Alternative Culture: Falcon and the Winter Soldier theological review

 

Many minor things right, few major things wrong

It is hard to describe my feelings about the show. On one hand I enjoyed the fast-paced action scenes and the redemptive arc of the new Captain America. On the other hand, it is over sympathetic to terror and violence, making it too cringed to watch. Regardless, let me go through the rights and wrongs of the film.

Synopsis
Falcon and the Winter Soldier begins like a buddy cop movie. Both heroes, with little love for each other, are forced to work together for the sake of countering the terrorist group called the Flag Smashers led by a charismatic Karli.

Meanwhile, the mantle of Captain America has been passed down to John Walker, a highly decorated American soldier. This caused further conflict as both Falcon and the Winter Soldier consider themselves the true heirs of Captain America legacy.

To complicate things further, our heroes rope in dubious characters like Zemo and Carter to aid their cause.

The minor rights
Americans can get along with each other
In half a breather episode, the show portrays the great potential when people from different background works together. This is most prominent when Falcon's neighbours, together with the Winter Soldier, chip in to help out his financial situation.

For a brief moment in time, it reminded me what America is actually like. Race was no issue when it came to helping each other. This ideal echoes the ideal Christian community,

For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him -- Romans 10:12

Importance of closure

Another major win is that the series showed that the Winter Soldier struggle with his past. He attempted to right the wrongs by going after the people that manipulated him.

However, he forgot that even such drastic actions failed to redeem him from his past actions. The only way for him to get any closure was to confront his sins and the people he wronged, rather than doing even more deeds. The action has to be relevant to the intention.

This is similar to the Christian concept of forgiveness, where it is not something that we do to redeem ourselves (but rather what Christ has done for us).

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us -- Ephesians 1:7-8

The major wrongs
Although the movie gets many things right, it gets major things wrong. This really hindered my enjoyment of the series as it goes ventures slightly into asinine logic.

Activism vs Terrorism
The one of the major flaws of the show is to portray the Flag Smashers as misguided "activists" rather than violent terrorists. This despite the fact that the Flag Smashers killed guards, and Walker's partner Lemar, and attempted to murder the world leaders.

Their aims were also laughable. The Flag Smashers' goals were poorly defined from the start, and their methodology less so. To summarise, they wanted to displaced the people in authority via the use of violence, and that will somehow garner global support for their cause.

I knew it was weird the moment I rooted for Zemo's and Walker's solution to lethally eliminate the Flag Smashers, compared to Falcon's illogical solution.

Falcon's view on politics
Falcon's political speech in the last episode was as childish as Greta Thunberg yelling at the United Nations. He claimed that the reason why the Flag Smashers rose to power was due to the incompetency of the world government. 

He basically asks the world government to "do better", and claims that they can "move borders" and "feed a million people" with ease.

Falcon seems to forget that the world government has an impossible task on its plate. Half the world's population had reappeared, and they are trying to solve problems of congestion with limited resources. Basically, you cannot house and feed everyone if you do not have enough buildings or food.

Conclusion: A wasted opportunity
Falcon and the Winter Soldier could have been so much more, but wasted its potential in childish view of  politics and activism.

For another take: 
Forbes's review

Alternative Culture: WandaVision theological review

 

Recently, I managed to watch the long awaited series WandaVision on Disney Plus. As a result, I will do a theological review of it by discussing some of the events of the series. Thus there are SPOILERS ahead.

Synopsis
Unable to cope with her grief of losing Vision, Wanda creates a reality based on TV sitcoms from the 1950s to early 2000s. In this reality, the citizens of West View are brainwashed in becoming extras. Hence the agency SWORD and the FBI dispatch agents to rescue West View and to investigate the cause of Wanda's mental breakdown.

Comforting Lies vs Hurtful Truth
One of the theme's explored by the show is the question of whether Wanda's reality is whether it is beneficial to Wanda (and the residents of West View). Wanda created a family for herself, and a simple, carefree life for her neighbours. (While it is not explicitly implied, Wanda did provide for their town's basic needs as well as making relatives of the residents forget them and thus worry.)

This weirdly echoes the attitude of our current world, which advocates for changing current realities to avoid serious conversations. For instance, sports authorities rather let transgenders have an unfair advantage in woman's sports than to deal with serious repercussions of it. The Washington Post would rather maintain the narrative that Trump is evil bully rather than to give a truthful nuance report.

Why is that so? Because it is so much easier to live in created falsehood in which we are heroes, or have "made it" in life. Real life is tough, competitive and merciless. Yet it is real. If we are unable to identify reality, we will be ill-suited to come up with pragmatic or realistic solutions to our circumstance.

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. -- Romans 1:25

Question of identity
Another theme that pleased me was the conclusion of the battle between the two Visions. There is the Vision which Wanda conjured up (Wanda's Vision), and the other which was reassembled from the original Vision's destroyed body (Body Vision).

The Body Vision was programmed to eliminate Wanda and Wanda's Vision, as SWORD saw them both as a threat to humanity. During the confrontation between the two Visions, Wanda's Vision rightly brings up the ship of Theseus argument: Who is the real Vision? 

After all, Wanda's Vision has the personality of the original vision but not his body. Body Vision has the physical parts of original Vision but not his personality. Only by sharing memories, does Body Vision finally make the right decision and deicide to abandon his programming.

This parallels the Christian concept of salvation -- without the Holy Spirit, humans will never convert accept Christ. Our inherent nature or "programming" is geared towards rejecting Christ. Only via the Holy Spirit will we be able to go on the right path of salvation.

The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. -- Romans 8:7-9

Conclusion
There are things I did not like about WandaVision, especially the stuff that were not logical.

The Director of Sword randomly decides to shoot to two unarmed children. Wanda is portrayed as a hero who sacrificed her dream instead of an anti-villain who brained-washed civilians. A FBI agent can be expelled by SWORD despite it being a cooperative investigation.

In addition, the build-up was slow; it took three episodes to finally establish the plot.

Despite this, I still enjoyed WandaVision and encourage people to watch it.