Join this week’s guest Rajeev Ram and I on the third episode of In Kino Veritās— a podcast where the guest picks a film, we both watch, and discuss.
We don’t simply review films but dive deep into their themes, characters and cultural context. In this episode we explore the 2014 Marvel film Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The film was released during Marvel Mania of the 2010s but looking beneath the comic book facade lies a film hitting on many trenchant cultural points for the time. Namely, patriotism vs a fleeting trust with national authority figures, friendship & trust as both vectors for strength and manipulation, Millennial attitudes, and the end of the Post-WWII consensus.
Be sure to check out our upcoming Tortuga Book club!
Where you can stream Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Use your local library to get a physical copy for free)
Main Points
* Who’s Rajeev Ram? Writer of The Cactus Brahmin Testimonials, member of leadership for the Tortuga Society
* Mention of Tortuga Society’s upcoming book club on Pillars of the Earth
* Rajeev’s film choice: Captain America: The Winter Soldier — a Marvel movie with unexpected ideological weight
* Quick synopsis: Captain America wakes up in a technocratic surveillance state infiltrated by Hydra and faces off against a brainwashed best friend
* Spoilers past this point
* Rajeev justifies choosing a Marvel film: late millennial nostalgia, ideological gravitas, and Robert Redford’s stoic villainy
* The Russo brothers’ pedigree (Community, Arrested Development) and millennial tonal signature
* Project Insight as allegory for the surveillance state and Patriot Act anxieties
* Theon on epistemic uncertainty and institutional betrayal—especially through Black Widow’s arc
* Rajeev reflects on growing up loyal to cosmopolitan institutions that now feel hollow
* Shift from clean-cut patriotism in First Avenger to institutional ambiguity in Winter Soldier
* Black Widow’s disillusionment mirrors the millennial "are we the baddies?" moment
* The generational rupture: late millennials as the last to remember the old American consensus
* Opening scenes as metaphor for millennial cultural dislocation and lost bearings
* 2014–2015 as hinge moment: rise of populism, democratic socialism, woke, and the alt-right
* Rajeev: individual heroism becomes complicated in an age of corporate-state fusion (Google, Facebook, etc.)
* Theon on Bucky’s path as narrative about breaking free from mythologized history
* No easy answers: even Nick Fury, Natasha, and Cap left grappling with the ruins
* Captain America’s arc: from institutional loyalist to principled radical
* Contrast with Iron Man’s arc: from playboy rebel to pro-institution advocate
* Ambiguous threats = ambiguous ethics; no more clear “Nazis vs. America” morality
* Theon jokes about Alex Jones vibes in Hydra’s infiltration plot
* Falcon as ideal friend: unshakable loyalty despite his own burdens
* Friendship as an enduring anchor when institutions fail
* Rajeev: Falcon is the kind of loyal companion political culture no longer knows how to write
* Theon on how friendship, loyalty, and moral complexity were lost in later Marvel films
* How the film watches in 2025: less resonance for Zoomers, more nostalgia for millennials
* Zoomer cynicism vs. millennial disillusionment: two different inheritances
* Rajeev: 2010s as painful awakening; Zoomers enter the world already disenchanted
* Theon sees Winter Soldier as elegy for a fading consensus—before the full unraveling
* Lament for post-WWII order and the confusion that follows its collapse
* Rajeev on the “burn it down” instinct: emotionally satisfying but socially complex
* Theon: Zoomers may misread early scenes (e.g., interracial harmony) as naive conservatism
* Rajeev: appreciation for nuance of that era; some millennials still stuck in it
* Millennials caught between crumbling ideals and emerging cynicism
* Where do we go after we burn it down? No easy replacements for lost institutions
* Rajeev’s disillusionment with academia; COVID as final blow to its authority
* Theon proposes curated, smaller communities as potential future learning hubs (e.g., Tortuga Society)
* Rajeev agrees: Pillars of the Earth and pre-Renaissance church corruption offer useful parallels
* Captain America as outdated hero archetype—Falcon and the Winter Soldier shows fragmentation of narrative
* Theon: collective disorientation birthed the Substack exodus and search for epistemic clarity
* Rajeev: we are all “soldiers in the middle of winter” trying to stay loyal to something
* The film as a generational mirror more than timeless cinema
* Value of openness over fixed ideology in navigating collapse
* Theon on conscientiousness: a tool, not an identity—used when stakes justify the pain
* Rajeev: hope that this discussion gives Marvel content a new interpretive frame beyond good vs. evil
* Theon, intrigued by Winter Soldier, now considers watching Civil War
* Rajeev recommends Age of Ultron as connective tissue—peak Marvel sociopolitical arc
* Debate on Civil War: Rajeev aligns with Cap—anti-authority, pro-individual trust
* Theon compares “Project Insight” to Death Note: algorithmic executions justified for the greater good
* Rajeev: anti-heroes like Black Widow, Zuko (Avatar), and Karna (Mahabharata) reveal power tensions
* Anti-heroes as vessels of complicated moral insight and practical power
* Closing thoughts: gratitude, book club plug, and invitation to rewatch Winter Soldier with new eyes
* Look forward to next episode!
