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e Interdisciplinary Journal of
Popular Culture and Pedagogy
Volume 8, Issue 3
Crossing Over: The Migrant “Other” in the
Marvel Cinematic Universe
Casey Walker
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX, USA
caseyjo[email protected]
Anthony Ramirez
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX, USA
arramirez@tamu.edu
Arthur D. Soto-Vásquez, Ph.D.
Texas A&M International University
Laredo, TX, USA
arthur.soto-va[email protected]u
ABSTRACT
Two mainstream lms from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) reect anxiety about the alien (migrant)
“other” through dierence and crisis. In this article, we explore how refugees and “shithole” planets form a
major plot point in Captain Marvel (2019). At the most extreme, alien exclusion is articulated in Avengers:
Innity War (2018), from the villain’s perspective, as a Malthusian need for extermination of lives to preserve
environmental balance. Seemingly innocuous, these narratives are symbolic of a creeping right-wing discourse
that dehumanizes outsiders, refugees, and migrants in popular culture. Inspired by the call to consider how
lm and new media converge, and to bridge the gap between media and migration studies, we assert that the
representation of and rhetoric about migrants deserve study in popular culture beyond their mere textual
representation. Symbolic convergence theory (SCT) is used to do a close reading of the texts and the fandom
communities around them, drawing out discourses and themes that resonate in popular discussion. We
nd translations of anti-immigrant narratives bleeding into fan communities, mediated through irony and
internet culture.
Keywords: Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Other, Migrant, Symbolic Convergence eory, Captain
Marvel, Avengers Innity War
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Crossing Over: The Migrant “Other” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy
In negotiations with Congress over the extension of Temporary Protected Status for refugees from Haiti,
El Salvador, and other countries, U.S. President Donald Trump was caught asking why “all these people from
shithole countries” wanted to come to the United States. Over a year later Marvel Studios released Captain
Marvel. At the beginning of the lm a character later revealed to be villainous calls Earth a “real shithole.”
Later in 2018, before the child separation crisis came to a head on the U.S.-Mexico border, Avengers: Innity
War featured a villain who sought to exterminate those whom the universe could not aord to feed or house.
is article discusses two lms in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) released at the end of the 2010s
and their fan communities. is time period corresponds with a general rise of right-wing political movements
in Europe and the United States nding electoral success by demonizing immigrants. eir anti-immigrant
rhetoric frames immigrants as a threat to both national culture and national security. Both Captain Marvel
and Innity War are analyzed within this context of anti-immigrant politics. Using a symbolic convergence
theory (SCT) perspective, we analyze both the lms themselves as texts and the fandom communities around
them as a co-productive meaning-making phenomenon.
Fandom communities have been well studied within the eld of communication. Scholars have noted
how fans are able to assemble a multiplicity of narratives and knowledge through transmedia storytelling
(Jenkins, 2006). In turn, fans of media properties like the MCU also develop social capital through their
oen-arcane knowledge of back issues and post-credit teases. Since the rise of Web 2.0, the fans of the MCU
have turned to online media platforms like YouTube and Reddit to discuss and share their fan theories of the
series. Fans on these platforms create and consume content, blurring the boundary between creator and fan.
More passive consumers of the MCU also encounter these fandom communities and view their content. e
relative popularity of these new media platforms as a site for fan discussion prompts us to consider them a
useful source of data for this study beyond the texts themselves.
is study integrates the analysis of fandom, new media, the MCU, and anti-immigration discourse
into its structure. We rst synthesize critical perspectives on the gures of alien “others” in science ction
and comics to discuss how popular lms can both serve as forms of resistance to marginalizing discourses
and reify them in the popular imagination. Superhero lms have long dealt with themes of marginalization
and assimilation, while science ction has dealt with themes of invasion and border control. Subsequently
we detail our process of SCT, and how analyzing texts situated adjacent to fan communities can reveal how
meaning ows in our hybrid media environment. We then discuss our analysis of the two MCU lms and
fan reactions. Finally, we consider the implications of our ndings within the broader media and political
universe.
IMMIGRATION AND ALIENS IN POPULAR CULTURE
Popular culture can function as a site of both reication and resistance toward power. For instance,
science ction and fantasy lms are oen expressions of social anxiety and national paranoia. Similarly,
superhero lms have also been studied as expressions of post 9/11 anxieties about the War on Terror
(McSweeny, 2018) and institutional politics (Acu, 2016). eir general features of aliens, invasion, and
superhuman powers are fertile ground for those interested in understanding how popular culture shapes the
perceptions of migration politics. is study brings these media studies into conversation with works relating
to immigration and representation. e following section rst focuses on the genres of science ction and
fantasy and then moves to discuss comics and superheroes as a genre and medium.
