Steve Rogers, Tony Stark and the Silver Spoon
A few months ago I saw a great edit of Tony and Steve to the song Silver Spoon by Erin Lecourt and it's been on my mind ever since. While I liked the edit & appreciated the nuance of how the editor perceived Tony and Steve's relationship/dynamic in the MCU, I couldn't help but recognize the total disconnect between the MCU and MARVEL's versions of Steve Rogers and how this disconnect leads to a total misunderstanding of his character by MCU fans by extension.
The insidious way Disney portrays the U.S-born billionaire versus the son of Irish immigrants is polarizing. It shows a clear bias, that despite the fact that both Tony and Steve are protagonists, Disney NEEDED to convolute Steve's character to boost the image of their military poster boy, Tony Stark. That despite Steve being a literal soldier in the US army, he was still not as "revered" as the Merchant of Death, Tony Stark. It's a clear juxtaposition of their importance in the grand scheme and why Steve Rogers, Captain America, will never be as great as the ultimate Capitalist, Stark. They've also used Steve being a "supersoldier" to justify their mischaracterization of him and to fundamentally dehumanize him thus allowing him to be seen/regarded by the general public as "the man who has it all" (and simultaneously a boring hero not worth much bc his trauma wasn't portrayed as much as Tony's was) when in reality, Steve was just another pawn in war while Tony played a key role in many wars and had more privileges and protection compared to Steve.
My whole point is, that Disney was VERY intentional in making Tony out to be the better of the two in order to maintain their capitalist narrative which is also heavily rooted in racism, classism and xenophobia [see the history of Irish immigrants in the US].
It's why today, people think "I bet you grew up eating at the table" of Steve Rogers
Tony is seen as the "silver spoons and butter knives, living hand to mouth I'm getting by."
Which is WILD because Steve is literally a first generation Irish American born to both Irish immigrant parents during the Great Depression. He was literally born with ailments due to hunger and poverty. He lived most of his childhood and young adult years sick and poor in decrepit conditions, having to put newspapers in his shoes and all that. In no world or universe will Steve ever have the silver spoon(s) Tony was born with.
Pointing out Steve's disadvantages and Tony's privileges and the way Disney used their characters to push the "poor billionaire uwu" vs "arrogant immigrant" narrative among the gen pop., is poignant to me especially in the current political climate when it is very easy for people to blame and demonize poor and disadvantaged immigrants for all of the society's issues when in fact, billionaires are and have always been the problem.
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