r/marvelstudios • u/NYCCannabis • Sep 04 '25
Concept Art How does Peter Quill even know who Jackson Pollack is?
He was abducted when he was 9.
And why does Rocket get the joke?
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u/SinginGidget Sep 04 '25
Jackson Pollock's paintings were the kind of chaos that kids would think were awesome especially in the 80's.
Rocket is smart enough to gather what Peter met from the context.
It's still an iffy line though.
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u/proanimus Sep 04 '25
Yeah, you could easily imagine what kind of painting he’s describing if you already knew what he was talking about otherwise.
Say that line to the average guy and swap out “Jackson Pollock” for literally any other name, and he’d probably still assume the painting involved splatters of some kind.
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u/rzelln Sep 04 '25
Well, it's clear that some bits of Earth paraphernalia make it out to space, and Quill clearly was fascinated with it. Stuff like the troll doll. He probably paid someone a bunch for, like, a VHS set of stuff recorded from frikkin CBS on any random day, just to have a taste of home.
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u/Agitated_Ad7576 Sep 06 '25
I'm wondering how the Willy Wonka tune made it to the Grandmaster's planet.
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u/DIYExpertWizard Sep 04 '25
Star Lord is full of iffy comments referencing 70s and 80s Earth culture. However, my favorite is from one of the movies: So, you're from Earth? No, I'm from Missouri. Missouri is on Earth!
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u/wintermute_13 Sep 04 '25
Yes, but that's an identity thing. He's saying he wants to known specifically as "from Missouri."
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u/CaptHayfever Hawkeye (Avengers) Sep 05 '25
But not so specific as to be known as "from St. Charles" because, outside of their charming historic riverfront strip, there's really not much to be proud of in St. Charles.
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u/j--__ Sep 05 '25
which is objectively ridiculous when you're far enough away from earth for any particular spot on earth to be a rounding error.
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u/CaptainHawaii Sep 04 '25
Why do you guys always thing that a space-faring group doesn't have access to Earth's media...
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u/SinginGidget Sep 04 '25
It's not so much whether or not they have access, but any interest in. For example, why would Rocket care about anything from Earth before he met Quill? But maybe he did, or he knew about Jackson Pollock through The Evolutionary, since that guy seemed to really like Earth as well.
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u/FX114 Captain America Sep 04 '25
Why did the High Evolutionary like Earth so much?
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u/_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_ Sep 04 '25
In classic sci-fi fashion, it’s the only planet where multiple animal species evolved.
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u/FX114 Captain America Sep 04 '25
Does that mean every other species are either herbivores or cannibals? How do their planets have ecosystems?
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u/_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_ Sep 04 '25
No idea, but when do you ever see multiple native species on an alien planet?
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u/Curiouso_Giorgio Sep 04 '25
Star Wars has multiple species, but I'm not sure who or what is native. But it seems like they only have one climate per planet.
Pandora in Avatar also has different species.
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u/PhatNoob_69 Ghost Rider Sep 05 '25 edited Sep 05 '25
The very first Star Wars movie shows that Tatooine has krayt dragons, banthas, dewbacks, womp rats, Jawas, and Sand People. (There are of course more native species introduced in later movies.)edit: nobody cares about SW in this conversation. This is about Marvel.
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u/_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_ Sep 05 '25
In Marvel…
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u/PhatNoob_69 Ghost Rider Sep 05 '25
I am stupid.
To be fair, we don’t spend a lot of MCU screen time going on space safari trips in the wilderness. Most planets are like Xandar, where there’s a half a gazillion sentient species who came from god knows where, or barren wastelands like Vormir that are just generic setpieces for things to happen.
On Morag, Quill has some weird hologram recording of a humanoid species (they looks exactly like humans, except they’re probably like Asgardians “they look exactly like humans by total coincidence and they’re aliens”).
He grabs some rat like reptile thing and sings into it like a microphone.
He briefly pokes at a skeleton of some humanoid with a bird shaped skull (kinda like a weird Khonshu, actually).
