Captain America, Masculinity, and Violence: The Evolution of a National Icon

406 Pages·2015·3.39 MB·English

by  J. Richard Stevens

CAPTAIN AMERICA,
MASCULINITY, AND VIOLENCE
Television and Popular Culture
Robert J. Thompson, Series Editor
OTHER TITLES IN TELEVISION AND POPULAR CULTURE
Black Male Frames: African Americans
in a Century of Hollywood Cinema, 1903–2003
Roland Leander Williams Jr.
Inside the TV Writer’s Room: Practical
Advice for Succeeding in Television
Lawrence Meyers, ed.
Interrogating The Shield
Nicholas Ray, ed.
Reading Joss Whedon
Rhonda V. Wilcox, Tanya R. Cochran,
Cynthea Masson, and David Lavery, eds.
Screwball Television: Critical Perspectives on Gilmore Girls
David Scott Diffrient and David Lavery, eds.
“Something on My Own”: Gertrude Berg
and American Broadcasting, 1929–1956
Glenn D. Smith Jr.
TV on Strike: Why Hollywood Went to War over the Internet
Cynthia Littleton
Watching T.V.: Six Decades of American
Television, expanded second edition
Harry Castleman and Walter J. Podrazik
J. Richard Stevens
CAP TA IN
A M E R I C A,
MASCULINITY,
VIOLENCE
AND
THE EVOLUTION OF A NATIONAL ICON
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2015 by Syracuse University Press
Syracuse, New York 13244-5290
All Rights Reserved
First Edition 2015
15 16 17 18 19 20 6 5 4 3 2 1
∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
For a listing of books published and distributed by Syracuse University Press,
visit www.SyracuseUniversityPress.syr.edu.
ISBN: 978-0-8156-3395-2 (cloth) 978-0-8156-5320-2 (e-book)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stevens, J. Richard, author.
Captain America, masculinity, and violence : the evolution of a national icon /
J. Richard Stevens. — First edition.
pages cm. — (Television and popular culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8156-3395-2 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8156-5320-2 (e-book)
1. America, Captain (Fictitious character) 2. Superheroes in literature.
3. Masculinity in literature. 4. Violence in literature. 5. Comic books, strips,
etc.—United States—History and criticism. I. Title.
PN6728.C35S77 2015
741.5'973—dc23 2015005191
Manufactured in the United States of America
(cid:2)
publ ish ed wit h a g r ant f r om
Fig ur e Foundat ion
sover eig nt y cr own, odysse y peopl e.

To Peter, the little fan who continues to instruct me
J. Richard Stevens is an associate
professor in the Department of Media Stud-
ies at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
His research delves into the intersection of
ideological formation and media message
dissemination. This work comprises studies
on how cultural messages are formed and
passed through popular culture, how tech-
nology infrastructure affects the delivery of
media messages, how communication tech-
nology policy is developed, and how media
and technology platforms  are changing
American public discourse.
Contents

PREFACE xi
★
1. Introduction: Sentinel of Liberty 1
★
2. The Anti-Hitler Crusader (1940–1949) 24
★
3. Commie Smasher! (1953–1954) 57
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4. The Man out of Time (1963–1969) 75
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5. The Liberal Crusader (1969–1979) 98
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6. The Hypercommercialized Leader (1979–1990) 124
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7. The Superficial Icon (1990–2002) 183
★
8. Captain America’s Responses to the War
on Terror (2002–2007) 210
★
9. The Death and Rebirths of Captain America
(2007–2014) 256
★

NOTES 297
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BIBLIOGRAPHY 341
★

INDEX 377
★