Saw it last week and I’m still not entirely sure what I think. It was a very enjoyable action movie. It was also unambiguously pro-American, though as Alyssa Rosenberg pointed out it, had trouble incorporating the WWII-era Army’s racial segregation in a satisfying way. We didn’t need a sermon, but you could have been forgiven if you walked away from the movie thinking that the WWII-era US Army was fully integrated. Tommy Lee Jones was awesome and came across much tougher than anybody else in the movie. It was a reminder that the real Captains America were real captains and privates etc.
The basic moral conflict of the movie was intrinsic human dignity vs. power unmoored from real morality – whether on the level of the street or global politics. Steve Rogers stands up for the worth of every individual (just a kid from Brooklyn) against the pseudo-scientific Social Darwinism of the Red Skull. There is some interesting stuff there. They write the Nazi Red Skull as becoming post-racist and post-nationalist though not less evil for that. His right to rule comes from his intelligence, ruthlessness, and chemically enhanced strength rather than race or national identity. I’m not sure the movie’s use of the discourse of bullying gets the most out of the conflict between the Skull and Cap.
It all depends on your expectations. It isn’t as thoughtful or dramatically successful as the Dark Knight or Batman Begins (or even the first Toby Maguire Spiderman), but it is worlds better than the Captain America movies from the late 70s.
August 3rd, 2011 | 5:20 pm
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August 7th, 2011 | 7:44 am
I offer a few suggestions to the effect that Captain America is a ‘thoughtful’ action movie in that it impressively explores some of the same ground covered in the rightly praised Dark Knight and Spiderman 1, and further, it explores new ground not covered by either.
Blood Brothers: Joker/Batman=Red Skull/Captain America
The Joker repeatedly claims a deep symbiotic relationship with Batman. The Joker’s constant refrain is that they’re like salt and pepper–can’t have one without the other. The Red Skull isn’t the big talker The Joker is, but he makes the same point about his relationship with Captain America: both characters are inventions of the same scientist. Further, the Red Skull even muses whether Captain America may be an improvement on him.
What makes for a wasted life?
In Spiderman 1, the heavy handed messaging of “with great power comes great obligations” is dramatically portrayed with Spiderman’s first gig–he starts out as a wrestler because Parker wants the money (of course, for a good cause.) Superficially, Steve Rogers/Captain America starts out the same way as a song and dance man. But the catch is he’s selling war bonds and doing, by the end, a pretty good job of it, and making a difference in the war effort. But is it enough to do good, if you’re not exerting your abilities to the fullest extent? While Steve Rogers/Captain America answers ‘no’, that might not be the entire answer in the movie, since different characters answer it different ways at different times. The answer seems to be connected with the movie’s treatment of two themes that I have never seen explored in a comic book hero movie: alcohol and the critique of the universal state.
Alcohol
The Good Guys drink booze the way the Corleone family eats pasta in Godfather 1. They drink socially and some acknowledge its good and bad effects. But it’s the parallel presentation of alcohol and the super hero serum developed by Dr. Erskine that probes the character and limitations of Steve Rogers/Captain America. On the eve of his injections, Rogers is visited by Erskine, who brings a bottle of booze. They have an important discussion, but Rogers, can’t drink because he has the procedure scheduled for tomorrow–Erskine drinks for him. We don’t know when Erskine stops, but the next day he intimates that he continued to drink after he left Rogers and that he became intoxicated–he may even be hung over. While alcohol might make someone feel better for a while, the serum does make Steve Rogers/Captain America actually better. But like booze, it amplifies personality characteristics, hence the Red Skull is more evil after his injections than before.
After Steve Rogers/Captain America’s first major victory, he frequents the GIs waterhole (which seems to be the closest they have to home, even after its bombed), but he doesn’t join their drink fest. The separation of Rogers from the others in the context of booze is made explicit later: no matter how hard he drinks in the aftermath of a death, he can’t get drunk. The super hero serum deprives him of the possibility of intoxication. And he resents that–he wants to get drunk. In the context who can blame him? But, of course, a drunk Steve Rogers/Captain America can’t fight the Red Skull.
The Universal State
I read Pete’s review before I saw the movie, so I was interested in his comment that the Red Skull was “post-nationalist” and his claim to rule and I think his observations here on bang on. I’d simply like to expand somewhat on them.
