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From Verge Writer Noah Berlatsky

"Michael Keaton's Vulture is a world-class bad guy – and a working-class stiff who feels like he's been shafted by society," Rolling Stone declared. The article for which that's the subhead goes on to praise the perspicacity of Spider Man:Homecoming for presenting an up-to-the-minute portrait of the working-class Trump voter who feels dumped on by uncaring do-gooder elites, like the multimillionionaire playboy Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.)

Some folks on social media (including some leftists) expressed sympathy for Keaton's critique of capital and power. "Keaton also gives the film a rare jolt of class consciousness as he tells Peter, “The rich and the powerful, like Stark, they don’t care about us," Jackson McHenry declares at Vulture. The Marvel universe, filled with the one percenters, deities, and military brass, has finally found a voice for the little guy.

Toomes is the owner of a quite successful small business. He obtained the contract to clean up a section of New York after the giant fight with aliens that concluded the first Avengers film. Tony Stark's company took the contract from him to secure alien tech, which is why Toomes is pissed at Stark. But this isn't the anger of the worker at the boss who's exploiting him. This is the anger of the small businessman at the guy with better connections.

So, if Toomes is a petty bourgeois capitalist shit trying to move up, why do people see him as some sort of authentic avatar of the working class? I think there are a couple reasons. First, Americans tend to associate "working class" with particular industries, rather than with actual jobs. Blue-collar factory work still dominates Americans sense of working classness, even though for the most part working class people today have job in the service industry, or as secretaries or support staff in office buildings. We've convinced ourselves that owners of coal mines are more authentically working class than the people who serve food in the cafeteria at Microsoft. Toomes walks around on the factory floor and even does some welding. So he's working class, even though he owns the floor he's walking on and takes home what by the look of things is probably a six figure salary.

White working class men so dominate our cultural vision of the working class that people misread Vulture as working class because he's a white guy standing near industrial equipment. Toomes appeal for the little guy is read by some as an actual critique of elites, rather than as a quite rich guy pissing and moaning because he's not richer. Take this logic far enough, and a multimillionaire shithead can be an avatar of the working class as long as he's white and male and angry because he doesn't have more stuff. Toomes isn't working class. He's just another asshole boss.

Article does a decent job or deconstructing the idea of The Vulture as some working class victim.

I personally find terms like Working Class and Blue Collar seem to mean different things to different people to suit their narratives.

 

[base shagohod]

I'll be honest, I didn't even think twice about how he isn't really a "working-class" citizen when he said it in the film. Not even a second thought lol.

 

[Subpar Spatula]

Toomes reminded me of that Undercover Boss show.

 

[Jarmel]

Dude had a multimillion dollar house.

 

[Slayven]

Dude had a multimillion dollar house.

Well to be fair he had been operating as the Vulture for a while

 

[kswiston]

Maybe he was before he started stealing alien tech. He mentions that he's been doing that for 8 years.

 

[BronsonLee]

He WAS working class, he tried to expand to get out, the government screwed him, so he screwed them back

Homie made it and he would've gotten away with it too if it wasn't for those damn meddling kids

 

[kirblar]

The dissonance between how the Vulture sees himself and what he actually is in the film is very unlikely to be accidental here.

 

[DrROBschiz]

i thnk they didnt show the transition from

Successful clean up to losing his business to a lucrative life of crime

Its possible he did bottom out before he stared making bank on salvage but... they definitely didnt show it

 

[jack_package_200]

I'll be honest, I didn't even think twice about how he isn't really a "working-class" citizen when he said it in the film. Not even a second thought lol.

Part of it is people projecting onto characters with their own struggles.

Like when some people identify with and even idolize Walter White.

 

[Subpar Spatula]

He WAS working class, he tried to expand to get out, the government screwed him, so he screwed them back

Was he? He mortgaged for more equipment and workers. He was already a business owner before the incident.

 

[Byakuya769]

Misses the mark. Toomes was exactly the type of "working class" villain Trump voters tend to be.

Dude had a multimillion dollar house.

