In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers––Captain America––works for the U.S. espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D., which was founded after WWII. Captain America is briefed on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s newest operation, Operation Insight, which utilizes three Helicarriers, or battleships, linked to spy satellites to preemptively eliminate possible threats. The Helicarriers function similarly to U.S. military drones, which target civilians/targets from space/above.
Later, Captain America discovers that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been compromised by a political organization named HYDRA, which had been secretly operating within S.H.I.E.L.D. after WWII. HYDRA has been sowing the seeds of global chaos in the hopes of creating a humanity that would sacrifice its freedom in exchange for security. Soon after, Captain America and his allies discover that HYDRA's evil Nazi scientist, Zola, has created an algorithm that would utilize the Helicarriers to assassinate anyone on the planet that did not fit into HYDRA's plans or did not meet the requirements of the newly formed "master race". Captain America and his allies defeat the evil HYDRA organization and destroy the three Helicarriers, which would have killed millions of people.
However––in reality, the U.S. military utilizes drone attacks to threaten, target, and kill innocent people. While Captain America and his allies defeated HYDRA's master plot to utilize the drones to kill innocent people, in the real world the U.S. military continues to use drones. Captain America's success in destroying the drones is an allegory for the U.S.'s opposition to unjust drone use. In addition, the unjust use of the drones was connected to HYDRA, a Nazi/Communist organization. The Winter Soldier, HYDRA's lead soldier, wears a red star, the communist symbol, on his mechanical arm. The film successfully eliminates our fear of being killed from an invisible target above, and eliminates the possibility that drones would be allowed to be used unjustly. The wrongful drone use was connected to Nazi and Communist ideals, which leads the viewer to feel a sense of American/Capitalist exceptionalism in the defeat of HYDRA. While the villain may have been defeated in the movie, U.S. military drones still circle the globe today.
-Steven Hernandez
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