Marginalization of the alien “other” in science ction lms dates back to the rise in popularity of the
genre in the 1950s, when popular culture reacted to what Sontag (1965) referred to as “world-wide anxieties,”
particularly the Red Scare and fear of the spread of communism. In these lms, defeating the alien “other”
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served to diminish these anxieties and ease the collective psyche of a nation fearful of a communist invasion
via both military force and ideas. According to Broderick (1993), these lms also served to assuage fears
by “reinforcing the symbolic order of the status quo via the maintenance of conservative social regimes of
patriarchal law” (p. 362). As the genre evolved, science ction lms’ marginalization of the alien “other”
evolved as well, reacting to anxieties over nuclear war and terrorism, but also increasingly around the issues of
nationalism, isolationism, and fear of globalization. Cornea (2017) notes that these lms became increasingly
obsessed with an “overwhelming concern with the defence [sic] of the nation throughout this period” and
“the frequent narrative emphasis on confrontation (whether competitive, threatening, or violent) across
circumscribed borderlines.” roughout these lms, even when future globalization seems imminent, we see
a resistance or hesitancy to fully embrace open borders and cooperation between humans on Earth and aliens
from another planet, which symbolize the immigrant “other.”
To understand why aliens (extra-terrestrials) are symbolic of aliens (immigrants), we must rst look at
Ramírez Berg’s (2012) work that posits that since the 1980s, the science ction alien in movies is “a gure for
the tide of alien immigrants who have been entering the country in increasing numbers for the past several
decades,” specically Latinx aliens, as they constitute the majority of immigrants, when the designations of
naturalized, documented, and undocumented are all taken into account. Ramírez Berg argues that these aliens
are represented either as destructive monsters bent on extinguishing humanity, such as in Predator (1987) and
Independence Day (1996), or as the virtuous and/or lovable (but still incompatible) sympathetic aliens that
oer us wisdom, but still must go home to their planet at the end of the movie, such as in Close Encounters of
the ird Kind (1977) and E.T. (1982). e only way an alien can stay on Earth (alive) is to “adapt, assimilate,
and nally become native” through oering humanity the gi of its special abilities, a sacrice that both
Superman and Spock in the Superman and Star Trek franchises, respectively, were willing to make. Alien
monsters are ideal for serving as symbolic imagery of alien immigrants. As Kearney (2005) explains, they are
particularly “liminal creatures” that “defy borders,” making them an ideal symbol for immigrants.
e othering of migrants as aliens in popular science ction also extends to material and political
consequences, as Lechuga (2015) notes. Independence Day (1996) and Battle: Los Angeles (2011) are two lms
that “demonstrate that U.S. state and military interests continue to shape the actual borderlands between the
U.S. and México” (p. 259) by encouraging audiences to jingoistically support a militarized southern border.
Extremists can then play out (or even cosplay) their mediated fantasies, as seen with the Minutemen Project
and other right wing paramilitary groups. Further, the relationship between science ction, the migrant
“other”/alien, and dystopian futures has also become clearer in recent popular culture as the eects of climate
change have become more acute. Lechuga, Avant-Mier, and Ramírez (2018) discuss the rise of ecology
inequality themes in science ction lms from the 21
st
century like Children of Men (2006), Elysium (2013),
and Sleep Dealer (2008). According to them, these “three lms take the alien- monster narrative and ip the
script, making the alien-migrant character the protagonist while rendering the authoritarian state system of
control the antagonist—or in other words, the terrorizing monster.” In the face of looming ecological disaster
these science ction lms showcase a dark future where the majority of humans become alien “others” on
their own barren planet.
ese themes also appear in comics too. Blanc-Hoang (2017) examines the “alien invasion” subgenre
within the Latin American comic books Barbara (1979–1982), Lose Tecnopadres (1998–2006), and nally
O Viajante (1989). Relations between humans and non-humans are represented as three frames of the alien
colonization process: the conquest, pre- and post-independence periods, and contemporary times. e aliens
of these comic books are compared to Spanish conquistadores colonizing new territory. Sutton (2016) calls
attention to the names of alien characters within the 1960s Legion of Super-Heroes comic series. e alien
characters of this comic become “othered” through their skin color and names, but still appear and act like a
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Crossing Over: The Migrant “Other” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy
white person. e aliens did not become “diverse” until the 1970s, when inclusivity and diversity were more
prevalent within comic book storylines. Finally, Gârdan (2020) states that both Marvel and DC Comics have
translated the alien “other” into blockbuster lms with complex stories about humans, mutants, gods, demi-
gods, inhumans (superpowered aliens from Marvel), and metahumans (superpowered beings from DC). ese
“othered” characters were culturally objectied as weapons for good or evil by their powers and capabilities,
not their voices. ere has been some but not much discussion of “otherness” in the MCU. For example,
McSweeny (2018) notes that almost all the Avengers characters are from or based in the United States and the
villains are oen foreigners, aliens, or robots. Yet the connections between the science ction–inspired “other”
and the popular lm series have not been shown. e MCU lms themselves have blended elements of science
ction (along with many other genres) into their action-adventure, comic book–based superhero lms. As
we argue in the next sections, the constructions of alien otherness must be also contextualized with audience
reception, something that symbolic convergence theory lends itself to.
