- [Scott] This video contains spoilers
for pretty much the entirety of the MCU,
including Endgame, obviously.
Let's take a look at this scene
from Avengers: Age of Ultron real quick,
where the gang is all trying
to lift Thor's hammer, but none of them seem
to be worthy enough.
However, when Captain America takes a crack at it,
he's able to barely budge it ever so slightly.
Now here's the thing,
you can interpret this moment however you like.
♪ That's the magic of art ♪
- But apparently, Captain America
was totally able to lift the hammer.
He was just being polite and pretending he couldn't
as to not hurt Thor's feelings.
That's according to these two brothers
who had nothing at all to do with this film
so I think we can definitely take their interpretation
as the official one.
It's great.
I love it.
And while this moment planted the seeds
of seeing Captain America wield Thor's hammer
in Avengers: Endgame, it also perpetuates the idea
that Steve Rogers is this perfect, flawless human.
(slow violin music)
These guys are practically gods.
That's what Black Widow said.
But you were right, Cap.
There is only one god.
And it's you.
This hammer is rightfully yours.
That electric mess, Thor,
was merely keeping it company
as it awaited its true owner,
a sentinel of liberty, the star spangled man with a plan,
the first Avenger, depending on how you count it.
It doesn't matter.
This hammer is yours.
You are worthy, just as we lowly peasants are anything but.
You are too good, too pure,
for this world,
you grade A hunk of perfection.
This day, and all days, we honor you.
(pencil scribbling)
(upbeat music)
In the MCU, we not only see that Captain America
is a very good boy who is chosen
for the Super Soldier Project
specifically for his moral values,
a values that he aimed to instill in young students,
but also many characters have made quips
about Steve's seemingly perfect physical appearance.
- Sometimes I wanna punch you in your perfect teeth.
- I have the exact same glasses.
- Wow, you two are practically twins.
- Yeah, I wish.
Specimen.
- That certainly is America's ass.
Yes, he happens to a lot like Chris Evans,
and Chris Evans happens to look a lot
like every good doggo,
but is all this Captain America hero worship
really healthy for anybody?
- Wow, this is awesome.
Captain America.
- It's an honor to meet you officially.
I sort of met you.
I mean, I watched you while you were sleeping.
- Right, like there are countless
examples I could point to
of characters viewing Steve Rogers
as a near-perfect being.
As they should!
He's inspiring,
a moral exemplar whose guidance encourages us
to be more like him, to be better,
to be perfect.
Even in the comics, his best friend, Bucky Barnes,
AKA The Winter Soldier, reflected on their friendship,
saying, "He was like that sainted,
"can do no wrong big brother.
"The guy you can't help but look up to
"because you just know you can never be that good."
Okay, sure.
But, on the other hand,
actually attempting to emulate a role model
who appears to be a perfect human being can be
incredibly frustrating and demotivating
because we can never hope to be perfect ourselves.
And nowhere can you see the harm
of Captain America being perceived as flawless
more clearly than Steve's relationship with Iron Man.
"Everyone feels inadequate next to you.
"God knows I always have."
Tony Stark is one of the richest,
most brilliant, most successful beings on the planet,
and even he feels inadequate
compared to Captain America.
And this is echoed in the MCU,
where Tony specifically harbored hatred
towards Cap because his father, Howard Stark,
constantly bragged about how great and perfect Steve was,
a flawless human everyone should aspire to be.
And Tony felt like he could never live up
to that standard in his dad's eyes.
- [Tony] That's the guy my dad never shut up about?
Wondering if they shouldn't have kept him on ice.
- You know I'm glad Howard got married.
I only knew him when he was young and single.
- Oh really?
You two knew each other?
He never mentioned that.
Maybe only 1,000 times.
God, I hated you.
- I mean, just think about it, right?
If Howard Stark loved this wholesome,
spangly man so much and Cap was just
about the extreme opposite of Tony
in lifestyle and personality,
imagine how disheartening, how completely crushing
that must feel to Tony.
- God, I hated you.
- This theme of loathing Captain America
for his perfection is hit upon
in one of my favorite little moments
in all of the MCU.
Right before the final battle in Captain America: Civil War
the villainous Zemo finally has Cap, Bucky, and Iron Man
right where he wants them,
about to reveal a tragic secret
that will destroy the Avengers
from the inside and even still,
even still, after a year of meticulously planning
every tiny detail of his revenge,
Zemo takes a moment, a pause,
to deliver a line that hits hard.
- I thought about nothing else for over a year.
I studied you.
I followed you.
But now that you're standing here,
I just realized
there's a bit of green in the blue of your eyes.
How nice to find a flaw.
- Notice how Captain America
is hesitant to correct anyone
who claims he's this near-perfect being.
I wouldn't wager that it's
because he's a narcissist with a giant ego
that loves to be fed because again,
apparently the only thing that stopped him
from lifting Thor's hammer was his humility.
No, really, it's a, it's a, I like that interpretation.
Look, if you're Cap, you probably do hate it
when people make references
to you never making any mistakes.
But at the same time, that expectation
can be an excellent advantage.
When Captain America appears on the scene,
gives a rousing speech, and says okay,
I'm in charge now.
You go here.
You go there.
Get these civilians to safety.
He needs people to trust his command,
and that is a hell of a lot easier
when you're seen as a flawless, perfect leader.
- Call it, Captain.
- All right, listen up.
- [Scott] Think about the Winter Soldier movie.
Yes, SHIELD was secretly infiltrated
by HYDRA agents, but there were also plenty
of regular SHIELD agents who were
also hunting down Captain America as the enemy,
simply because they were given orders to do that.
