Captain America: The Unintentional Gender Swap
(Spoiler alert for Captain America: Civil War)
“I don’t really like Bucky, he’s kind of boring”, my boyfriend says on our way home from watching Captain America: Civil War. “What?” I stop and stare at him. “He’s just an extension of Captain America. He doesn’t really have much to offer on his own”. The next day I find out that my friends don’t really like Bucky either. I mean, they like him in Winter Soldier and comic books, just not in his most recent incarnation.
It took me by surprise, so I decided to do what any rational woman would — watch the movie again, for science. This time around I paid close attention to Bucky and halfway through the movie I realized what they were talking about. Bucky was indeed pretty unimpressive, and it actually wasn’t surprising at all. Because Civil War’s Bucky is, for all intents and purposes apart from gender, a damsel in distress.
Someone at Marvel Studios clearly has their ear to the interwebs. It seems they have finally understood that women are a large portion of their audience, and consequently responsible for a large portion of their income. Whoever it is over there that’s reading the blogs must have also realized that women viewers are no longer satisfied with the studios throwing an occasional shirtless Chris Hemsworth at them. Surprise! What they really want is representation.
After numerous online protests at Black Widow’s removal from merchandise and the lack of women-led films, it seems something is finally sinking in with the Marvel execs, and it’s evident in Captain America: Civil War. In this movie, the role of female superheroes is played up and their more traditional traits of daintiness and seductiveness dialed down. The result is two strong portrayals (two out of ten! Oh, the equality!) of super-human women: Black Widow, who kicks ass in battle in multiple scenes, and Scarlet Witch, who in this movie demonstrates repeatedly that she is one of the most powerful superheroes in the current bunch. These two decidedly don’t play the “damsel in distress” — they are characters with agency and power (despite also regularly fulfilling feminine tropes, which were clearly overlooked by the powers that be at Marvel).
This, of course, leaves the movie’s creators with a problem — they lack a damsel in distress. Feminist Frequency defines damsel in distress as “a plot device in which a female character is placed in a situation from which she cannot escape on her own and must be rescued by a male character”. While it may not seem immediately clear that Bucky falls into this category (mainly on account of his being male and heterosexual), if you pay close attention you’ll see it’s true. Bucky is constantly being rescued by Steve, not only from Black Panther, Iron Man, and generally malicious guys who are out to get him, but also from Bucky himself.
Bucky regularly exhibits an insecurity about himself and the world that is rarely associated with fighting men, and all too often associated with women. Think back to the final scene in which Iron Man is fighting both in the Hydra base, what does Bucky do? He runs. For the majority of that scene he does not behave like the tough Winter Soldier that we expect him to be. Instead, he mostly tries to evade the fighting, and even when he does end up participating in the fight, Tony leaves him even more powerless than before by chopping off his arm, his main source of strength. He becomes, in that moment, a true damsel in distress — completely dependent on Steve to save him.
But perhaps the most subtle and agonizing way in which Bucky is a damsel in distress is grounded in the first half of the definition. A damsel in distress is “a plot device”, and as such she is traditionally completely devoid of character. The only interesting thing about her is her need for rescue, the only purpose she serves is moving the plot forward and cementing the hero’s status as a savior. That is her one important feature; she needs no other traits, and is seldom given screen-time to express any. Here, too, Bucky remains true to form. He spends the entire movie alternating sullen silence and self-denigration. Most of the times when he speaks, his words merely serve as a cue for Steve to jump in and assure him of his worthiness and goodness. You know, just like those seduction guides tell you to do with insecure girls.
“Now I get why you don’t like Bucky”, I tell my boyfriend after our second viewing “He is almost every woman in almost every action film to date. Of course you find it boring; I’ve been bored by this trope my whole life!” As it turns out, Marvel Studios have executed a huge-scale gender swap, and I doubt they even realize it. Better not tell them, though, or they might make sure it never happens again.
