*sighs heavily* So okay here’s the thing. It actually does matter that Clint wasn’t deaf. It really really really really matters. And you know why it really matters? Because for YEARS I have been super self-conscious about being Hard of Hearing, to the point that I didn’t tell people. I’d just pretend to know what people were saying even if I didn’t (believe me, I didn’t). If I had, at an earlier age, seen a deaf superhero asking his colleagues to speak up, to face him so he could read their lips, wearing hearing aids– god I would’ve been so much less embarrassed about doing those things too.
I think about the kids I see at my work in the grocery store and at Lush, kids with hearing aids, whose hands fumble over signs, and I feel this pang in my chest for them. Not because they’re “pitiful”, but because there are people who don’t realize what kind of community they’re going to grow up in. People who don’t care about the way the world works for them, for us. They don’t know they could be superheroes. Because people like Joss Whedon take that away from them without blinking.
Representation really matters. Especially when it comes to some sort of disability or shift in the perspective of what is “normal”. The same way you wouldn’t write a fic in which Matt Murdock wasn’t blind, you shouldn’t film a movie in which Clint Barton isn’t deaf. Because that is part of who he is. And by writing a script in which his deafness isn’t recognized sends a very clear message to the deaf/hoh community, which is: “people like you could never be superheroes” and even worse, “representing your community is not worth the effort”.
Secondly, I need you to read this very clearly: I will never ever write a fic in which Clint Barton is hearing, or a fic in which he does not utilize ASL. If that “bothers” my audience, or they feel disrespected by this fact, they are very kindly directed to this website and may follow the directions as follows.
I have never read the Dirk Gently books before despite having owned all three for a few years now, but I’m up to the letter A in my Big Readthrough of my books, and so I am, and book one confused me until three quarters in I realised it was his Doctor Who fanfic with the file numbers barely scratched off, and I was like, oh, I get it, and I got in the groove of it. I just started book two and I am LOSING IT because all the deities so far I am seeing in my head as their MCU counterparts and I just. The two things are colliding. All I can see in my head is semi-naked Chris Hemsworth whining that he’s not a piece of meat and Taika Waititi screaming YES YOU ARE, cackling, and chasing after him on the set with a giant bucket of glue.
Everyone, go to youtube and leave some incoherent NOISES for this.
Fantastic!
I LOVE this. The syncopation, the musicality –sensational integration and interplay between the music and the soundwork. God, I’m so impressed, and just delighted. It’s DELIGHTFUL
Holy shit, this is AMAZING! I would recommend clicking the Watch on Youtube and give it a thumbs up!
This is pretty much my favourite marvel vid of all time.
(If you have the bandwidth, watch it hidef. Seriously.)
Steve Rogers in 1944: I know I’ve never seen combat and have actually never won any kind of physical fight, ever but I’m going to go alone 30 miles behind enemy lines and defeat an entire factory full of squid Nazis by myself in order to save Bucky because I refuse to believe he’s dead
People in 2016: We sent a SWAT team after Barnes and we know Rogers will be upset but we told him to chill out so we’re sure it will all end well without any grown men crying on the floor in Siberia
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.
knitting in the dark 