Nia DaCosta has chosen a side in the debate about which Avenger’s decision ultimately led to Thanos’ success — and her finger is pointed directly at Captain America.
In a recent interview with Roxane Gay for Inverse, the Marvels director discussed the nature of (and connection between) unwilling martyrs in both her recent horror film Candyman and within the superhero genre. While DaCosta argues that the unwilling martyr that is Candyman is a hero, “especially in the way we shifted his lore a bit in my film,” she sees Captain America’s role in Thanos’ mission as more along the lines of villainy.
“Something I like to say a bit flippantly about Captain America is that the Snap is all his fault because he was trying to do his best, trying to do the right thing. There is a world in which he’s a villain because, at the end of the day, he should have just sacrificed Vision,” she says.
Some fans have pointed to decisions made by characters like Doctor Strange, Star-Lord or even Gamora as the single moment that ensured Thanos’ genocidal plan would get to play out in Avengers: Infinity War. But DaCosta is siding with those who have criticized the decisions around Vision from characters like Wanda Maximoff and, in the director’s case, Captain America.
“He chose one robot’s life, albeit a sentient one, over literally the entire universe,” DaCosta says. “There’s a sort of anti-hero in that if you want to look at it through that lens. People would say I’m crazy for thinking that way, but there’s something connected to the journey of the anti-hero and the hero.”
The Marvels director ends her answer by explaining exactly what she thinks the difference between a hero and an antihero ultimately is. “The hero’s pain is something that spurs them to martyr themselves,” she adds, “and an anti-hero’s pain is a thing that kind of starts their journey as opposed to ending it.”
Source: HollyWood
