#watch egg get on ALL the watchlists in one marvel post lmaooooo

[eggbreadboi]

srry this is in reference to your tags on an old reblog of a post but i just wanna say like yes i agree so much!!, bucky barnes & steve rogers' stories and rife with trauma at the hands of being exploited by state(government) powers and (serious) writers simply CAN'T write a good story about Bucky and/or Steve without veering into deeply anti-American politics (ESP bc the story blatantly uses analogies of real life USA human rights abuses!)

too bad pretty much all of the marvel franchise in films tv anim/LA print etc can't ever actual commit to the inextricable politics of the story and try to have their cake & eat it too and p much every story circles back to "ooh we luv cap'n murica and his shield is the symbol of all goodness ooh 🇺🇸", and as such, Bucky and Steve's stories never get the actual exploration they deserve, because their too intertwined with being surveilled/exploited/experimented/incarcerated/monitored by the state and the marvel franchise can't commit to the politics of what that means

i mean... obvs the war stuff and human experimentation and torture and slavery are much worse abuses in the grand scheme of things, but writing this made me think of the D+ show scene where they literally have Bucky be monitored by the carceral state and have his autonomy denied in ways that is textually identical to how the real life US prison system abuses people... and yet it's framed as "bucky deserves it" unlike the good military man who's being inconvenience by this POW who was experimented on by Nazis hired by the military apparatus he works for. the D+ show acts as if the carceral state is benevolently "keeping Bucky in check".. like that's such an authoritarian & fascist & specifically American stance to take WRT the US prison system. all bc marvel can't stomach portraying the government's human right's abuses as abuses within their works. the franchise keeps circling back to defending the agents of the state and only giving grace when characters act as agents of the state and treating noncompliance/resistance to the state as character flaws to be grown out of at best

Ok first of all I am HONORED to get such a thoughtful and long response, I really appreciate the dialogue.

Here are more thoughts:

Marvel, as a whole, *wants* to tackle American imperialism, especially in the recent Captain America releases. This is a partially inescapable consequence of the original comics, which did quite a lot to critique the American system(ie. making Cap himself a fairly outspoken socialist), and partially just a result of recent social shifts. However, in the MCU mores than in the comics, this falls flat for a couple of reasons:

The Avengers, are, when you cut to the bone, an American paramilitary group, in the MCU (I would argue this is not as true in the comics, though it is less applicable.) therefore, any critique of the system critiques the very existence of the Avengers, and by virtue of yk.....storytelling and needing them to exist, the MCU cannot delve too far into that critique, lest its portrayal of the Avengers veer closer to the portrayal of The Seven and other villainous "hero" groups. The Avengers must be the heroes, and therefore the system that put them into power cannot be completely unjust.

The MCU resolves this by writing stories that emphasize WHO is in charge, not the system that gives them power. SHIELD is a threat BECAUSE it is led by Pierce after Fury's death.

Falcon and the Winter Soldier runs into this cognitive dissonance, HARD. In essence, because the villains are right. Not morally, ofc, but ultimately, the Flag Smashers, putting aside the murder, are working for the good of people, and the establishment is not. However, the establishment cannot be seen as the source of the rot, so:

In FA:TWS, Captain America is a threat, not because the concept of one man having so much authority is deeply horrifying, but because the man in the mask is Walker, not Rogers. An unworthy king cheating a just system, who must be replaced by the rightful heir.

Steve and Sam are good captains, and so is what they represent, because the values of the system are defined not by the system itself but by the symbol at the helm. ....Its an easy cop-out. "Sure, the results of the system aren't good" Marvel says. "But don't think about the system itself. If we have the right symbol at the helm, if you're responsible enough, compliant enough(don't get captured and brainwashed by nazis), everything will magically right itself"

In short: Helmut Zemo is right, and not just right, but illustrates the issue at the heart of Avengers stories beautifully. He's a refugee from a small, economically disadvantaged (putting Sokovia somewhere between Latvia: 2021 GDP of 39.85 Billion USD and Serbia: 2021 GDP of 63 Billion USD to the US's 23,315.08 Billion USD in 2021), war-torn country, that is completely destroyed by the actions of a United States paramilitary organization. His entire ideology boils down to "Supremacy is wrong, military interventionism is wrong". And because his ideology threatens the entire foundation of the MCU, the conversation HAS to stop at "he killed people, so he's wrong". The same applies to Karli. (and OFC murder is wrong, but we're talking their baseline ideologies) Marvel's storytelling falls flat because when the audience asks why these people did what they did, the writers can only shrug their shoulders and say "I guess they weren't good enough to believe in symbols"

Symbols don't feed families, and they don't repair wartorn land. Reparations do<3

#watch egg get on ALL the watchlists in one marvel post lmaooooo #I am itching to write smth that addresses this stuff...yk a fic or smth #sorry for getting so off-track from bucky and Steve lmao.....I watched FATWS again and its just another blatant example haha #but yes everything you said about Bucky #mcu critical #mcu politics #fatws #bread answers #hes not trigger happy if anything hes trigger sad #star spangled falcon #former father current pain in the ass