Short Movie Review: “Captain America: The First Avenger”3 min read

“Captain America: The First Avenger” might be the Marvel movie I like the least. 

Among other flaws, the movie is imagined to take place during World War 2, except that the U.S. Army is racially integrated and this war is fought between the USA, the UK and “Nazis.”

I am cognizant that the movie is in no way intended to portray literal historical events in an overall sense; there are no infinity stones, supermen, Hydra bases, and so on, in history. But the story does take place during World War 2 (which actually happened), shows Hitler (an actual man) to be an enemy of the USA (an actual country) , and goes through some effort to portray period-accurate clothes, technology, etc. (if, at least, to contrast them with the never-even-ever-existed advanced Hydra technology). What I am saying is that the movie obviously intends to reference real history and necessarily expects the audience to relate to what they are seeing by their own knowledge of what happened in World War 2, what manufactured objects looked like in 1942, and so forth. 

So why is the U.S. military depicted as racially integrated? When the story deviates from the actual historical content of the setting, we are given elaborate, precise reasons (e.g., many scenes are devoted to showing how Hydra created and built advanced weapons using an infinity stone). But there’s no comment as to why Bucky’s combat unit is racially integrated. Why can’t Captain America just say that he wants the best team and doesn’t care if having a multiracial unit violates U.S. army policy?

Even a random episode of the Justice League cartoon from 15 years ago correctly portrayed the U.S. army as not racially integrated during World War 2. John Stewart, the Green Lantern and also a black man, becomes trapped in the past. Without a way to recharge his ring, he has to team up with a U.S. army unit that immediately displays anti-Black prejudice and disbelieves that he could be a U.S. Marine. That episode was played on Cartoon Network and watched by children. 

Captain America ignores this fascinating and important lesson about the past, which is especially relevant to a war that many Americans learn is a battle in which their forebears defeated racists. What a shame. 

I watched the movie again tonight. During the credits (which is a montage of famous U.S. WW2 propaganda posters), I recognized a recreation of a “United” poster — except that the flag of the USSR was blatantly removed from the image as a U.S. ally.^[1]The Union Jack has also been relocated to a less dominant position, and most of the other flags have been lowered out of view. The original poster portrays a united alliance; the altered poster just boasts about America.

This alteration is despicable.^[2]Dang, how did I even notice they changed the poster? I guess because I’ve going to the National History Museum since I was small. Thanks Mom and Dad. Although Stalin’s Soviet Union was as bad as or worse a government than Hitler’s 3rd Reich, that country and the people in it did fight in the war. The peoples of the USSR sacrificed much more than Americans did to defeat the Nazis. 

Someone had to look at the original poster and think “Gee I better remove the flag of the USSR.’ Somehow, they cared enough about history to put in “real” posters, but present-day sensibilities kept them from portraying  the actual poster. It all feels very Orwellian to me. 

If you’re uncomfortable with the historical fact that the USSR won World War 2 (in the same sense that the USA did), or uncomfortable with the historical fact that the U.S. armed forces were once racially segregated, perhaps you should not be making a movie about World War 2. Let someone else handle it.