Disney/Marvel's "Ironheart"...a modern retelling of "Faust"

[RDKirk]

Disney's "Ironheart" has come and gone, unlikely in the extreme to get a second season, so it must be judged according to what we've got.​

There is a lot to dislike about Ironheart, beginning with its overeuse of outdated racial stereotypes that should have gone away in the 70s. The characters are a perfect example of writers who don't know anything about real people...they're writing characters based on characters they've seen in other media.

I couldn't get over the basic premise of the show: A technological genius named Riri Williams can't think of any way to make money except to join a Chicago criminal gang. Other people from the hood with even a smidgen of talent--like athletes and rappers--do better than that.

The writers portray Riri as completely self-interested and unable to accept responsibility for her own actions. She lies to those who love her most, putting family and friends in danger.

Moreover, it seems the writers have a glimmer of this: Halfway through the series, they actually have several characters spell out to her what her problems are, and instead of turning over a new leaf (the usual trope), she doubles down. Ultimately, she literally makes an deal with Marvel's analog of Satan to resurrect the dead friend she can't seem to live without.

It seems to me that the writers intend to tell this story as a classical tragedy of a protagonist eventually dragged to destruction by the inability to overcome their own character flaws.

If not...they're just stupid.

Faust Element	Doctor Faustus (Marlowe/Goethe)	Ironheart (Disney+/Marvel)
Gifted, restless genius	Faustus is a brilliant scholar, bored with limits	Riri is a prodigy, surpassing even Tony Stark's intellect
Desire beyond human limits	Wants ultimate knowledge and power	Desperate to undo death, Riri seeks to defy reality
Deal with the Devil	Faustus trades his soul for 24 years of power	Riri bargains with Mephisto for the resurrection of a friend
Rational vs. metaphysical	Torn between theology and necromancy	Riri, an engineer, grapples with science vs. supernatural
"You won’t miss it"	Faustus is tricked about the real cost	Mephisto’s phrasing mirrors classic demonic manipulation
Tragic weight	Faustus realizes too late what he’s done	Implicit tragic seed: What did Riri give up unknowingly?

 

[eclipsenow]

Disney's "Ironheart" has come and gone, unlikely in the extreme to get a second season, so it must be judged according to what we've got.​

There is a lot to dislike about Ironheart, beginning with its overeuse of outdated racial stereotypes that should have gone away in the 70s. The characters are a perfect example of writers who don't know anything about real people...they're writing characters based on characters they've seen in other media.

I couldn't get over the basic premise of the show: A technological genius named Riri Williams can't think of any way to make money except to join a Chicago criminal gang. Other people from the hood with even a smidgen of talent--like athletes and rappers--do better than that.

Oh the humanity! I can't look!

The writers portray Riri as completely self-interested and unable to accept responsibility for her own actions. She lies to those who love her most, putting family and friends in danger.

Moreover, it seems the writers have a glimmer of this: Halfway through the series, they actually have several characters spell out to her what her problems are, and instead of turning over a new leaf (the usual trope), she doubles down. Ultimately, she literally makes an deal with Marvel's analog of Satan to resurrect the dead friend she can't seem to live without.

Oh wow - a new low for Marvel - yet probably without the gritty writing that would make such a scenario interesting (for those of us goth enough to care.)

It seems to me that the writers intend to tell this story as a classical tragedy of a protagonist eventually dragged to destruction by the inability to overcome their own character flaws.

If not...they're just stupid.

She couldn't get a job in a cybersecurity firm? Website designer and backend database management? I dunno - go to STARK industries and work on their kit?

I decided to avoid it from the trailers alone. I'm glad you're unpacking this for me, as it's a good vaccination against temptation to watch it. I saw the level of tech she was inventing in her dorm room and just asked "How is she AFFORDING this?" At least Tony Stark was a billionaire weapons inventor and lab guy. I don't care how technically brilliant she is - this stuff costs money to setup and even Stark needed JARVIS to help him!

Keep in mind before I say the next thing that I'm a raving lefty greenie who thinks America should nationalise half their hospitals as government owned and operated to offer universal healthcare at half the price. I think Bidenomics was working, and that the IRA was the most boringly named policy for the most powerful industrial reform America has seen in decades as it was bringing GREEN manufacturing home. I also think Black Lives Matter, and respect various sociological papers that show how racist town planning policies in the past disrupted black neighbourhoods that were starting to have a sense of coherence in the 1950's and drove a highway through their neighbourhoods - shifting them all again. Etc etc etc.

But another thing I hate? Bad writing. Especially bad writing about important things like race. Especially what I would call "lazy woke" writing! (And as I was explaining above - I'm woke about some things - a conservative Christian on others. Politics is messy.)

So here is my question: did the show kind of ask us to excuse this girl because it was a girl of COLOUR inventing all this!?

