Capitão América, fascismo e conservadorismo: reflexões sobre a Marvel, quadrinhos e História dos Estados Unidos entre 2015–2021

Abstract

This dissertation problematized the idea that Marvel is a liberal/progressive publisher due to the company's recent positions. We conclude that the publisher has sought and continues to seek to position itself as non-partisan since the times when Stan Lee was editor-in-chief, adopting an anti-war and tolerant stance, avoiding controversy and seeking to please fans. Despite embracing liberal notions of brotherhood and later multiculturalism, many of the publisher's innovations arose thanks to the beliefs of the creative teams and not from its own editorial initiative. Marvel Comics also employ American historical narratives such as Exceptionalism and the American Dream. We selected some Captain America comics released between 2015 and 2021 and discussed the character and the conservatives of the United States, which appear in these stories through the characters Ariella Conner and Red Skull/ Aleksander Lukin, who share similarities with Ann Coulter and Jordan Peterson. The work used the works “Adios, America” and “12 rules for life” to analyze the thoughts of these two conservative authors. As a result, we found that Coulter's figuration is consistent with his anti-immigration position and that Peterson's makes sense only if we consider Red Skull as a YouTuber who contributed to the radicalization of individuals towards the Alternative Right, something that Peterson's content can do so because of common topics he shares with these groups, such as masculinism, anti-feminism, criticism of the Frankfurt School and the 1960s generation.