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!

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