Oh good grief! Can you not see that they are mocking the negative attitude that some people have towards adoptees? Like if he said ‘He’s Russian’ it might be mocking negative stereotypes of Russians as having a fiery nature. You obviously don’t understand humour.

So you wouldn’t be offended if I said “PAPs/APs are so dismissive, they don’t give a rat’s a** how their ‘children’ actually feel!” because I’m only mocking the negatiove stereotype of PAPs/APs?

If they had said “He’s Russian”, humour aside, it would still be racist.

I’m not going to send any letters or sign anything until I actually see the movie, but I appreciate the alert/warning, and I will follow up with a letter to the studio if I find I agree.

I don’t think comparing the weight of the term you blanked out above to the term “adopted” is appropriate, and you lost me there.

I just want to say I am a PAP and I think this is terrible. Cheap laugh, indeed. I would hate for my future adopted child to hear this. I am sorry but kickabout, Ilona, I think you may need to increase your awareness…

ScottK, I personally wouldn’t be offended if someone said about HAPs what you suggest because it’s a generalization, doesn’t hold true for me and I chalk it up to people being misinformed and ignorant. It’s much different than a racist remark, which is hateful in nature.

Furthermore, as an adoptee, I’m not offended by most adoption jokes. It’s part of who I am, but certainly isn’t all of who I am, and I’m not sensitive about it. I don’t feel second best, and I never experienced that feeling either in my personal connections or in society at large.

People only make us feel something if we give them permission, and a one-liner in a movie is certainly not going to make me feel bad about having been adopted.

I haven’t seen the movie so I can’t really comment.  I wonder though if Thor had said “I’m adopted” rather than “he’s adopted”, I suspect APs on here would be up in arms because that would imply the evil Loki was evil due to qualities inherited from his parents who would in that case be Thor’s APs.  APs aren’t allowed to be attacked but adoptees are fair game. 

Adoption is handled badly in a lot of movies. 

Personally, I hate movies like Juno that are dangerous in their portrayal of bparents.

I know adoptees who have felt triiggered seeing it because they think that their bmom might feel like Juno did.  It might also “confirm” other adoptees already held views that their birthparents don’t give a stuff about them.  Many hold up the fact that many adoptees don’t search as proof of the adoptees happiness at being adopted whereas for quite a few adoptees, the reason they have no wish to search is they feel their BPs didn’t care.

I also know of emoms who think that life is just going to go on for them exactly as it did for Juno and certainly agency websites don’t dispel that notion.

Thanks for the heads up, I was actually looking forward to seeing the movie, not sure I even want to see it now.  For the record, that does not sound like it is “mocking negative attitudes”, it sounds like a cheap shot.  And you know what, I might not have even noticed a joke like that before I became an adoptive parent, but shame on me for that.  That kind of joke is not okay. 

You are right, Monica, people cannot make you feel inferior without your consent (Eleanor Roosevelt said that, or words to that effect), and I am so glad that you have that attitude.  But a movie aimed at kids that will probably make a lot of money off them can afford to be a bit more sensitive.

I haven’t seen the movie, and I most likely never will see it.  That said, I can’t imagine a situation where I would find, “He’s adopted,” a humorous response to a killing spree.  Doesn’t sound very funny to me.  Furthermore, I can’t imagine the line would have been scripted if he was being credited for world peace.

Hi…I personally don’t think it is funny, and don’t like that they have that in their movie.  Whether in bad humor or not, I feel that it displays a negative stereotype about adoptees that I’ve heard before, and find hurtful as an adoptee, and now as an adoptive mom.  I find it even worse than making a movie character from a particular racial background,  because while a human character has to be from some racial background, the character does not have to be an “adoptee”...that is deliberately added for some reason, at best poor humor or taste, at worse a negative stereotype promoted.  So I think it is unkind and unnecessary and do not support a movie having a character like that,  and feel that it feeds into a old negative stereotype that is similar to racism and give it a thumbs down.

Kris: Actually, he does have to be adopted in the movie because he IS adopted in the comics. In the Marvel comics, Odin killed his father in battle, then took the infant home and raised him alongside his own son, Thor. So. He IS adopted. What isn’t cool is the way the script stuck the comment in there.

Cate,

I didn’t know that (I’m not familiar with the comics of the Avengers), thank you for explaining that to me and anyone else that is not familiar with it either.  I then agree with you that it wasn’t cool that they made a comment about it in the movie, which wasn’t necessary to do.  .

Thanks for the heads up.  I can talk to my 12 yr old son before he sees the movie with his pals (and I would not have been aware of it).

I didn’t know that your adoptive father had to kill your natural one in order to adopt. There’s probably a word that better fits what Odin did, taking a child by force and killing his father. Abduction maybe?

abduction [bˈdʌkʃən] n 1. the act of taking someone away by force or cunning; kidnapping

According to this definition, Loki is not adopted.
Perhaps the difference can be explained to children who have to face bullying in their schoolyards because they are adopted. I don’t know if it will change anything on the outside, but it may give them something to hold onto inside, that they are adopted and Loki wasn’t, they are not the same.

As an adult and an adoptee, when I saw the movie and heard the laughter after the comment “he’s adopted”, my heart sank. This is definitely an insult to adoptees everywhere, including and especially adopted children who will internalize this two-word comment as “there is something wrong with me”.

It doesn’t matter how many “statistical polls” show that the general public’s opinion is that adoptees and adoptive parents are “too sensitive”, what matters is that the silent victims of this verbal slam will continue to be viewed as inferior because we are adopted, and therefore, defective. Our bad blood, our known or unknown heritage, our status of being adopted itself, has tainted us. We are in the minority, that’s why our votes and voices don’t rise in numbers with that of the majority.