“Violence on many sides” yup mm-hm sure 👌

21 Important, Undeniable, Inalienable Truths About This Whole "Captain America Is A Nazi" Thing

1. It's just a comic book.
2. But it's also a comic book with symbolic meaning and a high cultural value.
3. People have a right to feel however the hell they want about a thing.
4. People have no right to tell other people to feel or not feel a certain way about a thing.
5. Even though you have that right to be upset about something, that is not an excuse or intrinsic justification for hyperbole, melodrama, or other such absurd overreactive expressions.
6. Not everyone who feels upset is necessarily overreacting.
7. Not everyone who doesn't feel upset is a cold, heartless Nazi.
8. Reactionary thinkpiece culture is out of control.
9. The Manufactured Internet Outrage Machine is a serious problem.
10. But again, to reiterate: individuals are allowed to be upset, or outraged, or experience any other emotion about anything, ever.
11. They also have a right to express those feelings, in person or online.
12. Having or not having certain feelings about an issue does not give anyone a reason to act like a judgmental shithead.
13. Yes, retroactively changing established comic book continuity to make Captain America into a Nazi sleeper agent is absolutely a marketing ploy. (And yes, you fell for it.)
14. Just because something is a marketing plot, does not mean that is inherently good or bad.
15. It's also part 1 of an ongoing storyline — which is part of 75 years of the single, never-ending storyline that is Big Two comic book continuity. Which means that it's not the full story, and in fact was likely written to intentionally deceive and draw readers back in to buy the next issue, because that's what cliffhangers do.
16. It might even end up being a good story? Who knows? (My money's on "probably not," but YMMV)
17. Yes, it will inevitably be undone/erased/re-retconned out of the story.
18. That's neither a defense nor condemnation of this particular piece of storytelling. It's just the nature of corporate superhero comics.
19. Every single Captain America comic book ever written still exists, and will still exist, and can still be enjoyed in isolation, and is not nullified or ruined by this revelation.
20. This is all due in part to the fact that capitalism has enabled corporations to control and profit off of folklore and cultural iconography in the way that would make Hercules and Gilgamesh cry.
21. Perhaps most importantly: the Cosmic Cube, which was responsible for returning Steve Rogers to his youthful appearance, was already being tampered with by the Red Skull, who has previously used the Cube to alter reality and history and, oh yeah, switch bodies with Captain America, which means that Captain America was kind of already a Nazi already, and that's not even counting the time when the Red Skull lived in the cloned body of Steve Rogers for years, or any of the numerous times he infiltrated high-level positions in the U.S. government, or the fact that he currently has incomparable telepathic abilities due to being in possession of Professor X's brain and could have easily implanted a memory or something else BECAUSE COMICS.

Attack of the Literal Grammar Nazis

Today on "Idiotic Psychopaths Desperately Hoping For Public Relations Damage Control," following on the recent news of the NRA asking their members to maybe not show off their Open Carry rights by "casually" bringing assault rifles into restaurants even though it is technically legal in some places, my buddy Jake retweeted a cryptic link from Heeb Magazine, which in turn led me to this remarkable gem:

Yes, that is a tweet from the actual real-life official twitter of the American Nazi Party, in which they are being fascistic about grammar. They are literally Grammar Nazis.

Perhaps more disturbingly, I agree with them. Good grammar IS important. I share personal philosophical beliefs with the American Nazi Party. This realization was slightly disconcerting, of course, so I decided to peruse their Twitter feed to see what other kinds of causes they tweet in support of. Things like...animal rights...sustainable organic foods...they're vocally pro-life...and encourage a straight edge lifestyle (less surprising than it should be)...they're anti-corporation, and support local businesses....ooh, and they also love Moms! Er, wait a second...

Okay well then so ignoring that last little hashtag there, and the swastika, and the specification of "Aryan" moms above all, maybe Neo-Nazis aren't so bad? It seems they care about a lot of the same things I care about, or the things that people like me care about. That's kind of weird, right?

Oh. Well. Nevermind. We're now back to your regularly scheduled supremacist scumbags. Still, this is certainly a lesson in the banality of evil — that for all my touchy-feely artist progressive politics, I could (unfortunately) find some commonality with the American Nazi Party. And in a weird way, I kind of respect their attempts to police the grammar of their followers. Poor language skills often (though not always) betray a lack of education, and, well, they wouldn't want us got-dayum libaruls to think that modern-day Nazis are ignorant, now, would they?

Ahem. Right. Anyway.

Discovering this horrifying corner of Twitter reminded me of a happy little tune I used to sing with friends when I was just a wee young lad haunting American Legion Halls across Connecticut. It went a little something like this:

Partyin' with Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires

The second video feature that I produced based on Evan M. Wiener's Captors, which is currently having its world premiere at the Huntington (before a highly-likely Broadway production). This one focuses on the personal history of Adolf Eichmann, "the architect of the Holocaust," and his relationship with Peter Malkin, the Israeli Mossad agent who captured him in Argentina. It's kind of like a frenemy-bromance, between a Nazi and an Israel. Don't believe me? Check out the video below. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhGgFWUrNG4&w=500&h=284]

Captors: A Thrilling True Story

The first in a series of short behind-the-scenes videos I made, focusing on the world premiere of Captors by Evan M. Wiener. Captors tells the true(-ish) story of the capture of Nazi mastermind Adolf Eichmann by a group of Israeli secret agents in Buenos Aires in 1960. And, well, everything else you need to know, you can probably find out by watching the video! [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZACW2FH1Qyk&w=500&h=284]

Captors plays November 11 — December 11 at the BU Theatre on Huntington Avenue, with plans to move to Broadway sometime later. Check it out!

Peter DuBois on CAPTORS

Yeah, yeah, I realize that I just posted about the opening of Before I Leave You at the Huntington, but we're also gearing up for another world premiere — Captors, about the capture of Nazi mastermind Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires in 1960. Based on the memoirs of Peter Z. Malkin, one of the Israeli Mossad agents who held Eichmann in captivity in Buenos Aires until they were able to get him out of the country, the play is written by Evan M. Wiener and directed by my good friend (slash boss) Peter DuBois. The video below was originally filmed in May; it's a conversation with Peter about the play, which opens here in Boston on November 13 before (probably) moving to Broadway (details are still in the works, but that's the plan right now anyway). [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQg00msX9EM&w=500&h=284]