Poster Analysis: Thor Love and Thunder

Thor Love and Thunder is a recent film released in July of 2022 made by the infamous marvel studios who only recently started making movies making their debut in 2008, meaning their representations will be similar to views today.

This film has a huge emphasis on the representations of women and their empowerment, we can infer this from the symbolic codes of Valkyrie raising her arm up high with a weapon in hand and Mighty Thor in the foreground of the frame with Thor's iconic weapon of Mjolnir in hand therefore showing the viewer the women will be fierce and fighting not being the stereotypical damsel in distress. However, if we were to put this poster in front of someone like Van Zoonen she may pick out the title and suggest that this movie is a negative representation as it could imply Jane is the 'Love' and Thor is the 'Thunder' making her appear less than him.

Conforming to the theory of the renowned Claude Levi Strauss there are clear indicators of the generic and well known good vs evil motif as we can see on the left there is the enigma code of the eerie, creepy, looming figure shrouded in a deep blood red colour scheme almost foreshadowing a characters death, starkly contrasted by the calming sky blue imagery. Furthermore we can see the 'Bifrost' behind the two lead characters which is both a referential code to other Thor appearances in the MCU but also an enigma code as to where they are and what they are doing. Another binary opposite presented in this poster is the bottom of the poster being extremely dark compared to the brighter tones towards the top half. This may have been done to foreshadow the darker tones and themes of this movie.

Back on the topic of representations, this movie has two heroines with only one hero showing that women empowerment could be interpreted as a main theme of this movie. If we look at this through the eyes of a theorist such as bell hooks then she may think one of two things, 1: that Valkyrie having a darker skin tone while still being shown as beautiful and strong is a really positive representation, or 2: Jane being shown in the foreground and as the clear romantic interest to Thor is showing a bad representation of women. Continuing, I strongly disagree with Stuart Hall's theory of representation in terms of this poster as he believed in his hierarches and that groups such as women where under/mis-represented, I oppose this when it comes to Thor Love and Thunder as we can see a main female role and a lead female role played by a woman of colour negating and mis/under-representation of people of colour either.

Overall, I believe Thor Love and Thunder is an overwhelmingly positive representation of women and I highly recommend it to anyone who has not watched it yet.