There are a lot of memorable moments in Avengers: Endgame between epic battles, emotional moments, and even some pretty great jokes, but it’s one of those humorous bits that has ended up truly a fan-favorite. The “America’s Ass” line has become one of the most popular memes to emerge from Endgame but it turns out that it has a real-life origin of sorts.
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Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame below. Read on only if you really want to know.
Endgame sees the remaining Avengers attempt to pull off a risky Time Heist in which they go to various points in the past to retrieve the Infinity Stones so that they can assemble their own gauntlet and undo the snap, bringing the vanished back. As New York in 2012 is a perfect time to snag three stones — the Mind Stone, the Time Stone, and the Space Stone — so Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) leads his team — Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), and Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) — there and while Tony and Scott are in position to collect the Space Stone is where things get funny. Tony makes an observation about 2012’s butt, specifically that the suit didn’t do anything for his rear and that prompts Scott to disagree, declaring Steve’s booty “America’s Ass”. Later, when Steve knocks his younger self out, he takes a moment to observe his own backside and remarks “That is America’s ass.”
It’s a really funny line and it turns out the inspiration came from Evans’ general discomfort with the Captain Americaoutfit from the first Avengers film.
“It’s a little meta,” writer Stephen McFeely told the Los Angeles Times. “Chris Evans has never been comfortable with that outfit from the first Avengers movie. And so in the rearview, it’s a little way to wink at how that was then, and this is now. And then it sort of just built from there. By the time we got to the fight scene where he defeated himself, his butt is on the ground and he was just sitting there for a callback.”
It’s a nice callback, but it also plays into many years of fan observation as well. Cap’s backside has been the subject of much fan appreciation over the years, with fanart and Tumblr gifsets dedicated to that particular aspect of the hero’s physique. Still, co-writer Christopher Markus elaborated a bit more about their inspiration, noting that it wasn’t necessarily the backside of the costume that was the problem with the suit, even if the line focuses on it.
“I think it’s the color, but also his ears are covered in that outfit,” Markus explained about what Evans didn’t like about the older suit. “When he puts on the helmet, he has these little Princess Leia dents over his ears, and it throws the whole thing off. You wouldn’t normally think that an ear is an important part of an outfit, but it balances everything in a way that when they go, you look dorky.”
Avengers: Endgame is in theaters now.
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