Thoughts
It’s easy to look at popular culture and miss that they’re portraying a hyper-sterilized version of even the groups they are portraying.
There’s a scene in Agents of Shield (which I haven’t watched all of, only bits and pieces, but this scene stuck with me), where some character declares ‘I am a god’ and is met with the reply ‘there’s only one God, and He doesn’t look like that.’ Which is an extremely sharp contrast to the very similar famous scene in Avengers; “I am a god” / Hulk throws Loki against the ground / “puny god.”
And what’s very interesting to me is that my reply to Loki even in the Avengers movie is “these people are blaspheming.” And even within the Marvel universe there are people who agree with me.
My point is that Christians are no by any means an un-represented group in media. Yet, in the Marvel cinematic films, they go out of their way to avoid giving any of the characters religious stances and all. Blockbusters like that are designed to appeal to literally as many people as possible, and to avoid making anyone uncomfortable.
It’s like, in the same way that characters in movies don’t leave to go to the bathroom, they don’t go to church or do their prayers, and at some point you’ve gone beyond just “cutting out controversial topics” and you’re really portraying a character that doesn’t represent anyone.
I’m not even saying this is a bad thing, but it is definitely something something to keep in mind.