Wandavision: Marvel’s New Approach to Storytelling
By Jack Fenner
*Spoiler Warning*
Marvel studios have typically never grabbed my attention. I even often find Marvel films bland because of their lack of storytelling. Every film they make just feels like it follows the same plot with new characters. However, with the new release of the TV show “WandaVision” on Disney+, Marvel has impressively upped their storytelling capability far beyond anything I have ever expected.
“WandaVision” follows the story of two protagonists, Wanda and Vision, from “The Avengers” series who are living out their lives in an alternate reality which manifests itself in the form of a sitcom. So far there have only been five episodes out of the nine episode series and yet the story is already proving to be far more interesting than any other marvel film I have ever seen. In the series we know one thing for certain, Wanda is creating this alternate reality to make a perfect world for her and Vision to live happily together in. For those of you who don’t know, Vision previously died in “Avengers: Infinity War” so it is assumed that Wanda is using her powers to resurrect him in the form of a TV show, but Vision doesn’t know this. The TV show follows Vision as he gets closer to understanding that the reality he is in is just a facade, meanwhile Wanda is doing all she can to manipulate their surroundings so Vision doesn’t reach the truth.
One of the biggest compliments I have to give to this series is the fantastic use of the “show not tell” technique. Oftentimes, in other Marvel works, the writers take an approach that focuses on telling the viewer everything they need to know, leaving nothing to the imagination, which can seriously hinder the enjoyment of a viewer who is looking for a deeper aspect of the story. With the “telling” approach there is no deeper aspect as everything is laid out in front of the viewer, plain to see. For example, in most Marvel films the villain's intentions are immediately revealed often through their own words. In the end, this creates a less interesting character as you already know exactly what they want and you are just waiting for them to execute their plan. With “WandaVision,” the approach used, called “Show not tell,” focuses more on creating an environment where you never truly know the intentions or understandings of the characters by only visually showing important scenarios and doing little to explain them, leaving most of the interpreting to the viewer. In the show we see a lot of this as Wanda’s fabricated reality starts to be invaded by outsiders trying to understand her motives for creating said reality. There are many visual cues from the outsiders that reveal Vision’s current hostage type situation to him but his thoughts about them are never revealed, leaving the viewer asking “How much does Vision truly know?”. This is a great question for the viewer to have as it shows that they are engaged in understanding the story for themselves, rather than having it explicitly told to them.
The story also has a deeper meaning to it. It’s all about grief. Wanda is stuck in denial while grieving the death of Vision so she made a world where she could bring him back to life, and he could live forever. In this world she is controlling the minds of thousands of people in order to live a perfect life. She missed Vision so much that she was willing to completely shatter her moral code in order to bring him back. This commentary on grief is extremely interesting as it shows that even someone as powerful and good at heart as an Avenger can be completely consumed by it.
Going into watching this show I was never expecting to like it. I thought that it would follow the same “Marvel formula” that had made me come to dislike the movies, but watching “WandaVision” has proved me wrong. I highly recommend this show to anyone who is a big Marvel fan and even those who are like me and have never really liked Marvel, because this just might change your mind.