Elizabeth Olsen says WandaVision's sitcom parodies get more cynical as the Disney+ series progresses. While Olsen has portrayed Wanda Maximoff (a.k.a Scarlet Witch) in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since being teased in a post-credits scene in 2014's Captain America: The Winter Soldier, she has mostly played a supporting role, appearing often in the later Avengers films. WandaVision marks the first time her MCU character has earned top billing, a distinction she shares with Paul Bettany's Vision.
Though the larger storyline has been kept a mystery, Marvel has been open about how WandaVision parodies sitcoms from throughout the history of American television, paying tribute to the medium as the MCU transitions into a busy next few years on Disney+. The pilot episode was inspired by shows like I Love Lucy and The Dick Van Dyke Show, while the second episode that released alongside it last Friday had many similarities with the series Bewitched. The WandaVision team even consulted Dick Van Dyke on how to recreate the tone of that era of television, and their ability to do just that has earned them critical praise so far. While the exact progression remains unknown, the show will continue to work through the decades, supposedly emulating series like Family Ties, Friends, 30 Rock, and Modern Family.
Fans have been treated to some light fun in the first two of WandaVision's sitcom parodies, but don't expect them all to be that way. When asked by Variety about what changes in her process when the show enters a new decade, Olsen describes how American TV comedies became more cynical over time, something that influenced the show's approach to humor:
The '70s women were allowed - it was almost like there was a relaxation of even just women and social behavior, so that would affect their voices and the tone that they can take, instead of it being all so kind of higher and level. And so the '70s, even though it's this really strange, Brady Bunch, aspirational time in this sitcom land, women were still able to kinda have a little bit more control or something, something that just grounded them a bit more in their voice. And then as we got into the '80s, the teachable moments and how sincere everything was, that was just really funny. And then as we move into the '00s and the 2010s, comedy, the sitcom, becomes really cynical. The humor, like Malcolm in the Middle and Modern Family, becomes incredibly cynical, and that's what we found comforting, for whatever reason, as a society. And so it was just fun, when we were in this boot camp, to kind of, not only just chart the physical changes, you know as tools... but what was comedy for history of that time. Like the fact that Brady Bunch is the result of Vietnam, or Rosemary's Baby the film and Brady Bunch is on television, it doesn't make any sense to me. But for whatever reason that's what the consumer was watching at home.
Elsewhere in the interview, Olsen discusses her approach to playing Wanda in this shifting sitcom landscape, which she points out is distinct from how she has been developed in the MCU so far. According to Olsen, her character in WandaVision is preoccupied with keeping her identity hidden from her neighbors and appearing as a regular member of the community, rather than with anything that happened in the films. She identifies the moments of tension between sitcom-world and the larger MCU, when the truth threatens to invade whatever fiction she is wrapped up in, as the most interesting moments for her to perform.
Viewers will have noticed some of these moments already in the two episodes released so far, and there are plenty of WandaVision fan theories that try to explain them, but even people that aren't constantly digging for clues have been able to enjoy the broad comedy of WandaVision's sitcom parodies. While many might prefer not to move on from the first Golden Age of Television, others are likely eager to see how they approach portraying the coming decades. It's only a matter of time before WandaVision ends up looking like an Office-style mockumentary, after all.
WandaVision continues with episode 3 on Friday, January 22, on Disney+.
Source: Variety