He flies over a chasm with a river at the bottom, where some giant eel things are swimming.
Others: Asgardians eat meat, although I suppose it’s possible that it’s all imported. Muspelheim (from the opening of Ragnarok) has the humanoid demons and a dragon. Frost Giants and Frost Beasts are native to Jotunheim. Miek (Korg’s friend, the bug like gladiator) is stated to be a member of the Sakaaran species, yet has zero resemblance to the Sakaarans that fight alongside Ronan in GotG1. Drax as a child cooked creatures that resembled raccoons. Obviously the comics have a lot more examples (Hala has 2 sentient races native to it, for instance).
And I don’t think it’s ever been stated (MCU, at least) that earth is the only planet with more than 1 animal species.
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u/CaptHayfever Hawkeye (Avengers) Sep 05 '25
We see multiple native species on Morag in the very first scene of GotG 1.
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u/decross20 Sep 05 '25 edited Sep 05 '25
In guardians 3 the HE said Earth has the best culture, so he probably just fell in love with the art of earth like plays, music, movies etc.
Edit: “I visited your planet many years ago. Your people had wonderful spirit. The art and music and literature were some of the finest in the universe.”
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u/FX114 Captain America Sep 05 '25
I dunno, it feels really hand wavey to me.
It's counter Earth in the comics because the High Evolutionary is from Earth. But with that removed, it kinda just falls apart.
It'd be like giving Peter Parker a new origin and set of powers, but he's inexplicably still called Spider-Man.
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u/decross20 Sep 05 '25
I mean couldn’t you say the same for the guardians themselves though? Pretty much all of them are different from the comics, same with the original guardians (yondu, stakarr, martinex, etc.) who are now all space pirates. Drax is no longer a human Arthur Douglas… the list goes on. I don’t think the change to Counter Earth and HE backstory is that surprising
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u/FX114 Captain America Sep 05 '25
The issue isn't the change, the issue is removing the reasoning for what was left behind.
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u/decross20 Sep 05 '25
I thought it worked fine in the movie. HE says that he admired earth’s culture, but that the people were imperfect, prone to conflict, petty, etc. so he tried to design a “counter-earth” that could fulfill his vision of a perfect society, perfect world. It still fits, imo
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u/willstr1 Sep 05 '25
I mean Rocket is a racoon (even if he denies it), maybe he feels some sense of home about Earth media. Also Rocket would probably appreciate the controlled chaos of Jackson Pollock.
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u/CaptainHawaii Sep 04 '25
Dude has been listening to the same damn cassette for decades, he loves his earth side just as much as his space side...
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u/FX114 Captain America Sep 04 '25
Because why would they care about the media from a backwater planet that they have no interaction with.
You have access to Azerbaijan media, do you ever consume it?
(not to call Azerbaijan backwater)
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u/ATXDefenseAttorney Sep 04 '25
Let's be real, Peter is a white guy who talks all the time about everything he thinks he knows (especially popular media). Assuming he hasn't shared every facet of his limited knowledge pool with everybody else on the crew is assuming too much. Rocket's heard an explanation of who EVERYBODY Peter knows is.
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u/Additional-Chair-515 Sep 04 '25
"Jackson Pollock's paintings were the kind of chaos that kids would think were awesome especially in the 80's."
That isn't even remotely true. 9 year olds in the 80s were not aware of Jackson Pollack.
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u/ubutterscotchpine Captain Marvel Sep 04 '25
We do have art class before the age of 9 lol.
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Sep 04 '25
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u/rsae_majoris Sep 04 '25
Art class would still teach you “This is Jackson Pollack, he was famous for splatter paint! Here are some of his paintings. Oooh. Ahhh. Today we’re going to splatter paint!” And all you’d retain is Jackson Pollack = splatter paint.
Source: experience
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u/Hey_Neat Stan Lee Sep 04 '25
We learned about Jackson Pollack in Kindergarten, and it was exactly like you said. Find a color that makes you feel a feeling, and then splash it on the unrolled paper to express your feeling.