SYMBOLIC CONVERGENCE THEORY APPLIED
A rhetorical analysis of media texts, shared media universes, and their fandom communities is
best achieved by conducting a fantasy theme analysis (FTA), guided by the larger theoretical orientations
of symbolic convergence theory (SCT). Bormann (1972, 1982) developed SCT to interpret how dramatic
messages can catch on in a dedicated community and develop a shared rhetorical vision for the group. Using
FTA as a methodology requires the identication of the fantasy themes present in the text. In the case of each
MCU lm we are analyzing, we do so by paying close attention to the anti-immigrant narratives present in
the text. FTA also requires the identication of dramatis personae, or the protagonists and antagonists of the
drama. Plotlines and scenes are also described in FTA. Finally, a key part of this kind of rhetorical analysis
involves describing the sanctioning agent, or the force that gives the drama its purpose. For example, in
Avengers: Innity War the sanctioning agent for the antagonist anos is to “give balance to the Universe,”
while the protagonists view their sanctioning agent as preventing genocide.
One of the benets of FTA is that it is a form of rhetorical analysis that requires one to look beyond the
text and consider the implications of the narrative for its community of fans. Cragan and Shields (1995) dene
the process of groups associating with a narrative as a common shared reality as developing a “rhetorical
vision.” e most popular mass media franchises oen have dedicated fans who adopt a rhetorical vision, and
the conglomerates that produce the media are oen strongly supportive of this deep identication, as in the
case of the MCU (Bryan, 2018).
Cragan and Shields nd that most rhetorical visions are undergirded by foundational master analogs
present throughout society. ese master analogs are righteous, social, or pragmatic (p. 42). Righteous
rhetorical visions are typically moral or ethical dramas in which good and evil are clearly dened, and the
community adopts a feeling of righteousness through their association with the text. Social analogs focus on
themes like friendship and comradery. Pragmatic analogs are those associated with utility and practicality.
In this study we apply FTA to the texts of Captain Marvel and Avengers: Innity War. Given the expansive
nature of the MCU, there are oen a multiplicity of themes present in the lms. e vast number of long-
running themes, such as institutional teamwork and the post-9/11 security state (Acu, 2016; Chambliss et al.,
2018; McSweeney, 2018), are not the focus of this study. We focus on the anti-immigrant narratives present
in the texts and explore how the various elements of the drama (dramatis personae, plot, scene, sanctioning
agent) give meaning to those themes. Further, we approach analyzing Captain Marvel slightly dierently than
Avengers: Innity War. Since Captain Marvel is a superhero origin movie, we focus in more detail on the plot.
Since Avengers: Innity War is an ensemble crossover, we focus more on “assembling” the themes of the MCU
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up to that point with the sanctioning agent of anos. We then use media platforms like Reddit and YouTube
to determine to what extent these themes have “chained out” into the online fandom communities of the
MCU.
CAPTAIN MARVEL: ALIENS AMONG US
Most of the discourse surrounding the release of Captain Marvel (2019) primarily focused on Marvel
Studios’ rst stand-alone lm centered on a female superhero protagonist. Warner Bros. released Wonder
Woman (2017) two years earlier, and the critical and trade press outlets questioned why Marvel Studios,
releasing consistently more protable superhero lms than Warner Bros., was so late to the game with
respect to female superhero representation. ere was also discussion surrounding Captain Marvel’s rhetoric
regarding immigrants and white nationalism. e lm’s plot centers on what is described as an ongoing war
between the Kree, a powerful human-like race, and the Skrulls, an alien race positioned as the immigrant
“other” in juxtaposition to the self-described “noble warrior heroes” that make up the Kree.
To apply FTA and SCT to this lm, we must rst identify the dramatis personae (i.e., the protagonists
and antagonists). e lm’s protagonist, referred to simply as Vers (Brie Larson), is suering from memory
impairment regarding her past before assimilating with the Kree, but she has aligned herself completely with
their ideals and displays much of their strength and some unique powers of her own. e Kree are led by
an all-knowing articial intelligence known as the Supreme Intelligence, which is the primary channel of
collective memories and information the Kree share regarding their purpose and their sanctioning agent
(i.e., the force of purpose), to stop their enemy, the Skrulls (the apparent antagonists), from becoming an
unstoppable force. Initially, Vers shares this sanctioning agent, but through the course of the lm rediscovers
her past and with it the truth about the conict between the Kree and the Skrulls, leaving her to question her
own identity and her allegiance to the Kree.
e Kree’s hatred of the Skrulls is informed directly by the Supreme Intelligence, which presents itself
in sessions with the Kree as the individual each person most respects. In an early session with Vers, the
Supreme Intelligence reminds her of the dangers of “the Skrull expansion that has threatened our civilization
for centuries.” It refers to the Skrulls as “impostors who silently inltrate, then take over our planets,” and
positions them as the destructive aliens that Ramírez Berg tells us must be destroyed. e rst representation
the audience sees of a Skrull is featured in one of Vers’s memories, in which a Skrull emerges from a fog of
smoke, angrily ring a weapon, presumably at her. Just as the Skrulls’ status as the Kree’s enemy is reinforced
through the Supreme Intelligence, the Skrulls’ initial status as the lm’s antagonists is reinforced to the audience
through the depictions of the Skrulls as alien “others.” e Skrulls are green and scaly and have pointed ears,
almost resembling goblins. At one point in the lm, they are referred to as “lizards” and “ugly bastards.” And
yet the Skrulls’ upright stature, in addition to their two arms and two legs, presents them as anthropomorphic.
