How do you think Falcon and Winter Soldier handled the racial topics it sought to explore?

[Watchtower]

It's unambiguously the one thing that fully works and the one thing that makes the show worth it. It's abundantly clear that it was the one thing the show absolutely had to get right and was something Spellman and the other writers knew they had to get right and was important for them to get right, and you can tell that they poured a lot of their lived experience into showing this path for Sam Wilson.

It's also abundantly clear, unfortunately, that they cared about the racial politics leagues above everything else, because the class politics surrounding the Flag Smashers and the GRC are...really not that good. >_>

I do still like Sam's speech, admittedly. It's centrist garbage but it was never not going to be centrist af, and in that light I don't think it's actually that bad. It's a speech all about one side, the powers that be, having all of the power to help the other side and thus all of the responsibility to set the table and invite the other side to figure out how to help the other side. For an audience that's most likely expecting and looking for both-sides rhetoric the show refuses to do that, arguably having Sam bat too hard for Karli with his speech being firmly one-sided. And I can't help but feel there's still some net good in there.

 

[skeezx]

i thought they handled it impressively straightforward

wasn't hamfisted or patronizing, it was just there and you took from it what you did

 

[Byronman]

While non-american, I agree with all of the praise the actor and character Isiah Bradley are getting, they single-handedly laid down the abuse the victims of racism have to endure. That, and the scene at the bank.
But I'd like to add that there is another good treatment of racism in the show, it's when Bucky acknowledge the radically different experience of America Sam had to deal with, and how it was insensitive of Steve and himself to just throw the mantle at him.

 

[Chaofahn]

I think they could've leaned into those elements a bit harder. They definitely played it safe and there was a potential to really explore those racist themes further, but Marvel/Disney reasons.

The speech at the end was a little too heavy handed, like they were trying to justify having a Black Captain America. They didn't need to - they should've just announced Captain America 4, say that Mackie was the lead, drop the mic and let the haters just deal with it.

 

[krazen]

It's unambiguously the one thing that fully works and the one thing that makes the show worth it. It's abundantly clear that it was the one thing the show absolutely had to get right and was something Spellman and the other writers knew they had to get right and was important for them to get right, and you can tell that they poured a lot of their lived experience into showing this path for Sam Wilson.

It's also abundantly clear, unfortunately, that they cared about the racial politics leagues above everything else, because the class politics surrounding the Flag Smashers and the GRC are...really not that good. >_>

I do still like Sam's speech, admittedly. It's centrist garbage but it was never not going to be centrist af, and in that light I don't think it's actually that bad. It's a speech all about one side, the powers that be, having all of the power to help the other side and thus all of the responsibility to set the table and invite the other side to figure out how to help the other side. For an audience that's most likely expecting and looking for both-sides rhetoric the show refuses to do that, arguably having Sam bat too hard for Karli with his speech being firmly one-sided. And I can't help but feel there's still some net good in there.

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My issue with the speech is I get it; presumably after all the covid changes they needed to get to Sam taking the shield and to admonish the 'powers that be' in a cornerstone scene of the movie. The problem is that the show laid down enough counterarguments that the ending didn't work on Sam's side.

A 'I can change the system from within' would have felt more realistic and 'Disney' friendly. In the future they could show the one good cop doing the work (lol) or somehow a more subversive opportunity to add to the storyline might come along to show why its bullshit.

The class issues fared better in the speech (ironically) because the Smashers were shoe horned in to be stereotypically 'terrorist' so I guess 'both sides!' worked even though as mentioned before that storyline was so butchered with thats the only way they could have ended it.

But Sam's landing could have been better imho, and tying em both to that moment was unfair because the way the show portrayed them was differently..Sam's racism and hesitancy was one sided, Flag Smashers were still 'bad guys'. How can Sam reach halfway across the aisle to people that shit on him for six episodes and tortured his predecessor for decades?

 

[Psittacus]

The show really dropped the ball by not doing a better job of depicting the fact that the people that Karli was fighting were basically ICE. Police raids, people in camps, forced deportations, etc. Karli's crusade makes a lot more sense when put into that context.

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It doesn't work as well as I'd hoped but I think it ties together thematically. A lot of people in the MCU got tossed aside and swept under the rug once they were inconvenient or no longer useful.

 

[AcademicSaucer]

The final speech was out of a Neil Breen movie

 

[Deleted member 4461]

We saw him at work for like one night. If they intend on following it through, it's barriers that are gonna get in his way in Cap 4. The arc of the show is Sam knowing these truths and stepping up to the plate anyway.

