THE STORY THAT DISNEY TELLS TO THE WORLD
(A reading of the climactic sequence of Avengers: Endgame)
We begin on the battlefield. Thanos, representing a Dumb Cartoon Parody of Communism, is locked in combat with Captain America (America), Thor (Our Proud European Heritage) and Iron Man (the Military-Industrial Complex.)
Communism initially has the upper hand, with its hope for a better world untainted by even the memory of the rich, who will fight beyond time and space to hold on to everything they have. All seems lost: but then, America reveals what we all suspected, that it had the power to wield the Hammer of our Proud European Heritage this whole time.
“I knew it!”, says Our Proud European Heritage.
Even that isn’t enough. The Evil Empire deploys its army of mindless savages (here representing All Humans Outside the American Sphere of Influence). Look how many of them there are. Hordes! But just when all seems lost, here comes the cavalry! Armies of colonized peoples (Africans, Asians, “Asians”, Asgardians who were supposed to represent refugees last time we saw them, etc) pour forth, coming to America’s aid out of sheer gratitude for our social and economic largesse.
Now, with teams assembled, it’s time for Football (War), or possibly War (Football.) An actual, literal game of nuclear football. Hawkeye (who represents the Absolute Certainty that Women Will Always, Always Die to Motivate the Men and Not the Other Way Around in American My Dead Wife Is a 9/11 Metaphor Action Movies) is an old, war-weary white guy, so he must pass the football to a Black Athlete, who passes it to Spider-Man, who represents a different, better movie. Spider-Man passes it to ALL OF THE WOMEN – to WOMEN, GENERALLY – to LOOK HOW MANY WOMEN WE HAVE, AND SOME OF THEM EVEN GOT LINES, most of them definitely voted for Hillary, sorry we killed the one with the most character development – and this avalanche of representation has Communism on the ropes. But not so fast: wily Thanos remembers the lessons of the harsh Russian winter and starts shelling his own troops. It’s fourth and 20 and America might have to punt.
But! Here comes Carol Danvers (the IMF), with her brand new haircut that screams “fascism is for lesbians too”, and she destroys communism’s economic base! Now there’s hope. The football may actually reach the end zone, herein represented by the back of an old brown van (baseline American fertility totem, Source of Life, certainly where the dude who picked the music for this movie was conceived, and one of the most potent atavistic images in a narrative where the Military-Industrial Complex and Our Proud European Heritage get to have long heart-to-hearts with their dead parents.) It’s going, it’s good, it’s… waved off! Communism’s in league with the refs!
“I knew it,” says America.
So, Communism gets the nuke after all and it looks like we’re all doomed. All the subalterns and Ghurkas and class traitors and whatnot do their best to get it off him but finally it’s just the Military-Industrial Complex left on the field. A final scuffle and Communism stands tall, seemingly victorious.
“The dictatorship of the proletariat is inevitable,” says Communism, and fails to make its steel quotas.
“I’m the Military-Industrial Complex”, says the Military-Industrial Complex, and murders thousands of people.
And that’s pretty much it. Everybody washes the ashy remains of the Non-Americans out of their hair, we have a nice funeral for the Military-Industrial Complex (he died doing what he loved: committing war crimes), the dying boomers hand off their responsibilities to young people of color and America gets to go back and live in the 1950s, when everything was nice.
I’m not saying that if you liked this movie you’re a cop, but you’re probably a cop.
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