Captain America: Love and Friendship

My last blog post on here detailed my anticipations and fears for Captain America: Civil War. While the movie did not stick to the Civil War plot as I understood it in that post, there was a superhero civil war in it and I was satisfied with the movie overall. It had a good action:plot ratio and the introduction of the newest Superheroes to our Marvel-verse, Black Panther and Spider-man, were spot on and make me excited for their standalone movies. (Though Spiderman: Homecoming may already be part of the Marvel Studios white-washing problem [ addressed in more detail: here, here, and here). P.S. Spoilers follow

Rather than revolve around a superhero registration act, requiring super heroes to “unmask” and work for the government in their crime-fightin’ capacity, it revolved around how and when the Avengers should be deployed. According to accords as we know them, which is not as well explained in the movie as I would like in order to choose “a side”, basically if you are part of the “Avengers,” as we have seen them in previous movies and if you sign the accords you are deployed as needed as defined by a UN subcommittee. If you do not sign, you are a global vigilante whenever you decide to step in and stop crises. Interesting discussion. How would we delegate power to control super-humans? And how would we deal with the fact that the majority of this team are US citizens that believe they are acting in the world’s interests.

This would all be fine if that ice-blast from the past, the Winter Soldier, hadn’t stepped in. (P.S. I <3 Stucky) Captain America politely refused to sign the accords and could fight crime within the US. That was until Bucky Barnes had to be involved and as we saw early in the movie, you so much as mention Benjamin Barnes and it’s kryptonite to Cap’s focus. Because of this, the specifics of the accords take a back seat to a discussion about love and friendship, the ties we create in life and how those endure into the future. The movie revolves around the fact that Cap makes bad decisions because he’s still in love with the past, which is slowly dying with each minute. The passing of Peggy Carter in the film demonstrates how the world that Cap grew up in no longer exists outside his mind and while we feel like he’s been around for a long time it’s been a few years since he’s thawed. He’s still a 1940s man in a 2010s world, with as much as he can learn about the present, his life experiences are still rooted in an age that no one on the current Earth understands, except of course, Benjamin Barnes. His dedication to saving Bucky is a way for Cap to preserve parts of the world that he grew up in even though he knows that that’s impossible. If Bucky hadn’t been implicated in the plot it’s unlikely that the Civil War would have erupted.

On the other side, we also see that the legislation that spurs the accords and our villain is motivated by love. Our villain is interested in destroying the Avenger because without superhumans, we have fewer superhuman-scale disasters. While his actions are extreme, since the accords don’t want to destroy the Avengers, his works expressed the feelings that many other people had towards the Avengers. A woman approaches Tony Stark after a speech to show him her son that died because of their actions, Black Panther’s father is killed because of a bomb, planted by the villain, aimed at destroying the Avengers, and Rhodie is seriously injured because Cap is trying to protect Bucky. Not all of these actions are linked specifically to Cap’s, they demonstrate how superhumans have changed the lives of people in serious ways. “Saving the world” has serious collateral damage and sometimes individual biases/friendships/loves cloud people’s judgement.

These reactions and actions feelings circle us back to the reason for the accords. Why does one super-powered American get to decide what is best for the world? Why does their judgement get more weight than others? Why does one individual’s friendship(s) matter more than the lives of others?

Blog update: No specific topic

My apologies for not having a blog post since April, a lot of things have been happening. Planned things, but things that took up my time and focus that were not this.

Moving: Back in the PNW for the next few months. Hoping to have a cooler summer.

Geek Girl Con Panel: I got accepted. Which is crazy, awesome, I am so scared and excited. It is such an important topic to talk about (Adaptation, Appropriation, and Influence) and has such power to impact the understanding of our world and art. Now I'm waiting to hear back about who may also be on the panel. I can talk about it of course, as a consumer and an academic, but I really want to have creators talk about their processes. I also want this to be a meaningful and positive discussion, not just a rag fest on how people don't do it well. Worst case scenario: I am there and talk about what I know and understand. Best case: I lead an awesome only semi-awkward discussion of the topic. Either way this will be great and scary.

Draft proposal: Submitted and waiting to hear

Wisdom teeth: My teeth are no longer wise but are healing well. Very strange experience.

Getting back to work: There are so many things I need to do that are all, like the Geek Girl Con panel, awesome and scary. Lots of writing, some solo work and some collaborative, some for publication and some for my proposal. They all require reading, so I have some trips to the library planned. Regardless, I hope to have a couple more blogs in the next few weeks. One discussing my response to Captain America: Civil War and another in my "series" of IAA. I hope to work furiously on these soon.

