A gift to the allied forces network – the greatest group of people I know on Tumblr. Thank you for giving me the best experience during these 8 episodes of Agent Carter and I can’t wait to do this all over again with you all soon xx
Tag: agent carter
So ya know how we all hate the fact that not enough people watched Firefly, when it was on, so it got canceled and we’ll probably never get a second season?
How about we not make that same mistake with this gem of a show….
#saveagentcarter
Remember tho that they only really watch online activity, so Hulu/Netflix/legit site it up!!!
@HayleyAtwell: Far too much time on our hands.
Okay, so here’s the thing: I’m done with reviews taking cheap shots at Agents of SHIELD while heralding Agent Carter as a game-changer, because truth be told, I would argue that Agents of SHIELD was a bigger step forward for Marvel and representation than Agent Carter is. Clearly there is legitimate criticism to be made of Agents of SHIELD – heck, I’ve written plenty myself – that the acting is not on point as implied here or that it doesn’t feature superheroes are not it.
Let’s start with that jibe at the acting, because yes, Hayley Atwell absolutely knocks it out of the park in Agent Carter, but how could anyone who watched the SHIELD S2 midseason finale not agree that Chloe Bennet is utter perfection in that final shot? Where are the articles about how much Chloe has blossomed right along Skye, and the impact of that glorious moment – right before she sees Trip – and the pain of the moment right after on the viewers who’ve just seen an Asian-American superhero find her powers right there?
I also want to point out that even if this point was anywhere close to being legitimate, and it is not, making it without considering the opportunities available to Hayley as a white women as opposed to Chloe and Ming Na Wen as women of color ignores a crucial point. How many interviews has Ming given about not wanting to take roles that perpetuate Asian stereotypes but having to in order to pay the mortgage? How many interviews have we seen from both Ming and Chloe talking about how grateful they are for these roles, and how few from the white actors and actresses from the same show? Two Asian American leads in the superhero/sci-fi genre is in itself revolutionary, and they both do it so well.
I’m not mad that we’re talking about Agent Carter. I’m mad that we’re not talking about both.
peardita wrote a post before about how Agent Carter is not so much a step forward as it is doing the bare minimum to not be a step backwards, and I have to agree, especially in the context of reviews like these and many other mainstream media articles gushing over the show. Let us take a moment to think about how it took a studio that made its fortune on creating media centered around white male superheroes to make a show about a white woman fighting misogyny for us to have “the hero we deserve,” to have women not being catty and supporting each other!!!, when Shondaland has literally been giving us hero after hero and producing shows on the foundation of strong supportive female friendships for a decade.
Don’t get me wrong, I could not be happier that we have both Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter. But what these reviews miss is that in many ways, Agents of SHIELD is Marvel’s game changer. It’s an attempt at introducing diversity into a genre dominated by white men, and I mean, just look at melindamaymatters to see how much of an impact that has made. AoS is far from perfect and it has done terrible, terrible things, but it is a genuine attempt at taking a step forward and taking risks at the intersections of race and gender in a way that Agent Carter has yet to do. Sometimes it fails. But it tries. And that’s worth celebrating.
A two-season show that is the origin story of an Asian-American female superhero is, to me, far more revolutionary than a show about a white woman fighting misogyny. And we don’t talk about that enough.
fearlessstateofmind backup 