"The next Captain America, the comic book version is a shameless self-promoter who travels the nation holding rallies that are less patriotic than they are jingoistic. He also pals around with far-right goons dubbed “bold urban commandos” or “BUCkies” like Cap’s former partner Bucky Barnes. They are costumed Proud Boys who harass international college students they baselessly claim are spies for Muammar Gaddafi. They deface the students’ residence with the words “foreign scum” (they, of course, misspell “foreign”)."
I wonder how Gruenwald would have felt to see his creation become the US President, albeit a fatter, older, and stupider one.
First Blood remains a very strong antiwar movie that indicts the government for utterly failing veterans. John Rambo is a tragic figure. Someone who went over when his government called and did things he was ordered to do that haunt him. He is abandoned when he comes home. He is homeless. He suffers from PTSD. He doesn’t know how to reintegrate into a peace time society. When he is abused, he snaps and returns to what he does best. I’ve read that in the source material, his former CO is less interested in helping John Rambo than in cleaning up and covering up the mess Rambo causes.
Of course, we couldn’t have a tragic figure. It was “morning in America”. So in the very next movie, he becomes a gung ho super soldier. All of the antiwar stuff is gone. Violence is the answer.
We will briefly note that the “heroes” Rambo helps by killing a lot of Russians in the third movie become the enemies of the 2000’s. I suppose one could spin Rambo 3 then as an inadvertent return to the antiwar message of the first one.
But that was the 80’s pop culture.
The “bad guys” (mostly Black and brown skinned people) were threatening “good, decent” (read: White) Americans and only one (White) man with a gun could possibly stop them and “save America (Western Civilization). The Constitution was just a piece of paper that evil lawyers were using to exonerate those bad guys who were obviously guilty or the cops wouldn’t arrest them.
Now, I’d like to think most of us kids exposed to that horsesht grew out of that phase as we became adults. But it’s pretty obvious that more than half of us white kids are still stuck in that childhood phase of the 1980’s where we cheered the (white) cop no matter how murderous or brutal he became against the “bad guys” and the law, lawyers, and Constitution were just bullshit to shield “bad guys”.
Captain America and Superman are a call to an idealized America. An America at our best. They don't really fit the current decade.
I'd be curious to see how the next Superman movie handles this. Superman is generally the very definition of power under the control of compassion and empathy.
I think COVID threw a wrench into that series - it was originally supposed to be the first MCU/Disney limited series, but the reshoots meant "WandaVision" got there first. I strongly suspect there was some kind of virus-based plot that got (almost) completely erased in the rewrites. They took out SOMETHING, at any rate, and the holes show.
>> Reshoots might’ve deliberately weakened this premise, which is not fully explored in the series.
Lol no shade, but that’s a hell of an understatement!
TBH that was the moment the MCU jumped the shark for me. They couldn’t coherently explain where all this stuff was coming from and exactly what the hell was happening in the post-Blip world; they just charged right in to the politics. I’m not asking for Shakespeare’s histories here, but five minutes of solid exposition sprinkled throughout the first couple episodes of that show really would’ve saved the whole endeavor.
There was great potential to explore the potential downsides of a post Blip society. I argue that Covid and January 6 changed a lot because suddenly such storylines hit too close to home.
"The next Captain America, the comic book version is a shameless self-promoter who travels the nation holding rallies that are less patriotic than they are jingoistic. He also pals around with far-right goons dubbed “bold urban commandos” or “BUCkies” like Cap’s former partner Bucky Barnes. They are costumed Proud Boys who harass international college students they baselessly claim are spies for Muammar Gaddafi. They deface the students’ residence with the words “foreign scum” (they, of course, misspell “foreign”)."
I wonder how Gruenwald would have felt to see his creation become the US President, albeit a fatter, older, and stupider one.
It’s funny.
First Blood remains a very strong antiwar movie that indicts the government for utterly failing veterans. John Rambo is a tragic figure. Someone who went over when his government called and did things he was ordered to do that haunt him. He is abandoned when he comes home. He is homeless. He suffers from PTSD. He doesn’t know how to reintegrate into a peace time society. When he is abused, he snaps and returns to what he does best. I’ve read that in the source material, his former CO is less interested in helping John Rambo than in cleaning up and covering up the mess Rambo causes.
Of course, we couldn’t have a tragic figure. It was “morning in America”. So in the very next movie, he becomes a gung ho super soldier. All of the antiwar stuff is gone. Violence is the answer.
We will briefly note that the “heroes” Rambo helps by killing a lot of Russians in the third movie become the enemies of the 2000’s. I suppose one could spin Rambo 3 then as an inadvertent return to the antiwar message of the first one.
But that was the 80’s pop culture.
The “bad guys” (mostly Black and brown skinned people) were threatening “good, decent” (read: White) Americans and only one (White) man with a gun could possibly stop them and “save America (Western Civilization). The Constitution was just a piece of paper that evil lawyers were using to exonerate those bad guys who were obviously guilty or the cops wouldn’t arrest them.
Now, I’d like to think most of us kids exposed to that horsesht grew out of that phase as we became adults. But it’s pretty obvious that more than half of us white kids are still stuck in that childhood phase of the 1980’s where we cheered the (white) cop no matter how murderous or brutal he became against the “bad guys” and the law, lawyers, and Constitution were just bullshit to shield “bad guys”.
Captain America and Superman are a call to an idealized America. An America at our best. They don't really fit the current decade.
I'd be curious to see how the next Superman movie handles this. Superman is generally the very definition of power under the control of compassion and empathy.
I think COVID threw a wrench into that series - it was originally supposed to be the first MCU/Disney limited series, but the reshoots meant "WandaVision" got there first. I strongly suspect there was some kind of virus-based plot that got (almost) completely erased in the rewrites. They took out SOMETHING, at any rate, and the holes show.
>> Reshoots might’ve deliberately weakened this premise, which is not fully explored in the series.
Lol no shade, but that’s a hell of an understatement!
TBH that was the moment the MCU jumped the shark for me. They couldn’t coherently explain where all this stuff was coming from and exactly what the hell was happening in the post-Blip world; they just charged right in to the politics. I’m not asking for Shakespeare’s histories here, but five minutes of solid exposition sprinkled throughout the first couple episodes of that show really would’ve saved the whole endeavor.
Marvel completely broke their narrative spell for me in the first Captain America movie with the image of an octopus for Hydra...
I'm yelling: it's multiple heads... HEADS! not tentacles you morons!
Cut off one tentacle... you now have the makings of a tapas plate...
That's been Hydra's symbol since they first showed up in the comics in the 1960s. Can't blame the movies for that one.
There was great potential to explore the potential downsides of a post Blip society. I argue that Covid and January 6 changed a lot because suddenly such storylines hit too close to home.