Sebastian Stan Threw Shade At Marvel on Instagram, Fandom Erupts

Sebastian Stan has seemingly thrown some shade at the writing in Avengers: Endgame through his Instagram story. And honestly, he’s right.

The Instagram story Sebastian Stan posted is a screenshot of a tweet aimed at the Marvel UK Twitter account. It calls the direction of Steve Roger’s character in the film “bad, inconsistent, out-of character [sic].” It goes on to say that the famous “end of the line” quote should actually be “together until the end of the lie” now.

It’s a brutal smackdown, but one that’s not entirely out of left field. In my review of the film, I was running on an emotional high and wasn’t as critical of the conclusion of his arc at the time, but I’ve definitely engaged in a lot of conversations since then about how out of character his actions were.

He went back in time to be with Peggy, which does give him a fairy tale ending, but does so at the cost of so many other aspects of his character. His justice-focused motivation was thrown out the window to make this story happen and it’s been upsetting for a lot of fans.

Steve Rogers left behind not just Bucky (because yes, a lot of us are Stucky shippers, so that’s part of it here), but also so many friends and teammates that he’d grown close to over the years. And while he’s living his life out back in time, he has to ignore a huge amount of injustices going on in the world around him just so he can have his happy ending. Would Captain America really be able to sit by and watch all of that happen just to be with the woman he loved? 

Most fans think that he wouldn’t be able to do so. His character would stick with his current timeline, sacrificing his own potential happy ending to continue fighting the injustices in the world. He would, you know, stick with Bucky and the team until the end of the line. He would not just bounce out into early retirement and leave everyone else to pick up the pieces.  

Fix-it fanfics have taken more care to make sense of it than canon has. Bless the fix-it fic writers, for without them we would be truly lost. They’ve made the end of Endgame actually somewhat palatable. They are the real heroes, honestly. Where would we be without you?

The incident is reminding a lot of people of what happened with John Boyega last month, where he unashamedly called out the Reylo story arc in Rise of Skywalker and criticized the very concept of the ship.

2 halves of the gayest ships in disney that got done dirty coming together to hate on the homophobes of the movie industry amen

— east (@ITSUlTSYOU) January 30, 2020

Even Boyega has made note of the similarity, welcoming him into the club of Disney actors who have gone Dark Side by posting their opinions on writing decisions on social media.

Welcome Mr Stan ! Welcome. pic.twitter.com/iuhHD2bbnR

— John Boyega (@JohnBoyega) January 30, 2020

It’s interesting to note that both Boyega and Stan’s criticisms are related to 1) Disney properties and 2) shipping culture. I think we can conclude at this point that Disney isn’t doing all that great understanding shipping culture, whereas the actors seem to be much more in tune with fandom trends and their massive amount of shipper fans. Sebastian Stan has been particularly pro-ship when interacting with fans at cons.

One of the key differences, however, is that Boyega’s was adamantly anti-ship (against Reylo), whereas Stan’s was fairly pro-ship (for Stucky). As a result, the two statements are getting very different fan reactions on social media. 

The reactions to Boyega’s tweet was somewhat divided, with an edge going to people who found Reylo to be an unhealthy ship that should not have been made canon. And, for the record, while I don’t personally ship Reylo, I’m very much a “ship and let ship” person. So, I did feel sort of bad for the fans that were getting dragged through the mud by an actor on Twitter for their shipping preferences. 

Still, Boyega is a man with an opinion and as much as it sucks for those who shipped it to get blasted like that, at the end of the day it was a guy who’d completed his contract just stating his opinion and dancing away happily with his giant Disney check.

Sebastian Stan, however, seems to be fairly pro-Stucky with his Instagram story. The “I’ll be with you until the end of the line” quote is basically the Stucky quote. So, by tossing up a tweet that criticizes the story trajectory as undercutting the line, he’s fueling shippers who feel they’ve been done dirty by Disney. I’m sure someone out there will take the opposite stance, of course, but the reactions so far seem to be fairly consistently backing Stan up for the post.

One of the key differences here, however, is that John Boyega’s contract with Disney had concluded with the last Star Wars film, whereas Sebastian Stan still has the Falcon and the Winter Soldier Disney+ show, which is currently still filming and set to premiere later this year.

I very much hope he didn’t shoot himself in the foot with this shade. I’m looking forward to this show probably more than anything else in the MCU right now.

And now I guess we just have to wait and see if Sebastian Stan will face any repercussions for this. As stated, they are still shooting the first season of the show. Will this mean Disney might reconsider making more of the show going forward? Was this show going to be the end of his contract anyway, or is there still more left? Was he also preparing to waltz away into the sunset with his giant Disney check while flipping The Mouse the bird, or are things about the get super uncomfortable for him for a while? 

I… don’t have answers for any of these. We’ll see, I suppose.

Author: Angel Wilson

Angel is the admin of The Geekiary and a geek culture commentator. They earned a BA in Film & Digital Media from UC Santa Cruz. They have contributed to various podcasts and webcasts including An Englishman in San Diego, Free to Be Radio, and Genre TV for All. They identify as queer.

Help support independent journalism. Subscribe to our Patreon.

Copyright © The Geekiary