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WWII is the only war in recent Western history where it's still possible to paint the warrior as a straight up hero. People will vocally quibble about Vietnam, but the vast majority of people are gonna be right behind Captain America taking on the Nazi war machine, and will be happy to afford him mythic status for doing so.
I know this isn't an argument, but surely you see where I'm coming from with this, Haus. Vietnam has not been sanitised despite Rambo's best efforts - it's still convincingly the war that created the Punisher (and Rambo).
I think that, to take that viewpoint, you kind of have to ignore First Blood, Part II, in which Rambo is redeemed as not a traumatised veteran of a terrible war but as a heroic warrior against an evil enemy - Rambo is precisely there as Captain America is in your example. The argument that Vietnam is this terrible black hole in the American psyche has become progressively less convincing as America has moved further from it - Rambo won the Vietnam war, after all, just as he defeated Communism in Afghanistan. The Punisher, it's worth noting, was not produced by Vietnam in the version of the story that most people will actually have encountered - the Thomas Jane film.
So, while I certainly agree that it's easier to make an ethically uncomplicated film about fighting Nazis, and also that Captain America fits better into a war where there is no moral question about the fghting he is doing, I think the reasons for not starting Captain America in Vietnam are aesthetic; they are not about how controversial the Vietnam war is, really - I don't think Hollywood can be said to have that sort of sensibility any more, as evinced not least by the use of Afghanistan as a backdrop for the opening of Iron Man. |
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