Why the World Needs Captain America

Written by Daniel Alexandre Portoraro on Friday July 1, 2011

World War Two seems tried-and-tired, but it is exactly what the American film industry and people need right now.

In the trailer for Captain America: The First Avenger, the viewer is exposed to explosions, one-liners, and loud music. However, he is also exposed to the namesake protagonist of the film; a much needed hero in the current climate of the United States. Bionically engineered and clothed in the Red Blue and White, he faces one of the country's greatest enemies: the Nazis. While the World War Two period is seemingly old, tried-and-tired fare, this is exactly what the American film industry and people need.

We exist in a time in which our enemies have no face. We fight wars with little consideration for boundaries or frontiers. In effect, our “War on Terror”, as has been stated numerous times, is a war on an idea, and one without a finite number of soldiers. This vagueness, this cause with questionable foundation prevents a country from lining up behind its leaders. As such, there is a schism within America: those who follow, and those who stay back and criticize and protest. The end result is simple: this is not good for morale, and even less so for patriotism.

However, upon its release in July, Captain America will hopefully change this in some small way. Viewers will be transported back to a time in which enemies did have names and faces (and no, were not hidden in Pakistan for nearly a decade), and reasons for battle were tangible and clear to understand. More importantly, the setting of the film, World War Two, is one in which there was little to no  moral ambiguity of what the United States was doing in Europe and in the Pacific; they were fighting against evil forces. Yes, it was bloody and violent and terrifying, but regardless, there was a clear enemy: the Third Reich and its allies, and they had to be stopped.

What's more, the film portrays the United States as being the vanguards of freedom in Europe. It was a time of glory for the country, emphasized by the fact that at the war's end, the Americans had won, pure and simple, with nothing up for discussion. Taking Western viewers to what some would consider to be the heyday of American foreign policy can only lift morale, and reassure Americans that while some things might be going wrong today, there's no reason they cannot be fixed in the near-future. As superficial as it may sound, it's an uplifting sentiment.

Furthermore the consequences of attaching a single face, or country, to a threat entails the humanization of the enemy. The further villainization of one's foes to the point where one can no longer feel empathy creates a stronger body of followers. Things become black and white. Static villains are often the most effective ones in action movies, and in politics for that matter. As trite as it may sound, would the James Bond series, with its accented, wealthy, homicidal anti-heroes, be so successful if they struck us as more humane? Obviously things are not truly so extreme under “normal” circumstances, but they must be in crises to assure unity. Gray-zones are a luxury for times of stability. And currenly the American government is in the former camp.

The superhero motif in film might seem childish and superficial at first glance, but its idea of the noble hero and his arch-nemesis is something a country desperately needs, and that the government would do well to reconsider. The most effective results sometimes simply require the most simple means.

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