Brave New World Indeed
Last week, I watched Captain America: Brave New World, the latest in the seemingly endless stream of movies set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The titular hero of the movie is Sam Wilson, a hero who is setting out on his first feature-length adventure as Captain America. (There was another Captain America but it’s a long story…)
The movie was good for what it was, and it was a popcorn superhero film. A nice mix of adventure, science fiction, and spy thriller. Well, it was nice until it wasn’t.
One thing bothered me about the movie. It was inconsistent in the way it demanded me to suspend belief. I don’t mind suspending my belief to accommodate the possibility of Thunderbolt Ross (a general played by Harrison Ford) turning into an eight foot tall 1,2000 pound red monster with bulging muscles. My problem is that I cannot also imagine people largely treating Ross’s transformation as if it’s not really a big deal.
I can imagine X, where X is not real. But given X, it is likely that Y. Yet I am supposed to imagine X without Y. And I am unhappy about this as a viewer. Berto (2022), picking up on other work on imagination, discusses the way in which imagination is constrained despite being somewhat anarchic.
The world of the story is largely like the actual world, except with violations of the laws of nature here and there. (Miracles, as David Lewis would say.) The problem is that no one reacts to the violations of the laws of nature as if they are indeed violations. The denizens of the world do not find the play of superpowered heroes and villains as mysterious and awe-inspiring. I think their attitude rubs off on me, the viewer.