How many times do you think Peggy has looked at a no-win scenario in her life and said those exact words?
Growing up she learned she could either be a mother or a wife. Trying to help the war effort she learned she could either be a nurse or work in weapons production. In 1946 she was told she could either become a glorified secretary or find a job outside intelligence.
Peggy Carter spends her entire life finding ways to circumvent the box. She’s looked society in the face, and over and over again she’s challenged it, questioned it, and outsmarted it, even triumphed over it. And it’s because she has the audacity, always, to raise her eyebrow and refuse to be silenced, and because she isn’t ever too afraid to ask the question that matters to her most: and these are your only two options?
This is glorious because, well… I know women like this. We all do. We all know women who look at the shit choices life has given them and say: Are these my only options? I will make my own then. And this is why Peggy is my fav. She is kick ass and brilliant and walks into a room and everyone turns. But also she is a hero that I can relate to, believe in, strive to become. She looks at the world around her and says, I want better, I deserve better and she changes the rules of the game. And while she’s doing it, she’ll inspire you to do the same for yourself.
Now that’s a hero I’ll follow into battle any day, because she’s real and if I watch her closely, she’ll teach me how to lead the next time.
Vintage Leverage. The post-war economy boom provides many advantages for soldiers coming home and their families, but it also increases the number of companies, as well despicable individuals, who prey on innocents. Veterans who were promised education and business loans, but fell victims to scams; women losing their jobs on false pretenses; families robbed of insurance money. They had no one to turn to, until a group of former soldiers assembled an unusual team specializing in recovering compensation for their victimized clients. Staging elaborate cons, they provide… leverage.
Okay but…can we all take a moment and just realize that fandom’s not the problem with Agent Carter’s ratings? (Sorry, Anon, this has been stewing for a while.)
Like, yes, I will absolutely namedrop it a couple of times a week, but I am seeing a lot of posts that border on berating fans over Agent Carter’s supposed failure to thrive, and I have a couple of issues with it.
One: Do we really think fans not watching is the problem? Every fan I know is watching and talking about and trending and posting gifs of this show. If Agent Carter isn’t doing well, can we stop yelling at each other over it? We are supporting the fuck out of this show and I’m gettin’ pretty tired of the implication that if Agent Carter fails, it was the fans’ fault. Fandom is backing this show. Fandom is also tiny compared to the general population. It’s not the fans who aren’t watching. It’s everyone else.
OR IS IT?
Two: Let’s look at the actual ratings, shall we?
Ratings for Tuesday, February 3rd: For its time slot, Agent Carter beat out everything else on network television except NCIS. [Source] It beat out New Girl and Supernatural. So what the fuck?
Between January 27th and February 3rd: Ratings were flat, which means Agent Carter didn’t drop, and it didn’t rise. [Source] And again, it did better than EVERY NETWORK SHOW except NCIS. (Which, wow, NCIS LA is really the most watched show in that time slot? Maybe Agent Carter is in the wrong demo slot.)
So is it the fans that are the issue?
Or is it the studio that never planned to give this show a chance, and the news coverage that’s saying Agent Carter’s tanking when it is, in fact, doing pretty fuckin’ well for a first-season “miniseries” show in a Sunday night slot up against NCIS and Supernatural?
Like, maybe there are serious talks of it being cancelled or not renewed. I don’t follow entertainment news super closely. But it’s probably not the actual numbers impacting that, which means even if as fans we somehow manage to raise MILLIONS more viewers to raise the numbers, which I don’t think we will, they may not care.
Three: Some people are finding the show deeply problematic racewise, and I see their point. I’m seeing people who want to love this show unable to do so because they feel erased and belittled both by the show and by the shouting about the show, the shouting that is, in some cases, shouting them down. So if you don’t want to support it, or if you’re angry at it, that’s okay too. You are under no social obligation to fandom to back something that is hurting you. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a problem in fandom, not you.
IN CONCLUSION, can we stop telling ourselves Agent Carter lives or dies by our word? Because it is literally, right now, living out the old adage that a woman has to work twice as hard as a man to be considered half as good, and that’s not our fault.