athelind | The Hoard Potato runs this up the flagpole to see who salutes.

Current Mood: geeky

Entry tags:

The Hoard Potato runs this up the flagpole to see who salutes.

Edit: Yes, this is a May Day post.

John Seavey is a contributor at the Mighty God King blog.¹

He just posted an outline for the Captain America prologue story he'd like to write, putting young Steve Rogers' life into its historical context: a sickly, working-class 98-pound weakling who had enough patriotic fervor to try and enlist and to fight his 4F status passionately enough to get the notice of the archetypal Secret Government Project.

He's the son of working-class, Depression-era Irish immigrants, and he's politically-motivated. Seavey observes that his parents were likely union organizers, and quite possibly members of a party that wasn't quite so demonized in the '20s and '30s, though it still wasn't exactly respectable.

This is something that most people outside the fandom don't get about Captain America. They look at the flag-colored costume, the blond hair and blue eyes, and immediately equate him with jingoism and the "America: Love It Or Leave It" crowd. They think he's a right-wing icon, a government tool, a crypto-fascist.

Even the right wing thinks so.

And they are so wrong. Only someone who just looks at the pictures, and doesn't look too closely at them, could think so.²

Cap's a New Deal Democrat, and always has been. He was created by a couple of poor Jewish kids from New York, for the express purpose of punching Hitler in the snoot, almost a year before Pearl Harbor, in a period when a lot of "respectable" Americans were still pushing for isolationism.

He's not a symbol of "Love It Or Leave It": he's a symbol of "Love It and Fix It". That's what real patriotism is, dammit.

He's a left-wing icon, and we need to take him back, and claim him as our own.

¹He's not MGK himself, who has a long line of similar posts delineating just why he should write Dr. Strange and The Legion of Super-Heroes. These guys really need to get off their butts and submit to Marvel and DC.
²I'm looking at you, you illiterate hack.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Nope, all that pretty much "happened", as much as that verb can ever be applied to fiction, and Marvel hasn't had any major editorial turnovers, so, yeah, if you buy their books, you're just handing money to the same group entity that dictated all that.

In the display case by the cash register at my store, we've got a small statue of Comic Book Guy, from The Simpsons. For a while, he was at the BACK of the case, faced toward the back, casting his disapproving sneer upon us as we worked the register. The subtext was clear: "DON'T BE THIS GUY. Don't hate everything."

If you're looking for stuff to dislike, yeah, you'll find plenty in these stories. If I weren't working in a comic book store and didn't have some small degree of obligation to my customers to read these stories, I wouldn't have read them. For the same reason, though, I've cultivated the ability to read them and say, "wow, they really turned this book around" and "I didn't like the way this was going at first, but now it's really grabbed me."

Assuming that any of those actually APPLY to a given book, that is. I'm more than capable of pointing something out and saying, "man, this book has really taken a nose-dive into the toilet." *cough*JSA*cough*

Edited 2010-05-03 01:22 (UTC)

You callin' me the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons? I would argue my reasoning is far stronger than his, hehe.

Oh, I know any fan of comics has to ignore the parts they don't like about any character or team or book. I just rarely feel offended at something and I have felt offended at the shenanigans down at Marvel way. And there was a whole lot of it really fast.

I've been sitting here for twenty minutes, though, wondering to myself if I can forget these things and the answer is, "Sure, probably." I'm just not ready for it yet and certainly a fair bit does depend on what happens, next, in the MU. Right now I am sorta gun shy and I am thinking, "What will they do to top this?"

Regardless, I'm sure they will make do without me. ;)

Oh, not at all. I AM saying that CBG is an exaggeration of traits that all us fanboys share, and I've spent the last two years smacking those impulses down.

I dunno. To pick a smaller example from exactly the same place, the whole "One More Day/Brand New Day" plotline, where Peter Parker trades all memory of his marriage and all the happiness it brought him to frakkin' MEPHISTO after Aunt May gets taken down by a sniper was a TERRIBLE, AWFUL, VERY BAD IDEA. Critics hated it, fans hated it, and everyone agreed that it was egregiously out of character for Peter.

And yet ... everyone is also, grudgingly, agreeing that Amazing Spider-Man has been really damned good since that storyline wrapped up.

So, I dunno.

The problem I have, I think, is that we're not really talking OMD, here. We're talking half a decade of this stuff. I mean, I did finish Civil War, I did! I told myself for more than a year that all of that stuff had to stop, but it didn't. It kept going and going. And, unlike OMD, this stuff hasn't been panned by everyone, it's done pretty well. I am fearful that this represents the new face of recent continuity. That Cap being back will not lead to all of this being, more or less, put behind everyone, but that it will have lingering narrative consequences.

So when you tell me it's now all over and things are back to as normal as they ever get, I . . . am thinking that Civil War and what came afterwards is the new normal.

But I will look into it . . . though all of this does create a question in my mind that goes back to the original post. If everything is over and my feelings are wrong - why do we need to take Cap back? Isn't he back? What's to take back if our New Deal Democrat Steve Rogers Captain America has returned?

Really, what Marvel does with the character is a sideshow that only matters to you, me, and the rest of the ever-dwindling minority of inbred fanboys that still read comic books.