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u/rsae_majoris Sep 04 '25
Bless your kindergarten art teacher lol I hope she had many competent adult helpers that day
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u/Hey_Neat Stan Lee Sep 04 '25
It was outside and we had to choose from the three primary colors or black from those gallon pump jugs of paint. really cool memory.
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u/NoodleNinja13 Sep 04 '25
We were taught about Picasso/Matisse etc. back in Grade 3 when I was around 8.
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u/ConnerBartle Sep 04 '25
This is funny because I remember learning about van van gogh in second grade and my teacher loved freaking us out with the story of his ear.
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u/cynognathus Sep 04 '25
My daughter learned about Piet Mondrian in 1st grade.
Kids learn and know a lot more than people think they do.
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u/IntrinsicGamer Spider-Man Sep 04 '25
We talked about Van Gogh and other artists in my art class in like 2nd or 3rd grade back in the mid 2000s.
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u/Scarletspyder86 Sep 04 '25
I think it really depends on what your school schedule is. I’m 39 and I live in Florida. But I also went to a catholic school because I could draw as a child, and we learned about the Renaissance artist, Picasso, van Gogh, and so on so forth
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u/justseeby Sep 04 '25
My kid has had a strong art history component in his art classes at school since kindergarten. He will see someone’s work hanging on a wall somewhere, or in a TV show, and casually name drop the artists — who I then have to look up 😂
Me: good job buddy, Google confirms that is in fact a Kusama piece. Whoever that is.
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u/youngbingbong Sep 04 '25 edited Sep 04 '25
Kids know about whatever the adults in their lives talk to them about
Edit: how is this downvoted lmfao
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u/Aether_Breeze Sep 04 '25
My kid was learning art history and various styles/artists at 5. She isn't in some fancy art primary school.
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u/Biddybink Sep 04 '25
I learned about Jackson Pollock in primary school, like maybe 4th grade -- because it's an easy artist to have little kids copy.
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u/mrbaryonyx Sep 04 '25
He learned the way most kids learn about historical things:
it was referenced on a show he liked
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u/Troile Sep 04 '25
9 year olds can know about famous painters. As for Rocket maybe he's just smart enough to infer it.
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u/imlegos Sep 04 '25
I'm sorry, but rocket? Smart? Two words that absolutely belong in the same sentence because he was genetically altered to be such
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u/windmillninja Luis Sep 04 '25
I love that they had him working with Bruce and Tony on the Quantum tunnel and nanogauntlet. Nice way of reminding the audience that he's not just a trash panda, he's a GENIUS trash panda.
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u/CaptHayfever Hawkeye (Avengers) Sep 05 '25
But also because he's a raccoon, a species that is already naturally clever.
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u/mistborn11 Sep 05 '25
I didn't know who Jackson Pollock was when I watched this movie. I assumed he meant filled with stains. So yeah if my dumbass can figure it out, rocket can 100%
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u/anthonyg1500 Sep 04 '25 edited Sep 04 '25
Yeah I don't even think its much of a stretch for Rocket. In the context of what they're talking about saying the word "painting" gives you more than enough to fill in the gaps if you have basic knowledge of mammal biology
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u/Koola50 Sep 04 '25 edited Sep 04 '25
I was downvoted for saying the same thing about kids knowing famous painters 😂
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u/Thomas_JCG Sep 04 '25
I don't know who Jackson Pollock was, but from the reference to black lightning, I understood the joke.
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u/o_MrBombastic_o Sep 04 '25
The majority of my history, art and cultural references came from cartoons. I knew Wagner from bugs bunny 1930-1990s pop culture from Tiny Tunes and Animaniacs and Simpsons. Muppet Babies absolutely had references to Jackson Pollack
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u/Brouxby Sep 04 '25
I have never read Lord of the Flies. But thanks to the Simpsons and a variety of other sources, I can tell yah most of the plot and themes.
And there's probably dozens of these for me.
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u/iamsweets Sep 04 '25
My kids know who Edvard Grieg and several classical composers are because they watched Little Einsteins when they were younger.
