somethingjustsouthofbrilliance:
Stark Expo Vs Star Spangled Man with a Plan (because they’re so brilliantly different)
The difference is that Steve totally, totally wants to be anywhere but there. Someone put the scrawny kid from New York in a silly costume and shoved him out there.
Tony? Cheering crowds, good looking women, lots of media and fireworks? Bring it on! It’s still not as excessive as Tony’s own ego.
Oooh, this! They are literally polar opposites but still best friends in the comics. I need Age of Ultron to have more Steve and Tony interaction,
Actually, neither Steve nor Tony want to be there. Tony’s actually dying here, & the scene cuts away to him behind the scenes checking his vitals. However, Tony has a persona to play & he plays it remarkably well.
The Stark Expo is a façade. It’s a distraction. It’s a rouse because, again, HE’S DYING.
Essentially, he & Steve are in the same position – dancing monkey – but Tony appears to love it, but it’s a façade. He’s just as uncomfortable, if not, more so than Steve is (because HE’S DYING), but Steve’s the one that can’t school his expressions.
It’s about two very different men reacting to similar situations in different ways because of their different experiences.
Reblogging for that last bit. That’s some a++ commentary right there. The only difference between them is Tony was raised in it so he knows the song and dance and how to play a crowd from the get go.
It never fails to amaze me how often that critical part of Tony’s character gets overlooked by fandom. Maybe Tony at one point was the mask, only to have it shattered by Yinsen. Paralleled, I might add, by Steve’s show performing for Bucky’s Unit, only to find out he was MIA. It was his path to heroism as much as Yinsen’s was Tony’s. The serum didn’t make him a hero. His friendship with Bucky did. Iron Man would not exist if Yinsen hadn’t saved Tony and sacrificed his life for his escape, changing him.
But the whole point is at heart, they aren’t fundamentally different men. They may have different approaches, they may have different ways of handling things due to their different upbringing, but in many ways, they are remarkably similar.
People still don’t see past the Tony Stark we were introduced to in the first twenty minutes of IM1, even after we’ve seen multiple examples of self-loathing on Tony’s part even in that movie. Tony doesn’t love this kind of attention; he never has. He’s just gotten ridiculously good at giving the public what they want to see, but by CW he’s reached a point where he can’t even fake that anymore.
#THAT! LAST! COMMENT! #absolutely NAILS the reason why i appreciate the detail that after his MIT presentation #tony is so fucking ready to avoid people and leave#the presentation itself is so honest compared to that of IM2 #and such a good callback to directly-post-captivity IM1 tony #who set foot on American soil and called for a press conference #and asked everybody to sit down #publicly told stane that it was really good to see him #and then confessed to a group of reporters and photographers #that he NEVER GOT TO SAY GOODBYE TO HIS DAD #like tony’s been feeling this need to be a real person since IM1 #(there’s a deleted dubai sequence that is so entirely heartbreaking where he has pepper prepare one of those Tony Stark Parties in dubai #bc he planned to use that as an alibi so he could fly off to gulmira #so he has to make the rounds and be seen at the party ~picking up women to have sex with and stuff; and it’s gut-wrenching to watch #post-afghanistan tony trying to pull off the pre-afghanistan partyboy persona like #he LITERALLY WHIMPERS AT ONE POINT and has an ENTIRE MONOLOGUE ABOUT REPUTATION which he delivers while women are following him to the #bedroom taking off his sunglasses and all; like he’s even trying to tell them about how ‘HE HAS NEVER BEEN COMFORTABLE WITH HIS REPUTATION’ #[actual quote] and the painful af irony is that the girls turn it into sexual innuendo ‘aw now what are we going to do about that’. #he’s talking about how easy it is to get a reputation and how hard it is to lose it and his image is so tangled up in it that the girls make #it about sex – go youtube this IMMEDIATELY) #it is actually a crime that the iron man franchise didn’t bring tony’s public behavior full circle by including a public presentation thing #like that from cap 3 – he’s still funny he’s sophisticated he knows how to engage an audience #but he’s also an academic; he’s a business leader; he’s openly generous and he’s not there for the adulation #as evidenced by his avoidant behavior directly after the presentation. holy fuck just kill the idea that tony stark #EVER enjoyed being the man he publicly pretended to be before captivity #and when he was ISOLATING HIMSELF AND LITERALLY DYING IN AN ARC THATS A REFERENCE TO TONY STARK’S #EXPLICIT POST-IRON MAN STRUGGLE WITH ADDICTION AND SELF-DESTRUCTION IN THE COMICS #HOLY SHIT GUYS COME ON #I FEEL THIS SO FUCKING STRONGLY MY GOD IT IS THE ENTIRE LITERAL POINT OF THIS CHARACTER CONCEPT LIKE HE WEARS ARMORS!!!!!! HE WEARS ARMORS (knightinironarmor strikes again)
Reblogging for those last comments. Because how can you still, after all the movies, NOT see the mask Tony wears in public?
Those tags are so true. The whole Dubai party scene was basically showcasing how uncomfortable Tony was in these social situations. He does whimper like he’s panicking on the inside at one point (ugh). And then when he’s basically handed these two women to have sex with, he goes on about how not really okay with it he is as he escorts them off to “have sex” (he never actually does have sex with them):
Tony: “Honestly, I am not entirely comfortable with this. And I never have been. You know how easy it is to get a reputation and how hard it is to lose? And I’m not playing victim, I’m not complaining, it’s just… something that has occurred over time–”
Woman: “Oh you poor thing.”
Tony: “–and I bare the brunt of it.”
Woman: “What are we going to do about that?”
Tony [to another woman on the side]: “Say, would you mind joining us briefly?” [back to topic] “People have limiting beliefs [trails off]”
[The three women collapse onto a bed, while Tony puts his things away]
Tony:
[taking off his jacket]
“Oh, and as luck would have it. Nothing’s perfect.” [picks up champagne] “They forgot the glasses.” [Takes off tie.] “I’ll… be right back.“
Women: [upset] "Awww.”
Tony: “Why don’t you guys get started without me?”
Woman: “Kinky.” [laughing]
[Tony gets outta there as fast as he can and takes off in his Iron Man suit]
Tony used the party as a cover for his activities in Gulmira, but then it was nothing but a big painful reminder of who Tony used to be and the reputation he has and the “suit” he has to carry with him all the time.
iampinbitch 