Thanks for reading and I hope to have more for you to read soon

Marvel and the American Government: The potential and danger of Captain America: Civil War

Civil War doesn’t come out for a few weeks but I’ve been catching up on the world they are living in through Agents of Shield. AoS has grown into quite an amazing show and is dealing with complex and layered issues, something you wouldn’t expect based on their first season.

Anyways, I have many trepidations about Civil War particularly because they’ve been marketing it as a sort of Marvel-Team version of Batman vs. Superman. #TeamCap versus #TeamIronMan and all that. However, that doesn’t do justice to the importance of the Civil War plotline. The Marvel “event” known as Civil War ran in 2006-2007 and as I’ve continued reading American comics, it has been the only event to maintain my interest. This was because Superheroes were dealing with an investigation of the role of government.

The interesting thing about that series coming out during the Bush-era was that the idea of going along with the government wasn’t quite as heinous as it is now. We knew there was wire-tapping and the Patriot Act but the surveillance state that we live in now is much more insidious than the one Marvel dealt with in 2006. For that reason, I am having a hard time deciding how I feel about the premise for Civil War, especially if they keep it the same. Based on the comics, I understand Iron Man’s position to be if superheroes do not participate in creating legislation to govern and register themselves the outcome would be even worse. Something akin to the Japanese internment camps but for superheroes. Captain America’s position is that the government should never require their citizens to share their personal identity and secrets. Both have their values particularly because in the comics the legislation is inevitable. It will pass, the difference is in its form.

In a world with unpredictable superpowers, governments would be afraid. So their reaction would be to legislate, police, and surveil, using the only things in their power to maintain order and control, especially, when it’s clear that The Avengers can’t protect from those with bad intentions. But that’s the comics. What has caught my eye about AoS is that they are dealing with these issues in a very realistic way, providing the importance and depth of the Civil War premise. Using the Agents to examine how regular people feel about those with powers they are providing the parallels to the real world, the hate of illegal immigrants and discussion about how government(s) are involved in the lives of citizens, demonstrating the potential importance of the film.

However, I still worry about Civil War because it’s most comparable film is Age of Ultron. The issues in the comics are more about talking than they are about fighting in the streets, which is not what we’re seeing from the trailers and definitely not what we got in Age of Ultron. Not all Marvel movies have serious issues at their heart but the interesting discussion in Ultron of whether humanity is capable of peace was not the main focus. Rather than develop and use the beauty of Science Fiction as a critique and discussion of ourselves it was about blowing up large buildings.

Civil War can’t have that sort of treatment because the enemy is each other. There is no “big bad” we can throw this discussion onto. There is only the deeply polarizing and complicated issue about the relationship between the individual and the state. What rights do we give up as citizens in order to have other rights allowed to us? The right to healthcare may involve a loss of privacy in order to access that healthcare anywhere. However, people give up their privacy in so many ways already but to private companies rather than the government. We just don’t think about it when we sign into Facebook or Twitter or forget to turn of GPS tracking on Google Maps.

The only why that I can see Civil War being truly successful is if they can make audiences believe both sides of the argument and that will require more dialogue than punches. And if that happens, it will be probably be the most important Marvel movie made so far.

IAA – P2: Pan-Asian Culture in American Visual Media – Dr. Strange v. Firefly v. Kung-Fu Panda 3

I mentioned this in my inspiration post that there were two roads towards this section of the blog. The general one being in reaction to JK Rowling’s mishap with Native American and Caucasian American History and the second was watching Kung-Fu Panda 3. The two are related via the trinity of influence, adaptation, and appropriation because although I enjoyed Kung-Fu Panda 3, I also wondered why I felt more comfortable with their use of East-Asian culture than I did with Firefly. And then the Dr. Strange trailer had to drop. And I was like well…this just stirs up a bunch of mixed feelings. So I’m going to write about how each of these different visual media fairs against the IAA scale. 1 being not too X, 10 being way too X.

Firefly/Serenity (2002, 2005)

What: One of the most beloved, and slighted, science fiction shows known within western culture and Science fiction fandom. Essentially a space-western, except everyone swears in Chinese.

How is it related to Asian culture: Everyone swears in Chinese and there are some signs at one point apparently in Chinese. There is also clearly Asian influence in some costume designs

What initially made me concerned: Everyone swears in Chinese, and in the movie there is some clear influence East-Asian pop cultural references. However, there are no main characters that are Asian in the crew nor can I remember ever seeing an Asian person actually in the show.

