11 Awesome Movies With Disturbing Messages
9. Restricting Powerful Organisations Is Actually A Bad Thing - Captain America: Civil War
The central dilemma of Captain America: Civil War sees Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) coming to blows over whether or not superheroes should have government oversight, in the wake of the devastation caused in Age of Ultron's Sokovia incident.
Stark, wracked with guilt about how Ultron grew beyond his control and caused the resulting catastrophe, is a firm proponent of government restrictions, while Rogers has a firmer belief of his own convictions and actions, and vetoes the notion.
Though the film does have a certain moral ambiguity to it, Cap's stance is clearly favoured as the more heroic and honourable one, as though placing restrictions on super-powered people flying around blowing things up is somehow unreasonable.
In real-world politics, liberals campaign for tighter gun control and institutional regulation, so it's baffling to see the most earnest character in the Avengers of all people railing against that. After all, if the Avengers were real, they would come under huge fire from liberals for touting gigantic, unstable weapons and being an unregulated, private army answerable to no-one.
The fact that Cap ultimately wins the fight against Iron Man only cements this viewpoint, bizarrely.