I don't think one necessarily always must conform fiction to the particular zeitgeist of an era, but you also can't break the fiction and then use the defense "As long as it looks cool. -Tetsuya Nomura It's fiction! It doesn't have to be historically accurate!" when people say it took them out of it.
I have to agree with the two previous posters as well. Having a female in a leadership position immediately out of the war would have broken suspension of disbelief. It's better that Marvel tried to make at least that aspect of their story realistic. As I said, I'm pretty sure the intention behind the series was to depict Peggy climbing up the ranks from season to season so that she would eventually be shown in a position of leadership, which is a much more realistic approach. I doubt we'll get this, because of reasons I already outlined, but I think that would have been the ideal format for the series, and ultimately would have been a lot more satisfying than just having Agent Carter leading the entire organisation to start out.
I assume they were planning to have her in the leadership role in a future season. Unfortunately, since people are idiots and won't watch an action show with a female lead, that probably won't happen.]
Yeah, but why not start there? Peggy Carter's not a nobody, she has a cameo in SHIELD leading a strike team in 1945 (ie before this show starts). Just have her working with people she already knows, and have grown to respect her. You could still deal with the sexism of the time in her interactions outside that specific unit.
Also, Xena, Buffy, Legend of Korra.
Her already starting in a high raking position wouldn't have made a whole lot of sense. The series takes place after WW2 with people readjusting to the world and trying to find their purpose.
I prefer they address the sexism of the era no matter if it has been done plenty of times before because that's what was happening at the time.
Here's the thing... I don't think those tropes do what they think they do. If every show with a female lead has her struggling against discrimination, having to work super hard for every scrap of respect, the message you send is that gender equality must be earned, by undergoing trial after trial and constantly having your achievements downplayed, but if you can power through that with superhuman endurance, then maybe, just maybe, you might have the right to be respected by some of the men you know.
"Gender equality must be earned" is the wrong message. What you need to teach is that "Gender equality is where you should start, and anyone that thinks otherwise is wrong." Legend of Korra did this well, by having lots of women on both sides ( I especially liked the Equalist mooks) and not making any apologies for it.
This message is especially enforced by the fact that Peggy is the only female SSR agent in the show, (so far, anyway, I haven't watched the whole thing yet) a fatal flaw that I see in a lot of otherwise well meaning literature. And she needs to be superhumanly good just to stay there', but no other woman has anything approaching that level of skill, except
that Russian superassassin that was trained in a battle royale prisoncamp from childhood.
Conclusion: Only superhumanly skilled women can ever plausibly compete with men.
See the problem? Now, let's say you have three or four women in the SSR office with different skillsets and levels, and they're all treated with (at least some) degree of respect, and anyone that doesn't respect them is called on it. Now the message is different, because you don't have to be a superhero to be treated reasonably well (though probably not perfectly) by your co workers. It's not 'only superheroines can ever earn the respect and regard of male coworkers.'
I don't think one necessarily always must conform fiction to the particular zeitgeist of an era, but you also can't break the fiction and then use the defense "As long as it looks cool. -Tetsuya Nomura It's fiction! It doesn't have to be historically accurate!" when people say it took them out of it.
Have you played Metal Gear Solid 3? Did you throw your controller down in disgust at the presence of The Boss in the Normandy Landings (while pregnant, no less)?
That's not the message being sent, though. The actual message being sent is that people in the past were incredibly sexist and women had to struggle a genuinely unfair amount for even the slightest bit of respect. That doesn't mean this would have to happen in any setting ever. It does mean that would have to happen in past settings where people were incredibly sexist.
The reason having women in leadership positions immediately after the war would be problematic is exactly the same as the reason the trope Eternal Sexual Freedom is problematic: it's so historically inaccurate as to break suspension of disbelief, at least for people who have studied history. This doesn't mean there are no historical examples of periods with women in leadership positions or where people could sleep around without consequences; it does mean the ones that aren't examples shouldn't be treated as such.
Agent Carter handled the sexism of the era beautifully. In fact, I'd say its treatment of the matter was one of the best aspects of the show.
