John Oliver decided to take a quick shot at the Marvel Cinematic Universe on this week’s episode of Last Week Tonight. During a half-hour about misinformation and its role on the internet, he had to get a quick dig on the wildly popular franchise. One of the viral videos that they aggregated for the episode showed off how easy it was to pass off false information about medical cures on TikTok or WhatsApp. Once the tutorial was complete, Oliver noted that this was basically the script that all of the biggest misinformation accounts used. It’s a matter of styles and labels, which he quickly likened to the Marvel Studios movies.
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He sniped, “All it takes is a few superficial labels and style choices to convince people that something with no real substance is actually meaningful and good. Or as it’s known in America, the Marvel Cinematic Universe.” Now, this is a common refrain that you’ve read elsewhere on the Internet. (Also good to note that Last Week Tonight has a team of writers, so these might not have been words directly from the host.) However, there are a lot of people out there who feel like the MCU isn’t nearly as important or necessary as fans think that it is.
Oliver has previously had some wild brushes with Disney. Back in 2018, he joked about the Marvel-like cloak of secrecy that surrounded The Lion King. The comedian joked on Jimmy Fallon’s show that seeing the trailer on Thanksgiving was a bit of a shock.
“It’s my first time kind of being inside a Disney tornado,” Oliver laughed. “There was an email just before the trailer was released just saying, ‘At this point during the Dallas Cowboys game, we’re going to release the trailer. Don’t say anything to anyone.’ And coming from Disney, that just sounds like a threat. Just like, ‘Don’t say anything or this will be the last sunrise you see.’ Signed, ‘The Mouse.’”
“I was watching with my wife’s family, we were there for Thanksgiving,” he continued. “And they played the trailer and then there’s everyone’s names, and they’re all in The Lion King font, and that’s objectively exciting. I was sitting with my wife’s sister and her cousin and it got to the end, and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s nice.’ And her cousin said, ‘Why is your name before Beyonce’s? That seems pretty f—ed up.’ Yeah, I’m not even disagreeing with that, I just think they saved the atom bomb for the end.”
Do you agree with Oliver’s point? Let us know in the comments!
