Essay 2

Film Analysis - Captain America: The First Avenger

In a time where gender roles were just beginning to be challenged, Captain America:

The First Avenger represents a female co-lead in a pragmatic way. Possessing almost all of

the qualities that an excellent male soldier might be expected to, Peggy Carter is portrayed to

be intelligent as well as experienced enough to engage in scientific and military operations, as

she does in the film. However, she was still forced to face instances of sexism and comments

on her appearance (which she deals with a swift punch to the face). Being the perfect agent,

she was also a viable choice to become the recipient for the super soldier serum, however the

movie never considers the possibility.

Captain America is depicted to transform from being just a little scrawny kid, to

leading the American advance on Hitler and becoming an icon for the country. His character

is used as propaganda, and several short films are made and distributed around the country to

get more men to enlist. Even though all this is portrayed in the movie, the character of

Captain America was also first introduced in the 1940’s, as a response to Hitler and his Nazi

army. The creators of the original comic said in their memoir, “We both read the newspapers.

We knew what was going on over in Europe. World events gave us the perfect comic-book

villain, Adolf Hitler, with his ranting, goose-stepping and ridiculous moustache. So we

decided to create the perfect hero who would be his foil. ” Captain America has been used as

propaganda in real life as well, with the primary intent to promote America on entrance to

WWII.