Missed the Mark - The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Part 1)

Sometimes, our best intentions for a story don’t come on the page.

Sometimes it’s character concept that’s undermined by one poorly considered line.  Sometimes it’s a worldbuilding element that tears massive holes through the plot.  Sometimes, it’s a theme or message that collapses under closer scrutiny or is handled in a way that is detrimental to the audience’s escapism.  And sometimes, the manuscript was published or the script was greenlit despite being in dire need of an additional draft.

It’s always easier to see what went wrong in hindsight.  With the benefit of those lessons, we can learn and grow and become better writers.  Thus, to kickstart our grand adventure into alternative stories, please lend me your screens for this first installment of Missed the Mark.  Here we will take stories that had a clear intent in mind but that failed on the execution.  We’ll try to identify where things went wrong.  We’ll then close it out with a revised version of the same story that will hopefully preserve the intent of the writers while telling a more cohesive, immersive, and/or impactful story.

Before we dive right into a rather spicy entry, I want to establish an important disclaimer: in this and future entries of Missed the Mark, I will be treating the intent of the writers as a neutral thing.  Whether this is a character arc, a plot device, a worldbuilding detail, or a theme, it is all merely a writing element to be dissected and studied.  It doesn’t matter if the arc is inspirational, device is subversive, the detail breaks the mold, or the theme is timely or relevant (or even if any of those descriptors are objectively accurate).  We are here to learn a lesson and hopefully learn to write a better story.  Regardless of whether we like the things I’m about to dissect or hated them, I hope we can all engage with it from a technical perspective (though I will be sharing my subjective takes so that my biases are clear).

Also, it should go without saying that I will be spoiling everything about the stories I dissect.  I’ll try to keep it to light spoilers for my Initial Reactions and The Mark, but they are by no means safe territory.  Once we hit How They Missed, nothing’s going to be held back.  You have been warned.

Everyone good?  Excited?  Good.  Let’s get this show on the road.  Let’s look at The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (hereafter referred to as FATWS) and see just how it Missed the Mark.

Initial Reactions

I really wanted to like FATWS.

I like Sam Wilson.  I like Bucky Barnes.  I liked how Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan have portrayed these characters.  I was excited to see Sam become Captain America.  I love Sam’s red, white, and blue wingsuit.  Also, though people with more expertise than I have criticized the choreography, I liked the fights.  I feel like the choreographer did some creative things with Sam’s fighting style while wearing the suit that made that piece of equipment feel more real.

With that said, the writing had ... problems.  There were problems.

The pandemic likely factored into this.  I’ve heard secondhand (via Nando v. Movies – please check him out and support his channel) that the plot may have originally been framed around a pandemic of some sort, and that Marvel did a last-minute rewrite when COVID hit.  However, there are far deeper issues that can’t be so easily dismissed, the most distracting of which was the political messaging.

Now, I believe that you can have political messaging in your work.  At the risk of offending the great Tolkien, I don’t even think that allegory is inherently bad.  The key factor is whether you can still tell a good story and get the message across without shattering your audience’s immersion.  And, in this, I feel like FATWS fails utterly.  What’s worse, it fails utterly with a message that it was perfectly situated to deliver.

The Mark

Let’s be honest: we all knew that FATWS was going to make a big deal out of Sam’s race.  Marvel had just made a big deal out of Black Panther being the “first black superhero movie” (ignoring the ones that came before, including the Blade trilogy).  I also remember the press reactions to this when it happened in the comics several years back.  Even without contemporary political movements, they were going to milk Sam Wilson’s race, including patting themselves on the back within the narrative.

And, you know what?  I’m okay with that in this case.

To be clear, I don’t like identity swapping – far better to create new characters and stories rather than just altering existing ones – yet the ascension of Sam as the new Captain America makes sense to me.  The MCU, unlike the comics, has to deal with actors aging.  It makes sense for a cinematic universe to address this by making it a living setting where new heroes rise, and some of those heroes will take up the mantles of their predecessors.  If an identity swap occurs naturally as part of this, then I think we might as well take the opportunity to acknowledge and talk about it in said story.

The problem was how the show chose to talk about it.

