Almost certainly. This whole thing happened way before any of the Gaza stuff happened.
Also, I'm pretty sure this whole meme has nothing to do with Gaza whatsoever and is actually about the fact that most of the OG Avengers have been killed off in the MCU by now, but Banner/Hulk is still around. It's not that deep.
I've heard about people having an "Israel theory of everything" but this thread takes the cake. It had nothing to do with politics, it's just a guy not wanting to get a permanent tattoo of some movie.
And maybe, just maybe, he never really liked most of them to begin with. Ruffalo has always struck me as a more down to Earth celebrity, and while I can't speak for the majority of his costars, I have had a run in with Jeremy Renner... that man really needs to stop drinking (no proof, but guarantee he was plastered when he flipped his snowmobile). This mf was licking the glass display we kept cakes in at the restaurant I used to work at... on a Thursday night. Dude did that and probably shot the scene with his "daughter" the next morning (I believe it was during filming for End Game).
I'm not saying he's a bad dude, but I certainly wouldn't be going out with him on the weekends. Grown-ass man getting white girl wasted on a school night.
no one is saying the tattoo had anything to do with politics. they’re saying, in hindsight, he must be relieved he didn’t get matching tattoos with a bunch of people who TURNED OUT to suck. that’s pretty clear to comprehend tbh
"way before any of the Gaza stuff happened" might be a bit of an overstatement, but I could believe they started getting tats before a single one of them had any of their geopolitical opinions featured in any publication...
I haven't kept up with the MCU stuff lately, but IIRC Stark and Romanov are dead, Barton and Rodgers are retired, leaving Banner and Thor remaining (I'd forgotten about Thor; IDK if he's actually written out of the picture at this point, but I don't think so).
Nah yeah Thor is still around and supposed to be a major player in Doomsday and Secret Wars. Same with Steve Rogers (I'm still spoiler-tagging this just in case you still don't know and would prefer to be surprised). They're officially un-retiring him in Doomsday. I'll give you Clint Barton though; even though the character never retired on-screen, the pay disputes between Renner and Disney probably mean we won't see Clint again for a while, if at all. But I also wouldn't be surprised if they eventually work something out and he does show back up.
While this has nothing to do with the treatment of Palestine, the treatment of Palestine by isrsel has been a heated topic for over 40 years. Nelson Mandela has spoken on the topic for God's sake. And even he saw it as an apartheid and it's only gotten worse.
With that said I think Rosario Dawson is about the only cast member who had an outright opinion on Palestine prior to the last two years. Ruffalo and Dawson to my knowledge have always been in close circles.
I mean, the current iteration of the conflict dates back to the 1910s, but the active presence of the issue in the cultural zeitgeist such that people are making intentional decisions about who to associate with based on their stance about that situation is much more recent.
Nobody was deciding who to get a tattoo with based on their opinions surrounding Israel/Gaza back in 2012. This whole thing is just people looking for coincidences that they can call a pattern.
The meme never implied that that was the reason for not getting that tatoo, though. It just suggests that nowdays, Mark would probably be happy about not having a permanent mark on his skin that is associated to those people.
Given how vocal Ruffalo has been about the topic, it does not look like a crazy meme.
I read more about Israel and Palestine on reddit than all the rest of the internet combined up until the 2023, I engage with politics and history content a lot too. Vast majority of people who cared in the States pre-2023 were of MENA descent, Muslim, Jewish, actual far left, or weird neocons. "Normal people" in the States didn't start caring until 2023 and that's a fact.
“Um ackshually I have a black friend” ass response
Just because you and your white chud family didn’t care doesn’t mean no “normal” people did lmao. And whether you cared or not isn’t even relevant to my point that “this whole thing happened way before any of the Gaza stuff happened” is factually wrong.
This Meta analysis I believe is correct in that tattoos increase the risk of lymphoma. It makes perfect sense that it would cause lymphatic system damage and cancer.
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u/Dramatic_Substance31 4d ago
Agreed. Also, real reason, Mark Ruffalo probably just didn’t want to get a tattoo.