Yes, but...

[selenak]

London: what to say but be safe, Londoners? And that sounds direly inadequate.

***

Back when I started reading Ex Machina, I remember harmonyangel mentioning that comics' use of 9/11 for its backstory was a problem to her, as it felt inappropriate to use such a real tragedy in an AU way for a comics character background. My first impulse, which I didn't follow, was to reply: but what about Captain America? Steve Rogers is your favourite comic book character! As the German release date for the Captain America movie approaches I'm reminded of this again, and the awareness that hit me then of how subjectively "real" and "too close" is for us, and how much depends on your sociocultural background. I "encountered" Steve Rogers in other people's comics first (and at theatrical_muse), and a good thing, too, because he wasn't anything like what I had expected from his superhero handle, and I never would have found that out otherwise because I definitely would not have read a comics book called "Captain America" which I would have expected to be basically some Tea Party manifesto in fictional form. (And would have been very wrong about this.) Having found the comics version of Steve endearing, I'm looking forward to the movie version as well, save for one thing. Which is the thing still troubling me now and then in the comics, too, on an irrational, visceral level that can't be soothed away. It's best explained by what hit me when starting to read The Twelve, which is a comic book by J. Michael Straczynski (he of Babylon 5 fame, which is why I picked it up), in which he takes various Marvel characters which like Captain America were invented in the 40s but unlike Captain America vanished into obscurity and brings them the present. There are several interesting concepts there, but early on, you have this panel in which various Marvel superheroes, including Cap (and Namor, and the twelve obscure ones) enter Berlin, and, well, there it was: the sense of "but you can't do that!" Because I'd seen photos of bombed out Berlin, I knew/know people who had lived there at the end of WWII. I had heard stories from emigrés who'd lost part of their families in the camps and what it felt like for them the first time they went back to Germany after the war. I had stories from people who remained in Germany and what it felt like to be bombed, the sound of the sirens, the smell of burned flesh, what it felt like when the Russians arrived, etc. That was real, and to see various comic book characters strolling through those familiar ruins, posing heroically, just felt and feels wrong.

On the other hand, I had no problem with the use of 9/11 in Ex Machina whatsoever. (Or, for that matter, any number of historical settings which were just as real as WWII.)

So: region of origin dependance on what causes squicks and what that's-just-fine reactions, I suppose. But that's my personal reason for wishing that instead of a genuine origin movie we would get a Steve Rogers in the present film with a few flashbacks, which would limit my time of fighting that but-that-was-real-you-can't-do-that squick in me.

Comments

[lilacsigil]

Yes, I know *why* Captain America's backhistory is mostly set in Europe (the writers had him fighting Hitler before the US entered the war, so he could hardly be fighting in the Pacific!) but in more modern comics I also have the feeling that Europe is Over There and a bit, as Alan Moore says, of a fantasyland with castles and leprechauns.

Isaiah Bradley is the Captain America who we see mostly in the US in WWII, and that's an indictment of racist US policy, not a heroic war story (well, Isaiah is heroic, but the kind of heroism is closer to Steve's explorations of the US than his war service.)

[selenak]

With castles and badly written phonetic accents and eternally stuck in a crossover between WWII and the middle ages. *sighs*

It's not that I don't get the appeal of Steve's backstory, or the importance to show he was a scrawny, bullied kid who wanted to fight the Nazis before he became all supersoldiered up as the foundation of his life long ethical code, but, well. See above.

[lilacsigil]

I'm Australian: you don't need to tell me about badly written phonetic accents and weirdly chosen slang, cobber! We're eternally stuck in the 1950s, entirely populated by desert-dwelling white farmers and desert-dwelling Aboriginal people, with a few blond surfers for fun. At least we don't have much modern warfare on our soil to be misrepresented, though.

[selenak]

You forget you also have priests involved in love affairs and lots of bunnies. :)

[lilacsigil]

This is true! Fortunately, the priests and the bunnies are both in the desert so no-one gets too surprised.

[aris_tgd]

To be fair, I think that squick is one of the things they're trying to avoid in making it mainly a Cap-versus-HYDRA movie instead of a Cap-versus-Nazis movie. Dealing with the real world is at times a little too fraught.

[selenak]

I noticed that in Earth's Mightiest (the recent tv cartoon series) they have Hydra rather than the Nazis as villains, too, and there it helps. (Me, I should say.)

Weirdly, I did not have this problem in X1 (or now in First Class) with the young-Erik-in-Auschwitz flashbacks. Well, the first time I watched X1 I did for a few seconds but then the way the scene was done made it un-trivial - I think what settled it for me was that child!Erik can't save his parents or himself with his powers. So that made me trust the film on that account, if that makes sense.

[crossedwires]

I have issues with the concept of Captain America because it comes across as extremely jingoistic to me and sort of hostile given the US's...presence around the world. Even if Steve is a really nice guy.

But then I too didn't have an issue with Ex Machina's use of 9/11.

[musesfool]

region of origin dependance on what causes squicks and what that's-just-fine reactions, I suppose.

Yeah, I think that's probably it, because I read the first trade of Ex Machina a few years ago, got to that last panel and had to say "no, I can't read this, it's too soon, and just. no." But I live in NYC and my father was in the second tower on 9/11 (he got out). Whereas WWII is far enough and long enough away from me - and I've seen enough movies set during that time (both ones that were contemporaneous and ones that were made later) - to not think of it as an issue.

[selenak]

I can understand both and am sure if I had been living in New York I would feel very different, too. Also, I can't imagine what it must have been like for your family that day!