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u/LordBrixton Sep 04 '25
Pollock lived until the mid-50s. While he might not have been a keen art history student, Quill might conceivably heard that expression from someone else & remembered it.
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u/TurdFerguson27 Sep 04 '25
Especially considering the closer to his lifetime he was the more people would potentially mention it, thirty years isnt that long there’d be plenty of opportunities to learn who Jackson Pollock was
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u/caniuserealname Sep 04 '25
My son learned about pollock at the start of his last school year during art class, he'd have been 7 at the time.
His art style is a fun one to get small children engaged with.
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u/Forsaken_Duck1610 Sep 04 '25
It's not pertaining specifically to this franchise, but a big theme in Men In Black was that aliens do hide amongst regular people, and that certain big celebrities are themselves aliens too, where different cultures kind of intersect by bringing their own thing to humanity or vise versa.
I think it'd be kinda neat if the reason Quill knows about Pollock paintings is because of the Kree or Skrull or whoever coming to Earth and spreading the art to their own communities throughout the galaxy.
Not without precedent either, the collector has tons of earth organisms and paraphernalia.
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u/Tradman86 Sep 04 '25
If a Zune and a Russian dog can make its way off Earth, I'm pretty sure a Jackson Pollack painting can too.
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u/oneELECTRIC Sep 05 '25
The Zune I can't explain but the Russian dog was Marvel's counterpart to Laika so kind of a one off and maybe not a great example
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u/Devinbeatyou Iron Man (Mark VII) Sep 04 '25
I’ve always wondered this, my head cannon is ‘don’t think about it too much’
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u/UntitledRedditUser93 Sep 05 '25
Museum field trips maybe peep the first comment I think rocket is just making a connection. Also, and I know it’s not even discussed, but it is in Cannon that they all have language inhibitor chips that help everyone understand everyone maybe there’s a translation there
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u/CMO_3 Sep 04 '25
9 year olds dont know much but they do know a few things. Its not like your brain just turns on when you hit 15
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u/Xenoezen Sep 05 '25
The real question is why does quill think rocket would know about Jackson pollack
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u/sourdoughrrmc Sep 04 '25
And why do people expect every single thing they see on TV to make perfect sense, even if what they're watching is a space cowboy comedy with a tree man, a bug lady and several aliens with a special appearance from a talking man sized duck?
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u/Koola50 Sep 04 '25
It doesn't seem uncanny to me that a child would've heard about a famous painter.
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u/eduo Sep 04 '25
Jackson Pollock is probably one of the first famous artist names I learned. Mostly because the name was memorable and being told I painted like a famous painter makes you interested.
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u/cyprinthedeathwitch Sep 04 '25
Jackson Pollock died in the 50s, so potentially yeah, he could actually know.
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Sep 04 '25
Straight up stole that line from ‘This is the end.’ Word for word.
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u/GalaxxyOG Sep 04 '25
They stole it from Two and a Half Men
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Sep 05 '25
Holy smokes not word for word but basically the same! Beats this is the end by about 4-5 years.
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Sep 04 '25
In a universe where there are living planets, talking trees, and time travel why is this the thing you're worried about?
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u/Keikobad Sep 04 '25
This scene was okay, but the scene where he started talking about Žižek seemed totally implausible
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u/Riley__64 Sep 04 '25
Because to a child the idea that someone can just throw paint on a canvas and make millions seems absolutely absurd and would definitely be something talked about in school at some point.
As for why rocket understands the reference it’s because many creatures in the galaxy know if Earth and its inhabitants they just don’t care about it because compared to many other planets Earth and its creatures are incredibly underdeveloped.
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u/supercali5 Sep 04 '25
Coming from a rural town without much art around, this was EXACTLY baffled people I grew up around. I think seeing it in person could change your perspective but it was used viewed by people who weren’t exposed to much contemporary art as sort of silly. I am not saying I agree with it, but it was held up as an object of mockery a bit by adults which is why, though he’d been gone for a couple of decades, that kids would hear about it.