Due to being the Vulture.

 

[Snarky(HEART)]

...Was that not the point?

The whole time, I saw him as a guy that WAS working class, and he was pushed to do what he did, but his ambition took him too far, into evil. So he gets the fancy house and the crazy nice car but still says he "does it for the family", lying to himself more than anything.

This character trait carries on in the end when his ambition and desire to "never leave empty handed" almost gets him killed.

 

[Furyous]

... Yeah but he's working class similar to the Republican definition of "small business". Technically a small business under Republican definition includes rich people.

Adrian Toomes is working class because libryul big government allowed Tony Stark and his new fangled technology to destroy another industry. Adrian Toomes is those coal mining Trump supporters that railed for months against Obama only to be told less than four months into Trump's reign to basically pull themselves up by their bootstraps because those jobs won't come back anyway. If this happened in America today Adrian Toomes is a working class American.

 

[MugiwaraCole]

I took it all to mean he was a small businessman before the events of the Avengers. By the time Homecoming comes around, of course he's got a nice house; he's been Vulture for x amount of years.

 

[LosDaddie]

Bullshit article.

Define "Working Class" first and go from there. Sure, Toomes was/is a business owner, but he was also on site, doing some of the work himself.

Does that qualify as Working Class?

 

[watershed]

I think it was pretty obvious he was rich when you saw his house. It was to me. His speech is about the bigger guy taking from him and the government intervening in his private business. His illegal arms dealing is the ultimate private business.

 

[KuwabaraTheMan]

Maybe he was before he started stealing alien tech. He mentions that he's been doing that for 8 years.

Even at the start he's a successful small businessman who has a city contract to handle the cleanup from a major disaster. That's not really a working class guy.

...Was that not the point?

The whole time, I saw him as a guy that WAS working class, and he was pushed to do what he did, but his ambition took him too far, into evil. So he gets the fancy house and the crazy nice car but still says he "does it for the family", lying to himself more than anything.

This character trait carries on in the end when his ambition and desire to "never leave empty handed" almost gets him killed.

The article's point is that he never was working class. He was always a business owner; he just transitioned into his business being illegal after Stark screwed him over.

 

[Magwik]

He's just a normal dude who was running a business.
He was someone we could reasonably know in real life with beliefs that could be real.

He wasnt a millionare, a god, a demon, and so forth. He's just a dude. That's the appeal. He's a real character.

 

[black070]

Wasn't he working class prior to becoming the Vulture ? I mean, he led the cleaning crew, but there was no indication he was rich or anything. The contract to clear up after the battle of New York was supposed to be his big break.

 

[demosthenes]

Maybe he was before he started stealing alien tech. He mentions that he's been doing that for 8 years.

Yea. This is how I took it, he was working class before he became a criminal.

 

[antonz]

He and his team before they started making weapons were more or less contracted garbage men. They picked up the wreckage and dropped it off at a government site. That's about as working class as you can get. He even blows what little savings he has etc. to buy extra trucks and hire more people.

 

[LakeEarth]

I took him to be a Walter White type, saying he's doing something illegal for his family (alien guns instead of meth), but continues to do it years after he has more than enough money to retire.

Wasn't he working class prior to becoming the Vulture ? I mean, he led the cleaning crew, but there was no indication he was rich or anything. The contract to clear up after the battle of New York was supposed to be his big break.

Just renting a few trucks for the job broke him, so I saw him as a small business owner. Maybe not working class exactly, but close enough for me.

 

[F0rneus]

He WAS working class. He was out there in the streets, dirtying his hands for salvage. An average Joe with an average life. In his eyes. Sure he had a company, but he was still a far cry from Stark. The fact that he HATES people in ivory towers while now being a powerful millionaire himself is the point.

 

[Fuchsdh]

The dissonance between how the Vulture sees himself and what he actually is in the film is very unlikely to be accidental here.

Yep.

This is just dumb RTFM critical analysis as usual. The guy has an amazing house in an expensive part of Queens. He's no longer working class. But it fits his worldview to always be raging about the "big guy" screwing the little ones.

