A death in our family
Someone close to me died and only now has it started to sink in.
That’s right, I’m talking about Captain America.
Cap and I go way back. We first met in the late 60’s, when, according to my father, hippies were attacking the country. That didn’t sound like a good thing, but it didn’t seem to affect Cap too much — he was always fighting Hydra or the Red Skull, and when he did interact with hippies or “minorities” it seemed like he was able to bridge the gaps in culture and generation. (And remember, Cap was an enlisted man in during World War II, so the gaps were huge.) He teamed up with the Falcon and learned some things about an outsider’s view of the system and what it felt like to be non-white and suspicious of the Man. And then, famously, Cap had a falling out with the Nixon administration, discovered that it was the president who was behind the vast conspiracy attacking the country from within, and quit being Captain America.
I was 12. It seemed impossible that Captain America — who set such a personal example of tolerance, yet, like Churchill, was able to spot evil early when he saw it — wasn’t going to represent us any more.
He came back later, after a number of other people tried to be Captain America. They knew the value of the symbol, and if he wasn’t going to wear it, others would. And that was the point when I realized that Captain America had never symbolized the United States of America — that he symbolized an ideal that we hoped to get to.
Now he’s dead. Will he be back? According to my subscription form — sorry to blow the surprise — after five months or so of downtime, someone named “Captain America” will be back with a new title. But if it is not this character, Private Steve Rogers, who surrendered to the government recently after waging an all-out war against what sounds to me suspiciously like The “Patriot” Act (quote marks courtesy of me), it won’t be the same. Steve Rogers turned himself in when he found that he’d lost the support of the people in the streets; evidently they liked the idea of registration for people with powers. To me, this is suspiciously close to “registering” the artists, the writers, the musicians, the philosophers, the scientists — anyone who thinks differently — and the relative quiescence of the majority of us speaks volumes.
Yesterday this nation’s Inspector General released a report documenting the extent to which the FBI has misued the “Patriot” Act in securing private information about individuals, all with no warrant. Today we have a minor hoohah over this; tomorrow, the “Patriot” Act will continue.
I’m sorry Captain America died, especially now. It seems like one more indication that we’ve lost the ideal, and that we aren’t deserving of the symbol.
March 11th, 2007 at 9:21 am
For me, Captain America will always be the character Jack Kirby drew, performing improbable gymnastic stunts and flattening endless evil henchmen. I’ve enjoyed other versions of the character and hope that the new incarnation is well done.
Cynic that I am, I assume the killing was performed to sell comics and so Cap could be recreated in a more contemporary model, without decades of backstory to slow him down. We shall see what results.
Of course, we should all register voluntarily with the Patriot Act. Think of the money that would be saved if our government didn’t have to spy on daycare centers and other dangerous organizations. My daughter Tara is working for a child care business in Seattle. Maybe I should report her.
March 24th, 2007 at 8:14 am
[…] This particular maven said something different: that Cap’s demise ipso facto symbolized the demise of the American symbol of freedom, one it wasn’t clear we deserved any more. […]