Tag: agent carter spoilers

In the world of superheroes, because it’s such a melodramatic world with operatic undertones to it, most of the best ones have some sort of tragedy, deformity, or disability that is meant to add depth and poignancy to their heroism, whether that’s Bruce Wayne sobbing over his parents’ bodies or Bruce Banner forced to live a life of emotional repression in order to keep his dark side at bay. You could argue that Peggy’s cross to bear is Steve’s death, but we’d argue right back that she’s mourning him in a more or less normal, human way and her grief seems to be following a healthy evolution. No vows to dress like a flying rat over his grave or anything. She’s just taken what she’s learned from him and letting his memory inspire her. No, her cross is even more basic than that. In order to protect her mission from her co-workers, Peggy has to become the bumbling, ineffective Clark Kent/Peter Parker type, hiding her victories and strength from the very people she so desperately wants to notice them. And because this show is using the patriarchal and chauvinistic attitudes of the day as a backdrop for this story, Peggy’s sacrifice becomes all that much more poignant. She has to pretend to be dumber than she is and take no credit for her work in front of a group of men who already think it’s an insult that she be allowed to work alongside them at all. Peggy Carter’s kryptonite IS the patriarchy.

Tom and Lorenzo on Agent Carter, “Time and Tide” (via clairemactavish)

kath-ballantyne:

pearlo:

anachronistique:

zan77:

katymoonbeam:

kaitybearr:

This scene. THESE WOMEN.

Okay, here’s my thing about this scene and it hit me when I first watched it but has taken me a while (and some conversation) to put into words.

Peggy, for a moment, seems rather uncomfortable with the idea of stealing food, where the other girls encourage it, even praising each other for it.  This to me, seems to underline a real cultural difference. Peggy, having grown up in England with the rationing and the Blitz spirit, would have had a very much ‘make, do and mend’ mindset.  What you had, you shared. Stealing or fiddling rations was not only very frowned upon by others, but could be punishable. 

The American girls, on the flipside, probably grew up young in the Depression.  When there was food, you took it and you took as much as you could, because who knows when it would be there again?  They have made ingenious solutions to avoid waste, and to avoid hunger.  They eat like women who have known what it feels like to not have anything to fill a hungry belly.

That being said, I don’t think less of either set of women. I just think it’s an interesting dichotomy. 

Mostly, of course, yay lady friendships and MOAR PLEASE.

YES ALL OF THIS. It’s a total two-nations-divided thing, on one hand you’ve got the full on stiff upper lip oh no thanks awfully i’ve had quite enough versus, GIRL ARE YOU SERIOUS LEMME FILL YOUR HANDBAG WITH GRAVY.

Also, I love how surprised and impressed Peggy is by their resourcefulness. All the food-swiping would be the kind of thing you’d expect an observant spy to spot instantly, so the fact she hasn’t suggests to me that she’s either been absent from a lot of mealtimes or too wrapped up in her own concerns. And it leads me to hope this is the start of her becoming more integrated into the Griffith circle because LADY FRIENDSHIPS.

Also also I know having a moment where all the Griffith girls band together to get Peggy out of a jam like some sort of Voltron of Moxie would be as cheesy as hell but I STILL WANT IT

yes yes but most importantly CHICKEN POCKET

THIS WAS MY FAVORITE SCENE

Rather than being due to country of origin I think a lot of this comes down to class. Peggy is posh and probably went to a posh school. I doubt she ever went really hungry until she was out on missions. By the time rationing came around she probably would have been working for the SSR and probably got more rations than the general public.
I haven’t actually seen Agent Carter yet so I’m only going on info available from other stuff but I doubt Peggy grew up not knowing where her next meal would come from.
Also while there was make do and mend mentality and you shared what you had with you and yours there was a huge amount of crime and black market stuff during the war/Blitz. I’m sure there was a lot of getting what ever you could and everyone else can get stuffed.

10 Things Agent Carter Did Right

xmenthefanficseries:

The seven tests that Agent Carter passed in two hours, and the three it thankfully failed. (Spoilers)

1. Passes the Mako Mori Test:

  • The Test: “The show has a) at least one female character, b) who gets her own narrative, c) that is not about supporting a man’s story.”
  • Peggy Carter isn’t kicking butt because she’s trying to prove herself to anyone, she’s doing it because she wants to help people. That’s why she joined the SSR back in WWII, it didn’t change when she met Rogers, and it hasn’t changed since she lost him.

2. Passes the Bechdel Test:

  • The test: “The show has a) at least two women; b) who talk to each other; c) about something besides a man.”
  • This is the lowest bar for female representation and not only does Agent Carter pass, but an entire sub-plot is nothing but two females talking to each other about everything but guys.

3. Passes the Oracle Test:

  • The Test: “The show has a disabled character who a) is not there ‘to be fixed’; b) whose narrative does not revolve around the disability; c) does their job while having a disability, not in spite of having a disability.”
  • Sousa is a wounded war vet who may not be able to chase down bad guys, but he has a voice in the group and does his job. He’s not trying to prove anything, nor does he have something to prove. You might even forget he’s disabled because it’s simply a part of who he is, not what he is.

4. Passes the Phryne Fisher Test:

  • The Test: “The show has a female character who a) has a traditionally masculine job; b) does not masculinize herself for the sake of the job; c) uses her femininity to her advantage; d) is not sexualized in the narrative.”      
  • Peggy is allowed to be herself, and that means wearing whatever makes her comfortable. She wears skirts, has her hair done up, and her makeup is on point, for her, not for an audience who might want to sexualize her. And when she needs a day off to go hunt down bad guys without her boss knowing, she has no qualms in using his chauvinism against him. She even threw out that line about ‘until I’m married’ to convince the land lady to rent her an apartment. 

