Captain America: The Fight for America’s Soul
The best art is political. Not partisan, left vs. right, Republican vs. Democrat, but political. The distinction is important. Great art makes us question ourselves, our philosophical and intellectual roots, our very nature. Captain America: Civil War is political, in all the best ways — not partisan, but a philosophical and intellectual debate wrapped in a superhero movie.
The Russos have stated that they didn’t want to make Civil War connected to current events, and to a large extent it isn’t. There’s no clearly copied themes or characters, there’s no Hillary Clinton stand-in, or calls to Make America Great Again, but rather the movie hits on larger themes about the very nature of America. And in that way, Civil War is very much connected to current politics. This election is proving the polling that most people — left and right — believe America has lost its way, and to some extent, its very identity. So while the movie focuses on the division between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, it’s using them as proxies for divergent and oppositional political philosophies that answer a basic question: Who do you trust more — your friends or your government?
Friendship and community are at the heart of this movie and drive the story. Tony Stark, depressed and alone, turns to government to absolve him of his responsibilities to his community. Steve Rogers, loyal to his friend, abandons his government to try and right the ship and get everything back on track. And it’s important to think of these not as their superhero persona, but as the people under the mask. That’s clearly what the writers have been doing — this isn’t a movie about Ironman versus Captain America; this is Tony versus Steve, America’s future versus America’s past.
What the writers have done is taken a man born into the Greatest Generation and transported him into the postmodern corporatist 21st century run by power-hungry Boomers and Gen X technocrats like Stark. In this position, Rogers is free to comment and react to this world without any of the baggage of having lived through the Cold War, the Sixties, or even the Nineties. He’s a platonic personification of American values, a man from a more romantic, maybe even naïve, time, when enemies were clearly defined and wore black (or had a red skull, as it may be). In today’s reality, enemies can be anyone or anywhere manifesting a need for a strong, centralized government.
The overarching regulation of individuals by the state is ironically too much for Rogers, a man whose superpowers are thanks to a military human experimentation program. But that’s the key: Rogers is already Rogers before he’s enhanced to become “Captain America.” His sense of right and wrong, his loyalty and values, his vision of America hasn’t wavered despite the technology and time change. This movie may be titled Captain America, but this is a movie about Steve Rogers pushing back against a postmodern technocratic future that puts primacy on dehumanized law and order over friendship, loyalty, and community.
It takes Stark most of the movie to recognize this central philosophical struggle and I can’t help but think to our own current events. As we debate who should lead this country and as arguing and partisanship are at a rolling boil, perhaps we need to take a step back and ask if we’re even fighting over the right question.
Captain America: Civil War is a great movie because the script is clever and the visuals are stunning. Captain America: Civil War is a great piece of art because it asks political questions that make us question our very nature as a country, as a community, and as individuals.
