(no subject)

[ivyfic]

You know, the more I think about it, the more pissed I am at how completely tone deaf the movie was about the things Americans did in the war. I think now what I'd like most from a Steve Rogers in the future story is for him to find out about Nagasaki and Hiroshima and the internment camps and realize that Americans were bullies, too. (I'm not making a statement about whether or not we should have dropped the bomb--but this was not a war where all the righteousness was on our side, I'm just saying.)

God. It really kind of pisses me off. This movie brought up a whole boatload of really loaded issues and then ignored them and I just don't feel quite that happy-go-lucky about the whole thing. I've never read the comics, I have no attachment to the character or the Marvel verse, and this movie just did not sell me on it. At all.

Comments

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I don't know the Cap's comics that well myself, so I cannot say what he thought of various things. He lived through the whole war in comics before they kicked him forward in time, I thought, so he should have known about most of the bad things his country did. Or maybe he didn't, who could really say? Comics don't really stay consistent on their characters who don't disappear for decades on end.

I understand your intellectual need to engage with this on all sides, but taking this movie to task for not including that seems wrong to me. I think they could have tackled maybe one of the things that is bugging you, but not all of that. No one can cover the full breadth and scope of American wrongs in WWII in one movie, much less a movie that also has the job of selling you on an American. There's a case to be made that Steve Rogers would seem even more the awesome hero were he to condemn the bad things his government did. But he "dies" before the bomb is dropped and he's being whisked around the US and Europe doing propaganda. When was there time for him to mount a soapbox and decry Japanese-American internment?

That's what I guess makes me think your objections, while not wrong, are misplaced in holding against this particular WWII movie. To include the elements you're hah-rumphing about would be to turn the movie from a pastiche comic movie into a polemic. I don't think the latter would have been enjoyable for anyone but you, sorry dude.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I just have a problem with the premise of Captain America, period. I could say what I think it is, but I think that would just piss people off. Basically, they couldn't have made a movie I'd be happy with with the material. They couldn't have solved the problems, the problems are baked in. But that doesn't mean I should be happy with a movie that white-washes Americans in the war. But the way they used the imagery of A-bombs? What the fuck, man.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The imagery that bothers you so much honestly never occurred to me, and I'm as saturated with those images as anyone, to be sure. Interesting.

Having a problem with the premise but going to see the movie anyway? What, are you me all of a sudden?

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I honestly knew nothing about Captain America in advance, except for what Stephen Colbert said on his show.

And also, the movie did not even examine the basic idea of there being an uber mensch, and it could have done that. You have Red Skull saying he no longer fits Hitler's ideal (when Steve CLEARLY does), you have him saying he and Steve are now above everyone else and then...nada. Steve has guts and heart, but everything he does after the procedure is about his physical beauty/capabilities. We see him as clever with the flagpole when he's scrawny, but then he just punches things. The movie is not saying it's wrong to try to create the ideal man. It's saying the ideal man is an American. So...Hitler was right? I mean, just, what. His sidekicks are less than window dressing--Bucky exists to be killed--everything he does, he does. The movie basically validates the whole Nazi uber mensch idea, while simultaneously pushing American weapons-creation onto Nazis and it just bothers the HELL out of me.

Yes, I know the uber mensch thing is also a general comic book super hero thing, but this setting draws specific attention to it in a very disturbing way.

If you can ignore all the baggage, it worked pretty well as a movie. But all I see is baggage.

[derryderrydown.livejournal.com]

What I like about Cap is that he's meant to be an icon of America and all the rest - but in 616-verse, he's a total liberal hippy. He's a delightful subversion.