Best part is that he's still totally right, while also not realizing that he graduated out of "little guy" status a long time ago.

Working class at its base definition is any salaried worker, especially when you get into Marxist/socialist uses of the term. Owning your own business doesn't make you no longer working class, if that's the line that's being floated.

 

[Subpar Spatula]

He and his team before they started making weapons were more or less contracted garbage men. They picked up the wreckage and dropped it off at a government site. That's about as working class as you can get. He even blows what little savings he has etc. to buy extra trucks and hire more people.

"little savings"? Umm... trucks and hours aren't cheap. He wasn't renting U-Hauls.

 

[DeathoftheEndless]

Part of it is people projecting onto characters with their own struggles.

Like when some people identify with and even idolize Walter White.

Toomes reminded me of Walter White. They both start out doing shady things for a good cause and continue to do them well after that for the money and power.

 

[Slayven]

Misses the mark. Toomes was exactly the type of "working class" villain Trump voters tends to be.



Due to being the Vulture.

Yeah ones with the "I got mine" x-gene

 

[George Oscar Bluth II]

It's amazing how some writers completely miss the point of what they're trying to critique in length.

 

[Geist-]

...Was that not the point?

The whole time, I saw him as a guy that WAS working class, and he was pushed to do what he did, but his ambition took him too far, into evil. So he gets the fancy house and the crazy nice car but still says he "does it for the family", lying to himself more than anything.

This character trait carries on in the end when his ambition and desire to "never leave empty handed" almost gets him killed.

Right? I felt like the movie implied all the money he spent for the job at the start of the movie was going to bankrupt him, and it was only after he turned to crime that he really made enough money to be considered "rich".

 

[LosDaddie]

Dude had a multimillion dollar house.

Do people even understand the movies they watch? I seriously don't know anymore.

Toomes had a nice house after 8yrs of black market weapon sales. He was obviously not in that position at the beginning of the movie.

 

[Reptars Revenge]

I assumed he was a working class citizen, finally got his big break and the government fucked him then he turned to life a crime.

 

[xxracerxx]

I assumed he was a working class citizen, finally got his big break and the government fucked him then he turned to life a crime.

Exactly.

 

[Dabanton]

He was working class. But remember the film jumps ahead 8 years ahead after the opening scene with him and his guys cleaning up after the battle of New York.

During which time his obviously been very busy stealing and selling weapons as The Vulture. After which he could afford the niceties of a middle class life.

A nice house,a Jaguar.

 

[Gordon Shumway]

Well to be fair he had been operating as the Vulture for a while

Due to being the Vulture.

lol..Right?

 

[PhoncipleBone]

Toomes reminded me of Walter White. They both start out doing shady things for a good cause and continue to do them well after that for the money and power.

Except in the end, Toomes still held onto some sense of honor.

 

[Fuchsdh]

Toomes reminded me of Walter White. They both start out doing shady things for a good cause and continue to do them well after that for the money and power.

The best part of that scene (and really, they talk about the villain but usually don't credit Homecoming with deciding to not only forgo the origin story, but start the film with a scene establishing the villain's origins rather than anything with the hero) is that you immediately see why Toomes would go bad. He already was a guy who wanted the big score and who had anger issues.

 

[Subpar Spatula]

Do people even understand the movies they watch? I seriously don't know anymore.

Toomes had a nice house after 8yrs of black market weapon sales. He was obviously not in that position at the beginning of the movie.

Owning a company doesn't make you working class especially if you have big enough crews to handle sections of a city wide salvage job. That's not some 3 person operation where he's making $16 an hour. He had enough savings to fund more workers and equipment (which isn't cheap). With the movie's information, he was never working class. The article is telling you how you're made to believe he is but he never was because the image of someone doing grunt works makes you believe they're working class.

 

[kswiston]

Even at the start he's a successful small businessman who has a city contract to handle the cleanup from a major disaster. That's not really a working class guy.

To be honest, I got to the theatre late and missed the film's first 10-15 mins. So I guess I missed that.

