even if this is nothing more than a dumb publicity stunt
it is part of an on-going trend at marvel that shows the appalling lack of respect they have for jewish characters and creators and the bizarre, sickening romanticizing of hydra, a nazi organization.
steve rogers is the creation of two jewish men who took a stand against nazism at a time when it was not popular to do so, and they received many threats for doing so. he was intended to be political; the first thing you see him do is punch hitler in the face. even if this new twist ends up being reversed or made into an elaborate ruse, we now know that marvel is willing to jeopardize this legacy for publicity. they don’t see it as disrespectful to toy around and twist the creation of two jewish men like this.
wanda maximoff and pietro maximoff, the jewish-romani children of holocaust survivors, are actively having their jewish heritage erased by marvel higher ups who say thing like “can you point me to a single story, just one, in which the ‘fact’ that wanda and pietro come from a jewish background is in any way relevant?”. not only this, but their jewish identities are being erased in the mcu and replaced with christian identities (wanda has a cross hanging in her room), while also re-imagining them as hydra nazi volunteers. this from the same mcu that routinely hires jewish actors and actresses and then erases their identities such as with natalie portman, kat dennings, rdj, gwyneth paltrow, and paul rudd; in the cases of some jewish actors like jon berthanal they actively replace his jewish identity with a christian one by making the punisher a (lapsed) catholic.
all the while they continue to glamorize the nazi organization hydra, playing up the meme status of “hail hydra”, having their employees wear hydra merch and describe themselves as hydra in their twitter bios. they even released a comic about an agent of hydra, intended to be a comedy, slice of life thing. you were intended to feel bad for hank, the protagonist, because he just saw it as a job and joined because of the tough economy, ignoring the fact that this was the case for many real world nazis as well. magneto, a jewish holocaust survivor, was villainized and basically held responsible for endangering the world because he attempted to kill the red skull, a nazi who was setting up new concentration camps. it was also the title in which his paternal relationship with wanda and pietro was erased. the series name was axis.
this is not cute. this is not the type of stuff that can or should be ignored. this is just further proof of a seriously alarming trend going on at marvel, where they think flirting with nazi organizations is fun and ignoring and actively erasing the identities of jewish characters and the contributions of jewish creators is okay. do. not. ignore. this.
jewish person on tumbler dot com: “hey it freaks me out that so many people make excuses for nazi charcters and turn nazi imagery and fascism into a silly joke ex: hail hydra, the first order, etc, can tumblr fandom please stop for a second and think about what they’re doing and why it might be harmful”
5000 non-jewish, non-rromani tumbler dot com users screaming and falling over each other: “clearly you dont understand the nazi trope in popular culture. let me, someone who has no personal ties to the holocaust explain to you, a jewish person, why you’re overreacting and taking away my fun,”
Manhattan’s S train has been turned into the SS train, and many straphangers are pissed. Train seats on one side of the subway car feature the stylized fascist version of the Reichsadler (Imperial Eagle) with the swastika replaced by an Iron Cross. On the other side, the Rising Sun Flag, often associated with Japanese WWII forces. It’s all for a TV show.
GODDAMMIT AMAZON YOU HAD A GOOD SHOW AND YOU JUST HAD TO GO AND DO SOMETHING SHITTY WITH IT WTF
I really wish there was some other way to have done this, because… like, Man in the High Castle is -supposed- to make our skin crawl with the “what might have been”. Philip K. Dick’s world building is exquisite in its terribleness. Seeing these is a punch to the gut, but for someone like me it’s an intriguing punch in the gut that makes me think about the nature of our world.
The problem is not giving people a choice in whether or not they want to see it. Because this is a punch in the gut that will be far, far more painful for a lot of people in the world than it would be for Amazon’s target audience.
eirenical17 