Captain America: Civil War as Allegory for Consent Issues
First things first: SPOILER ALERT. If you have not yet seen CA:CW, do not read this essay. I will be talking about plot points in detail, and this will be your only warning.
Second things second: I mainly work in the subculture of kink and bdsm and alternative sexual education. This essay focuses on several aspects of those cultures, but I’m pretty sure the concepts extend to several other arenas of human interaction. But that is the lens I am working with.
Third (and last bit of preamble): Trigger warning for mentions of sexual assault and/or rape.
The Villains
There are basically two villains in CA:CW -
Bucky, The Winter Soldier: Introduced in the last CapAm movie, he was brainwashed into working as an assassin for the Soviet Union (well, really, Hydra) for most of the last century. At the end of that movie it is implied that he has begun to work past his conditioning and recover his “good guy” status, in no small part due to Cap’s unswerving (and even, in the end, non-violent) loyalty. He resumes this role in CA:CW, with little or no memory of his past work for Evil. However, he knows he has done it; worse, he worries (correctly) that the conditioning could be reactivated and cause him to do more Bad Things.
Important Character Trait: Bucky has the best of motivations — he doesn’t mean to do wrong — but he indisputably has done them, and he knows it, even if he doesn’t remember or even understand them. He is not a predator; he is a dangerous animal.
Baron Zemo: Wait, he’s not a Baron, is he? That’s the comic. In the movie he’s Zemo, and he’s the mastermind behind the catalyst for the movie’s conflict: framing Bucky for the crime of bombing the U.N., which sets the world’s law enforcement (aka The Avengers) after him along with the Prince of Wakanda, T’Challa, who arguably has the biggest motive at all since his father literally died in his arms during the bombing. Zemo is putting the whole thing in motion as an elaborate revenge plot to trick the Avengers into eating themselves alive first by splitting their loyalties to each other and, finally, by simply revealing the truth about what Bucky did: assassinate Tony Stark’s parents.
Important Character Trait: Zemo is motivated by the death of his wife and child during the events of Age of Ultron. He knows he is doing bad things, deliberately hurting people, but he feels he has a right to do so because of what was taken from him. He is a predator, who knows what he hunts and why he does it.
And here’s where the allegory hit me:
The Usual Suspects
Let’s take the crime that the Winter Soldier is accused of — bombing the U.N. — as a consent violation. Yes, I’m saying violation, not incident, because it’s pretty clear in the movie that he was the one caught in the act. This Allegorical Incident is serious enough that it could even merit law enforcement becoming involved. Here’s where the characters suddenly fall into all-too-familiar roles:
The Winter Soldier: “I…think I may have done something. I’m not really sure. But people keep lashing out at me, and I can’t seem to find the time to figure out what really happened. I know I didn’t mean to do anything…”
Iron Man: “Evidence says you did it. Therefore you did it. You have to be immediately removed and banished for the safety of everyone. Anyone who says otherwise is a violation apologist, and should be cast out along with you.”
Captain America: “I’ve known you forever, buddy, and you’ve never done anything to me, so I don’t see how you could have done it to anyone else. Or if you did, you didn’t mean to, so I’m going to stand by you ’til the end! Anyone comes after you, they’re coming after me, and I’ll teach them what it means to mess with the likes of us!”
T’Challa: “Banishment is too good for you. Captain America is delusional. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
Zemo: Watches it all happen without comment, because while they’re all busy being blustery about each other, he is free to continue his plan of Evil.
The Weapons
But really, by then, he doesn’t actually have to do anything to continue his plan.
It’s interesting that Zemo has relatively little to do to set things in motion:
- He tracks down and kills a former Hydra agent for information. In the Marvel Universe, that’s about as much of a crime as a white man smoking pot. Ultron opens with the Avengers destroying an entire fortress of Hydra agents.
- He impersonates Bucky to commit the bombing. Terrible, yes, but again let’s remember that his wife and son were killed in the Avenger-caused destruction of Sekovia. Now there’s a governing body that is supposedly taking steps of retribution…by giving the culprits a job? While the actions were reprehensible, the motives are equally comprehensible.
- He kills a government interrogator to gain access to The Winter Soldier. OK, this one is just pretty irretrievably bad. I got nothing. But for a villain — especially compared to the other ones — he’s kind of a lightweight.
(If you’re going to point out that he also kills the five other “Winter Soldiers”, that is true…but then again, that could actually be considered a service to humanity, given the implications of their abilities. It’s basically what Cap and Bucky headed up there to do anyway.
“He’s my friend.”
Supposedly the whole plot of Civil War is this registration act thing. I get that. But the thing is, the whole plot falls apart the minute Cap and Falcon capture Bucky after his escape from custody.
See, here’s the thing: they know that something bad happened. The violation happened. They also know that Bucky probably did it, or at least there’s a significant chance that he did. Hell, Bucky thinks there’s a good chance he did it, given he doesn’t even remember the jailbreak.
The smart thing to do would be to put Bucky somewhere he couldn’t hurt anyone else until they could figure it out.
I would love to say “but that doesn’t make good cinema” and leave it at that. Instead, though, I’ve got to say but that’s not how toxic masculinity works.