is juxtaposition of the human form and the alien form in science ction lms is an important part
of the scholarly discourse surrounding alien “others.” Sobchack (1997) argues that in the science ction genre
the “articulation of resemblance between aliens and humans preserves the subordination of ‘other worlds,
other cultures, other species’ to the world, culture, and ‘speciality’ of white American culture.” However,
as Ramírez Berg notes, depicting the aliens as vastly dierent from the human form, or distorting them,
dehumanizes them and represents them as monsters to the viewer. Lechuga argues that this distortion is a
result of the “process of aective conditioning” and reshapes “the borderland as. . . a place of violent exclusion
for those perceived as alien” (p. 242). Lechuga et al. write that “Hollywood is using extremely distorted images
of aliens to create large, menacing, hyper-violent, extraterrestrial invaders” that “are the furthest distorted
from humans” (p. 246). us, when given the option of identifying with the monstrous alien “other” or the
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nationalist U.S. military forces ordered to destroy it, the audience is conditioned to choose the latter.
However, in Captain Marvel, discerning the human-like Kree from the monstrous Skrulls is not always
so easy. e Skrulls can shapeshi into anyone they see, and this complicates the Kree’s goal of stopping them.
roughout the lm, Skrull citizens take on the form of surfers, government agents, and members of the Kree.
e inability to distinguish between the alien Skrulls and the human-like Kree triggers the same anxiety that
nationalists feel when they are not able to identify their immigrant enemies. If an immigrant doesn’t look like
an immigrant, how can they be subjugated or deported? is trope of the invisible other has been deployed in
lm since the 1950’s around Cold War fears of Communist inltration, most famously in Invasion of the Body
Snatchers (1956).
e Skrulls’ green, scaly appearance sets them apart as the alien “other,” similar to how people of color
are positioned as “others” through physical features marked as dierent by supremacists. But when a Skrull
takes on the appearance of a Kree, those visual dierences are eliminated, presenting multiple questions. Are
the Kree and the Skrulls so dierent aer all? And if the Skrulls look just like us, the Kree wonder, then how
do we identify the true enemy? e anxiety these questions produce in the Kree is foreshadowed at multiple
points in the lm. Early on, the audience is introduced to Korath (Djimon Hounsou), a Kree swordsman, who
recalls his confrontation with a Skrull who mimicked his own form: “I stared into the face of my mortal enemy
and the face staring back was my own.” Later in the lm, Yon-Rogg (Jude Law), Vers’s Kree commander, warns
her, “Know your enemy. It could be you.” ese anxieties even foreshadow how anti-immigrant sentiment can
cause political paranoia and a societal turn inward.
e Kree further position the Skrulls as alien “others” through their use of anti-immigrant rhetoric. e
Kree describe the presence of the Skrulls as an “inltration,” an “invasion,” and an “infestation.” ese terms
evoke dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric, oen used by nationalists to compare immigrants to pests and
insects. Ramírez Berg points out that comparing aliens to non-human entities, such as animals, pests, or
insects, makes them all the easier to exterminate from the perspective of both the characters in the lm
and the audience (Berg, 2012). Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) verbalizes this desire to eliminate the Skrulls:
“e infestation will be eradicated.” e audience also discovers that the Kree’s anti-immigrant sentiment
is leveled not just at the Skrulls but also at inhabitants of Earth. Minn-Erva (Gemma Chan), a Kree sniper,
refers to Earth as “a real shithole.” While the line is played for laughs in the lm, the term shithole serves as a
racist dog whistle for nationalists, especially in the wake of President Donald Trump, a vehement nationalist
himself, who referred to places such as Haiti and El Salvador as “shithole countries.” Even the protagonists
of the lm mock and dehumanize the Skrulls for a laugh. Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch) asks Talos (Ben
Mendelsohn), the shape-shiing leader of the Skrulls, if he can turn himself into a ling cabinet. Nick Fury
(Samuel L. Jackson) also quips, “I’ll give you y bucks right now if you turn into a venus y trap!” Ultimately,
it is Talos who convinces them of the importance of treating the Skrulls as equals: “You really should be kinder
to your neighbors. You never know when you’re going to need to borrow some sugar.”
is realization that the Skrulls are not the destructive aliens nor the antagonists of the lm aer all, but
the sympathetic aliens instead, begins the character arc of Carol Danvers, Vers’s newly discovered pre-Kree
identity, and alters her sanctioning agent from stopping the Skrulls to helping them instead. Her memory
loss regarding her past gives her a blank slate from which to build her own opinions of the Skrulls rather
than accept the collective conditioning of the Supreme Intelligence and the Kree. She begins to question her
identity, as do the other characters of the lm, who ask her, “Is that really who you are now?” Danvers also
resents those characters who try to tell her who she is: “You don’t know me! You have no idea who I am!”