My original post was about people outside the fandom, about the perception the public at large has of Cap, about Captain America's role as an icon.

Taking back Cap as an icon of the Left goes hand-in-hand with taking back the Flag -- and Patriotism Itself, by damn -- from the fascist bastards who have somehow co-opted the concept.

Captain America is a symbol, a symbol of something vital and important, a symbol of what truly makes our nation great:

Punching Fascists in the Face.

Edited 2010-05-03 04:32 (UTC)

I don't think they have coopted any concept. Nationalism, the modern nationalism, was essentially defined by Napoleon, Bismarck and Hitler. Patriotism has always been used to justify terrible violence, both foreign and domestic, rationalized as being necessary to "the state". I think the cooption is in trying to change patriotism from its roots as an emotional orgy of destruction into something it was never meant to be and, perhaps, cannot be. A rational patriotism would not favor one's own state, believe in their own special national destiny or any kind of exceptionalism, it would expand into a general humanism, a benevolence towards everyone now alive and those yet unborn, IMO.

As you pointed out, in 1940, the US was not strongly anti-Nazi. Indeed, large elements of our society were pro-Nazi. As the post you linked to said, Americans mythologize our past in order to avoid talking about unpleasant things - like how and who was pro-Nazi. The great legacy of the US is not really punching Nazis in the face. That's a fantasy, man, and always has been.

Damned right it is.

I know the history of this country. I'm no fool. I know the corruption and the compromises and the venality that we've dragged through the centuries. I know the smallpox-laden blankets and the Pinkertons breaking strikes by breaking heads.

And why does this all outrage me?

Because I am an American, and I hold that fantasy dear.

I am loyal, I am faithful, I am patriotic -- but not to the "nation", be it the geographical accident of modern times or to the ill-conceived cultural conglomeration of the Napoleons and the Bismarks. I am patriot to the concept and ideals expressed in our Constitution, to the principles we espouse, but far too seldom manage to manifest.

Being a Patriot is not holding that fantasy of America's virtue as a blinder to the past. It's holding it UP and FORWARD, as a goal to which to strive, as a standard by which we can and must measure our actions. When we fall short of that standard, we MUST not turn away.

And, yes, by your lights, I may be a "rational patriot". I believe those humanistic rights and protections we've struggled and stumbled to assert for ourselves should apply to ALL people, across the globe, in the Nation of Mankind -- but we've been pretty handily cocking that up over the years, haven't we?

And we'll keep cocking it up, until people understand that you can't REALLY be true to the ideals of the Revolution and the Enlightenment unless you're willing and able to see when you're FALSE to them.

I'm not saying we should run away. I'm just wondering who this "we" ought to be. Because "we", the USA, have cocked that stuff in a pretty big way in large part because we cling to that nationalist "we". I feel a connection to American culture because I'm American and I can't really be not American, any more than I can be not-white or not-male. But if I choose to identify with a group of people, it will be with humanity and not from the arrogant position of an American who has some special, unique cultural dispensation to freedom and justice - which is simply untrue, and insulting to everyone else. I just don't see any particular use to be had in nationalism, I suppose.

I assuredly think we should all try to be clear-sighted when we fail in our ideals, though I suspect I'm a little less enchanted of both the Revolution and Enlightenment than you might be. I mean, I don't think being a racist imperialist bastard is contrary to either the US Revolution or the Enlightenment at all. I feel we've moved a good distance from 18th century ideals. Screw the Enlightenment! ;)

Well, you know, I took an oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Most of the bastards who need to be on the receiving end of Mr. Roger's Right Hook fall into the "domestic" category these days, though Rupert Murdoch's on my list, too.

Oh, I certainly believe that. I don't actually think that another nation is capable of threatening us, at this point in time. I expect that to change in my lifetime, but right now . . . who could threaten us in a serious sense? We are so powerful, as a country, the only people capable of threatening us are us.

And, y'know, Rupert Murdoch. He's fuckin' with us bigtime. Definitely. If Cap punched him in the head, I'd read it.

I guess it comes down to the difference between a Captain America who fights for the country we've got, vs. a Cap who fights for the country we want.

Of course, that doesn't mean he won't take time out for a little fun:

And, when he's well-written, that's mostly what Cap does - fights for the country we should have.

I mean, I don't like patriotism because it is rooted in nationalism, but I'm not a political quietist and I'm not anti-American . . . though sometimes I do get incredibly angry with the people who run it. But, at the end of the day, it's simply a reality that I'm American and as a member of this society, I definitely want to see a better America. A freer, saner, more tolerant, capitalism-less, anti-imperialist, more inclusive, honestly internationalist America. It is, after all, my home, and I want it to be a nice place both to live and visit.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Hoard Potato runs this up the flagpole to see who salutes.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

And now we return to the original topic of the post!

Re: And now we return to the original topic of the post!

Branagh's <i>Henry V</i> is on TV, so this may be a bit florid.

Re: Branagh's <i>Henry V</i> is on TV, so this may be a bit florid.

Re: Branagh's <i>Henry V</i> is on TV, so this may be a bit florid.

Re: Branagh's <i>Henry V</i> is on TV, so this may be a bit florid.

Boy, these paragraphs get narrow when they're indented this far.

Re: Boy, these paragraphs get narrow when they're indented this far.