This episode and probably the Agent Carter season is retconning Marvel's ignoring race in Captain America The First Avenger and Agent Carter's first season away since they want to tell a racial story. Not only were the Howling Commandos integrated but so was the SSR training camp, the Army forward base in Italy and the audiences at the Captain America war bond tour stops. And in post war New York a Black character played by Andre Royo was thought to be having sex with an undercover Peggy with no explanation that the colored folk had a safe space in his club., Later we see an Asian SSR agent in Europe and a black NYPD officer being on general patrol with no one questioning their authority.
Well, it's not like everyone was uniformly racist at the time. As I said, during WWII there was a trend toward greater inclusion and cooperation, so there was more acceptance and opportunity in the mid- to late '40s, before the backlash really set in and old racial and gender prejudices reasserted themselves even more strongly. And there were always people who were accepting of diversity, who protested the institutional racism of their time -- for instance, Jack Benny, who refused to see his radio show's black character Rochester written as a racial stereotype or made the butt of jokes (instead he let himself be the butt of Rochester's jokes), who actually cast black actor Eddie Anderson in the role (quite rare), and who, when the show's cast was on tour, refused to stay in hotels that wouldn't allow Anderson to stay as well.
I remember being so disappointed with that Captain America back in the day. I had so much hope they would get in right after seeing the Bill Bixby Lou Ferrigno Incredible Hulk TV show, whose only misstep was renaming Bruce as David
While I love the Bixby
Hulk, it's about as inauthentic to the comics as you can get. Not only is Banner's name changed, but there's no gamma bomb origin, no Rick Jones, no Thunderbolt or Betty Ross, no Hulkbusters, no Leader or Abomination, and the Hulk can't even speak, so there's no "Hulk smash!" or "Hulk is strongest there is!" or "Puny humans!" Developer Kenneth Johnson didn't like the comics at all and tried to stay as far away from them as possible, instead looking to
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and
Les Miserables for inspiration. He even wanted the Hulk to be red (for rage) because he thought green was silly, but that was the one thing that Stan Lee put his foot down about keeping. (A Red Hulk? Whoever heard of such a thing?)
At least the
Captain America movies establish that their Steve Rogers is the son of the Steve Rogers who was the original Captain America during WWII, although I think they implied that the original Cap wasn't a costumed hero. Virtually none of the '70s live-action superhero adaptations bothered to be at all close to the source.
Spider-Man kept only Peter, Jameson, and the
Bugle, and Aunt May and Robbie Robertson in the pilot movie only; there was no Uncle Ben, no motivating tragedy, virtually none of the familiar supporting cast and none of the supervillains, and Jameson was made more avuncular and sympathetic.
Wonder Woman was pretty authentic to the '40s comics in its first season, but in its latter two seasons it was retooled into a
Bionic Woman knockoff that had little connection to the source. Probably the most authentic one was the
Doctor Strange pilot movie, which I've never actually seen; I'm mainly taking
Greg Cox's word on that.
The only possible slip I noticed was the use of the term "person of interest." I think that's of more recent vintage.
)*. Maybe Hollywood was more liberal then the rest of the country? The Brits have always seemed more relaxed about that, so I wasn't surprised that Peggy returned the attraction.
Reminded me of...
