Captain America on France

[espanolbot]

Since it's the Fourth of July Weekend, I thought that I'd post this and give my commentary on it.

During the second Ultimates series, we got this... "iconic" moment.



Several pages later they had Nick Fury bringing up the line as if Mark Millar was patting himself on the back for coming up with such a snappy quip. Thing is though... even though Ultimate Cap was intended to be a more "accurate" depiction of a man out of time than regular universe Steve, both he and the entire Ultimates series was far more a reflection of the time the stories were written than the time Steve's from... if that makes sense.

Written in the early days of the War on Terror, there was a fair among of ludicrous anti-French feeling circling about in the US due to their opposition to the invasion of Iraq (resulting in such bizarre things as French Fries being renamed Freedom Fries in certain places... even though they're actually Belgian), so the idea of a gungho 'Merican action hero randomly slamming France would make a degree of sense... if he was from the early 2000s rather than the 1940s.

It seems a touch bizarre that Steve would insult the French resistance fighters, who he would probably have been working with only a few months before from his frame of reference. Admittedly a lot of modern stereotypes regarding the French did originate from the Second World War (the one about Americans thinking that French people smell was caused by the GIs being baffled by the notion that people in rural areas of a country occupied by the Nazis might not considering hygiene to be high on their list of priorities, particularly since there was a lack of hot and cold water in some areas), but it's still really weird.

A short while later in the regular universe Captain America title, Ed Brubaker had Cap explain his views of France which seem a lot more in-character than the Ultimate example.

Comments

[beardedjellybean]

Hating on the French is definetly a more modern view, but I did have to agree with Ultimate Cap when he got weirded out by the pretty blatant incest in Ultimates 3 with Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.

"No Wasp, I'm pretty sure that's not ok even these days. And Wolverine told us about how he perved on them having sex while Quicksilver heavily implies that he is seeing Wanda as his mother. And no, I don't think that that we should totally forgive your (much more in this universe) abusive piece of shit ex-husband."

As you can probably tell, I didn't like Ultimates 3.

[freezer]

I thought the mockery over Ultimates 3 was Wasp tsk-tsking Cap for his "40s brain" not being able to process incest. As I've seen it put in plenty of places, pretty sure they had incest in the 1940s.

[beardedjellybean]

I think it's partially that and it also comes across as Janet telling Cap that it more ok these days "because they love each other" and he's just being old fashioned. It largely just comes down to Steve's "incest is bad" mindset being a pretty acceptable view today as well despite his more aged values in the Ultimate Universe, and no the Pietro and Wanda incest thing is not normal or acceptable.

[icon_uk]

And even today it's being bandied around in certain quarters as being the sort of thing that the SCOTUS gay marriage decision will "inevitably" lead to the legalisation of... despite there being no indication that any other country which gay marriage has gone down the road of.

[jekylls_salvation]

That seems harsh to me. Jan makes some good points about love (and forgiveness). Love is love. If Wanda and Pietro have a special bond and are being healthy and responsible, who are we to judge?

[espanolbot]

The Americans' relationship with the French is... complicated. Allegedly they fell out over a number of things, including both thinking that their societies were the epitome of democratic ideal (post-French Revolution), but thinking that the Americans were wrong for being too religious, while the French were thought to be wrong for trying to introduce secularism.

[icon_uk]

The falling out referenced by these panels is defintiely France's decision not to assist in Gulf War 2.0

It's odd to realise that there will be nearly fully grown-up posters on here who were too young to remember that whole situation first hand.

I can recall the sheer, visceral anger in the UK when our Government, on flimsy and indeed bloody inaccurate data, DID manage to win a vote to join in, using every strongarm, underhanded voting technique known to man and contrary to every single public opinion poll carried out for MONTHS beforehand. (Hell, the infamous "Dodgy Dossier" was even mocked in Doctor Who in 2005)

How our political and economic status might have been altered if we had voted not to take part is now, I think, a legitimate field of study for history students.