How do you make something iconic without Tony Stark's incredible resources?
Ironheart is a lot. It has to be. As Malcolm X once said, "The most disrespected person in the world is the Black woman." Malcolm was a lot of things, but a liar was not one of them. Ironheart puts that pain on display. It's almost good so many people were being assholes about it. It makes that deeper message hit even harder.
There were some great minds tapped to make this project possible. Marvel deserves a lot of appreciation for allowing something like this to grace our screens. Thank the producer, Ryan Coogler, while you're at it. Thank the directors, Samantha Bailey and Angel Barnes. Thank the entire cast and crew.
Ironheart is good. It's invincible, like many Black women have to be when hate like what I described above comes their way. Rather than the hurt, Ironheart does an even better job of showing how to release that pain and move through it. It wants to help us be psychologically better by teaching us ways to deal with panic attacks, showing us who we can trust, and showing who we should not trust. Most shows don’t take things that far.
I liked Ironheart a lot. I hope you like it too.
And before I go:
Special effects were great.
The soundtrack was unbelievable (especially the Santigold part)!
I can only tell when the acting was bad, so it all seemed really good to me.
Ironheart is at 86% on Rotten Tomatoes (at time of writing).
Cree Summer is in it, and she's been dope since Inspector Gadget.
There! Now go finish it and come back to talk about the ending!
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