Realism is in the eye of the beholder, everyone has a different threshold. I could talk about how it's impossible to decrypt a 'one time pad' without the key, but it's not important enough for me to care about.) There are usually more women doing things in history than most people think (especially in spycraft). But if you believe that it's realistic for Peggy to gain the regard of her office in 1946, why is it unrealistic that she could do it in 1945? If the show opened with Peggy a valued member of the department, I would assume that she won their respect through similar actions in the past somehow, and the office dynamic would not be so difficult to get invested in, because it would not be so predictable. Law of diminishing returns. I've seen this plot so many times that it has no impact on me, although I was interested in other parts of the show.
One way to sustain my interest better would have been to have more than one woman in the SSR. There was narrative room to have some other female SSR agent or even agents, maybe laid off after the war, that Peggy could call in for help. (I loved that little scene with[
Rose the bouncer reaching for the gun.)
But they chose to limit the roles of women to Peggy,
Russian superspy, fridged roomate, and bubbly waitress.
Why did a show built around anti sexism have so few active roles for women?
What they did was valid, but it's not inevitable that they had to do it like that in the name of realism, especially in a comic book universe.
Realism question for you: If nobody in the SSR respects Peggy, where did she learn her skills? Who trained her?
It still wouldn't have been realistic in 1946. I'm expecting the span of the show would have crossed several years or even decades. I doubt they would have gone in real time, and they certainly wouldn't have put her in charge of the entire SSR or some similar organisation in season two; I thought the ending made that pretty apparent.
And I think the fact that there was only one woman in the SSR, if anything, backed up the show's message against sexism. We see plenty of capable and confident women in the course of the show, but only Peggy is allowed to work in the SSR, and that's only because of her extensive background in the war (and even then, she's mostly relegated to office work). The characters' underestimation of women comes back to bite them in the arse more than once, most notably with the Black Widow program.
And I think it's implied or outright stated she learned her skills in the war. Which is a lot more realistic. During the war sexism was relaxed quite a bit due to necessity and women were allowed to do things they weren't allowed to do during surrounding time periods. If anything, it would have been more realistic to have her in a leadership position in early 1945 than it would have been in 1946.
It's also worth pointing out that "show, don't tell" is an important mantra in building a story. If you're going to show a woman in a leadership position in a time when women simply didn't have leadership positions, you'd damn well have good backing to justify it. Simply saying "Yeah, she's just that badass" isn't going to work. Which is why the route the show went of showing why Agent Carter was such a badass and would be able to overcome people's prejudices is the best way to go about it. As I said, I'm sure they were planning to show her in a leadership role in a later season, which is how they should have done it. It just sucks that so few people watched the show.
It's a comic book universe. If you decide to talk about all the unrealistic things in the MCU, you'd have a long list, starting with helicarriers, moving down through Conservation of Mass and Hawkeye's poor archery technique, anyone winning a fight at better than five to one odds, one on one fistfights lasting more than a minute...
And I think it's implied or outright stated she learned her skills in the war. Which is a lot more realistic. During the war sexism was relaxed quite a bit due to necessity and women were allowed to do things they weren't allowed to do during surrounding time periods. If anything, it would have been more realistic to have her in a leadership position in early 1945 than it would have been in 1946.
If it's possible for one woman to work with the SSR, it's possible for two. It's a missed opportunity.
It's also worth pointing out that "show, don't tell" is an important mantra in building a story. If you're going to show a woman in a leadership position in a time when women simply didn't have leadership positions, you'd damn well have good backing to justify it. Simply saying "Yeah, she's just that badass" isn't going to work.
It's a comic book universe. If you decide to talk about all the unrealistic things in the MCU, you'd have a long list, starting with helicarriers, moving down through Conservation of Mass and Hawkeye's poor archery technique, anyone winning a fight at better than five to one odds, one on one fistfights lasting more than a minute...
The thing is, a lot of those fall under acceptable breaks from reality. Violations of historical accuracy don't, at least in cases where we're not dealing with alternate history or something.
Where did she learn about Russian snowstorms during the war? