Before seeing the new Marvel Thunderbolts* movie I watched the whole Hawkeye series because I knew it would end with Yelena confronting Hawkeye about the death of her sister, Natasha Romanov. It was a long way to go just for that interaction, but it’s a big part of where Yelena’s head is at for the beginning of the new movie. Then friends at The Morning Stream podcast shared this song that was the opening soundtrack to the Black Widow movie and it really got to me. I don’t know why these characters get to me, they are so flawed on a Greek Tragedy level. I mean they get knocked down to the point where most of us would not be able to get back up, but they do it anyways. And even if they seem to physically recover, there are emotional scars that linger and dig at them. It’s not about things blowing up or super-powers or whatever, it’s what’s going on on the inside of these… people. 

When I was a classroom teacher working in Hawaiian Gardens (CA), I was working with groups of good kids, but I knew mathematically that a good percentage of them would not have the kind of life that many of my Mission Viejo contemporaries grew up with, where one could be a screw-up all the way through high school and still go to college or even have a run-in or two with law enforcement and be able to walk away with a promise to “do better” in the future. My students were not shielded paying for the kinds of “mistakes” kids make growing up with no second chances. 

So, in my off-hours, I indulged in Sci-Fi movies and books to take me to a better place were humans had learned that we did better as a species when all of us are given the best possible opportunities and things weren’t determined by your family’s financial cushion. Or maybe I fell for the appearance of such utopias that hid the still relevant message that humans still need to overcome a difficult and selfish world and that even people with incredible technologies need to work together to survive the challenges of existence. 

This version of the song and the video images reminded me of pain of trying to do the right thing when it seems like it would be so much easier to look the other way or give up. It definitely put me in the right headspace for watching the new movie. Enjoy. 

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Tags: black widow, marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, thunderbolts, video Wednesdays 

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