I have something to say, so let’s get the review out of the way—Captain America: Brave New World is a messy stink pile. There, that much was expected. What is unexpected is that we must see it—many times.
Pointedly, I saw the Marvel movie for the second time on Feb. 28—the date of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s one-day boycott of corporations that have trashed their Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs. Those blows follow President Donald Trump’s day-one executive order barring organizations with DEI policies from federal contracts. A Biden-appointed judge is currently blocking that order, pending a lawsuit brought by colleges.
My ticket purchase was not against the protest boycott but for it. Follow the plot:
For the first time, a Black actor, Anthony Mackie, is Captain America—in a paranoid thriller focused on White House conspiracies. Sound familiar? Harrison Ford co-stars as a war-mongering boomer president with a diseased heart that transforms into a red (read: orange) rage monster.
Unable to defeat the monster with violence, Black Captain America (aided by the power of nature’s beauty and calm) addresses the monster’s core emotional wounding, turning the orange monster back into a human.
Nailing this eye-popping parallel is a second villain based on a tech bro archetype pulling the strings, a driving subplot about the exoneration of a wrongly incarcerated Black man and a final speech that Black Captain America delivers to his wounded Latino sidekick about the terrible weight of representing all those “that want a seat at the table.”
This film is DEI versus Trump. And DEI America wins. What a message for this moment.
The timing is unintended … and it’s perfect. Disney (Marvel’s owner) is chagrined and backpedaling hard. The week before the movie’s Valentine’s Day release, Disney struck down the last of its Black Lives Matter era DEI programs in an HR memo, disappearing DEI hiring and reaffirming the bottom line. It’s terrible, but that’s where we get ’em. Disney follows the money.
And we need to get Disney-Marvel—they are the world’s biggest image-makers and cultural messengers—to think of how much Black Panther meant to Blacks and Africans the world over. Half a billion in tickets and rentals buys us a direct sequel. Less, and DEI Captain America loses to Trump.
Congressional midterm elections are two very long years away. But every day until then, we will be voting with our dollars. And in a capitalist-captured state, that’s the real vote. Hold that nose and vote for The Dream. 50 stars.
In theaters throughout Marin.
