Don’t blame Jeremy Renner

spectralarchers:

beautifulpurpleflame:

So I’ve seen a lot of hate directed towards Jeremy Renner’s portrayal of Hawkeye, saying his acting is stilted and too suave/cool for a character who, in the comics, is a train wreck. And I’m here to come to his defense, though he’s not blameless for the Hawkeye we see on screen.

First of all, the character in the MCU is the product of the screenwriters who wrote the character to be cool with the occasional one liner. They wrote him as a guy who’s got his shit together (probably better than the rest of the Avengers) and a family man. Anyone who’s read the comics, especially the Hawkeye series by Matt Fraction and David Aja, knows that the character is really anything but those two things. He’s a mess of a human being. He’s depressed, constantly injured, drinks coffee straight from the pot, feels little self worth, can’t figure out electronics to save his life, doesn’t take care of himself, and is deaf which causes him to isolate himself from everyone around him. So, yeah, his portrayal in the MCU is completely out of character. But you can blame the screenwriters and the studio for that, not the actor.

Second, Jeremy Renner is COMPLETELY capable of playing the comic version of Hawkeye. He’s twice been nominated for Academy Awards. If you don’t believe that he can pull off a burning garbage pile of a human being I refer you to an episode of House M.D. he guest stared on. He played a drug addict lead singer of a rock band who has a mysterious illness. The character is a man who doesn’t care if he lives or dies, doesn’t care what people around him think of him, is your typical depressed drug addict, and yet he volunteers with homeless kids and sneaks off into the hospital to entertain the sick children on the pediatric floor.

Also, the man is basically Clint Barton. Whether it be falling off a stack of chairs during a stunt and breaking both his arms, to getting locked in a bathroom with his pants around his ankles because of said broken arms, to accidentally taking a Viagra instead of an Ambien on a 12 hour flight, to ripping his pants before an interview because he was doing anxiety lunges beforehand, to tripping Clint Eastwood backstage at the Oscars because he was doing said anxiety lunges. In my opinion, it was practically perfect casting.

But he’s not without blame for the MCU Hawkeye. When he got the role he didn’t know who Hawkeye was. Understandable, if you’re not into comics. But what he didn’t do was RESEARCH him which (as an actor myself) is incredibly important for an established character. He just went with what the script said and what the director wanted. So for that he shares a little of the guilt.

The Hawkeye was see on the big screen is the result of what the screenwriters and the studio wanted. I’m sure the only thing they knew about the character was that he was a regular human who is really good with a bow and arrow. And that’s it. They just built a new character from there. They had enough damaged individuals so they made Clint a more grounded, mature member of the team. Was it right? No. Did they miss a huge opportunity? Yes. Is it too late to redeem this character? Hell no! There is always hope for Avengers 4. Most believe Hawkeye has lost his entire family due to Thanos and that causes him to go rogue and become Ronin. The loss of his family, the guilt of not being on the field to protect his loved ones, the anger at his remaining teammates for letting Thanos win, these are all ingredients for a Clint Barton who could finally resemble his comic origins. And if they could reveal that he’s been deaf or have him become deaf in the process of him becoming Ronin, that would be a huge step forward regarding representing disabled superheroes.

In conclusion, PLEASE stop hating on Jeremy. He didn’t write the MCU Hawkeye. He’s not a bad actor. He’s just doing the job he was tasked with to the best of his abilities with the material given to him. Should he pick up a Hawkeye comic? YES! But so should the screenwriters and the studio execs.

This is a wonderful post, and I agree with everything being said.

However, I think a HUGE part of the reason why movie!Clint is so disappointing when put next to Fraction!Clint is because Fraction!Clint came into being AFTER movie!Clint.

I’m not saying that it dismisses any of the other reckless shit Clint has been doing in the comics before – Blindspot, Mockingbird, etc. – but I think that all those who were on tumblr post 2012 and who followed the releases of Matt Fraction’s wonderful comics have forgotten that the comic version we have come to love – Fraction’s portrayal of Hawkeye bled into other version, as seen in Hawkeye vs Deadpool, All new Hawkeye, etc.- is one of the versions of him.

Clint, as a grounded family man, existed before both Fraction and Movie Clint did, and it was the Ultimates version of him. Which they based him off. The vest in the first movie? Ultimates. The villains, The Chitauri? Ultimates. The wife and kids? Ultimates.

Should Renner have done research? Yes.

Has the character Hawkeye exploded, in means of popularity and presence in comics since the movie came out? Yes.

These two things do not cancel each other out – but remember that the comic book character of Clint Barton grew immensely on the pages of the Marvel comic books released after the first Avengers movie. Renner!Clint has barely had half an hour’s screen time to make up for a decade of movie making.

I remember the Clint Barton Fandom on tumblr in 2011 & 2012. Believe me, we were happy with what we go and we made do. I made gifs to fill out the gaps, so did @loveholic198 and @fromthemiddleoftheocean, @shicksome and @staingirl.

Then, a couple of months after, Fraction!Clint came out and he came out big and everyone loved him and appropriated Bed Stuy, Lucky, Kate and all the shenanigans into fics – but it was all because Clint, as a Fandom favorite character was a blank slate.

The writing of the character after that, both in AoU and Civil War was skewered by filming schedules and a shitty directorial (Whedon pushed the family as well as the Brucenat bullshit, even though the actors didn’t want to, and Clint was originally supposed to appear in CACW, but Jeremy was busy with Arrival and some other movies at the time, so the scene was scrapped).

The Fandom history of Clint Barton, as portrayed in media as well as Fandom, is an interesting one, but the number one lesson is always this: the comic book version we love, the one given life to by Matt Fraction, Matt Hollingsworth and David Aja, came FROM Renner’s version of the character.

Pre-Fraction #19, the one where Clint goes deaf, the knowledge that Clint had been deaf before in the comics was LIMITED, and the number of fics or gifs or fanart that incorporated it was LIMITED. The common knowledge that Clinton Francis Barton became Ronin in the comics was EXTREMELY LIMITED up until a year and a half ago – mainstream wise. I’ve made gifsets and written fics of Ronin!Clint in 2015, and I don’t want to gatekeep because it is not my intention but everyone acting like they’ve always known about Ronin is a LIE.

Up until a year and a half ago, nobody gave a shit about Ronin nor about Clint’s character in the MCU, because he wasn’t interesting – I don’t blame them because the character could have used more love. But, BECAUSE Clint has disappeared from a whole Avengers movie, never mentioned, and BECAUSE of the family plot line, and BECAUSE of the Ronin thing, he’s suddenly become very interesting and popular.

Which is not a bad thing.

But you need to understand why the Fandom’s representation of Clint is so distorted, compared to either movie Clint or comic Clint.

I could write a whole book about the development of the Hawkeye Fandom on Tumblr, LJ, Ao3 and others.

Until then, let’s cross our fingers that Clint finally manages to overtake the likes of Erik Selvig and other characters in means of screen time. Because the fact that Erik has had more screen time than Clint is a travesty.