5. Passes the Sexy Lamp Test:

  • The Test: “Can you replace the female character with a sexy lamp? If so, then you’re a hack.”
  • Just because Peggy is the title character doesn’t mean she can’t be overshadowed by her male counterparts. In Agent Carter, Peggy is more likely to hit you with a sexy lamp than be the sexy lamp. Angie also passes the sexy lamp test as the supporting character.

6. Passes the Lottie Test:

  • The Test: “The show has a) character(s) who rival the main character’s job or love interest; b) have reasonable skill in the job or allure for the love interest; c) are likeable or at least respectable.”
  • This fails when a rival is made either a complete idiot or horribly unlikable, but only to make the main character look good. In Agent Carter, Jack is chauvinistic but no more than expected for the time period. He’s intelligent and stays only a few steps behind Peggy who had an advantage over him because Stark confided in her. But this only gave her a head start, Peggy has to use her smarts and wit to keep ahead of him which only showcases how clever she is.

7. Passes the Brittle Sword Test:

  • The Test: “Even a warrior’s sword has to be able to bend, otherwise it becomes brittle and breaks.”
  • Peggy is certainly very strong but when her friend is killed, she first kicks a lot of butt, and then takes a moment to mourn and cry. Peggy is not made to look cold and heartless in order to make her appear to be a strong character, she’s allowed to have emotions.

8. Fails the Pantomime Test:

  • The Test: “The female character can be swapped with a male character, with little to no edits, and the narrative still makes sense.”
  • Peggy’s character does follow several tropes typically seen in male led storylines, but her characterization and personal plot points are uniquely feminine. Her fighting blatant chauvinism, her difficulty in finding a safe place to live, and other aspects of her story would not make sense if Peggy was Peter.

9. Fails the Moonlighting Test:

  • The Test: “The main character a) is given a partner or work rival; b) this character is immediately set up to be the love interest; c) and they may be instantly despised by the main character in order to force sexual tension.”
  • Peggy is given a partner, Jarvis, and a rival, Jack. Neither are set up as the love interest. This means that her interactions between them are not meant to further a ‘will they, won’t they’ sub-plot, but to actually further the plot. This serves to give Peggy, Jarvis, and Jack their own identities.

10. Fails the 9 to 5 Test

  • The Test: “The female character a) has no female friends outside of work; or if she does a) she spends over half the time talking to said friend about work and/or relationship; b) the friend does not help to further character development; c) they are only there to bounce exposition off of.”
  • While there is mention of Peggy’s job at ‘the phone company’, she spends most of her time talking to Angie about customers, apartments, and other girls. Peggy’s reluctance to put Angie in danger shows character evolution. Angie gives Peggy an existence outside of her work environment and offers more facets to her character.

allofthefeelings:

montyashley:

allofthefeelings:

teabq:

allofthefeelings:

allofthefeelings:

IN THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE THE AO3 PROBABLY HAS A WHOLE SECTION ON THE CAPTAIN AMERICA ADVENTURE HOUR.

I BET PEOPLE GET INTO FIERCE FIGHTS OVER WHETHER IT COUNTS AS RPF OR FPF

Bucky/Steve was probably the Kirk/Spock of the MCU.

Also? You just know there were little girls who wanted to play and write fic where Betty Carver was a badass lady who worked to take down Hydra no matter what Cap did.

And said little girls were probably told they were doing Betty totally OOC and to stop making her into such a Mary Sue.

HEY SO LET’S TALK ABOUT THIS BECAUSE THIS IS MAYBE THE MOST IMPORTANT ADDITION TO ANY POST ON TUMBLR AND I’M INCLUDING THE PERSON WHO DEFENDED THE EYEBROWS-ON-MONA-LISA PERSON BY TALKING ABOUT PARENTS MEETING IN CLOWN CARS IN THIS ESTIMATION.

Because this is it. This is the meta-statement we’ve been waiting for. This is the explicit textual acknowledgment, within the Marvel universe, that some of the earlier beloved stories about favorite characters got things wrong. They misrepresented things. They played up the accomplishments of (say) the dashing straight white man, while minimizing the role of others.

This is the closest we’re probably ever going to get within the universe, rather than within the metatext, to the idea that women as “Mary Sues” is bullshit, and the real truth is that women were amazing all along and the text was biased towards a straight white male perspective.

This is the permission (not that we ever needed it, but good to be granted anyway) that we can look at early comics and movies and say “Oh, I see, this is the part where Pepper or Peggy or Betty or Jane or whoever saved the day but the story had to pretend it was the guy.” By making this explicit within the MCU, they are (perhaps inadvertently, IDK) giving the same permission to us in the real world.

I’m not saying this is actually what was intended, but I would argue this is a valid reading supported by the text.

This reading works really well on the Fantastic Four. The earliest stories tended to concentrate more on the three men, but Sue eventually got “powered up” so she was on par with them. This can easily be interpreted as the stories slowly having to catch up with what was actually happening.

YES.

Some poor comics editor in this ‘verse had to be like “Sir, we have a problem. People are finding these comics unbelievable.” “Is it the man on fire or the man made of rock?” “No, those are fine, obviously. It’s just- seeing how competent the Invisible Woman is on the streets of their hometowns is making them question the Invisible Girl in our stories.”