‘Captain America: Brave New World’ Shows Disney Can’t Escape the Culture Wars
Depending on how you look at it, the quote was either totally innocuous or a major PR nightmare.
When Captain America: Brave New World star Anthony Mackie was promoting the upcoming Marvel sequel at a press event in Italy, he said, “To me Captain America represents a lot of different things and I don’t think the term ‘America’ should be one of those representations. It’s about a man who keeps his word, who has honor, dignity and integrity. Someone who is trustworthy and dependable.”
More from The Hollywood Reporter
Mackie posted a clarification on Instagram faster than Cap hurling his shield.
“Let me be clear about this,” he wrote Tuesday. “I’m a proud American and taking on the shield of a hero like Cap is the honor of a lifetime. I have the utmost respect for those who serve and have served our country. Cap has universal characteristics that people all over the world can relate to.”
Which is, quite likely, precisely how Mackie originally meant it. The MCU’s previous Cap, Chris Evans, gave a very similar quote while promoting Captain America back in 2011 (“I’m not trying to get too lost in the American side of it, this isn’t a flag waving movie … he should just be called Captain Good”). The sentiment is almost certainly part of Disney/Marvel’s infamous media training for the 85-year-old character: “Emphasize the Cap’s positive universal qualities — not his specific America-ness, which comes with potentially jingoistic associations, particularly when promoting the movie overseas.” Yet all it takes is a slight tweak of phrasing for a statement to shift from a bland press junket quote to a comment that gets Hulk-smashed on social media.
Even with the clarification, the film has received backlash as some seek to brand the movie as the latest “anti-American” and “woke garbage” from Disney at a time when, ironically, CEO Bob Iger has made it clear for nearly a year that he’d prefer the company avoid any more culture war drama.
Yet Brave New World nonetheless provides an easy target for those looking to read too much into things and use the film for metaphorical comparisons on both sides of the political spectrum. As President Donald Trump hands out paradigm-shifting executive orders, Brave New World offers up Harrison Ford as a power-mad U.S. president who turns into Red Hulk, wrecking everything in sight. There’s also an assassination attempt on Ford’s character, which was removed from the film’s trailer in July after the attempt on Trump’s life. The film was originally subtitled New World Order, and you can imagine how much fun the anti-globalist conspiracy crowd would have had with that one.
Another, very ugly, part of the Brave New World backlash is that Mackie’s Sam Wilson promotion to Captain America is getting dubbed on X as a “DEI move” — particularly in the wake of Trump’s anti-DEI rhetoric and his executive orders making DEI-related government hiring changes. This is despite Evans’ Steve Rogers having a fulfilling arc as Captain America and then passing the shield to a logical successor in Mackie’s character, who then starred in a hit 2021 Disney+ series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, where Wilson wrestled with the very issue of whether he was the right man to become the next Cap.
Marvel’s handover, in other words, felt considered, gradual and earned — far more than it arguably needed to be for a comic book franchise that routinely makes sudden creative changes. Whether you appreciate Mackie’s take on Cap or no, the man has been in the MCU since 2014 and has put in plenty of hours. (Tracking on the new film, which opens Feb. 14, certainly doesn’t seem to be impacted by any of this — Brave New World is headed for a very good $90 million U.S. box office opening.)
And then there was the other Marvel political flap that happened this week.
The studio’s newest animated series is Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and it stars Hudson Thames voicing Peter Parker/Spider-Man. The series has been getting some racist backlash for portraying Norman Osborn as Black, with Oscar nominee Colman Domingo voicing the character.
While this is perhaps sadly predictable, the unexpected bit came when Thames dropped this viral quote when promoting the show: “I thought it was awesome. I mean, my biggest fear was that it was gonna be annoying and woke, and it wasn’t, and I was like, ‘Yes, this is great, it’s so well written,’ like it feels real.”
There is something deeply amusing about a studio struggling so hard to not come across overtly progressive, who then has a star blurt out something that veers entirely in the opposite direction. One imagines the harried publicist: “Why can’t anyone just stay on their damn talking points?!”
Thames’ comment is being cheered by some fans — likely the same ones grousing about Brave New World.
And speaking of a failure to stay on talking points, right around the corner is the juiciest culture war target of them all: The live-action Snow White coming in March 21. Star Rachel Ziegler’s comments (such as these and these and these) about the original film, the characters and politics have so continuously enraged conservatives over the past year that one suspects she’s secretly shorting Disney stock.
Which brings us back to Brave New World and one final controversy (for the moment). So much has happened this last year, it’s easy to forget that the film’s trailer in July was a political lightning rod for reasons involving Shira Haas’ character Ruth Bat-Seraph. In the comics, the character is a Mossad agent. In the film, she’s been changed to a high-ranking government U.S. official.
This creative change managed to get flak from both sides. Either Disney is anti-Israel for erasing the character’s Mossad past, or the studio is pro-Israel for having an Israeli hero in the first place. The can’t-please-anybody nature of the Ruth Bat-Seraph debate is perhaps a good lesson: The best way for a company with enormous and intense fan engagement to handle controversy is to just assume that it will always be there.
Best of The Hollywood Reporter
Sign up for THR's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