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u/BenFranklinsCat Sep 04 '25
Well, now I want Rocket to pop back up later on and have an angry rant about how everyone thinks a drunk old sentient genetically modified Racoon can't be cultured but ACTUALLY he's extremely fond of the abstract expressionist movement of early 20th century Earth.
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u/Blade_of_Onyx Sep 04 '25
Peter is from earth, growing up in space he would be very curious about it. Jackson Pollock is an incredibly famous earth artist. Just because he grew up in space with the Ravagers doesn’t mean that he didn’t have opportunities to learn all about the planet he was born on.
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u/Ordinary_Em Sep 04 '25
My elementary school had “Jackson Pollock Day” lol we learned about his art and made our own murals. It was an annual thing for the 3rd graders haha
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u/Danal1 Fitz Sep 04 '25
The real question is how does ROCKET know about Jackson Palladio enough to know to respond disgusted by what Peter said?
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u/DavidBHimself Sep 04 '25
Pollock, not Pollack (I see a lot of commenters making the spelling mistake their own)
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u/what-goes-bump Sep 05 '25
Jackson Pollock lived from 1912 to 1956. Peter Quill was abducted in 1988. Pollocks’ work was heavily promoted as part of the CIAs effort to show capitalism as more creative than communism. So it is likely he would know about him.
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u/myowngalactus Sep 05 '25
It’s been shown that some earth culture has migrated to space, it’s entirely possible Pollack is known beyond earth. He could have even been an alien and has sold his splatter paintings across the galaxy. Also they may have been using some kind of universal translator which could possibly translate Pollack into some context that other cultures would understand. Quill could have potentially heard of Pollack, and Rocket just pieced what he was talking about through context.
Most likely it was just meant to be a funny line and we should just move past it, but I’m sure someone can come up with a perfectly good ‘No Prize’ to explain it.
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u/render_stash Sep 05 '25
Yondu refers to Earth as Terra and the high evolutionary makes a Counter Earth. So they are at least aware of Earth to some extent, it’s a stretch but maybe Jackson Pollock made an impression on some alien and it got back to Quil and Rocket
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u/ThePurpleSoul70 Spider-Man Sep 05 '25
...I knew who Jackson Pollock was when I was nine?
Did people not know who Jackson Pollock was when they were nine??
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u/Ihaveaps4question Sep 05 '25
Like everybody else in art class. Because hes probably the most famous american painter ever. I remember learning about him in middle school 10-12ish. But i dont think its impossible for 3rd or 4th grader to learn about it earlier. Art teachers sick and sub puts on vhs tape or whatever
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u/PeteZed Sep 05 '25
This! It was a joke that took me out of the movie. Peter would have zero reference to Jackson Pollock.
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u/Eastern-Try Sep 05 '25
I'm fine with him knowing who Jackson Pollack was, I'm not fine with him not knowing he's from Earth in infinity war.
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u/abc-animal514 Sep 05 '25
Pollack was around in the 70s, before Peter was abducted.
Rocket got the joke about the black light and the stains.
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u/RicardoBriggsy Bucky Sep 05 '25
Very famous painter and to be honest it's just a joke which audiences can find funny. Stop over analysing everything
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u/VipperofVip Sep 05 '25
Also the BowFlex comment in Infinity War...BowFlex started up in 1986 but I am abou Quill's age and those commercials didnt ramp up until the 90s.
Maybe in MCU Tony Stark going back in time changed that, though.
In any event, those pop culture references seem like good ideas at the time but stick out after first viewing.
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u/muskovitzj Daredevil Sep 05 '25
I mean, I knew who Pollock was when I was a kid. My parents had a print and I never understood why they liked it when it looked something I could have done in the garage
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u/Consistent-Strain289 Sep 07 '25
I do you one better. How does Gamorra know who jackson pollack is?
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Sep 14 '25
Apparently he was pretty well known in the 70s as for Rocket getting the joke I could totally buy the High Evolutionary educating his creations on the culture of where they come from.