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Yeah, I expect that it will be handled in Cap 4.

I think for the show, it would have been better to have racial issues more connected to Sam as a black Captain America & as a leader. Then to show him stepping up.

 

[iksenpets]

I think they handled it fine when it was just Sam being uncomfortable with the idea of taking up the shield and believing people would reject him, and showing him still getting hassled by cops and banks, but then there was also a lot of clumsiness in terms of how they gave him this vague sympathy towards the Flag Smashers but didn't dig too deep into it for fear of making him too radical (and also just because the Flag Smashers were a bit of a mess) or how they kind of backed away from Walker as a symbol for white racism and redeemed him in the end.

Like, a story about an extremely talented Black hero becoming the new Captain America and that being a big step of progress against racism is at its core a fairly conservative take on racism and how to deal with it (rewarding the very highest in Black excellence to distract from larger racial issues, the sort of message that would celebrate more Black billionaires while ignoring how many are still in poverty) and the show neither wants to endorse that sort of conservative version of anti-racism nor its more radical replacement, and it ends up in sort of a weird place where there's a Black Captain America, and we all agree that's very important, and he talks about how actually there's more to fighting racism than just that, and we all agree, but none of us are ever going to elaborate on it.

 

[Punchline]

i feel like in all aspects this is what the show was best at exploring but everything else really fell flat in the end regarding walker, the flag smashers, etc

its like the writer's room was only able to win one of the battles for how they were going to tackle these at the end with corporate/upper management, they all take such drastic turns that i dont feel like it could have been a coincidence

 

[davepoobond]

It was pretty good except it got sidetracked by the lame do-nothing villains and the ending that was a lecture out in the middle of the street

 

[Royalan]

I think they handled Isaiah Bradley very well, although I honestly can't tell if that's because of how the show positioned him in Sam's narrative, or if the actor who played Isaiah was just...well, really fucking good.

I did not like how they handled Sam's story, just keeping it 100. Mostly because Sam was one of the characters that felt the most hollow to me going into the Disney+ shows. And while the show seemed to flirt with giving him some character development (especially in the first episode with the bank loan scene, and introducing his family), it ultimately kind of pulls its punches by the end and makes Sam the bland good guy pontificating with the Captain America shield. If you're coming into the show expecting a statement on the positioning of Black bodies within the Superherodom of this world, you're gonna get that from Isaiah way more than you do Sam. I still don't really have a sense of who Sam is as a person, really. Although, I will say, the show left the door open for us to get more of a sense of Sam in a season 2. And I hope we do.

I walked into the show not liking Bucky. I walked out not liking Bucky.

I think the Flag Smashers were woefully underserved by their narrative. I understand that this storyline was the most affected by COVID, but at the end of the day we can only judge what we got. At best, it was just hard to watch what felt like a overly sanitized take on what's happening in the world right now with the global refugee crises we've been facing. At worst, taking your rag-tag group of refugees with powers (most of whom are people of color, it must be said), and devolving them to levels of cartoon villainy in the final act just to drive home that they're the bad guys (until Sam saves them via monologuing) was...well, I don't want to say offensive. But it was boring.

To me, Falcon and the Winter Soldier was just...eh. It wasn't bad. It was nice to see these themes tackled at all; and considering this is Disney, it could have been a whole hell of a lot worse. But, of the three Disney+ shows, FatWS was the show that flirted the most with meta-commentary on the state of the world and even race within this world and the Marvel universe as a whole. And so I can't let it off the hook for pulling its punches at every opportunity.

 

[Nox]

The final speech was out of a Neil Breen movie

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/s

The show got a lot right that I wouldn't expect it to. It had a lot going on though, made it a bit unfocused, especially with the Flag Smashers.

I like it overall though, and I'd give a pass for being screwed over by Covid

 

[Baji Boxer]

It was very well done, but was held back some by the length of the series combined with everything else they had to do. The Flag Smashers was a pretty weak aspect, and everything felt like it wrapped up too quickly and cleanly because they've got to do the Captain America movie (and Covid).

 

[AcademicSaucer]

/s

The show got a lot right that I wouldn't expect it to. It had a lot going on though, made it a bit unfocused, especially with the Flag Smashers.

I like it overall though, and I'd give a pass for being screwed over by Covid

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Watch the scene when he is talking to the senators again,its so bad

 

[BossAttack]

Absolutely terribly. Marvel should stop trying to do politics because they are really bad at it.