No, toxic masculinity says you back up your bro, no matter what. You work that shit out yourselves, because it’s nobody else’s business. And Cap does that throughout the entire fucking movie. There’s not one point when he looks at Bucky and says “Dude, I think you have a problem. Let’s stop.” It takes Bucky himself to do that — but I’m getting ahead.
This is a common theme during consent incidents in subcultures, and even mainstream culture (Bill Cosby, for example, or Brock Turner). “We stand by X!” they say, as if it’s some kind of virtue to keep the matches dry while the fields burn.
“He’s gotta be put down.”
Then we have Team Iron Man. Take the violators (and those who defend them) and put them out on the Raft! There they will be out of sight, out of mind, and unable to hurt anyone any more. If the Raft isn’t too comfortable, if it doesn’t really rehabilitate or have any form of redemptive or restorative justice, well, we’ll get around to that eventually. Besides, the Violator (or their friends) probably deserve it anyway. I mean, they look creepy and why were they hanging out in that neighborhood anyway?
The odds are that they’re guilty, and if they get a few false accusations along with the true ones, it’s a minor percentage, and the good they’re doing is worth it.
Except, of course, that it turns out that Bucky was framed. “Why did he run, then?” is asked by more than a few characters, without the obvious “Because you were chasing him with a Super Laser Knife Missile Suit” answer coming back. It’s very similar to the classic “Why worry about being searched unless you’ve got something to hide?” argument that comes while the U.S. 4th amendment continues to disintegrate. That’s a whole other subject, though, and I’ll just point you at this incident as an example of why you should really worry.
Regardless, Tony’s flaw is too much trust in the system, because he can no longer bear the guilt of mistakes he’s made while trusting himself. He wants an easy and quick answer, and then to not have to think about it. Much like policies of “We will simply ban the accused from our event and community. Problem solved — see how serious we are about consent?”
“He will pay for his crimes.”
T’Challa just channels his inner Inigo Montoya. There is not even a nod to rehabilitation, to due process. This puts him at odds with both Team Cap and Team Iron Man at various times, and I like to think of him as “Team T’Challa.”
The thing is, that’s not really T’Challa — or at least, the T’Challa his father implied him to be at the beginning of the movie. As he is consumed with revenge, T’Challa becomes basically the equivalent of The Winter Soldier — operating outside any rule of law to kill someone that he believes needs killing.
Like Tony, though, it’s a very clear place to be, and it’s often where people will find themselves when they or someone close to them has been violated. I know that feeling — I have felt it, a righteous, furious rage that burns. Unfortunately, Kameron Hurley put it best, “It’s like peeling off your own face, and finding theirs underneath.”
The Plot Thickens
I already mentioned that Cap never changes his attitude. Tony, however, does — and it’s not for the better. Sure, he finds out that Bucky didn’t bomb the U.N. — but he did kill Stark’s parents. In fact, Tony has to watch it happen. That’s when the most chilling line I’ve ever heard Robert Downey Jr. utter came out, as Cap protested that Bucky “…didn’t know what he was doing!”
“I don’t care. He killed my Mom.”
Aside: what is it with superhero movies and Moms this year?
Anyway, at that point Tony basically becomes a vindictive four-year-old in powered armor, and the big Final Battle rages. Cap’s I don’t trust the system to treat my friend fairly fears are vindicated, because the system’s representative, Iron Man, is now hell-bent on personally destroying Bucky.
Bucky, meanwhile, is both racked with guilt because he realizes he did commit a transgression that he still doesn’t really understand — but at the same time people keep punching him and his friend, and who has time to figure it all out when somebody’s ripping off your arm (again)?
And during the whole thing, the actual predator — the actual evil person — sits above, enjoying the way he has manipulated the system to enable him to not only get away with it, but probably have extended effects far beyond. His is the ultimate victory, so much so that he doesn’t even have to stay around and watch it — he can just leave this miserable plane of existence and go somewhere else, while the Good Guys argue and fight and miscommunicate and further weaken the very system that is supposed to be their strength.
“I will not be consumed any more.”
This is when T’Challa finally breaks through the emotional reaction and realizes: this is complicated. It’s not enough to just get rid of the evil — and he could have, easily, just by letting Zemo suicide. No, instead he tells Zemo that he will live, and answer for his crimes. This is where he makes the hard choice that Cap and Tony never do: he rises above his own emotion, his deep loyalty, and his need for revenge, and meets the complicated, unsatisfying, and unpleasant path of justice.
T’Challa is also the person who finally provides Bucky with a safe space — a space where he knows he will not be hurt and, more importantly, where he will not hurt others while they figure out how his brain is wired. Because the space is offered, he is able to accept it (even when his friend Captain Oblivious still wonders if it’s the right thing to do. Sigh.)
And it ends with T’Challa grimly looking out at the world — the world that wants easy answers whether they’re right or not, that idealizes loyalty in the face of real harm, that glorifies revenge. Cap says “You know they’re going to come after him?”
And T’Challa growls, “Let them come.”
That’s why I’m Team T’Challa.
Because I know that consent isn’t an easy subject, it’s not simple or unbiased and it’s messy. But we’re talking about human beings, and every one of them — of us — deserves that effort.
The “Rashomon”, a consent incident responder role, was created to try and improve the situations of consent incidents at events and conventions. For more information on how this works, visit http://rashomon.info.
