Evolution Of The Wasp From Nest To Movies

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

                    A long thin body:  the Wasp                                                        

                                                                     

                Oh look!  A wasp nest.  The White^note  Anglo-Saxon Protestant, or WASP, is a largely American trope that today is used to describe the stereotypically "white" (and mostly upper- or upper-middle class, as the term is usually not applied to working-class poor whites and white Southerners associated with Deep South stereotypes.... even though those groups technically fit the definition) people in American society and culture.  Trope:  A literary trope is the use of figurative language, via word, phrase or an image, for artistic effect such as using a figure of speech. Keith and Lundburg describe a trope as, "a substitution of a word or phrase by a less literal word or phrase." Wikipedia                                                                                

  The death of the WASP Elite is greatly exaggerated....... "it’s possible to imagine adaptation rather than surrender as a different WASP strategy across the 1960s and 1970s. In such a world the establishment would have still admitted more blacks, Jews, Catholics and Hispanics (and more women) to its ranks … but it would have done so as a self-consciously elite-crafting strategy, rather than under the (1) pseudo-democratic auspices of the SAT and (2)the high school resume and (3) the dubious ideal of “merit.” At the same time it would have retained both its historic religious faith (instead of exchanging Protestant rigor for a post-Christian Social Gospel and a soft pantheism) and its more self-denying culture (instead of letting all that wash away in the flood of boomer-era emotivism). " So wrote "New York Times columnist Ross Douthat is using the death of President George H. W. Bush to mourn the caste the late president belonged to." Ross Gregory Douthat is an American political analyst, blogger, author and New York Times columnist. He was a senior editor of The Atlantic. He has written on a variety of topics, including the state of Christianity in America and "sustainable decadence" in contemporary society. Wikipedia

In the United States, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants or WASPs are an ethnoreligious group who are the white, upper-class, American Protestant historical elite, typically of British descent. WASPs dominated American society, culture, and politics for most of the history of the United States.

Today,  a lady on ABC said she was a wasp.  I about fainted.

                        Paul Rudd as Ant Man called Scott Lang, who in real life is NOT a wasp, even though he's white.  

So when I was watching TV a few minutes ago and heard a Walt Disney character remark that she played the wasp in the movie with the ant man, I couldn't believe my ears. 

Evangeline Lilly as the Wasp called  Hope Pym

I had to check on google to see if I heard right.  And sure enough, there is the movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp is a 2018 American superhero film based on Marvel Comics featuring the characters Scott Lang / Ant-Man and Hope Pym / Wasp. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the sequel to Ant-Man (2015) and the 20th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

Ant-Man and the Wasp had its world premiere in Hollywood on June 25, 2018, and was released in the United States on July 6, 2018, as part of Phase Three of the MCU. The film was a critical and commercial success, receiving praise for its performances (particularly those of Rudd and Lilly), humor, and levity, and grossing over $622 million worldwide. A sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, is scheduled for release in February 2023.

                                               

Notice: from bottom, the Apoides of (wasps and bees), and above that, the Formicidae (ants) 

Evidently this wasp refers to the insect variety known to exist and pal around with ants according to the filmmakers.  A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. The wasps do not constitute a clade, a complete natural group with a single ancestor, as bees and ants are deeply nested within the wasps, having evolved from wasp ancestors. Wasps that are members of the clade Aculeata can sting their prey.

A wasp's diet varies between species. In most instances, wasps feed their larvae bits of insects that they have killed and chopped up, but the adults feed on sugars from nectar, aphid honeydew or a sugary liquid produced by their larvae.

Wasps have appeared in literature from Classical times, as the eponymous chorus of old men in Aristophanes' 422 BC comedy The Wasps, and in science fiction from H. G. Wells's 1904 novel The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth, featuring giant wasps with three-inch-long stings. The name 'Wasp' has been used for many warships and other military equipment.

You don't want a nest of wasps that might have attached themselves to your house.  Look under the eaves once in a while.  Wasps have generally earned themselves a bad reputation. But despite their occasional aggression, these insects play an important role in the ecosystem.  There are over 7,000 wasp species living in the UK, comprising a huge variety of solitary and social species. The majority are parasitoids, which have young that eat insects or spiders alive. However, the most commonly seen wasps are the black and yellow social species.

Resource:

https://newrepublic.com/article/152533/death-wasp-elite-greatly-exaggerated

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Anglo-Saxon_Protestants#:~:text=In%20the%20United%20States%2C%20White,history%20of%20the%20United%20States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant-Man_and_the_Wasp