Oh okay I can see that. But even if Tony doesn't respect women I think that there is enough of that going on nowadays that it's common enough, to make a superhero movie and give the hero that flaw, and not have it be alienating to today's audience.
I don't think anyone is going to watch a superhero movie today, and be like "A hero that disrespects women when it comes to getting laid, that is so 2000s".
Oh yeah, I agree with that. Sorry, in case it wasn't obvious, I was arguing a narrower point; I don't actually agree with Cole's sentiment about
Iron Man. I don't think things have changed anywhere near that much and I think the film would be a hit today, too.
I'm not even sure how to make sense of Cole's critique, since even if you start with the idea that people have some new distaste for that kind of roguish male behavior, that would really only matter if Stark kept exhibiting it. He obviously ends up in a very different place than he started; heck, by the second film he's in a monogamous relationship. So for Cole to think the character wouldn't be liked today is essentially saying people hate this behavior
so much that they wouldn't even accept it as the "before" version in the "before and after" of every protagonist's narrative journey, which doesn't even seem close to true.
People are willing to overlook a lot of bad character behavior if they learn their lesson and change for the better. There aren't that many things that alienate audiences inexorably. We're talking, like, domestic abuse, Nazism, and puppy kicking, and not much else.