02 November 2012 @ 06:56 pm
All The Things Friday: Popular Culture  
Welcome to another All The Things Friday! Popular culture is usually something that people discuss in terms of Steve or Thor, specifically their lack of recent pop culture knowledge, but I find it interesting that when it comes to Clint and Natasha every fic I’ve read seems to have a different take.

For example, there are fics where the Avengers have film nights and Natasha doesn’t recognise the films, or she likes black and white movies, or she likes to correct the moves in martial arts films, or she likes musicals, or… When it comes to Clint and music we’ve had great discussions over what music he likes and if he can play the guitar, but then sometimes Natasha recognises the music, sometimes she doesn’t, sometimes she likes it, and sometimes she prefers classical. And so on.

What books, films, television shows, music, etc. do you think our Master Assassins like? Does Natasha like American pop culture, Russian pop culture, or hate pop culture, or hate aspects of pop culture? Was she familiar with American pop culture from her early training, or did she miss out as a kid and she doesn’t care, or she missed out and Clint teaches her? Is she more international in her pop culture tastes? Does she even see the point of pop culture?

What about Clint? If there’s any pattern that I’ve seen it’s that Clint is the more knowledgeable of the two about American pop culture at least, but at the same time SHIELD is often depicted as sending him all over the globe. Has he picked up on international pop culture himself? Has he missed out on pop culture whilst he’s been busy at SHIELD or whilst he may have been out of the country in the Armed Forces or what have you in the past? Does he care about pop culture, or not care, or care about some aspects in particular?

I have a lot of questions, folks, and no answers, just lots of ideas, because I love that all of these and more can be true considering the little that we know about Clint and Natasha from the films. So bring your thinky thoughts, your recs of creative things in which pop culture is a thing, your graphics, new fics or fic ideas, all of the things! Or just grab a drink, settle in, and have a happy Friday :D
 
 
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[identity profile] alphaflyer.livejournal.com on November 3rd, 2012 07:08 am (UTC)
My, I'm late in the game ... it's already Saturday where I am. Oh well.

My personal head canon has Clint wanting to catch up on the education he never got, to get past that "oh he's just a carnie" thing that I see coming at him, in particular from the ever-supercilious Maria Hill. I don't think he'd be wasting his time on airport books or paperbacks.

So when he sits on stakeouts, he'll be reading Shakespeare and the occasional Russian novel (mostly to understand Natasha a bit better) but getting pissed off with the latter 'coz, WHEN WILL THEY EVER GET TO THE POINT, can't they just DIE ALREADY?? Plus, he'd be devouring books on military history and strategy, and on politics/culture in the countries he gets sent to. As the guy who sees better from a distance, he'd be wanting to have the Big Picture for every op he gets sent on. Time and Newsweek, definitely.

As for Natasha -- I see her still acquiring a taste/habit for reading; it wouldn't have been encouraged in the Red Room (my goodness -- it could give you ideas!); she might pick up a chick lit paperback in an airport to pass the time and then go through it in kind of a morbid fascination about the kind of crap some women seem to be interested in ... ;-) Magazines, to get ideas about how to fulfil all those male fantasies when she's on the job. Vogue would be, like, a manual for her.

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