Sex, War, and World Domination

It probably shouldn't have caught me by surprise—the main character is wrapped in a flag, after all—but I was pleasantly shocked to find Captain America: The First Avenger to be one of the most stridently ideological American films in recent memory. After the glib emptiness of Iron Man and the nonsensical shrieking mush of Thor, I wasn’t optimistic about a Disney/Marvel Studios movie ever doing anything very interesting at all. But Captain America is a fascinating piece of work. Director Joe Johnston and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, under the vigilant eye of producer Kevin Feige (a strong hand in every Marvel production), have crafted a compelling fable about channeling sexual frustration into violence, and about waging war for the sake of nationalism qua nationalism, against modern globalist impulses.