When she agrees to help Talos, Danvers transports him to a cloaked ship hovering over the Earth’s
atmosphere, where she discovers that Talos’s family and other Skrulls have been hiding for years. Talos’s
reunion with his family serves as a humanizing moment for his character and the other Skrulls, ultimately
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forcing Danvers to admit she was wrong in believing they were her enemies. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know,” she
says. For the remainder of the lm Danvers serves to stop the Kree, save the Skrulls, and help them nd a
new home. Like other sympathetic aliens before them, the Skrulls do not have the option of staying on Earth.
Following Ramírez Berg’s model, since the Skrulls are unwilling to assimilate with the humans, they must nd
somewhere else to live.
By the conclusion of the lm, it is evident that the Kree are the actual antagonists of the narrative and the
true destructive aliens of the lm. Danvers states her new sanctioning agent to Yon-Rogg: “Tell the Supreme
Intelligence … I’m coming to end it.” By “it,” she is referring to not only the war between the Kree and the
Skrulls but also presumably the habitual subjugation practiced by the Kree upon alien “others” and “shithole
planets.” is assertion that she is no longer under the Kree’s control also serves as a feminist statement for
Danvers, as she was continuously oppressed not only by Yon-Rogg and the Supreme Intelligence but also
by human men in her time on Earth, the instances of which come ooding back to her when her memories
return. roughout the lm Yon-Rogg and other male characters tell her she doesn’t belong, she’s not strong
enough, she’s too emotional, and to “lighten up” and “smile.” e toxic masculinity displayed by Yon-Rogg
and others may not seem relevant to a discussion about immigrants at rst glance, but it is important to note
that the nationalist groups that spread anti-immigrant rhetoric in our current sociopolitical climate are the
same groups that oen-spread misogynist rhetoric in online forums and social media. us, the nationalist
movement represents not just white nationalism but specically white male nationalism, with respect to
both the movement’s tenets and its agenda of maintaining the white male power structure. e movement’s
apparent absence of female leadership or even abundant representation further enforces the notion that white
nationalists are interested in maintaining their perceived racial and gender dominance, as men such as Patrick
Casey, Richard Spencer, Gavin McInnes, and Alex Jones, and groups such as e Proud Boys, make up the
public face of white nationalism. However, there are women involved in the ranks of both the alt-right and
white nationalist movements, and as much as their involvement in these movements may be marginalized by
the leadership, their eorts to spread the rhetoric of white male nationalism and expand its membership base
should not be discounted either. USA Today and other publications have published stories about the diculty
these movements have in expanding their female membership, though, noting “how the leadership of far-
right groups has portrayed women in the media and [created] a culture of excluding women from certain
groups and in certain instances advocating for violence against women” (Pitofsky, 2018). us, it’s important
to understand that the concept of the “other” with respect to the white nationalist movement applies not only
to non-whites and non-Americans but in most cases also to anyone who does not t into a traditional identity.
ese same white male nationalist groups attempted to create a fan backlash against Captain Marvel
upon its release, staging boycotts, online review bombing, and social media campaigns designed to impact
the lm’s box oce. FTA encourages us to examine these reactions and identify their implications. Many
online fan reviews of the lm not linked to white nationalist accounts praised what they saw as the pro-
immigrant message of the lm, but other fans saw the lm as an endorsement of Trump’s current nationalist
policies. A fan review on the white nationalist site Delarroz.com, titled “Captain Marvel: FINALLY, A Movie
Supporting Trump’s Immigration Policies” (Del Arroz, 2019), praised the ending of the lm in which the
Skrulls leave Earth as an endorsement of Trump’s immigration policy, which closes the door to refugees from
countries destroyed by war. So, while some fans saw the Skrulls’ status as the sympathetic aliens as positive
representation, others saw the required outcome of the sympathetic aliens leaving Earth as support for their
nationalist ideology. Other fans found sympathetic characters in the toxic white men that Captain Marvel
defeated. In a deleted scene from the nished lm, Captain Marvel encounters a mouthy, misogynistic biker,
named “the Don,” who repeatedly demands she smile for him. rough justied force, she convinces “the
Don” to give her his helmet and motorcycle. A fan on Cosmic Book News saw this as a direct attack not only
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on white men, but on Donald Trump himself, through the use of the nickname “the Don.” e fan identied
with the biker and asked, “What if the roles were reversed and the footage showed a male doing this to a
female?” (McGloin, 2019). Here we see most clearly a fan adoption of the righteous rhetorical vision, which
develops through a relationship with the text by reading the hero of the lm (and Disney/Marvel) as the true
villain and the right-wing audience as the victim.
Marvel did little to dissuade these fan reactions that clearly identied with the unintended protagonists
of the dramatis personae. In fact, outlets such as Screen Rant questioned why Disney felt the need to delete
the aforementioned motorcycle scene at all, calling the decision “mistaken” and “inexplicable” (Bacon, 2019).
Marvel was likely unconcerned with this reception of the lm by white nationalists, as the lm was highly
successful and would go on to gross over $1 billion worldwide, setting up Avengers: Endgame (2019) to become
the all-time global box oce earner just two months later. Given this massive success, Marvel Studios likely
felt little need to denounce the white nationalist attacks and the white nationalist support for the lm or
explain its complicated depiction of the alien “other.”
