A lesson in why it’s important to read the whole story; because after reading the first two paragraphs my blood was at full boil:
But director Joe Johnston and the team at Marvel Studios have a plan for “The First Avenger: Captain America,” which is due in Summer 2011: They’ve added a new wrinkle to the classic mythology to explain why a scientifically enhanced super-soldier would venture out in the WWII battlefields in a costume that leans a bit heavy on the old Betsy Ross imagery.“The costume is a flag, but the way we’re getting around that is we have Steve Rogers forced into the USO circuit. After he’s made into this super-soldier, they decide they can’t send him into combat and risk him getting killed. He’s the only one and they can’t make more. So they say, ‘You’re going to be in this USO show’ and they give him a flag suit. He can’t wait to get out of it.”
Captain America “can’t wait to get out of” wearing the American flag? Captain America’s too cool for the American flag?
Because we all know how stripping Superman of his Americanism (and masculinity) worked out for that franchise, right? Before you explode like I did, read on…
“When he does go AWOL, he covers up the suit but then, after a few things happen, he realizes that this uniform allows him to lead. By then, he’s become a star in the public mind and a symbol. The guys get behind him because he embodies something special.” …In the first USO sequences, the frustrated patriot will be wearing a [costume] version that is closer to the classic Jack Kirby-designed costume, but then later as the super-soldier hits the war zone he will be wearing a sturdier, more muted version that he makes himself that is more like battle togs. The stripes across his mid-section, for instance, will be straps, not colored fabric.
“He realizes the value of the uniform symbols but he modifies his suit and adds some armor, it will be closer to the Cpa costume in some of the comics in more recent years . . . this approach, it’s the only way we could justify ever seeing him on a screen in tights, with the funny boots and everything. The government essentially puts him up there as a living comic-book character and he rips it off and then reclaims some of its imagery after he recognizes the value of it. We think it’s the best way to keep the costume and explain it at the same time.”
One way to tell what a film is “about” is through the protagonist’s character arc. Generally, what they come to realize through the story is — for good or bad — the moral of the story. From what we’re being told here, part of Steve Rogers’ arc will be in coming to appreciate what the American flag stands for and symbolizes.
I like it. I like it a lot.
Now, if they can just avoid casting a meterosexual.
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