In one inspirational speech
and with zero evidence whatsoever
Cap convinces SHIELD agents
that no, actually, he is the good guy
and there's secretly been a giant, evil conspiracy
within their own organization this whole time
and everyone just like
takes his word for it.
- Is there a problem?
- Sorry, sir.
I'm not gonna launch those ships.
Captain's orders.
- [Scott] And then people start shooting at each other,
which kind of confirms his speech,
but you get my point.
Yeah, that would not have been as effective
if he didn't have this air of perfection around him.
In fact, Tony Stark specifically confronts Cap
for abusing this power
back in the Civil War comic event.
Steve and Tony are arguing about the need
for superheroes to register with the government
and Tony calls Captain America out
for abusing the way that other people look at him.
- [Iron Man] "They idolize you, Steve.
"We all do.
"And, consciously or not, you're using that."
- [Captain America] "I'm what?"
- [Iron Man] "How many would still be resisting
"if it wasn't for you?
"Luke, maybe Daredevil and the Falcon,
"but Hercules can't even spell registration.
"He just knows you're his friend.
"And the younger ones,
"they don't wanna disappoint Captain America."
- Now obviously we can point
to any number of aspects of Captain America
to prove that he is not a perfect being.
I will spare you my own personal judgments
of the character and just use examples
that Steve himself has given about himself in the past.
I said himself twice.
That was awful.
Can we redo that?
Cap has admitted that he can't live up
to his ideals all the time
and that he's too quick to judge
and too slow to forgive.
And being a superhero, Captain America has to,
all too often, come face to face
with difficult situations where there is no
objectively right action to take.
Philosophers call these tragic dilemmas.
Wait, I think I know a philosopher
who might have a lot to say about this.
And who looks up to the flawless sentinel of liberty
as much as I do.
I'm gonna give him a call. - Hi, I'm Mark D. White.
I'm a professor of philosophy
at the College of Staten Island in New York City,
and I'm the author of a book titled
The Virtues of Captain America,
and more recently, a blog of the same title,
where I go through Cap's appearances issue by issue
and highlight various ethical aspects of his behavior.
- Yes, Mark, finally!
Someone who can help me spread the greatness
of Captain America and how he handles himself flawlessly
in the face of these (sigh) what did you call them?
Tragic dilemmas?
In other words...
- [Mark] In other words, if you have
to decide whether to save one person
or save another person and you can't save both,
there's no good answer.
There's no good decision.
You just have to decided which person
you're gonna save and which person you're not going to.
Comic book stories are almost,
their stock and trade, is some sort of tragic dilemma
where superheroes have to make tragic choices.
And Captain America faces those as much as anybody.
- That's right.
And Captain America always finds a way
to save everyone.
Um, yeah, maybe not,
maybe not always, though.
Perhaps the most impactful tragedy for Cap
was losing his friend and partner Bucky
on a mission together during World War II.
Back in those early days,
Captain America and his partner, Bucky Barnes,
were attempting to bring down
an explosive filled plane.
While trying to hang on and disarm the vehicle,
Cap slipped off into the ocean, the plane detonated,
and Bucky seemingly died in the explosion.
There was nothing Cap could do.
But he has never stopped blaming himself
for that incident, even after it was revealed
that Bucky survived and came back as the Winter Soldier.
To Cap, that moment was and is
his biggest mistake.
- It wasn't your fault.
- Did you read the report?
- Yes.
(scoffs)
- Then you know that's not true.
- You did everything you could.
- [Mark] Looking at it negatively,
it's megalomania, it's this,
this feeling that he is responsible
for more than he's actually responsible for,
that he has to take the world on his shoulders.
This is the task he's taken on himself.
Captain America definitely feels this,
and that's exactly why he feels this responsibility
for Bucky's death, even though it's hard
to see how Captain America can be blamed for that,
but he still holds himself responsible.
And that's really how Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
humanized him when they brought him back in the '60s.
Because they didn't bring him back
as this simplistic, patriotic, flag waving hero
that he was in the 1940s.
They want to bring him back
as a modern Marvel hero who, of course,
all have their flaws and dysfunctions and quirks.
And I imagine when they brought him back,
they said how are we gonna make him relatable?
Because they probably faced
the same question we're asking now.
How do you keep Captain America from being perfect?
And they said, well we have to give him this complex.
We have to give him this overriding sense
of guilt and remorse that is going
to color all his interactions going forward.
- Okay, fine.
I get it.
Clearly, there are people in the comics
and movies
and maybe a little bit in real life
who hold Captain America up to these incredibly,
unattainably high standards, including Steve Rogers himself.
And that has, obviously, taken a toll on him
and the people around him.
This burden of perfection, on both ends,
has been summarized quite perfectly
in this comic exchange
between him and Iron Man.
- [Iron Man] "You're the perfect man.
"You live by ideals and standards
"that are more than outdated.
"They're impossible for anyone but you.
"See that's the problem here.
"It's why you can't see things
"from my perspective.
"Because it's predicated on the premise
"that superheroes make mistakes.
"And you're Captain America.
"You don't make mistakes."
- [Captain America] "I, I think I make mistakes."
(upbeat music)
(blows candle out) Hey, thanks so much for watching.
I have no idea what this video was,
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Mark and I talked about Captain America
for a while, including what we thought
about his whole arc in Endgame
so if you wanna hear that entire conversation,
I uploaded it to Patreon.
I would like to give a huge thanks
to Cristoffer Lange, Lori Thames, Billy Bombes,
Everett Parrott, Havelock Smiggles,
Itsqintle, I'm so bad at pronouncing that one.
Jonathan and Meghan Pearson, Jonathan Lonowski,
Sonali Moncka, and the rest of the wonderful nerds
who support me over at Patreon.com/nerdsync.
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