INFINITY WAR: CRISIS AND EXTERMINISIM
Preceding Captain Marvel in release date but taking place later in the chronological timeline of the
MCU, Avengers: Innity War focuses on the Avengers’ attempt to prevent anos from collecting the Innity
Stones. e Innity Stones, which anos needs in order to accomplish his goal of extermination, serve as a
plot device (sometimes called a McGun). e Avengers end up failing and anos collects all the stones. e
lm concludes with anos accomplishing his goal.
e plot has a real-world resonance. e eects of the climate crisis go beyond destruction of the
natural environment and ecological systems and species loss. Rising sea levels, drought, and other increasingly
common climate catastrophes will aect the most vulnerable human populations. e idea that climate change
has a sociological and political layer, which leads to civil unrest, war, immigration, and refugees, is gaining
currency in foreign policy and international studies (Parenti, 2011). For example, a devastating drought in
Syria set the stage for the destructive and brutal Syrian civil war (Selby et al., 2017). Droughts and severe
weather in Central America are also to blame for disrupting the developing economies and livelihoods of
the marginalized in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador (Hallett, 2019). Hurricanes Eta and Iota in 2020
further exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in these Central American countries. Both extreme climate events
have le close to 3.5 million people food insecure, prompting many to seek refuge in the United States (Narea,
2021). Climate change will only further worsen the lives of those most vulnerable. And the stark response
from the United States and countries in Europe will more than likely not be to limit the eects of climate
change and accept refugees, but to close borders and prevent those escaping catastrophes from entering—
protecting what they have at all costs.
A frighteningly similar scenario is presented as the sanctioning agent for the main antagonist, anos
(Josh Brolin), in Avengers: Innity War. In a scene heavy with expositional dialogue set on his desolate
home world, anos explains to Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) that his planet “Titan was like most
planets—too many mouths and not enough food to go around.” As a response to this crisis, anos oers a
neo-Malthusian solution: the random genocide of half the population. He is declared a madman and, as he
predicts, the extinction of his people comes to pass.
Earlier in the lm anos expands upon his neo-Malthusian ideology, arguing that the resources of
the universe are limited. In dialogue with his pseudo-daughter who he separated from her parents, he says,
“Little one, it’s a simple calculus. is universe is nite, its resources, nite. If life is le unchecked, life will
cease to exist. It needs correcting.” is kind of thinking is an underlying feature of right-wing discourse
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about immigrant populations. Immigrants, whether they are from Central America or North Africa, are
essentialized as resource-draining, job-stealing gures. ey exist as a threat to the resources meant for
the rightful inhabitants of a country. Even the supposed fertility of immigrants is constructed as a threat.
Chavez (2013) writes about how the U.S. Right is particularly obsessed with the supposed fecundity of Latina
women and their “anchor babies.” ese new children and their immigrant parents are further threats to
the perceived limited resources they believe should be reserved for “true” citizens. e response has been to
prevent immigrants from entering through border securitization or removing them once they arrive through
a vast apparatus of immigrant surveillance and control.
What makes anos especially villainous in Avengers: Innity War is that he suggests a nal solution:
extermination. e Avengers are thus set up in the lm as characters trying to prevent this outcome. e main
protagonists of the MCU up until Avengers: Innity War have been Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Captain
America (Chris Evans). In the climax of the lm both characters lead dierent teams trying to prevent anos
from collecting the stones and both fail. We argue that both Iron Man and Captain America play symbolic
roles here as the primary opponents of anos in his quest. Iron Man functions as a representation of the
scientic, technocratic, neo-liberal, interventionist order. As McSweeney (2018) argues, the MCU is explicitly
situated in the post-9/11, War on Terrorism world. McSweeny also argues that in the rst Iron Man lm, the
capturing of Tony Stark by vaguely Arabic-looking soldiers and the eventual creation of the Iron Man suit
represents the ability of U.S. military technology to win the war on terrorism. More specically, once Stark has
learned the immorality of his previous life as a weapons maker, he decides to unilaterally intervene in a foreign
country and destroy his former captors, while utilizing technologies of force that spare the innocents. is
mimics the fantasy that the U.S. can intervene “cleanly” in other countries with minimal civilian casualties.
roughout the rest of the MCU lms, Stark as a character embraces the Avengers as a force for good in the
world to atone for his past life. However, in his new role he oen forgets his past lessons and ends up creating
problems (see the villains Ivan Vanko in Iron Man II, Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Aldrich Killian in
Iron Man III) through his own vanity and arrogance. By the time of Captain America: Civil War, Tony Stark
has come to represent (by taking the pro-registration side) the ultimate fusion of the neo-liberal state: highly
reliant on privatized technology to protect the world from danger while fully legitimized through state power.
Captain America’s symbolic role is more nuanced, as one might categorize his character as representative
of the United States and nationalism. Right before Avengers: Innity War, Captain America is on the run from
the government for refusing to register as a licensed superhero in Captain America: Civil War. While his
earlier lms portrayed him as trusting the government and institutions, by Captain America: e Winter
Soldier and Captain America: Civil War he has learned that institutions have been corrupted inside and out.
In Avengers: Innity War, Captain America leads the resistance to gather in the techno-utopia of Wakanda.
