The image above is at 50 minutes in the movie, Captain America: Civil War, which is a Marvel film that was released in 2016. The film is based around the avengers being divided and fighting against each other when one set of them are sided with the government on controlling their powers and the other is against it. This specific scene is the first big action scene in the film and is a defining moment because it is when Captain America and Falcon are determined to be criminals and against the government.
This scene is right after the Winter Soldier blows up part of a building, Captain America then drifts his car through it right in time and jumps out, running towards the fight between the Winter Soldier and Black Panther. The entire scene is very fast paced and the camera angles are moving all around to see everything going on. Hand to hand combat is used, along with guns from the non superheroes and the superheroes use their weapons, such as Captain America’s shield, Winter soldier’s metal fit and Black Panther’s claws. The fight scenes are edited to be very fast paced and for each character to seem equal and highlight their strengths. All injuries are made to look enough to stop the person but not enough to kill anyone, as they are still the “good guys”, trying to avoid the government, not kill anyone. The entire action scene is set in multiple different places, but this screenshot is when it has moved into an underground parkade which allows for mass destruction and more obstacles. Captain America is running from the vehicle he crashed and towards the fight, showing how fast and unafraid of danger he is. Even though the scene is in a parkade, it is well lit and colourful.
The focus of the scene is on the 4 superheroes, 2 of which are white males, Captain America and Winter Soldier and 2 of which, Black panther and the Falcon, are African American males. There being multiple African American actors in this movie being depicted in a strong and powerful way is rare as black people are under- represented in media and when they are, “Most media platforms depict Black people as lazy, unintelligent, dangerous, sexually deviant, or as people whose purpose is solely for White people’s entertainment” (Dogan et al. 2021). Within the Marvel franchise, Black male superheroes are shown to be as strong and powerful as their white co-stars. Not represented in this action scene, or in the entire movie is a powerful African American woman. There are two white women superheroes, Black widow and Wanda. Wanda is represented to be not in control enough to live her life and confined to a house by Iron Man and Black Widow is always portrayed to be Captain America’s sidekick. Joffe (2019), says that although marvel tries to do a good job at portraying their female characters as strong and powerful, their characters are still a lot to do with style and sex appeal. Although Marvel movies, including this one, are fairly inclusive, they still have a long way to go. Hopefully one of their first steps is creating an African American women superhero.
Captain America: Civil War did $1,153,337,496 worldwide at the box office (Box office Mojo) and has been given a 7.8/10 stars on IMBD. This movie being a superhero movie that is aimed at both adults and kids could very well have real life consequences for people. Adolescents look up to superheroes and they are a big part of childhoods. Having movies with a wide variety of representations is important, that being through gender and race. The film does include a lot of fight and violence scenes which can be not a positive thing in movies for kids, however, it is not too gruesome and the good guys always win in the end in a respectful way.
References
Joffe, R. (2019). Holding out for a hero (ine): An examination of the presentation and
treatment of female superheroes in Marvel movies. Panic at the Discourse: An
Interdisciplinary Journal, 1(1), 5-19.
Dogan, J. N., Rosenkrantz, D., Wheeler, P. B., & Hargons, C. N. (2021). Exploring identity
and coping among Black viewers of Marvel’s Black Panther. Psychology of Popular
Media. https://doi-org.ezproxy.tru.ca/10.1037/ppm0000359