Influence: 4

Appropriation: 7

Adaptation:2

Why: There are clearly Asian influences in Firefly, the name of the ship and the clothing styles for Inara, they also even use Chinese as a language to swear in. The problem with all of this is the lack of actual Asian representation in the show. As much as I enjoy the diversity of Firefly, especially the number of highly capable women and the representation of Afro-Caribbean/-American actors, there are no people I can remember in the entirety of the show who are actually Asian. There are like a billion characters that draw from American “wild west” tropes but none that are actually Asian, even for use in stereotyped forms (ninjas etc.). You get an English gangster but not one Asian one. As much as I love Firefly, and the idea that these COULD have been developed had the show continued, that’s still no excuse for the lack of Asian representation in the first season. Even the movie doesn’t do much to further rectify the problem, the villains of the namely Empire still don’t represent the culture that they are supposed to be from. The problem with this, having the aesthetics and the language without the physical representation, is, as I addressed in the first blog, that those cultural behaviors are rarely expressed without people. Goods can travel, but language requires regular speaking contact and we can see even in America’s own history that when Asian cultures are present in the Wild West, which they were, they bring their language and a whole host of other cultural traits. To create a future based on this blend without the actual people makes it rate high on the appropriation scale.

Kung-Fu Panda 3 (2015)

What: The third installment in a series about a Panda who does Kung-Fu. It is set in a mythical China where there are no humans and all animals are anthropomorphized. Everyone eats vegetables and there is no cannibalism of other species.

How is it related to Asian culture: The story is about Kung-Fu and set in China.

What initially made me concerned: Why are none of the major voice actors of Asian descent? Is it accurately portraying Chinese cultural traits?

Influence: 10

Appropriation: 3

Adaptation:10

Why: Kung-Fu Panda has a lot of things going for it that make it more on the influence and adaptation side than appropriation. The biggest probably being the fact that Chinese studios are actually involved in the making of at least number three. However, as much as this helped to maintain the authenticity of the foods and aesthetics, and even a Chinese version of Kung-Fu Fighting at the end, there are aspects of the movie that rate along appropriation. For me the biggest problem is that the major speaking roles, except Oogway, are all voiced by Caucasian actors. While this is a kids’ movie, and when it is dubbed anyone could speak the role, it’s frustrating to see an almost stereotypical representation of Chinese culture voiced by a Caucasian man. While Jack Black is admittedly hilarious, and the movie is fun, it’s bothered me that as the franchise has continued Lucy Liu and Jackie Chan, who voice Viper and Monkey, are continually sidelined for additional quips by the male comedians who are often, in this context, not that funny. So even though it’s definitely adapted, animals for people, heavily influenced, it still gets a rating of 3 for appropriation.

Dr. Strange (2016)

What: The most recent Marvel solo movie about a brain surgeon who gets in a car accident and is unable to perform surgery who goes to Tibet/Nepal to find himself after his accident/surgery. Finding himself included finding magic

How is it related to Asian culture: The entire premise for his “magic” centers on Eastern Asian philosophy and in the original comics he learns from a 500 Tibetan Man how to harness powers based on these East Asian philosophies and magic.

What initially made me concerned: A many Doctors and Surgeons in the United States are now of Asian descent and it would have been the perfect chance to ethnicity swap a major but not super critical Marvel character. While the did not do this to the good Doctor himself, they did gender swap (which is positive) but also ethnicity swapped the teacher of Dr. Strange to being white.

Influence: 7

Appropriation: 7

Adaptation:1

Why: Dr. Strange is a strange Marvel character and like Thor represents an aspect of Superheroism that is sometimes hard to reconcile with ultra-modern technology and people with genetic mutations. However, it also made a lot of sense at the time it was written. The problem is that the movie did not do anything to rectify this very historically contingent use of Asian culture. And to a degree they made it worse. The basic premise for Dr. Strange is that a highly successful Neurosurgeon, who is basically a giant jerk, gets into a car accident and the surgeon who reconstructs his hands is unable to make them steady enough for Dr. Strange to go back to surgery. So goes on a quest to figure out who he is and where does he go? Tibet of course. Which is where he eventually learns the arts of astral projection and mysticism. Yay! In the 1960s having that be a white guy made sense, in 2016, personally, I think it would have been better to cast an Asian actor (who goes back to examine his heritage during a time of crises and builds upon the fact that many in the medical field are not white). Anyways, in the comics, he learns from a 500 Tibetan man how to do this. Well, who gets to be that? Tilda Swinton…Well that’s ok, I’m happy that it’s a woman. I’m not so happy that the implication that Tibetans 500 years ago were white, or that an Ancient spirit decided to live in Tibet and choose to be white, or the implication essentially that Caucasians are better at being Asian, or the idea that Marvel couldn’t write a good movie-worthy Asian character. None of those things are good and so as much as Dr. Strange is influenced by Asian culture, it didn’t do much adapting, and instead decided to appropriate.