As a result, Captain America, while opposing anos, comes to represent those who resist and protest their
governments as they proceed toward further militarization and immigrant removal. He upholds higher values
and principles, refusing to “trade lives” to stop anos. e lm ends up portraying Captain America’s moral
intransigence as a vice rather than virtue. e nal Innity Stone is held by Vision, whom Cap refused to sacrice
earlier in the lm. e resistance fails at the end because they were unwilling to sacrice their moral “vision.”
is might be the most frightening outcome of all, as even our best intentions may not be good enough
in the face of crisis and exterminism. Vision (Paul Bettany), an android character introduced in Avengers: Age
of Ultron, can be considered a synthesis of the best features of Iron Man and Captain America. It is tting that
by the time anos has dealt with the other characters, the last Innity Stone is held by Vision. anos coldly
rips the Mind Stone out of Vision’s head, turning the android’s body into a grey and hollowed-out shell. He
then paternalistically comforts Vision’s romantic partner, Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olson), calling her “my
child,” and later fullls his goal of exterminating half the universe. anos oen refers to his victims and
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Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy
followers as “his children.” is tying of exterminism with a discursive formation of the benevolent father
reveals how anti-immigrant authoritarianism would work in a world without Innity Stones: with a thin
veneer of humane concern to justify monstrosity. Children may be coldly separated from their parents, but
it’s for their own good.
Eventually right-wing paternalistic authoritarianism oen turns its attention from policing the borders
of the nation to policing the nation using the technologies of border control and colonization. Look no further
than the use of a Border Patrol drone to “monitor” the 2020 summer protests over racial injustice (Kanno-
Youngs, 2020). As Cope (2012) argues, “Geographically speaking, on its own soil fascism is imperialist
repression turned inward” (p. 294). According to the ideology of anos, half of the universe must be
exterminated due to material overuse. In this formulation anos becomes emblematic of the authoritarian
state monsters motivated to control and repress their restive populations in an ecological crisis, as Lechuga et
al. (2018) discuss.
Finally, we also position the recent MCU texts in the way they are received by audiences and fandom.
Avengers: Innity War was one of the most popular lms of 2018. Indeed, many were shocked but also
intrigued by the clianger of the lm, wondering if their favorite superheroes would come back from the
“snap.” Some fans also wondered if they might have survived such a snap. One group emerged on Reddit as
a subreddit called /r/thanosdidnothingwrong. As the group grew in popularity, many of the memes were
similar in theme to Figure 1.
Figure 1: A meme posted on Reddit
A similar post in the subreddit featured a meme that used the infamously edited photograph of Stalin
and Nikolai Yezhov on the Moscow Canal. e rst photograph, which included Yezhov, adds a speech bubble
where another person in the photograph says, “Sir, we don’t have enough food to feed everyone. What should
we do?” Stalin, with the innity gauntlet (anos’ weapon from the lm), then appears to “snap out” the
existence of Yezhov, who in real life was executed aer he fell out of Stalin’s favor. USSR censors also edited
the original photo to literally erase the existence of Yezhov. e comments cleverly fused historical knowledge
with quotes from the lm, with little reexivity and loads of irony.
is line of thinking, especially taking anos’ plan half-seriously was prominent on other online
platforms too. A YouTube video with over 12.5 million views as of April 2021, claimed that “if you stop and
look at the economics, statistics, and historical precedents, anos may actually be right” (e Film eorists,
2018). Specically, they note how the Black Death in Europe, which killed over ⅓ of the population, led to
higher wages in the years aer. While the video ends up concluding that human life is priceless and genocide
is never a solution, most of the video is spent justifying anos’ quest with social science. Here we see the
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adoption of the practical analog rhetorical vision. Several TikTok videos, with a heavy dose of Internet irony
and humor, also claimed anos did nothing wrong like the many memes saying the same.
Returning to /r/thanosdidnothingwrong, a member of the group proposed that half of the members
of the subreddit be randomly banned (following the logic of anos). e actor who portrayed anos, Josh
Brolin, and even the Marvel Studios Twitter account got in on the action. An article on Mashable (Connellan,
2018) told readers they could watch the live stream of the ban on Twitch. As of 2021, the subreddit is still
active with over 600,000 members. e event was emblematic of the transmedia phenomenon of MCU
fandom. Much of internet humor is deeply ironic, but the event also signies how easily extermination can be
depoliticized and treated as humorous. In this post-modern age, irony and humor are some of the best tools for
someone attempting to mobilize a cynical and distracted group of young men online toward authoritarian goals.
