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OK WAIT I HAVE MORE TO SAY ABOIT THIS (no one is shocked) but the disconnect of hero body type from hero skill set & often origin story/in universe narrative is SO JARRING ALL THE TIME I know the big one everybody points to is Superman https://twitter.com/blackamazon/status/1386097337341292551
Like, Superman doesn’t have the Superman physique thanks to putting any effort in, because there’s almost no way he *can* workout enough for that physique. He should, since he’s just powered by the sun, be either soft as a pillow pet or skinny as a waif or, you know, both.
But let’s handwave Superman being a male power fantasy as the real explanation for that physique & instead accept that, idk, he’s an alien so alien physiology or whatever. Let me just show y’all this TikTok from Mile O’Laskey https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeQPBJ2M/
And then, like, conversely please just visit the Instagram page of Roberto Bolle, world famous ballet dancer & king of the elegant thirst trap
https://www.instagram.com/p/CAGNNbPoYzE/?igshid=137q51so78a4e
https://www.instagram.com/p/CAGNNbPoYzE/?igshid=137q51so78a4e
I promise you either of these (able bodied white) men are able to do things w/their body & *to your body* that the average human can’t & while that sounds sexual I am mostly talking about things like kicking you in the head so hard your great grand meemaw spits out her dentures
Rn I’m only talking about & comparing cis able bodies white man physiques b/c if you really want to get in to as @Blackamazon said isn’t Clark a farm boy? Lemme show you what the farm boys I grew up with look like, y’all.
Picture 1 is Baby Lei dancing at a wedding with her lifelong friend JD. We are teenage babies in that picture & I want y’all to imagine exactly what his chest & shoulders have done in adulthood ok? You want someone to *punch through a fucking wall?* then or now?
Picture 2 is my friend JT marrying the love of his life, Kelly-Jo. JT’a family *owns the farm* I grew up working on. He was also a state champion wrestler *3 years* in a row & trained (same time I did) with US Olympic Judo Coach (Uncle) Willy Cahill. JT is the fastest man I know.
I meant to say “comparing ‘desirable’ cis able bodied white man physiques” because again, this is what farm boys who help foal horses, raise pigs, bale hay, wrestle in HS, drive tractors, etc actually look like (when they’re white which most farm WORKERS aren’t but 
) https://twitter.com/lelaballerina/status/1386108225322459143
) https://twitter.com/lelaballerina/status/1386108225322459143
NOW LETS TALK ABOUT WOLVERINE AND TAP DANCING. STRAP IN.
Wolverine is canonically 5’3 in the comics. Hugh Jackman is 6’2. Now I (like many!) happen to think Jackman did a phenomenal job as Logan/Wolverine. Hugh Jackman also fairly famously tap dances.
Wolverine is canonically 5’3 in the comics. Hugh Jackman is 6’2. Now I (like many!) happen to think Jackman did a phenomenal job as Logan/Wolverine. Hugh Jackman also fairly famously tap dances.
STAY WITH ME. ALSO, please note Chris Evans has been known to do a drunken soft shoe & like Jackman has roots in theater including musical theater & they both have top tier nuanced emotional performances as superheroes HMMMM IF YOU WANT YOUR BOYS AS BUTCH AS CAP, LET ‘EM TAP
I’m bringing up straight white men tap dancing & superheroes because of this:
That is certified Short King
Gene Kelly & Cyd “The Legs” Charisse.
Gene Kelly, OG Hollywood Heartthrob, singing, dancing, acting, phenomenon Gene Kelly stood a whole entire 5’7. You think he lacked the dexterity to be Wolverine?
Gene Kelly & Cyd “The Legs” Charisse.Gene Kelly, OG Hollywood Heartthrob, singing, dancing, acting, phenomenon Gene Kelly stood a whole entire 5’7. You think he lacked the dexterity to be Wolverine?
You gonna look me in the face, this face of mine, & tell me Jackman’s sense of balance, rhythm, & discipline from his dance training didn’t impact his carriage, performance, & stunt work as Logan? Aaannnnddd to tie this back to bodies 
That would be 31 year old Jackman in X-Men (2000) vs 44 year old Jackman in The Wolverine (2013). By the time he was 47 & playing the same role in Logan (2017) he was explicitly retiring from the character in large part due to the strain on his body & the misery it caused
So connecting back to the @Blackamazon tweet I QT’d to launch this (one of like . . . 4?) interconnected tangent is we know even among athletic, cis, able bodied white men between 19yo - 50yo there’s a big variety of what a functional, strong, fast, flexible body looks like
YET we cast 6’2 Jackman to play 5’3 Wolverine and demand he torture his body in to looking like he’s trying to play Superman (who should look like a man capable of carrying a foal on his arms & those men look like fucking WALLS anyway!) & it is, frankly, boring.
A.) there is, to again tag (because I am again quoting or paraphrasing) @Blackamazon an awful lot to consider in the hottness/lust economy that demand a cookie cutter muscle bound masculinity but can’t seem to avoid sensitive tap dancers & lithe movers of all shapes from being 
B.) It’s bad storytelling. You want me to believe the strongest man in the world, a dude who talks to fishes, an acrobat-archer, a kung-fu master, various aliens & deities, a former All-Star current cyborg, & assorted wizard boxers all have the same body type??
And again, we’re just talking cis able bodied men. I don’t even have the strength to get into this right now (all images from Athlete: A Celebration of Body Diversity by Howard Schatz)
So like, yes. I’m sorry, but the inability to interrogate the social & political narratives around desirability & bodies is, in addition to perpetuating actual white supremacy, fatphobic, ableist, & deeply, tragically BORING.
As per usual I end one of these rants by flopping around dramatically & whining to @Blackamazon that I am BORED. It is so borrrrrinnnngg your list economy bores me - & more importantly it hurts & even kills people.
Couldn’t your evil at least be interesting?
*flops moodily*
Couldn’t your evil at least be interesting?
*flops moodily*
*lust economy, god autocorrect not you too
Ok and I’m again gonna be maybe-too-spicy-for-the-TL here but this is also part of my reservation around Jason Momoa & the wider white media’s reaction to him. I’m not knocking Momoa I’m just saying, I grew up with Kānaka men in my life. Momoa is fiiiine af & I love
That we have a Pacific Islander superhero. But the men in my ohana looked a hell of a lot more like these cousins here https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeQmW14E/
