Reckoning with Ragnarok: Critique and Reinterpretation in Marvel’s Thor Franchise

Abstract

As media conglomerates continue to grow and subsume smaller artists and studios, attending to the types of narratives they are producing and how those narratives serve or complicate the aims of the overall corporation becomes increasingly important. Furthermore, Disney’s global reach as an American media franchise can be considered a product and extension of historical colonial violence, even as some of its products purport to critique such forms of oppression. In this project, I examine how Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok, directed by Māori filmmaker Taika Waititi, reframes the glorified civilization of Asgard as a violent colonial empire, a fascinating recontextualization that potentially critiques not only sanitized narratives of colonialism but Disney’s utilization of them. The movie was commercially successful, raising further questions on how the film critiques and serves Disney. I question how Thor: Ragnarok constructs its critique of its fantasy-colonialism and the parameters of that engagement. To accomplish this, I perform a close reading of the film alongside contextual materials such as previews, interviews, and previous Marvel media from which it draws. I argue that Thor: Ragnarok reframes and subverts the previous Thor movies to critique historicized and overtly violent colonialism, and constructs a simultaneous critique of ongoing legacies of colonialism and systems of oppression. Its critique of ongoing oppression is couched in humor, avoiding being provocative in a way that would alienate audiences accustomed to the previous whitewashed depictions of power and empire or fully implicate Disney’s participation in those narratives.