It is pretty common knowledge even upon its release that the newest entry to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, “The Eternals,” is full on WOKE. This review will reveal just how badly WOKE it is.
There are 10 Eternals in the film. Two Caucasian men. Two Caucasian women and six non-Caucasians. The Eternals are each a type of Demi-god who are created to serve the purposes of Arishem, who is a Celestial and godlike character. Interestingly enough the prefix “Ari,” etymologically means gatherer or best. Just as interesting the suffic “shem” is the father of a particular tribe in Biblical lore. So, placed together Arishem, the god featured in the film, “The Eternals,” means literally, “The best Shem.”
Arishem is a kind of god but he is a god who can’t seem to control his creation. First, he created a group of creatures that was supposed to protect human life by devouring creatures that devoured humans. However, these “Deviants” got out of Arishem’s control. It is the same with the Eternals. Arishem creates the Eternals but the main plot of the film is that the Eternals (except for Ikaris and Sprite) decide to revolt against the purpose for which they were created by Arishem. It seems Arishem is not a sovereign Celestial as his created beings violate their reason for being as falling from the hand of Arishem. This is a story where the creatures rise up to frustrate their creator’s will and they are to be saluted for doing so. Sound familiar?
The theme of “free will” is toyed with a great deal in this film as it is constantly examined whether the Eternals should submit to (by their perception) the irrational will of their creator (Arishem) or whether they should follow their own “free will” by doing what they perceive to be the best. Phostos (an Eternal we will consider below) is a sodomite, who in the film has a line, “I would not change a thing about who I am. I don’t exist for Arishem. I exist for my family.” Clearly the Eternal Phostos has decided to exercise his will against Arishem’s will. In the end the viewer is convinced that it was wise of the Eternals to not follow the will of their creator. The creature must create his own purpose and meaning independent of his creator in order to frustrate the evil purposes of Arishem. This is underscored by the line,
“Every time innocent lives have been sacrificed for the greater good (Arishem’s plan) it turns out to be a mistake. We have to stop (Arishem’s) Emergents.”
Of the two Caucasian men in the Eternals (Ikaris & Druig) Ikaris is the strongest of the Eternals and like all white men everywhere ends up being the treasonous bastard villain who has to be defeated by the combined efforts of the rest of the Eternals. Ikaris ends up committing suicide when his plot to foil the rest of the Eternals in saving planet earth fails. He also is guilty of breaking the heart of one of the non-Caucasian Eternals who he married (polyglot marriage). He is portrayed in the end as selfish.
Druig (the other white Eternal) ends up being cast as someone who doesn’t play nice with the rest of the Eternals. He splits from them and spends his time in a isolated rain forest where he controls the minds of the natives to do his bidding.
The two white females are “Sprite,” and “Thena.” Sprite ends up joining with Ikaris and goes all traitorous burying a knife through the body of the non-Caucasian Eternals hero — Sersi — in an attempt to foil saving earth. She is later forgiven and brought back into the Eternals fold. The other white woman (Thena) is a demigod Amazon type woman. She is cast like Athena in ancient mythology as a goddess of war. However this Thena is afflicted by the equivalent of PMS and she goes nuts trying to kill sundry Eternals. She kills the #2 villain in the film thus doing what no other male Eternal had been able to do.
Of the non-Caucasians the females Ajak is the initial leader. She has the super-hero gift of healing and serves as a kind of motherly spiritual leader for the Eternals. She provides a bridge between Arishem (the God) and the Eternals (the Demigods). She is eventually treacherously murdered by the white male Ikaris because she won’t go along with him in obeying Arishem in destroying all human life so that new life can come forward.
Sersi, the next non-Caucasian female then becomes the nominal leader of the Eternals. Sersi is a gentle soul that has empathy for humans though she carried a torch for thousands of years for no good Ikaris who broke her heart. At the end of the film this women discovers she has powers that she never realized that she had. She single-handedly stops the destruction of planet earth. Her downfall seems though to be for white men as her new love interest is also a white male. In future films that white male will also probably do Sersi wrong. You know how white men are that way.
The next non-Caucasian female Eternal is Makkari. Makkari is played by a deaf actress thus giving the film more WOKE points. Makkari has super human speed. Her main role in this film is that she ends up roughing up the white male Ikaris pretty good as he is trying to stop the earth from being saved.
Of the non-Caucasian males, Phostos is the genius who invents all kinds of things to advance civilization and then to help the Eternals defeat the Celestials. There is a kissing scene where he plants a passionate kiss on his non-Caucasian significant other sodomite. The film culturally appropriates normal family life thus suggesting that two sodomites can raise a little boy just like Ward and June Cleaver raised the Beaver.
Gilgamesh is another non-Caucasian male Eternal. He has the gift of strength. The actor pursued the role in order to be an inspiration to the younger generation as the first Korean superhero. He ends up being killed in battle defending the white female Eternal Thena who was going through one of her PMS crazy moments.
Kingo is an Indian (from India) Eternal. He is a star in Bollywood. He, along with his non-Eternal valet provides the comic relief in the film.
The film is not flattering toward the white Eternals while at the same time lifting up the non-Caucasian Eternals as being virtuous characters without fault.
Another attack on white people is seen in the scene where the 16th century Conquistadors are ravaging the Aztecs Tenochtitlan, pillaging, and murdering the poor innocent Aztecs. There is nothing in the film to suggest that the Aztecs were a demonic possessed, drug-addled, tribe who made routine the sacrifice of countless numbers of their neighboring tribes. Nope, it is just the evil white Europeans.
It is interesting that this film pursues the same plot in term of looming disaster as the plot in the Avengers “Infinity Wars.” In both plots there is the danger of the extinguishing of either a majority of humans (Avengers) or in “The Eternals” the extinguishing of all humanity so that new life can come forth. What is it about this Malthusian population reduction theme? Word is the next film will pursue this same theme by some villain releasing a virus from a secret lab causing untold death on planet earth from both the virus and the vaccine developed from Tony Stark labs.
In both films mentioned in the paragraph above the idea is that by pursuing chaos (widespread destruction) order will arise. This is called the “return to chaos” theory and is exemplified by evolution theory in the real world.
Turning to some incidental observations;
1.) The city of Babylon is portrayed as bliss
2.) One marriage and one funeral both accompanied by Hindu prayers
3.) Hints of the Occult in the “Tree of vision,” and the idea of becoming one
4.) Twisted theme of importance of franken-family
5.) Most hilarious dialogue;
Sersi — “I wonder if I did the right thing”
Kingo — “But you followed your heart. We all did”
