On Feb. 14, 2025, the new Captain America movie, “A Brave New World,” comes out in theaters.
As has been the case with many Marvel movies, the promotional tour leading up to this one has not been without some controversy.
The lead actor, Anthony Mackie, plays Sam Wilson/Captain America. Previously, the Steve Rogers version of Captain America was played by actor Chris Evans, who handed his vibranium shield over to the Wilson (aka “Falcon”) character in “Avengers: Endgame.”
During a press tour in Rome on Jan. 27 for the upcoming movie, Mackie was discussing what he felt Captain America represented when he made the following comments:
“For me, Captain America represents a lot of different things, and I don’t think the term, you know, ‘America’ should be one of those representations. Like, it’s about a man who keeps his word, who has honor, dignity and integrity. Someone who is trustworthy and dependable.”
It sounded a lot like Mackie was wholly distancing himself from the unique patriotic values Captain America embodied for so many fans of both the comic and the movies over the last several decades.
Understandably, there was a lot of pushback, with fans accusing Mackie of going “full woke,” an accusation he faced during the airing of the 2021 “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” TV series on Disney+ as well after his character gave what some at the time called the “wokest” speech in Marvel history in the season finale.
Mackie quickly backtracked after outrage ensued over his Rome remarks, writing on Instagram, “I’m a proud American and taking on the shield of a hero like Cap is the honor of a lifetime.”
“I have the utmost respect for those who serve and have served our country,” he wrote. “Cap has universal characteristics that people all over the world can relate to.”
Amid the uproar over what Mackie initially said, his defenders have said his comments were not unlike some made by Evans during promotional work he’d done for the Cap movies in which he’d starred.
Others noted that the comic book version of Captain America and the movie version at one point fought against the American government in the court of public opinion not because he hated America but because, as he said, he knew that “liberty could as easily be snuffed out here as in Nazi Germany,” something he said “nearly” happened.
It doesn’t matter. Mackie could have avoided this controversy and all the bad press it brought the movie and franchise simply by leaving out his comments about “America” altogether and saying something like this instead:
“For me, Captain America represents a lot of different things, some of which are universal. Like, it’s about a man who keeps his word, who has honor, dignity and integrity. Someone who is trustworthy and dependable.”
Perhaps it was because he was in a different country and in front of an international audience that Mackie felt the need to clarify that honor, dignity and integrity weren’t uniquely American.
But considering he’s playing a character who literally has the word “America” in his name and who also wears a red, white and blue costume symbolic of the American flag, I don’t think it was too much to ask of him to put away the woke for five seconds and act proud of both the role he played and his country, too.
North Carolina native Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a media analyst and regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection.
