Superhero movies are continually working to place themselves in the realism of the everyday. When characters are translated from comic panel to silver screen, some of the shine is buffed off. We are treated (to the extent of director and actor intent) to real people dealing with apparently real situations. After massive plot bomb is dropped three-fourths of the way into the movie, the rift of trauma that slices between Iron Man and Captain America seems irreparable and for good reason: relationships built on lies don't last. Iron Man is rife with fresh grief and arguably Captain America has never gotten over the fact he woke up 70 years later and the world and people he knew were all dead. There are others, but the film has less to do with accountability of power and more to do with how we process grief. The film has less to do with the privileges of power and more to do with the power our belief systems give to us.
But, "Oh," you may protest "A panther suited man? Star-Spangled Shield? Weird telekinetic powers? Surely, those are not real." Point taken, but movies allow us to believe for a while that they are real or could, perhaps, happen. But consider each of the characters for a moment. The panther suited young man is King of a country and has just lost his father to a violent attack. Captain America is continually finding is value system and beliefs at odds with the 21st century --not to mention he is convinced his old friend is not a brainwashed assassin. "Which Bucky am I talking to?" Cap warily asks. And Wanda Maximoff, the Eastern European telekinetic (among other abilities) has an X-men complex: do I control my powers? Or do my powers control me?
Let's start with the grief (spoilers ahead). Captain America is rejecting normalcy to seek the life he was 'made' for: save as many people as I can, always jump in where I can do good, believe the best in all people. He will never be normal in the 21st sense of the word and Bucky's existence gives him hope to have an old buddy on the front of a foreign fight. Captain America's belief that he can have some of the 'good times' back, is what eventually clouds his judgment. He keeps a secret from Iron Man in order to 'protect him.' "I guess what I was really doing, was protecting myself" Cap admits. Yes, Cap, protecting yourself and the past you seek to redeem has become a value by which you operate. Cap, what you believe is hurting other people: what will it take to realize that?
Iron Man is operating on a value system of security which leads him to believe what he is doing is right. Iron Man believes in security because he is fundamentally an insecure person: parents ripped away during his young adult years and constantly exuding a persona of fame and genius because he is insecure. Yes, a man who has so much is so insecure and it only takes a long nursed fear to bring all that insecurity to light as he fights his friends.
"Captain America: Civil War" is asking us to consider: What belief systems do we make for ourselves? And how do we act on our beliefs?
On grief, each of the characters deals with it in their own way. But for some characters, the line between grief and vengeance become increasingly blurred.
