Carson Jerema: Marvel’s animal-torturing villain a metaphor for the progressive left – National Post
Light spoilers ahead for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe.
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But even though the onscreen torture of Rocket and other human-animal hybrids is at times manipulative and unsettling, the politics never actually seem heavy handed. They are effective at emotionally bonding the audience to Rocket, while also making it absolutely clear that the villain, known as the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), deserves a violent end.
The scenes where Rocket and others are experimented on could certainly be viewed as a statement on animal rights, but audiences could just as easily choose to ignore the politics, and it would still be an effective set up for an action-adventure story.
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However, the politics that are a much more important, even essential, element of the Guardians films and the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole are the politics of personal liberty and freedom. There is a strain of libertarianism humming in the background of most of these (32 and counting) films that is no less radical for being popcorn-friendly.
In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, the High Evolutionary mutates Rocket from a raccoon into a highly intelligent being as part of a project to create the perfect creatures to populate the perfect society. When a society doesnt live up to his standards, the High Evolutionary burns it down and starts anew.
He is, in effect, a stand in for every progressive politician who wants to engineer society in order to satisfy a personal vision of what is right. These motivations are not all that different from a previous Marvel villain, the lunatic degrowth environmentalist Thanos, who tried to murder half the beings in the universe.
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The Guardians of the Galaxy, on the other hand, are a gang of criminals turned do-gooding mercenaries. They are self-employed contractors who are always presented as more competent and more honest than the various government authorities that either hire them or fight them.
The best Marvel films are successful because they embrace their inherent libertarianism. More importantly, the politics remain in the background as context for the story being told, or as shorthand to set up the action. The message rarely takes over.
After the past few years of bland, confusing dreck from Marvel Studios, the third Guardians instalment might have signalled a return to form, but given that director James Gunn is leaving, the film serves as a reminder of what has been lost.
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Recent Marvel entries have either been too plot heavy, or overly committed to progressive ideas, namely diversity for diversitys sake, causing the films to collapse under their own weight.
The presence of progressive politics, though, is not inherently detrimental to the series, so long as it is properly executed. For example, with its African-centric story, and nearly all-Black cast, 2018s Black Panther clearly had diversity politics on its mind. It also inverted the Marvel structure somewhat, with the villain embodying individualism, and with more emphasis given to the importance of community.
But that story was expertly told and it remains one of the best superhero films ever produced.
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In one of the Iron Man movies, a cocky and charismatic Tony Stark (played by the cocky and charismatic Robert Downey Jr.) declares, Ive successfully privatized world peace. The audience is never meant to be anywhere but on Starks side. That he is essentially replacing the United States military is never presented as something to fear, but as a solution to inept governance.
In my personal favourite, the hilarious Thor: Ragnorak, the climax involves a Spartacus-style slave rebellion followed by Thor (Chris Hemsworth) literally smashing the state when he destroyed his home planet to escape his tyrannical ruler of a sister.
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The most significant pro-liberty plots in Marvel come from the Captain America films. In The Winter Soldier, the government agency the heroes have been working for is revealed to have been controlled by a deep state cabal of Nazis, and it is up to Captain America (Chris Evans) to take it down, something he is only able to do, not because of his superhuman strength, but because of his inherent goodness and incorruptibility, which is contrasted against the rot of the state.
In Captain America: Civil War, the American government wants to regulate the heroes and bring them under state control; an analogy is made comparing them to nuclear bombs, for instance. Cap, as his friends call him, refuses and goes to war against his former teammates, fighting for the ideal that individuals should not be controlled, no matter how powerful they may be. It is essentially Ayn Rand with action sequences. Civil War is the most heavy-handed in its libertarian messaging, but it is effective because audiences never want to see their heroes tied down.
Personal responsibility, allegiance to those we choose, as opposed to some flag, and the will of a determined man or woman are the elements of nearly every successful Marvel story, and action films in general. As soon as Marvel started forgetting that, people began tuning out.
National Post
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Carson Jerema: Marvel's animal-torturing villain a metaphor for the progressive left - National Post