Recently I stopped reading a popular book partly because the story hinged on the death of children. Not that I was pro-killing children in art before, but since becoming a parent, that's a plotline I and many people with families have difficulty with, especially if the story doesn't really merit it. What about the deaths of everyone else, in theory to protect a couple of kids? That's a plot "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" wants us to swallow, making a mother the villain.
In the latest Marvel film, Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) is a single mother (in some universes), yet her actions in the film defy logic, seemingly out of step not only for a mom but for her established character. More plot device than person, is this one more woman role written thinly by a man, "Loki" scribe Michael Waldron (with notes from Olsen)? The movie's idea of motherhood and womanhood is shallow, at best: an Instagram fantasy.
