Marvel’s Avengers stars one of the most patriotic superheroes ever: Captain America. And even he, as many others have, would probably criticize a recent tweet sent out by the game’s official Twitter account. In it, the studio put up a link to a new Zoom background with fascistic drones protecting a defaced Captain America statue. This comes during a time where both police drones are in the news as well as conversations surrounding certain statues.
The tweet in question seems simple enough. It’s a looping video that contains buzzing drones with a few simple sentences and a link:
“Heroes Park once celebrated the Avengers, but has since been defaced. Despite the AIM drones that surveil the area, there are still people who believe and pay their respects to Captain America.”
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But, as many in the replies are pointing out, this tweet comes at a controversial time as it is poking at two current issues, despite its likely innocent intent. Surveillance drones are the first part of this since police have been using drones to surveil protesters in the United States who are protesting against police brutality and systemic racism. This sort of extreme policing is quite a peculiar and tone-deaf message to send at this time given the very subject of those protests.
However, the bigger issue is likely around its treatment of statues at a time where real-life statues are being brought down by protesters. These are not mindless acts of vandalism aimed at random statues of a town’s most iconic dog walker or sandwich shop owner, but are targeted at statues of slave traders, colonists, and other problematic figures that are metallic idols of the very thing these protests are trying to fight against.
From the United Kingdom to the United States, these monuments have been toppled, tossed into a harbor, tossed in a lake, tagged, officially removed, and more. Some officials, like London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, have committed to reviewing these types of statues. United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went a step further and called for Confederate statues to be removed from the U.S. Capitol.
While Captain America is the manifestation of positive American ideals and perhaps worthy of a statue, these real-life people aren’t so deserving of the glory that comes from being immortalized in stone or metal. And since the tweet is defending a statue and came out as this discussion is hitting is boiling point, it comes across as a plea to keep statues up no matter the cost, which echoes some racist sentiments of those who want to see these statues stand despite the atrocities they committed or the bigoted ideologies they held.
