The 2011 movie, “Thor” tells the story of a prince of the planet Asgard who is sent to Earth after betraying his father, King Odin. His power is taken from him, and he cannot return until he proves himself worthy of his power. With the help of his friends, he eventually returns and defeats his brother Loki, who tries to betray him to become king of Asgard. This hero story shows very distinct characters who are heroic and monstrous and they tie in to two articles written in 2010.
The first article talks about ways that a skinny man can get muscular because muscular men are clearly more attractive and wanted by women. The second explains the drop in publicity for women’s sports in the last decade. The values of the hero in Thor and of the women in the movie tie into the issues shown in the above articles. Therefore, Thor is greatly influenced by the events of the year 2010. The importance of strength and muscle in men has been a big issue since the beginning of time, and has increased a lot in the past few years.
Men with little or no muscle are thought to be incapable of fighting, so they cannot protect the people they love. The importance for men not to be skinny is growing, and can be seen in the movie, Thor. The hero in the movie, Thor, is portrayed as being extremely strong and is very muscular. His muscles are shown constantly throughout the movie, and he is shown in one scene with no shirt on, with two women making comments about how fit he is. Unlike Thor, the “monster” in the movie, Thor’s brother Loki is not very built. He is a much smaller guy, so clearly he has to be the one to lose the fight in the end.
While Thor uses his strength in battle, Loki must resort to using magic and tricks in order to defeat his enemies. In the first battle between Thor and the enemies of the Asgardians, the Frost Giants, he is able to defeat hundreds of giants using just his strength, which is represented by his mighty hammer. The hammer is a symbol of Thor’s strength and without it, he does not have the strength to fight. When Thor gets exiled from Asgard for not obeying his father, his father casts a spell on the hammer, making it unavailable to him until he proves to be worthy of its strength.
This is also a representation of weights that men use to build muscle when they work out. Without training and lifting weights, these men would have no muscle, and would not be fit and strong. In turn, they would not be able to protect their loved ones. Without his hammer, Thor is weak as well. He cannot fight and defeat any enemies, so he cannot protect his family, friends and kingdom, until he gets his hammer back. When he finally proves himself worthy of possessing the mighty hammer, Thor is able to get back into the kingdom of Asgard and save his family, his friends and his people.
In the final battle between Thor and his evil brother Loki, Thor uses his hammer to defeat Loki and save the kingdom. Loki must resort to trickery in order to try to defeat Thor. However, since Thor is stronger, he obviously wins the battle. He then also uses the hammer to break the bridge between Asgard and the other planets, cutting off access to Asgard from Jotunheim, the planet of the enemy Frost Giants. Therefore, the man with the muscle defeats the skinny, and therefore weak, man and is honoured by all the people of his kingdom.
It seems that the only way for a man to win over the heart of a woman is to show her how strong he is. Men with muscle seem to be more attractive to women, and this is very clearly shown in movies, advertisements and commercials. Media is constantly encouraging thin men to “bulk up” in order to win over the heart of the girl. Thor is also the character that ends up with a love interest in the story. Everything works out perfectly for the stronger man. Men with muscle are apparently the only men capable of getting a girl, so obviously Thor, who is the biggest and strongest character, ends up getting the girl.
Needless to say, he does this by showing her how strong he is, and how capable he is of protecting her and keeping her safe. She watches his battle with a guard of Asgard, whom Loki sent to kill Thor so he could not destroy his plans of defeating Asgard and becoming King. By giving his life for his friends and his love interest, Thor becomes worthy of the mighty hammer again, and is able to save his friends and the girl. After proving his strength to the girl he loves, Jane, he tells her that he must leave to protect Asgard, but will come back for her.
So, along with being able to single-handedly save a kingdom, Thor also wins Jane’s heart. Once again, the muscle man is the winner. One of Thor’s best friends and warriors is a woman, named Sif. She is a good warrior and goes with Thor into all his battles. However, she is never the hero, never does anything special. The second article talks about the lack of publicity for women’s sports. Less than two percent of sports coverage is devoted to women’s sports, which is much less than the 8. 7% recorded a decade ago.
Women are allowed to play sports, and still play a significant part in the sports world, but they are not featured for their athletic abilities, but rather for scandals that happened on the playing field. It is very clear that women in sports are much underappreciated. Men try to make it seem like they are giving women many equal opportunities by letting them play in national leagues and giving them minor coverage, but women never get to do anything special; never get any special treatment like men do. This can be seen in the movie, Thor.
Sif is a very good warrior and can take on any man, but never gets the chance to do much, because the men are always the heroes. They allow her to fight with them and take her on all their adventures and battles, but she never does anything special. Thor is the one who gets all the attention because he is the strongest and the most heroic, but the women in the movie are either the ones being protected, unable to protect themselves, or the ones who tag along but never get their chance in the spotlight.
The drop in coverage of women’s sports is clearly reflected in the movie, Thor. Movies are reflections of the events of the society in which they were produced. Today’s society puts importance on men and strength, but strong women don’t seem to be present. It seems like men get all the spotlight and women are just tricked into thinking that they are getting what they deserve and that they are being treated equally. Also, more importance seems to be put on strong men, and men who are considered weak are not accepted as much as stronger men.
This is very evident in movies especially, including Thor. Women play either the hero’s love interests or the damsels in distress who need to be saved by the strong hero. The small men are either the evil characters or the characters that don’t matter much. The most importance is put on the strong, fit men, who are always considered the hero. This is very clearly shown in Thor, within the plot and its characters. Therefore, Thor was greatly influenced by the events and issues of the year it was produced in.