By post-nationalist, the Red Skull means the global or universal state, with the rubbing out of all individual countries or nations. He’s not the first character to think about the advantages of the universal state. At the end of major wars and at other times, peoples thoughts can turn to the idea of the universal state–if there are no countries, then there can’t be wars between countries. War movies implicitly raise the question of the universal state, but Captain America addresses it directly.
The Red Skull criticizes Steve Rogers/Captain America’s political choice: he’s involved in a fight between nations, whereas he should join forces with the Red Skull and establish the global universal state, run by the smarter of the two–the Red Skull. The universal state-which would mean the end of wars between countries is presented as a real possibility–but it would be a tyranny. A tyranny of a brilliant scientist who claims wisdom, who is supported by modern technology.
This contrasts with the presentation of the importance of a world of particular and separate political entities as associated with the Allied characters:
-Dr. Erskine is a refugee. Precisely because there is not one global state, when things got bad in his home country, he could run to another. There was somewhere to run to.
-The GIs are multi-national
-Betsy in English
-Much is made of Roger’s Brooklyn origin. Indeed, the Red Skull’s significant surge of anger at Steve Rogers/Captain America is in response to the Red Skull’s question: our common maker wanted to improve upon me, so why did he pick you? To which Steve Rogers/Captain America responds that he’s nothing special, just a kid from Brooklyn. For the Red Skull’s creator the particulars matter. He repeated asks Rogers where he’s from and makes sure Rogers knows where he, Erskine, is from. But he never tells Rogers he’s the subject because he’s from Brooklyn. Is Steve Rogers/Captain America answer a lie? Perhaps. Erskine gave a couple of answers, but none explicitly tied to Brooklyn.
The characteristics of the universal state were explored in the Strauss/Kojeve debate in immediate aftermath of World War 2, in the war that the fictional Steve Rogers/Captain America and the Red Skull fought. One clear political message is stated by Strauss: the universal state would be a disaster and is to be avoided for at least two reasons. It will be a tyranny and there will be no where to run to. Strauss, like Erskine, ran, so to speak, from the Nazis. Philosophers at least since Plato’s Protagoras have made it clear that it’s key to the survival of the wise (and others too)that they have somewhere to run to.
Running Away
Is running away always cowardly? Is standing and fighting always noble? Steve Rogers/Captain America repeatedly says (to everyone except the Red Skull)that his defining characteristic is that he doesn’t run away. He might get beaten to a pulp, but he doesn’t run. But Erskine on the eve of the transformation to Captain America, tells Rogers that he, Erskine, ran when the Nazis occupied his country. He doesn’t belabour the point, but had he not done so, there would have been no Captain America.
August 7th, 2011 | 10:03 pm
Jason, not really buying the blood brothers things between Cap/Skull and Batman/Joker. The Cap/Skull relationship is closer to the Spidey/Goblin relationship in Spiderman. All four characters develop extraordinary powers. Two bind themselves to morality while two use their powers to in the service of the idea that might is right (or as Norman Osborne says – and I’m working from memory here- “I’m not following their rules anymore.”) those issues were dealt with not only more explicitly, but also more effectively (Parker’s bottomless regret, the temptations and frustrations that break Osborne’s character) in Spiderman.
Alcohol – I don’t see it as a major theme, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
The Universal State – The movie would have been better off if the writers had either:
a) Read the Strauss Kojeve letters you reference. I’m not sure they would be against a democratic universal state and then Dr. Erskine would never have needed to run anywhere. There are of course the down side risks of any universal state going bad (a global Weimar) but you have to squint really hard to see such an anti-transnational statism intention in the movie (though it might be a handy teaching tool.)
b) IF (huge IF) they had read them, they should have developed the theme more fully. Skull (like Hitler) favors a totalitarian universal state. Skull sees through Hitler’s racism and German racial nationalism, but is no less a globalist totalitarian for all that. He sees himself as entitled to rule by science (along multiple dimensions. This is where I though the discourse of bullying fell short. You had the chance to root the conflict between a non-chauvinist (he doesn’t take shots at the French for cowardice etc.), morally rooted, democratic citizenship vs. a globalist pseudo-scientific totalitarianism. It is kind of there, but they kept circling to bullying (I can see where it might be a metaphor for all totalitarianism but…) On the other hand, the Dark Knight seized the theme of the difficulties and ironies of transitioning from the rule of personal justice to the rule of law under conditions of pervasive and radical threat.
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