How They Missed

I binged FATWS with my parents over Mother’s Day 2021.  (I had quit Disney+ a couple months earlier and haven’t resubscribed as of writing this.) It was a frustrating watch.  The plot and character work were passable, but every attempt to engage with political commentary tore me right out of the story.  Sam’s “you need to do better” speech at the end was an atrocity.  However, that was linked to whatever the Flag Smashers were about, and we’re here to talk about the identity politics.

The examples of this poorly handled commentary that I can name just off the top of my head are:

-          Sam’s sister accusing that banker of being racist, outright declaring that he’s denying her and Sam a loan because they’re black.  (This fails because the banker had just given a legitimate list of reasons why the bank wouldn’t want to grant the loan.  These same reasons, presented to white applicants, would merely have been framed as the bank lacking compassion or else that the applicants’ lives are not in order.)

-          Some kid calling Sam “Black Falcon”, which is paid off later by other characters.  (This one is fine by itself, but it’s dragged down by the other examples on this list.)

-          Isaiah Bradley implying that he was locked up as a super soldier lab rat because he’s black.  (The narrative ignores that this was during the Cold War and that, with what we know of the MCU, HYDRA could have been involved.  A white man in this same context would have suffered the same fate, especially if his status as a super soldier was not public knowledge.  The real story there is a government violating the rights of its soldiers.  Perhaps, in the comics, this might have made more sense, but within the context of the MCU, it’s hard to really sell this as a story of racism when we only have Bradley’s word to go on.)

-          The scene with the cops pulling over and asking Bucky if Sam was bothering him.  (This one was nonsensical.  They flip to arresting Bucky once they establish his identity.  The problem is, Sam and Bucky are Avengers, and Bucky was once wanted for terrorism.  Those cops should have recognized Bucky before they even tapped their brakes.  If they actually thought Sam and Bucky were arguing, surely they would have asking Sam if Bucky was the problematic party.)

-          Zemo’s commentary about how only an American would think that a fashion-forward black man is a pimp.  (This is a minor quip, but as with “Black Falcon”, it’s bogged down by the other moments on this list.)

-          Bradley declaring how a black man will never be allowed to be Captain America.  (This is laughable, as the MCU had not, in the twenty-plus films up to that point, shown any indication that race would be a barrier to being a super hero, especially in the modern day.  Again, I’m sure this was substantiated in the comics, but we only have Bradley’s word to go on here.)

-          Sam’s crisis of faith being how he feels like he’s complicit in racism if he takes up the shield, and Bucky then apologizing to him for not being sensitive enough about race.  (Again, the MCU didn’t establish race as an important factor before now.)

-          Sam declaring how controversial it is for him to be Captain America.  (No one has shown any opposition to this except him and Bradley.)

I’m sure that there were other’s I’ve missed, but these are adequate to notice a pattern:

-          Except the car scene, all of these were characters making declarations about racism without any evidence in the narrative to support it.

-          The only people telling black characters what they could or couldn’t do were other black characters.

-          Except for the second-to-last example, every single one of these could be erased from the story with only a slight edit to dialogue.

This is not an honest effort to have a conversation about racism.  It’s pandering and virtue signaling.  The writers threw in some snappy lines to call attention to an issue without ever really engaging with it.  It’s especially frustrating because it’s clearly intended to tap into modern-day anxieties.  Furthermore, there are many views who have grown tired of this blunt, shallow messaging after years of saturation.  They want escapism, not another lecture.

If this topic is to be explored, the writers “need to do better”.

Adjusting Our Aim

I believe that the key to good political messaging (or any messaging) in fiction, whether allegorical or simply thematic, is that the work should stand on its own.  You shouldn’t need to understand the real-world context and contemporary issues for the story or the message to make any sense.  Animal Farm is one of the bluntest allegories I’ve ever read, yet we don’t need to understand the development of the USSR to appreciate it.  The cautionary tale works on its own.  The messaging of FATWS would have been borderline nonsensical if it were released in 2001 or even 2011.  It will age like unrefrigerated milk once current anxieties have calmed.

My gut reaction on how to fix this problem would be to cut the identity politics entirely.  If the message is so superficial and deleted so easily, then it shouldn’t be in the story.  There’s enough going on with the Flag Smashers.

