Erasure of Jewish Identity and Culture in Marvel
(Not including X-Men films: I’m not up to discussing the tragedy of the X-Men movies and the complete erasure of all Jewish characters besides Magneto, the villain, today.)
Honestly, as a Jewish person in America this ongoing erasure of Jewish identity and culture Marvel is committing doesn’t even surprise me. This sort of subtle anti-Semitism that Marvel is participating in is par for the course. The erasure of Jewish identity and culture is so common most people don’t even pause to consider it, and if they do they don’t consider it anti-Semitic. After all, they don’t hate Jews, they don’t insult Jews, they don’t attack Jews, they don’t think Jews are bad or evil, so OF COURSE it isn’t anti-Semitism if you just pretend that Jews don’t exist and destroy Jewish character’s identities. It’s just a change of backstory, after all!
The erasure of Jewish characters and the destruction of characters created by Jews is not a change of backstory, Marvel, it is anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is defined as hostility, prejudice or discrimination against Jews. By erasing Jewish characters you are discriminating, or participating in unjust treatment, against them on account of their religion. By ignoring the huge contributions of Jewish writers and artists who gave life to so many comics characters you are being prejudiced. Your hostility, or unfriendliness and opposition, to the inclusion of Jewish characters and the defamation of characters created as allegories by Jews are anti-Semitism, Marvel.
Ignoring, or ret-conning, the fact that Wanda and Pietro Maximoff are ethnically half Jewish and Roma, and always have been, is anti-Semitic and racist. Their heritage may not have played a significant plot point, but it certainly influenced their decisions and motivations. Turning Jewish-Roma Wanda and Pietro Maximoff into volunteers for the fascist-Hydra organization headed by von Strucker, a Nazi, to conduct illegal medical experiments on, is wrong.
Turning Steve Rogers, who has always stood as an allegorical shield for the Jewish people against the Nazi’s and fascism in general, into a fascist Hydra member, is disgusting. Turning Steve Rogers’ who served as Erskine’s (a Jewish scientist’s) golem, his creation and stand-in, to defeat the Nazi’s into a member of Hydra, is revolting.
Fun fact: Captain America’s iconic shield is an allegory in and of itself. What in English is called the Jewish Star or Star of David, one of the most recognizable Jewish symbols in the world, is in Hebrew called the Magen David (Yiddish the Mogein Dovid) which translates to the Shield of David. Steve’s shield with the star on it, used to protect him as he fought Hitler and the Nazi’s in the early comics, was an allegory to a powerful and well known Jewish symbol that the Nazi’s were corrupting. It was a ‘spit in your eye, fuck you’ to the Nazi’s and Jack Kirby and Joe Simon knew that their Jewish readers, desperate for news that the Nazi’s would be stopped and their families were safe, would recognize it.
I’ve seen comments on the Jewish actors in the MCU not being allowed to play Jewish characters. I feel that if in canon the characters are actively shown not to be Jewish, or it’s heavily implied at least, then it’s appropriate for the Jewish actors to portray that character as Christian or Muslim or Hindu or Atheist, or whatever that character religiously identifies as. However, for a character like Darcy Lewis, who is not a canon character in the comics at all, how hard would it be to have her say a throwaway line about her Bat Mitzvah? Or to have Jane Foster (whose religion is never mentioned in the comics) mention her Bubbe (grandmother) in a ‘my Bubbe always said’ way?
I have to wonder what would happen if Marvel suddenly decided that Sam Wilson wasn’t black? What if they thought Wakanda would be better served as a European nation? What if Kamala Khan was found to support a fascist regime? Why is it okay to erase and ignore Jews as both characters and creators? Why are Marvel’s actions not being called out as the anti-Semitism it is?
It doesn’t matter what reason Marvel gives for their choice to make Steve Rogers’ a fascist, a Nazi. It doesn’t matter if it’s a plot twist, a time-change, a clone, a triple agent or a cry for attention. Marvel has taken a character that has stood for freedom and doing the right thing, a hero and a symbol of hope not only to Jews but to people around the world that there are people who have the courage to fight back against oppression, and they have destroyed him. They can never take this back, there is no ‘oops’ here. Even if they retcon this arc in the future, like they did with William Burnside, they have destroyed the legacy of Captain America.
Wasn’t it enough to erase Wanda and Pietro Maximoff’s past? Why do you have to ruin Captain America too?
Jack Kirby and Joe Simon received death threats for creating Steve Rogers, Captain America, in a time when many Americans were either Nazi sympathizers or content to keep their head in the sand. It was a time when Jewish families checked their mailboxes every day praying for a letter from their parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins still in Europe. It was a time when the US turned away boatloads of Jewish refugees fleeing Europe. It was a time when the Third Reich steadily gained more and more land and more and more power, and while many European nations fought back against the rise of fascism the refused to involve itself in Europe’s war despite knowing the threat Hitler posed. Kirby and Simon were surrounded by this environment of fear, because no one knew what was truly happening in Europe, but knew they had to do something about it. It is an insult to the memories of Jack Kirby and Joe Simon. It is morally repugnant to make Captain America into a Nazi.
Marvel has erased Jewish identities of characters in both the comics and the films. That was bad enough. But now? Marvel has taken a hero I love, and have loved since I was a child, and perverted it. They have taken Captain America and twisted him around into a parody of all that he has ever stood for. They have taken a character that was literally created by two Jews to stand against the Nazi’s and say ‘screw you’ to Hitler for all the Jews who couldn’t, and made him into a Nazi. As a Jew and a fan of comics for most of my life I feel like I have been spat on and kicked while I’m down.
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