Faust Element	Doctor Faustus (Marlowe/Goethe)	Ironheart (Disney+/Marvel)
Gifted, restless genius	Faustus is a brilliant scholar, bored with limits	Riri is a prodigy, surpassing even Tony Stark's intellect
Desire beyond human limits	Wants ultimate knowledge and power	Desperate to undo death, Riri seeks to defy reality
Deal with the Devil	Faustus trades his soul for 24 years of power	Riri bargains with Mephisto for the resurrection of a friend
Rational vs. metaphysical	Torn between theology and necromancy	Riri, an engineer, grapples with science vs. supernatural
"You won’t miss it"	Faustus is tricked about the real cost	Mephisto’s phrasing mirrors classic demonic manipulation
Tragic weight	Faustus realizes too late what he’s done	Implicit tragic seed: What did Riri give up unknowingly?

Again - "Oh the humanity!"

 

[RDKirk]

But another thing I hate? Bad writing. Especially bad writing about important things like race. Especially what I would call "lazy woke" writing! (And as I was explaining above - I'm woke about some things - a conservative Christian on others. Politics is messy.)

So here is my question: did the show kind of ask us to excuse this girl because it was a girl of COLOUR inventing all this!?

What offended me, right off the bat, was the concept that Riri Williams couldn't find a way to raise money. Her "excuse" was that she couldn't stand the idea of working for someone else ("having to pretend to like people I don't like"...as if that's not a sign of a personal issue in itself).

But one of the things she did was to invent a personal force field projector that could be worn like a wristwatch. She sold it to another student for a couple of hundred dollars. But it could easily have made her a billionaire...entire nations would have been throwing suitcases of money at her.

She wouldn't have had to work for anyone, she could have hired some people and become her own corporation like Serena Williams or Simone Biles.

I was also offended by the "I'm a black woman, so the world is against me and I can't compete" victimization line she constantly implied with no push-back from any other characters. I already mentioned people like Simone Biles. But there's also the example of Mae Jemison--who is another real-world woman from South Chicago like the character Riri Williams. Mae Jemison became an engineer and a physician (whew!) and was the first black woman astronaut. Jemison is the real-world "Ironheart."

That "I'm a black woman, so the world is against me and I can't compete" line is just hogwash.

I was also offended that they reached all the way back to the 70s to create characters that were nothing but urban black stereotypes. The writers clearly don't know any real black people, so they based their characters on other characters.

 

[eclipsenow]

But one of the things she did was to invent a personal force field projector that could be worn like a wristwatch. She sold it to another student for a couple of hundred dollars. But it could easily have made her a billionaire...entire nations would have been throwing suitcases of money at her.

Great point! Depending on the tech, she may have just changed warfare forever - a bit like the Dune universe! Imagine how much money people would pay - even just to walk downtown without being shot or stabbed.

 

[RDKirk]

Okay. At the 36-minute point in the second episode, after participating in her first gang heist, Riri Williams stands in front of a wall covered with Faust posters while her AI tries--and fails--to warn her that she's playing with strange fire.


I might have to revise my opinion of the writers...maybe they did know what they were doing.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Disney's "Ironheart" has come and gone, unlikely in the extreme to get a second season, so it must be judged according to what we've got.​

There is a lot to dislike about Ironheart, beginning with its overeuse of outdated racial stereotypes that should have gone away in the 70s. The characters are a perfect example of writers who don't know anything about real people...they're writing characters based on characters they've seen in other media.

I couldn't get over the basic premise of the show: A technological genius named Riri Williams can't think of any way to make money except to join a Chicago criminal gang. Other people from the hood with even a smidgen of talent--like athletes and rappers--do better than that.

The writers portray Riri as completely self-interested and unable to accept responsibility for her own actions. She lies to those who love her most, putting family and friends in danger.

Moreover, it seems the writers have a glimmer of this: Halfway through the series, they actually have several characters spell out to her what her problems are, and instead of turning over a new leaf (the usual trope), she doubles down. Ultimately, she literally makes an deal with Marvel's analog of Satan to resurrect the dead friend she can't seem to live without.

It seems to me that the writers intend to tell this story as a classical tragedy of a protagonist eventually dragged to destruction by the inability to overcome their own character flaws.

If not...they're just stupid.

Faust Element	Doctor Faustus (Marlowe/Goethe)	Ironheart (Disney+/Marvel)
Gifted, restless genius	Faustus is a brilliant scholar, bored with limits	Riri is a prodigy, surpassing even Tony Stark's intellect
Desire beyond human limits	Wants ultimate knowledge and power	Desperate to undo death, Riri seeks to defy reality
Deal with the Devil	Faustus trades his soul for 24 years of power	Riri bargains with Mephisto for the resurrection of a friend
Rational vs. metaphysical	Torn between theology and necromancy	Riri, an engineer, grapples with science vs. supernatural
"You won’t miss it"	Faustus is tricked about the real cost	Mephisto’s phrasing mirrors classic demonic manipulation
Tragic weight	Faustus realizes too late what he’s done	Implicit tragic seed: What did Riri give up unknowingly?

.... and here I thought that a faustian style story was more a Ghost-Rider plot rather than an Iron-heart plot.