In today’s “Boo-F&$%ing-Hoo News”, apparently some 63 people are upset because Thor points out that his brother Loki is adopted in the film, Marvel’s The Avengers.
Mark the date people, this is the date we are officially not allowed to joke about anything, ever, because it might just happen to rub 63 people the wrong way.
For the seven people out there who have yet to see this film, allow me to present you with the dialogue from The Avengers that has just upset 63 people to the point of not being able to function in their daily lives until Marvel/Disney issue an apology:
Steve Rogers: I wanna know why Loki let us take him. He’s not leading an army from here.
Bruce Banner: I don’t think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy’s brain is a bag full of cats. You can smell crazy on him.
Thor: Take care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother.
Natasha Romanoff: He killed eighty people in two days.
Thor: He’s adopted.
Grab your pitchforks everyone! Thor just implied that all adopted people are destined to become mass-murderers! You know, or not.
Jamie Berke was so upset by this line from The Avengers she started a petition. Setting her sights reasonably low, she is looking for 100 signatures.
Marvel Comics – with one line that you carelessly failed to edit out of the script for the Avengers movie, you have insulted adopted children, adult adoptees, and adoptive parents!
In your new movie, The Avengers, the character Black Widow says “He (Loki) killed 80 people in 2 days.” Then the Thor character replies, “He’s adopted.”
Sooo..according to your scriptwriter, the fact he was adopted is the reason he is a bad guy!
Being adopted is NOT something to use for the butt of jokes! Marvel, immediately cease using adoption as the butt of jokes AND issue a public apology to the adoption community!
Miss Berke, the implication made here is not that the reason Loki is evil is because he is adopted, but that Thor is merely distancing himself from the atrocities his brother has committed by noting that he is not blood-related, and in my opinion, inferring that his evil tendencies have nothing to do with his upbringing by Odin (their father) – also it’s a joke and a factual plot point. Throughout the entire film Thor pleads with his brother (aside from this one instance not once does Thor refer to him as anything but just “brother”) to stop the madness he is bringing down on the world, even trying to appeal to fond childhood memories and the close bond they shared growing up. It is very clear that Thor thinks of Loki as nothing but family. Why am I even explaining this?!
All joking aside, adoption is an awesome thing. It brings children to families who perhaps cannot have children of their own (an issue very close to my own heart), and it brings families to those children who -for a multitude of reasons- don’t have one, I get why it can be a sensitive subject. But I find it incredibly hard to believe that the adoption community as a whole are so offended by an off-hand joke in a movie, nor were they ignorant enough to perceive that it in anyway implied that adopted people are evil.
If you are adopted or are a relative of an adopted family member, I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Leave them in the comments below!