Streaming Saturday #14.5: A Message Deferred (NPO)

Note: I started this post with the intent to release it on Saturday as a review and summary of the newest episode of Falcon & the Winter Soldier, but I ran long with my point, and so am posting it the evening before as an addendum to the previous installment of Streaming Saturday, as the message is what is most important. The intended content will be released tomorrow, as per usual. For now, I present an unintentional crossover with New Piece Offerings:

Happy National Film Score Day, Ticketholders!

Yes, that is a thing that is celebrated on April 3rd, along with Chocolate Mousse, Rainbows, Tweed, Parties, Children, and Hand-made things. Just ask https://nationaldaycalendar.com/. I singled out National Film Score day because, you know, this blog is about movies and stuff. And since I'm typing this post with my hands, let's call it a hand-made thing and celebrate it with some likes and comments down below, okay? Okay!

Also, SPOILER Warning! going forward....

Last week, I made a point of focusing on a particular message that was potentially being presented in the story of Falcon & the Winter Soldier; that message being the consequences of clashing radical ideals (the globalist agenda of the Flag-Smasher group vs. the severely patriotic, nationalist views personified by John Walker's "new Captain America"). As I am a "white" (I'm actually varying percentages of Irish, German, and two tribes of Native American, and my swimmer's tan can get so dark that I look like Dennis Rodman with bleached hair, but I digress for the sake of argument) American, my mental focus when writing the previous episode failed to line up with another prominent message that is running through the series: race relations. In the pilot, Sam and Sarah Wilson were denied a business loan, and came to figurative blows about the degree to which their race figured into the (white) banker's decision. Of course, there is the obvious point to the banker's credit (pun not intended) that "superhero" and "co-savior of the Universe" are not valid sources of income, as well as the dramatic shift of population (half of the Universal population returning in an instant after five years of presumed death) and the myriad economic factors that were affected by the "Blip" reversal, which Sam had a hand in.

Quick aside: why is it that when insects become a problem, they get names like "Plague of Locusts," "Killer Bees," and "Murder Hornets," but war-based trauma gets called "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," starvation and homelessness are "food and shelter insecurities," a global pandemic is called a hoax, and a sociopathic alien dictator using cosmic artifacts to genocide half of the Universe is called a "Blip?"

Also, am I the only one who thinks that participants of any given movement don't know what the hell they really want or how to achieve it? I mean, BLM looks halfway decent on paper, but thinking we can solve a systemic problem by tearing down monuments, "canceling" products and media that have even the slightest hint of being racially insensitive, and softening our language in the name of the unintended pedestal of "equality" is just as much of a wrong-headed and ignorant band-aid as censoring music and video games was in the aftermath of Columbine. As evidenced by the numerous shootings and other terrorist acts perpetrated in France, Texas, New York, Las Vegas, and other places (including at least two more in Colorado--seriously, what the fuck, Colorado?) since then, it didn't do shit to fix fuck-all. And you want to curb racially-motivated criminal activity by cancelling Uncle Ben, Aunt Jemima, and Dr. Seuss, de-funding the police, and marching to "Move, Bitch (Get Out the Way)" by Ludacris? That line of thinking is just..., well, ludicrous. And that pun, dear Ticketholders, was intended.

Okay, I admit that wasn't as quick of an aside as I originally wanted it to be, but I felt like venting, so I did. If you're still here after reading all of that, let's get back to the message that I failed to give its due course last time. It should not be lost on anyone that the two titular characters are a black man and a white man, fighting over who is best suited to be the next face of America. That idea should be glaring us all in the face constantly, as should the disappointing fact of life that there is no right answer. If Bucky "wins," Disney will be accused of white-washing and racism. If Sam "wins," then up rises the pedestal of "equality" and out come the claims of "special treatment" from one side and "condescending interference" from the other. It's the self-perpetuated NP-hardest of life's problems (if you're a computer nerd, game theorist, or problem-solving enthusiast, you know that means it's really fucking hard to solve and prove, and if you didn't fall into any of those categories before, now you know what NP-hard means for as long as you choose to remember it), and if a proper, sane solution is ever found, it will probably suck for all concerned because said problem arose from a foundation of such cruel inequality that ingrained perceptions on both sides ruin any foreseeable possibility of satisfaction.

Speaking of cruel inequality, we learned last time that Isaiah Bradley was not only used as a guinea pig (one of several "Tuskegee"--read: black--candidates, and the only known survivor) for early instances of the Super Soldier serum, but after he had served his country, he was thrown in prison and reduced to a mere source of genetic material for both American and Nazi scientists looking to isolate whatever factors made him compatible with the serum.

So..., assuming the isolated genetic markers were incorporated into the serum that was used on Steve Rogers, does that mean that he was the "true" symbol of America all along? A walking, talking, ass-kicking, patriotic, genetic melting pot of a man whom no other should strive to be or replace? Or is he white-washed idealism personified? A "winner's history" in the flesh presuming to speak for those who claim they never wanted a voice, especially not a voice coming from a face so unlike their own?

Furthermore, after speaking to him, Sam and Bucky begin hashing out their differences in the middle of the street outside of the Bradley residence, and a white police officer conveniently shows up to break up the argument, demonstratively assuming that Sam is the aggressor, but Bucky diffuses the situation by asking the officer, "do you know who this is?" To which the officer apologizes and says to Sam, "I didn't realize it was you." So..., would there have been an instance of police brutality if "the black man" "attacking" the "white man" hadn't been a superhero? Did "the black man" really need "the white man" to stick up for him? If Sam and Bucky hadn't been something approaching friends, would Sam have berated Bucky for "interfering" and being "condescending" and "devaluing" his ability to solve his own problems?

Systemic racism seems like a problem with a lose-lose solution, doesn't it?

For a possible answer, I turn your attention--strangely enough--to Japan, and a recent episode of the popular anime, Attack On Titan; a series about people trapped on an island with flesh-eating giants trying to break into their city. These people later learn that they are members of the Eldian race, and that their island home is an allegory for Holocaust extermination camps. In the larger world, there are also Eldians who were indoctrinated by their country of residence (the series' allegory for Nazi Germany) to hate and fear their island-dwelling kinfolk. In the Season 4 episode, "Deceiver," two children from the mainland stow away on an enemy vessel and attempt to make their way through the island wilderness, where they encounter an Eldian family, who take them in. The boy of the two is able to keep his composure and address the family with a cordial manner, but the girl is so fanatical that she lashes out at them constantly. When asked why she is behaving this way, the girl says that she is angry at them because their ancestors destroyed the world a thousand years ago, to which one of the family members says (I'm paraphrasing), "So what? That was someone else a thousand years ago. They're dead. I'm alive now, you're alive now; let's just be friends."

Now, I realize that no solution is as simple as "fuck history, let's be buds" (especially since I told you earlier that wiping out all evidence of history is a dumb idea on the level of an early 2000's profanity ban or editing gun violence and explosion-face out of old Looney Tunes cartoons), but as evidenced by the trials that took place in the aftermath of the aforementioned Holocaust and the eerily similar events of Apartheid-era South Africa, "fuck history" does not have to automatically equate to "forget history." The concept of retributive justice that was employed in these and other instances in the past is not about forgetting history, but remembering, acknowledging, understanding, and forgiving history. What makes us the same is that we are all unique, so to fear what is different is to hate oneself and live in solitude. We are not then, we are now and forever. We are none of us a them, divided; we are all an us, together. So let's all work on not being terrible at forgiveness, shall we?

Ticketmaster,

Out.