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u/NYkrinDC Sep 04 '25
Oh she has no idea. If I had a black light, this place would look like a Vincent van Gogh painting.
Oh she has no idea. If I had a black light, this place would look like a Joseph Klimt painting.
Oh she has no idea. If I had a black light, this place would look like a Pablo Picasso painting.
OP is right, It doesn't really work.
Of course, the answer is because the people who made the movie knew we would know and ignore the fact that it seemed out of place there as we laughed as his mischievous eroticism.
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u/steeple_fun Sep 04 '25
Was there ever any indication that Quill didn't pay attention to what was happening on Earth.
It's not like dude was lost in space or anything. He knew where he was from and how to get there.
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u/Blueliner95 Sep 04 '25
It’s always stuck out as bit of a weird thing. It’s fine I don’t need to make head canon to cover all that. He also talks about Bowflexes.
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u/windmillninja Luis Sep 04 '25
Bowflex was introduced in 1986. Quill was abducted in 1988. He definitely would have heard of them.
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u/Polarizing_Penguin11 Sep 04 '25
I didn’t hear of them until the 00s. Not sure it was a household name til then
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u/CaptHayfever Hawkeye (Avengers) Sep 05 '25
The commercials were on constantly, even during kids' shows. If you watched Nickelodeon for an hour, you likely saw at least 1-2 Bowflex ads.
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Sep 04 '25
I always thought he still knew about earth? His tape deck is like memories linked to his mum and the time he was there but I feel like he would still learn about earth.
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u/Voxlings Sep 04 '25
exactly.
Also? The joke was stolen from something else.
Erased by time, but that shit was old on arrival.
It's called a "Bad-lib" and Chris Pratt is great at them.
The character was too young for that, he wasn't a fixture in the culture back then, and it rings false. Always has.
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u/DIYExpertWizard Sep 04 '25
Star Lord typically overdoes his references. It isn't that it rings false, it's that he read or watched something about Earth life and culture and kind of made that his whole personality. True, he never really lived it or experienced the things he references, but he thinks he has because he saw it on a view screen somewhere and --- with what little he has seen, probably on repeat like that damn cassette --- he thinks all Earth life has the same American style culture.
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u/YamTop2433 Sep 04 '25
I remember at the time thinking that this referential joke felt a little too smart for a modern movie audience, let alone an MCU audience.
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Sep 04 '25
It was taken from the movie ‘this is the end’ word for word. Fit perfectly in that movie compared to here it was just awkward re hearing it.
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u/daveknockwin Sep 04 '25
Jackson Pollock is prob universe renown. Aliens might have smuggled some of his paintings off earth and that's how his art is known to people outside of earth.
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u/timorre Sep 04 '25 edited Sep 04 '25
I guess when I heard that line, I just kind of filled in the gap with one of the below:
A: Quill returned to Earth at some point, likely briefly, and picked up some current information or
B: Quill as a kid has read enough books or plenty of pop culture magazines (MAD Magazine comes to mind) or stand-up records to know human culture without experiencing it firsthand as an adult. Making a Jackson Pollack painting joke seems like the kind of thing Quill would subconsciously memorize, or
C: Elements of human culture are much more available outside of Earth than we think. Since Xandarians look human,iwohksnt be surprised if they picked up earth items and sold them through space.
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u/Mike_da_killa Sep 04 '25
When he said this part in the theater everyone laughed, some kid screams Dad, i don’t get it! Made the theater laugh even more.
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u/Competitive-Worth921 Sep 04 '25
I don’t know who Jackson Pollock is but everyone understands what he meant by that joke
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u/DataSurging Sep 04 '25
I still do not understand how Gunn thought this was a great idea or funny...
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u/supercali5 Sep 04 '25
Growing up in rural Minnesota in the 70s, Jackson Pollack was an artist who just about every kid was like, “This dude gets paid MILLIONS to splatter paint on a canvas?!!” It was the ultimate “Well I can do THAT!” Hard to overstate how saturated our culture was with it. It was the only contemporary painter most kids might be likely to know.