"Captain America: The First Avenger" (2011) Doesn't Think the Holocaust Really Happened

Or: the Sanitation of History in Mainstream Hollywood Cinema.

Now, I told myself going into Captain America: The First Avenger that it was just a silly little superhero movie, not to be taken seriously, that it sold itself on explosions and Chris Evans' pecs, and nothing else.

I told myself I was not to grow incensed over whatever revisionist history WWII pastiche I was to be presented with. But dammit if I didn't get pissed off anyway.

Now, a movie like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) is good clean Nazi-hating fun. Not exactly based on a true story, but not total farce, either. For one thing, it acknowledges the existence of Nazis, and the evil that they represent. We even saw Hitler attend a book-burning.

It's not true, but the spirit it carried was true-enough. It even identified the villains by name.

Captain America is something else. In the film, the Nazis are not stereotyped, they are erased.

Erased from history.

When I use the term "sanitation of history," I am referring to the complete and total removal of any and all references to anything that actually happened in the past. And, even though Captain America is unapologetically fictitious, under no obligation to present anything but a great story (which, btw, it failed to do), I feel that the sanitized history it presents is so untrue that it borders on the dishonest. Who knows? Maybe it's even harmful.

The movie is supposedly set in 1942, and the action takes place largely on the European frontlines of WWII, but what we get is not anything resembling what was actually going on in that year, in that place.

Instead, we get some bizarre pastiche of WWII -- the view of a three-year-old impressionist on acid. Nothing resembling the actual war. The sanitation of history goes so far in Captain America that the titular superhero actually spends no time fighting the Axis Powers at any point in the film.

We all know the story: Steve Rogers is a 90-pound asthmatic weakling who gains superpowers when he is injected with an experimental serum by the US government. The newly christened Captain America is deployed to the front where he quickly begins kicking ass and taking names.

Once deployed, Captain America doesn't fight "Nazis," as you might expect. He fights "Hydras," German footsoldiers who do the bidding of Johann Schimdt, the commander of a secret Nazi science division. Schmidt renounces Hitler about ten minutes into the movie and actually forms his own army to combat them.

So Captain America is never duking it out with actual Nazis at any point in the film. Not that you'd notice. The filmmakers go to great lengths to make the Hydras feel like Nazis.

Schmidt and his cronies dress in black leather trenchcoats and sport red armbands, but instead of adorning them with swastikas, their armbands sport octopi. I kid you not.

That's not all.

In the one scene in the entire film where "real" Nazis are present (they come to inspect Schmidt's operation and are promptly slaughtered when they voice their displeasure), the swastikas on their armbands are carefully excluded from the frame. I didn't see one swastika throughout the entire film.

That's not all.

Of course, the Hydras salute each other by shouting "Hail Hydra," but, instead of raising one hand with the flat of their palm outstretched, like Nazis, they throw out both arms with two closed fists.

Ok, you're saying, they altered the Nazi salute. That's not so weird, is it? They're allowed to do that.

What about when the one Nazi character says "Heil Hitler" right before he dies, and he actually pronounces it "Hail Heitler" instead of "Heil Hitler?"

It's almost as if the filmmakers were actively trying to disavow the very existence of Nazis. And that's alarming to me.

One more example: when Captain America is tasked with forming a special division of soldiers to accompany him on his missions, he assembles a five-man team consisting of one American, one Brit, a Frenchman, an Asian who points out that he's "from Fresno," and a black man.

Ummm... I've got no problem with Captain America teaming up with anyone he chooses, but to ignore the fact that the US Army in 1942 was segregated is another example of blatant historical sanitation of the most dishonest sort.

It could've been explained in one exchange. Some dude says "No blacks allowed in the squad" and Captain America says something like "We all bleed red, don't we?"

G-d, did I just write that?

Ok, yes, that's a crappy, cheesy exchange, but at least it ackowledges reality.

Why this staunch refusal to acknowledge history? I don't get it. Indiana Jones was a big summer tentpole, and it handled the painful subject of Nazis just fine -- by punching them in the face, I might add.

Why this dogmatic pursuit to erase reality from the narrative? You'd think that if the filmmakers were so worried about depicting Nazis, they wouldn't have set the film during World War f*cking Two.

Perhaps there's something to be said about the fact that the original Captain America character was a bit of a revisionist historian as well.

Debuted in 1940 (before America was even officially at war), the front cover of Captain America Comics #1 depicts Captain America punching Hitler in the face.

Which, in case you're not up to speed on your history, never happened.

Naturally, it sold over a million copies.

So perhaps we're simply seeing the continuation of Captain America's revisionist adventures. There are no more Nazis to fight in 2011, so maybe the propaganda machine simply chose a new enemy for Captain America to face in this brave new world: the recession.

How did Captain America fight the recession? It grossed $311.7 million at the worldwide box office in its first month of release, that's how.

--Serge