The new Marvel movie “Thor: Love and Thunder” is about to debut in July and with it, Natalie Portaman’s character, Jane Foster, will make her comeback, but this time as Goddess of Thunder. The movie directed by Taika Waititi is long awaited by Marvel’s fans and, for sure, is creating a lot of rumors and high expectations. After all, we will be presented to a heroine that is able to lift the famous hammer.
But why do we need a woman to be Thor? Well, in the comic books, Thor isn’t just a person, it is a power, so anyone who is worthy can have it. In “Avengers: Endgame”, Captain America managed to summon the hammer. So, there’s no reason why Thor’s power couldn’t also be transferred to a woman.
When we look back at Marvel’s earliest movies, we don’t see a lot of female representation. And when we do, the girls usually play the protagonist’s love interest, the person who always needs to be saved by the hero and make him look good. Although there were strong female characters, like Agent Carter, they were very few. Have you noticed that in the first Avengers movie, launched in 2012, the only woman among the “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” is Black Widow?
But, times are changing and, in the last few years, especially during the third and fourth phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we have seen a lot more heroines taking place on the big screens. And Jane Foster is coming to help this scenario by being the first woman to hold the prestigious hammer.
The Importance of the Goddess of Thunder
To play Jane Foster as Thor, Natalie Portman had to go through a lot of physical transformations, since the heroine is superstrong. It will be interesting to see a different type of Marvel heroine than what we are used to, since most of them don’t have a muscular body like the male heroes do. Having this in mind, we need to reflect about the importance of this role to the female viewers. Lately, the studio has been giving more and more spotlights to the heroines, such as Captain Marvel and Black Widow. However, bringing Jane’s story to the movies with one of the main heroes’ names and being worthy of lifting the hammer hits a bit differently.
We already know the story of the God of Thunder and now we will contemplate a woman in possession of one of the Marvel universe’s most important artifacts and with that comes a big responsibility. It is expected from Jane that she presents the intrinsic values of any hero, like honesty, dignity, kindness, confidence and strength (not just physical).
It brings up, to the fans in geral, a huge expectation, because it is a new beginning to the name “Thor”. But, to women, it means representativity related to an already known name. Remains to us, Marvel fans, to hope that we will have our goals for this movie achieved and that this new production surprises us in the best way we can imagine.
Jane’s story
We don’t have much information about this story’s adaptation for the movies yet, but here comes a little of Jane Foster’s trajectory:
Jane, in Stan Lee’s comic books, was a nurse when she met Thor and fell in love with him. Soon, she was taken to Asgard, where she won immortality and the chance to become a goddess. But she failed in the mission and Odin, who ruled the planet, erased her memory and sent her back to Earth, where she got married and built a family. The future heroine’s life turns upside down when her husband and son die in a tragic car accident and she finds out she has cancer.
Then, Thor invites her to be the Earth’s representative on the Congress of Worlds and she becomes a part of the diplomatic corps of the Ten Realms. Even though Jane had access to Asgardian treatments, she strongly refused to be submitted to other kinds of treatment but the human one. Therefore, she divides her routine between chemotherapy and the Congress.
Meanwhile, Thor ends up losing his confidence and becomes unable to lift the Mjolnir, even Odin tries and fails. That way, Jane becomes the Goddess of Thunder, but she has a very different relationship with the hammer, Mjolnir. It seems to have free will, as if they were partners. This situation’s biggest problem is that Jane, when she turns into Thor, loses chemo effects, putting her in the position of having to choose between her treatment and her new call.
Huge expectations
We don’t know, so far, what parts of the comic books will be kept and what parts will be changed. We might be totally surprised by Marvel during the unfolding of this story. The God of Thunder, as the other heroes of the trinity, Iron Man and Captain America, already has three movies that carry his name. So, we can raise two questions: Does this movie’s name refer to him or to Jane? Would this film, even though Jane had already appeared before, be the presentation of the Goddess of Thunder?
One of the only things we can assure is that the word “love” in the title has nothing to deal with a romance between Thor and Jane Foster. Besides that, a heroine taking the name and lifting the hammer of one of the most famous Marvel heroes is a fact that brings by itself huge discussions.
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The article above was edited by Amanda Moraes.
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