Captain America

[alias_sqbr]

Quite possibly the most boring superhero film I have ever seen. The film is basically some vaguely interesting setup, and then a whole bunch of Captain America blowing up sort-of-Nazis (and if you want to see a recent superhero film involving killing Nazis, watch Xmen: First Class)

After some discussion Cam and I decided that Wolverine, Xmen 3 and even Spiderman 3 were more interesting, they may have wasted their potential with some irritating choices, but at least they didn't run out of potential in the first 45 minutes.


Spoilers!

I did find Steve likeable. But for a story about a little guy from the 1940s who finds himself a big guy in the modern day, they did a lazy job exploring how he felt about becoming bigger and stronger, and made absolutely no effort at all to get across how different the 1940s are to now, meaning I feel very little interest in seeing him in the Avengers. There was some vague brief mentions of sexism and racism involving the (single) female and Japanese characters, with no references at all to racism towards the apparently integrated black soldiers. Yet I'm sure that if you asked the film makers why the film is so filled to the brim with white men (especially in all the major speaking roles) they would say it's for "historical accuracy".

As much as Hydra were boring villains, I did like that they made Hitler look like a nasty but irrelevant two bit leader who had no idea what was really going on. But it was all so lazy and empty. They weren't willing to critique or subvert typical World War Two movie imagery or ideals, but nor were they willing to engage too blatantly in manipulative jingoism and so it was just…flat. The Red Skull rants about superior beings taking over the earth, and the movie tried to look like it was about saving the little guy from bullies, but we never actually see Steve or the US army protecting anyone but other US soldiers. As tacky as it would have been, there needed to be a scene where Steve-as-Captain-America helps some Italian villagers or stands up to someone being racist or something, instead of lots of abstract "protecting America" and saving his friends.

EDIT: I know what's wrong with this movie (well, one thing) It only cares about soldiers. I don't mean "it glorifies the military", that's only to be expected, I mean that literally the only characters who are presented as relevant or interesting are soldiers and weapons scientists. There's a slimy money grubbing politician, some faceless secretaries and dancing girls (who are much less interesting as love interests than the lady soldier), and some random little white boys who one assumes will grow to up be soldiers themselves. And that's about it.

Comments

[whatistigerbalm]

Pretty much! But then I didn't think a Cap Am origins film was a great idea to begin with, so...

[sqbr]

I was very dubious and had trouble imagining how it could avoid being a pile of terrible badness. But I think it could very easily have been much less dull, even if it was unlikely to ever be good.

[ithiliana]

Thanks for confirmation of my rather vague decision not to see the film--mostly because, while I was never a comic book fan, I was aware of a lot of the superhero characters (Spiderman, in the daily paper, was my favorite; Wonder Woman of course rocked, Superman was everywhere), and I could not think of one thing I knew about Captain America.

[kerravonsen]

I'm intrigued by your icon. Would you care to explain what you have against Joanna Russ? I've only read one book by her and I didn't like it, so please don't fear to tread on my sensibilities.

[alias_sqbr]

Ithiliana is a big fan of Joanna Russ, I'm pretty sure her icon is sarcastic :)

[ithiliana]

Alias_sbqr is totally right--I am a total and devoted fan of Russ, and have been since I was about 14 (I'm 55)--the icon was created by fellow feminist sf fan who made others (I have Octavia Butler and James Tiptree, Jr.)--so a series of the women who (as the sexist sf dudes have been saying) have been ruining sf since (year of their first publication)

What Russ did you read?

[kerravonsen]

Ah, I see.

I read "And Chaos Died".

[alias_sqbr]

I knew that he was nice and frequently shipped with Tony Stark. And, having seen the film, I can see how they could be cute together, but that really didn't make up for the other flaws.

Note to other commenters: Trigger warning for this comment, many issues

[sami]

The trouble is, it's not really possible to feature things like "Captain America helps some Italian villagers" in a way that's not either ridiculously offensive or a serious downer for a superhero movie.

It's not yet even at the point where it's purely history yet. One of the people I love most in the world is my Italian faux-grandmother, who was a girl in Italy during the war. To this day, she hates Americans even more than she hates Nazis. The Nazis were cruel and oppressive, but they had rules, and followed them, and she never saw them drunk in the street. The Americans were drunken and crude, semi-lawless, and set up a rape camp not far from her house. How she avoided ending up in it herself is a story in itself, one which in part owes something to the friendliness of Italian Fascist soldiers who taught her self-defence.