Of course, that doesn’t work for this exercise.  The message is the element we need to keep and enhance.  We’ll need to give it actual substance within the story.

The easiest way to do this (outside of making the series longer so that things have more time to develop) would be to emphasize overt racism against black individuals within the story.  This would give the message substance, yet it’s an incomplete solution.  Introducing racism as a factor now would clearly be done for the sake of the message and thus would shatter immersion just as effectively as the current setup.

-          As stated above, the world of the MCU has lacked a foundation for racism preventing heroism.  We can make some assumptions, given the similarities to our own world, but the lack of protest to Falcon or War Machine before now has established the opposite message.

-          T’Challa endured condescension in Civil War and his own film, yet that wasn’t due to his race.  As far as non-Wakandans knew, he was the dictator of a dirt-poor nation without any power, influence, or meaningful resources – and that was what he wanted them to think.  Disrespect means that his deception was successful.

-          Maybe Luke Cage had to deal with something.  That would be a start, and since I haven’t seen his show, I can’t refute whatever it established.  However, up until No Way Home, the MCU has not acknowledged the Netflix series, so I’m willing to bet that writers wouldn’t have taken it into account even if they were willing to lay a proper foundation for racism within this story.

The answer, I believe, is allegory and subtext.  This will allow people who don’t want the message to tune it out while still enjoying the story, whereas those who want the message will be given something worthwhile.  The perfect allegory already exists within FATWS: the super soldier serum.

One thing I really love about Sam taking over as Captain America is that, unlike Steve or Bucky, he has no powers.  Granted, the show gives him a Wakandan-made bird costume, but at the end of the day, he’s still just a regular guy.  He is the Everyman hero, rising to do what’s right, putting his life on the line because the work needs doing.

In a world filled with The Big Three, that innate heroism would be far less appreciated.  Power would be what inspires people and makes them feel safe.  Sure, the military uses Sam’s skills in the show, and that’s fine, but he’s not the obvious choice for a public symbol in a world where the Hulk is wandering around.  This idea already exists within FATWS: both the Flag Smashers and John Walker turn to the super soldier serum as an answer to their problems.

That should be the focus.  That should be Sam’s personal conflict.  FATWS shouldn’t openly ask, “Can a black man be Captain America?”  Instead, it should ask, “Can an ordinary man be Captain America?” and leave the question of race as subtext.

Now, as with all allegories, there is a ripple effect to this metaphor, bringing with it pros and cons.  Let’s get the obvious cons out of the way:

-          The allegory associates super soldiers with white people.  The allegory could be skewed to support ideas of racial supremacy.  The updated version of FATWS will need to handle this idea delicately to avoid such implications.

-          The super soldier serum fundamentally alter people, yet race is a genetic attribute.

Despite this risk, I think that the pros of the allegory make it worthwhile.

-          Even if the allegory were misinterpreted as a “master race” argument, Sam proves it wrong by becoming Captain America.

-          This allegory makes the message universal.  Modern Western audiences will look at this story and see it as a black man overcoming systemic racism, racial supremacy, and other preconceived notions of what a person can or can’t be.  Audiences in any other time or place, or those who don’t want the racism message, will still be able to appreciate the core idea of anyone being able to become a hero, regardless of circumstances of birth or genetics.

-          The allegory will also improve the narrative by making it more focused.  We only get six episodes to develop this story and the new characters.  As stated before, the identity politics really feel extraneous and superficial here.  The problem is magnified when you consider that the ideology of the Flag Smashers is different enough from the identity politics issue to effectively create two different obstacles for Sam and Bucky to overcome.  However, the Flag Smashers area already connected to the serum.  By transforming the serum into an allegorical element and making that allegory more broadly applicable, both the Flag Smashers and the issue of Sam becoming Captain America are streamlined into a single cohesive plot that is easier for the audience to follow.

Taking Another Shot

It’s one thing to merely talk about potential improvements to the story. It is another to sit down and implement them. Stay tuned for Part 2, wherein we will go episode by episode and tweak the show to suit this new narrative. I’m not going to give the series a full treatment, but we will review the scenes that I would change and cover why I believe specific elements would improve the narrative. Once that’s done, I will provide a teaser of the content yet to come. Hope to see you again on July 11th.