Growing up in a blue collar city though, guys who work their way up from manual blue collar job, to the point that they are making a pretty good income (let's say low 6 figures a year), often continue to consider themselves blue collar/working class. The Vulture falling into that sort of thinking strikes me as perfectly authentic. It's still the way he was raised, and the way many people would view him.

 

[Geist-]

Except in the end, Toomes still held onto some sense of honor.

Walter White was a horrible human being, but he did save Jesse in the end at the cost of his own life.

 

[Fliesen]

I mean, i can agree with the article in a way, but while - sure - there's more people in low paying service industry jobs, those aren't in danger of being replaced by robotics, or outsourced to china, or whatever else the 1% figures out to increase their profit margins.

The service industry isn't being all that visibly endangered by globalization and corporate greed, is it? Tony Stark even brought some new customers into a small shawarma place!

I get the fact that we shouldn't romanticise the "white guy working the steel mill" as the archetype for honest manual labour, but i think the article's reaching quite a bit.

What if we considered him a "middle class" villain? would that make him any less relatable?

 

[xxracerxx]

People also fail to understand is that is how he feels about himself, the everyman.

 

[Snarky(HEART)]

I mean, the more I think about it, it's just another connection between Spider-Man and Vulture that made him the perfect villain for this film.

They are both guys that started on the ground, got access to incredible power and the will to use it, and both got fucked over by The Man. (The same Man in fact!)

They are both guys that should not have all of the power that they do. One because he's a dumb kid and the other because he's an evil bastard. But one was able to use those things that he should not have to do something good and the other used them for evil

 

[theWB27]

Owning a company doesn't make you working class especially if you have big enough crews to handle sections of a city wide salvage job. That's not some 3 person operation where he's making $16 an hour. He had enough savings to fund more workers and equipment (which isn't cheap). With the movie's information, he was never working class. The article is telling you how you're made to believe he is but he never was because the image of someone doing grunt works makes you believe they're working class.

That job was a last ditch effort to save his company and keep his employees eating. Not to mention the owner of the company worked right beside his people.

He also lives in new York city.

 

[inky]

"Small" business owners can be originally working class too, he just moved up and forgot about it. And yes, the lack of self-awareness was part of the character.

I partially understand the general blindness to office and service industry jobs as stereotypically working class as well, but that seems like trying to conflate two different issues.

 

[B-Dubs]

I assumed he was a working class citizen, finally got his big break and the government fucked him then he turned to life a crime.

This is how I read it. It seems like a lot of people missed that 8 year timeskip though.

 

[BronsonLee]

We should talk about how Toomes socked the shit out of a government employee and was somehow saved from going to jail

Did dude's coworkers just know that dude was a dick or wat

 

[Slayven]

It's amazing how some writers completely miss the point of what they're trying to critique in length.

The takes got to be hot George, the takes got to be hot

 

[Alienous]

Owning a company doesn't make you working class especially if you have big enough crews to handle sections of a city wide salvage job. That's not some 3 person operation where he's making $16 an hour. He had enough savings to fund more workers and equipment (which isn't cheap). With the movie's information, he was never working class. The article is telling you how you're made to believe he is but he never was because the image of someone doing grunt works makes you believe they're working class.

He didn't have savings, did he?

Wasn't the implication that he had taken out a huge loan to finance the operation?

Not to say that he's working class, just that he didn't seem well off.

 

[Subpar Spatula]

That job was a last ditch effort to save his company and keep his employees eating. Not to mention the owner of the company worked right beside his people.

He also lives in new York city.

That doesn't make him working class.

Working class ends when you own a business of that size. It can be failing but that doesn't make you working class. That's what the article wants you to understand. It skews the reality of what working class is. It's easier to relate to the working man rather than a boss.

He didn't have savings, did he?

Wasn't the implication that he had taken out a huge loan to finance the operation?

Not to say that he's working class, just that he didn't seem well off.

You don't get a loan for that much (equipment and men) if you have nothing of value.