Captain America’s Empire: Reflections on Identity, Popular Culture, and Post-

9/11 Geopolitics

by Jason Dittmer

Captain America’s Empire: Reflections on Identity, Popular Culture, and Post-9/11 Geopolitics

by Jason DittmerWhat is a geopolitical script? What are the Culture Wars? What is a territorial symbol? Define territorial differentiation. Define territorial bonding.

“Captain America serves as a cultural product that vaguely and invisibly connects the reader . . . through the body of the hero, to the scale of the nation. This bridging of scale, from the individual to the body politic, is necessary for the construction of a territorially bounded state occupied by a cohesive nation” (630).

His costume derives its particular iconic power from the America flag.

The 13 stripes on the American flag symbolize the original 13 colonies that rebelled against England and formed the first American union.

Its 50 stars represent each of the 50 states.

The star upon Captain America’s chest symbolizes autonomous state power/individuality, while the “A” on his forehead connotes his status as a defender of American ideology.

Furthermore, his weapon—a shield—presents America as a nation that defends liberty, not one that forces its ideology upon other nations.

According to McCloud, “We don’t just observe the cartoon, we become it!” (36).

Territorial Differentiation & Territorial Bonding

Territorial Differentiation & Territorial Bonding

Myth as Ideological State ApparatusIn “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” Louis Althusser defines the state apparatus as the method by which institutions such as religion, law, politics, education, the media, and the family propagate ideology. While individuals experience the world through their own consciousnesses, the full extent to which their views have been shaped by these institutions is often not fully acknowledged by the individual.

In Regeneration Through Violence Richard Slotkin argues, “Myth describes a process, credible to its audience, by which knowledge is transformed into power; it provides a scenario or prescription for action, defining and limiting the possibilities for human response to the universe.”

Myth making is simultaneously a psychological and social activity. It reconciles and units societies into a single national identity.

“Popular culture . . . is one of the ways in which people come to understand their position both within a larger collective identity and within an even broader geopolitical narrative, or script” (Dittmer 626).

 

According to Paasi, territorial symbols are “abstract expressions of group solidarity embodying the actions of political, economic, and cultural institutions in the continual reproduction and legitimation of the system of practices that characterize the territorial unit concerned” (qtd. in Dittmer 627).

“Captain America was created in 1940, prior to the entry of the United States into World War II, but after the war had been ongoing in Europe and East Asia for some time. Timely Comics (later Marvel Comics) created the character in an attempt to tap into the patriotic consciousness that was awakening in America (stealing the concept and plagiarizing parts of the uniform from a rival company’s character named ‘The Shield” (Dittmer 629).

“Captain America’s willingness to die for his country illustrates the essential centrality of the nation to him and, by extension, to every American reading the comic book. Support for the geopolitical objectives of American exceptionalism becomes an understood, tacit extension of citizenship” (Dittmer 630).

The Mythic Legacy of the PuritansThe Captivity Narrative

“In societies that are still in the process of achieving a sense of identity, the establishment of a normative, characteristic image of a group’s character is a psychological necessity; and the simplest means of defining or expressing the sense of such a norm is by rejecting some other group whose character is deemed to be opposite” --Richard Slotkin Regeneration Through Violence

Puritan Ideology• The Puritans divided mankind from God.

The flesh was sinful.

• The New World represented what could become a City on the Hill.

• They projected their spiritual psyche onto the landscape and Native Americans. In their literature, both came to represent the darkness within a fallen and sinful man—temptations one must piously overcome through one’s faith in God.

Genealogy of the American Hero: From God to the Pioneer to the Cowboy to the

SuperheroThe “use of the Western metaphors can be summed up in the Truman Doctrine of containment, the idea that the frontier has to be defended against an alien culture bent upon the apocalyptic destruction of America.”

--Peter Coogan Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre

Genealogy of the American Hero: From God to the Pioneer to the

Cowboy to the Superhero“But now the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force has replaced the Truman Doctrine, and it seems more based on the superhero metaphor. In the Gulf War, Kosovo, and Afghanistan the United States acted more in the line of a superhero than a Western sheriff. Saddam Hussein, Slobodon Milosovic, and Osama Bin Laden are portrayed in the media as power-mad, megolomanical supervillains who threaten the world and whom no one but America can stop” (Coogan 233).

Six Elements of the Captain America Complex

• Each side views its anger as blessed by a deity.

• Both sides depict the opposition as evil and considers

any type of compromise an immoral form of

appeasement.

(Common Among Christian and Jewish Zeal as well as Militant Jihad)

• Enemies are regarded as less than human, which rationalizes death tolls.

• Each side believes their violence is redemptive while the opposing side’s

violence is senseless and unjust. Overcoming them is presented as a

religious/political imperative.

• This type of battle has a finite conclusion. As in the book of Revelations, its

end will usher in a new era of peace.--Robert Jewett & John Shelton Lawrence

Captain America and the Crusade Against Evil: The Dilemma of Zealous

Nationalism

“Popaganda: Superhero Comics and Propaganda in World War Two” Chris MurrayFDR “[E]ncouraged official rhetoric in

popular culture, thereby communicating political messages in a form that the

American public were already predisposed to be receptive to. Advertisements,

Hollywood films, animated cartoons, comics and so on all carried messages that supported the war effort. In this way the

distinction between what was official discourse and what was popular

entertainment became blurred during wartime.”

A Visual Analysis of Action Comics # 101 Cover by Chris Murray • Atomic bomb symbolizes America’s

military strength, scientific ingenuity, and victory in WWII

• Superman stands for truth, justice, and the American Way

• Superman’s agreeing to document this event implies that he approves of weapons of mass destruction

• Therefore, nuclear weapons are presented as the American Way

• However, his use of the camera likewise indicates his support for the freedom of the press

From Overt Propaganda to Covert Ideological State Apparatus

The Superhero as Social Critique, the Troubled and/or Anti-Establishment Superheroes

“[T]he very notion of a troubled and brooding superhero who could not always accomplish what he set out to do betrayed the limited scope of his superpowers--and suggested perhaps the limitations confronting the American superpower as well."

"Superheroes like Spider-Man endorsed liberal

solutions to social problems while rejecting the

extreme and violent responses of both the left and the

right . . . in an American society facing deepening

political divisions, Marvel's superheroes worked to

preserve what remained of the vital center."

Comic Book Nation Bradford

Wright

According to a poll conducted by Esquire magazine in 1965, student radicals ranked Spider-Man and the Hulk alongside the likes of Bob Dylan and Che Guevara as their favorite revolutionary icons.

The Superhero as Social Critique, the Troubled and/or Anti-Establishment Superheroes

Comic Book Nation Bradford

Wright

Superheroes at Ground Zero of the Culture Wars

The Left

9/11 as Blowback

The Right

9/11as a Clash of

Civilizations

What Motivates the Terrorist?

• Is the “War on Terror” an ideological “Clash of Civilizations” or a conflict over economic interests and exploitations?

• Is America liberating or occupying the Middle East?