IN THE ENDGAME NOW
ese lm texts show the extent to which anti-immigrant discourses have been normalized. ese
discourses are troubling as the ecological and political crises become clearer in the early 2020s. e COVID-19
pandemic highlights many of these issues. For example, while most were ordered to shelter in place, many
migrants were caught in limbo. Most were not able to receive government stimulus. COVID-19 also spread
in migrant and refugee encampments on the Mexican border and other places. While political attention
and the public agenda have moved on from the migrant caravan and the child separation crisis, these issues
persist. Just as worrisome, however, is the emergence of anos-inspired eco-fascism thinking among well-
intentioned people. As COVID-19 forced the economy to shut down, memes spread online claiming that
dolphins had returned to Venice and the air had never been cleaner in Los Angeles and in China. e memes
went even further, claiming that humans are the virus on the planet. is kind of thinking is dangerous, as the
Avengers: Innity War example shows. Even in Avengers: Endgame Captain America notes that he saw “a pod
of whales when I was coming over the bridge.” e writer of a Forbes article uses this very line to argue that
the science of the lm really does prove that anos did nothing wrong (Chamary, 2019).
ese anti-immigrant narratives are assigned to the villains of the lms, so perhaps it is a stretch to
say they represent the lm’s message. One of the directors of Innity War calls anos “an extreme sociopath
with a messianic complex,” leaving no doubt they intended for his actions to be viewed as villainous. Yet
audience reception is complex and meaning can be derived from a text that the authors did not intend. As
Chemers (2017) argues, villains arise out of a societal desire to self-dene through negation. In other words,
the villain is the dark marginal gure who the audience can see “caught and punished” in a temporary victory
over the forces they represent in society. As discussed earlier, in the 1950’s lm villains were oen either
foreign or alien others, which represented Cold War anxieties. e villains of the late 2010s are more complex.
ey generally have goals with legitimate rationales (see Killmonger in Black Panther) with extremely violent
means. Yet specically because the villains of the late 2010’s have somewhat legitimate goals as compared to
the outright evildoers of the past, some segments of the audience might even identify with the villains’ means
and ends. is is even the case given the highly polarized political and social dierences in the late 2010s. So,
while some might cheer when Captain Marvel defeats the supremacist Kree, others might see the meta-textual
narrative of the lm as an attack on their worldview.
e stakes are certainly high. e mass shooting at a Walmart in the U.S./Mexico border city of El Paso,
TX horrically exemplied anti-immigrant violence committed under the ideology of white nationalism.
e targeted area in El Paso was a popular shopping area known as a major destination among Mexican
tourists who cross into El Paso. It was later discovered that the shooter had posted a white-supremacist and
anti-immigrant manifesto online to an online forum prior to the shooting and stated that he intended to
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Crossing Over: The Migrant “Other” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy
kill as many Mexicans as possible (Arango et al., 2019; Baker & Shear, 2019; Hafez, Farid, 2019). Within
his manifesto, he referred to the 2019 Christchurch mosque shooting, and a white nationalist right-wing
conspiracy theory known as “e Great Replacement” as inspiration for the attack. is horric event further
exemplies in an extreme case how those considered the “other” or those who do not t white nationalist
movements’ identity are treated. By no means do we suggest that watching MCU lms will subtly imbue the
viewer with racist beliefs or inspire violence. However, as this article shows - there are elements in the lms
that can be interpreted by fan communities online which further anti-immigrant narratives. As we show, this
is a complex process. It involves heavy doses of internet irony and in many cases, identifying with the villain
and against the protagonist.
In summary this article has discussed how anti-immigrant narratives have been infused into popular
culture and specically in two recent MCU lms. ese narratives take the concept of the alien “other” from
science ction and transfer it to the genre of superhero lms. e anxieties now being represented revolve
around political and ecological crises of late capitalism. In one case, Captain Marvel, the discourse is used to
resist othering. Meanwhile, in Avengers: Innity War the othering and extermination are done by the villain
but also presented as potentially good for the universe. ese discourses are then interpreted by fans and
shared on new media platforms, using an ironic and humorous distance. Both lms must be understood
not as simplistically promoting these anti-immigrant narratives, but by assigning them to the villains, as an
example of how contemporary society is grappling with these issues amid social strife and change. Further, we
argue they cannot simply be analyzed in isolation, but also understood in relation to the fans that consume
and interpret the content of the MCU.
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AUTHOR BIO
Casey Walker is a PhD student in the Department of Radio-TV-Film at the University of Texas at Austin. He
studies how sci- and monster lms (such asMonsters(2010),Arrival(2016), andStar WarsEpisodes VII and
VII (2015, 2017)) are reacting to the rise in visibility of white nationalism in the 2010s.
Anthony Ramirez is a PhD student in the Department of Communication at Texas A&M University. He studies
Latinidad in popular culture and media, representation of immigration and issues of the U.S./Mexico border.
Arthur D. Soto-Vásquez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and Communication
at Texas A&M International University. He studies digital media, identity marketing, Latinx political
communication, and visual culture.
REFERENCE CITATION
MLA
Walker, Casey, et al. “Crossing Over: e Migrant “Other” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.” Dialogue: e
Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, vol. 8, no. 3, 2021, http://journaldialogue.
org/issues/v8-issue-3/crossing-over-the-migrant-other-in-the-marvel-cinematic-universe/.
APA
Walker, C., Ramirez, A., & Soto-Vásquez, A.D. (2021). Crossing over: e migrant “other” in the Marvel
Cinematic Universe. Dialogue: e Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 8(3).
http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v8-issue-3/crossing-over-the-migrant-other-in-the-marvel-
cinematic-universe/.
All papers in Dialogue: e Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share-
Alike License. For details please go to: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/.