Meanwhile, the general situation for Italian people at the time was so bad that my grandfather, who was part of the Allied forces moving up through Italy at the end of the war, had screaming nightmares about the things he saw there for the rest of his life.

Superhero movies like Captain America tend to gloss the civilian suffering in wartime, and in my view, that's rather a good thing. Superhero movies are escapism. They're not supposed to hurt.

Re: Note to other commenters: Trigger warning for this comment, many issues

[alias_sqbr]

First off: I apologise for my poorly thought out example. I'm embarrassingly ignorant about a lot of World War Two history, specifically as it applies to Italy, and hadn't thought through the unfortunate implications. And trying to think of something less problematic I have to admit that any "Captain America helps the little guy" scene could very easily have unfortunate implications, even if I do feel the film needed it to create closure for the narrative arc it started with. (Something about his final self sacrifice didn't hit the right emotional button for me, but YMMV)

That said: I think you and I have different needs from our escapism. To me, glossing over the horrors of war so utterly and making World War Two all about a bunch of white American male soldiers saving other white American male soldiers does hurt. My grandparents had a pretty bad time during the war (if probably not as bad as yours), and hated Americans (and the military in general) an awful lot, and that's one reason seeing civilians belittled and erased like that creeped me out.

When I saw the trailer for the film I thought "I'm not sure there's any way this film can not piss me off given it's premise", I heard enough vaguely positive reviews to give it a chance but perhaps my first instinct was right.

Re: Note to other commenters: Trigger warning for this comment, many issues

[sami]

I'd also, then, point out that it's not all white American soldiers; that was one of the things that I had to make myself not twitch at, because the troops are shown as mixed-race and American soldiers were still segregated then.

I can see your point, and obviously, I really liked the film and you clearly didn't (I think knowing more Captain America story background helps), which is going to contribute in some ways anyway, but I don't think I can see a way to include civilians in a story set in WW2 Europe that's appropriate, whereas the way it was written, they were fighting to protect civilians, but civilians weren't shown endangered directly.

I didn't see his "final sacrifice" being even about resolving his narrative arc; this is his origin story, and I knew going in that he was going to end up in ice, and that he was going to be found again. Steve's story is still to come, in a lot of ways.

The premise is probably going to be difficult for you to enjoy, because there's central elements to Steve's story that were first written in about 1940. They've done a lot to moderate the central propagandist and racist elements, over the years, but it's a comic founded on the glorification of the military at a time when they were at war with the Third Reich. And it's a milieu in which, especially in origin stories, it's canonically important that Steve Rogers is a pure, golden hero amid whatever mess and grime he wades through.

You might find this post of meta interesting (or not) - it's kind of presenting a lot of the framework through which it has appeal to people who already love Cap.

Personally, one of the reasons I like him actually includes his cornball boy scoutyness - the best writers of Steve Rogers are the ones who have a hint, just a hint, that Steve knows he's a giant, giant dork and also that Steve does not care that he's a giant, giant dork, because if being A Good Guy means being dorky, then he will DORK OUT WITH PRIDE.

And if you show too much of the ugliness of the war, or the unpleasantness of the American soldiers to whom Cap has pledged allegiance, then that is likely to ruin the movie or else just degrade Cap's cleancut image.

This is part of why Steve/Tony too, of course, because Tony wants to be that guy, but doesn't think he deserves to be that guy, but Tony Stark and his feelings about Tony Stark, as opposed to his feelings about Iron Man, and also juxtaposed about his feelings about Captain America and Steve Rogers, could make for a massive, massive thing all its own.

Re: Note to other commenters: Trigger warning for this comment, many issues

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah, the "mostly white cast with just enough token black characters to show they're ignoring segregation" was the worst of both worlds, casting wise.

I imagine that seeing this film as part of the broader Captain America narrative would have given a very different perspective to me seeing it of context. It's possible that my opinion of the film will change once I see the Avengers.

While I had problems with the film, I have no problem with Steve (I was kind of expecting to, but I didn't). I would have liked to have been shown that Captain America is still the same guy he was at the start, but regardless I liked that guy a lot. And I can definitely see how he could be cute with Tony :D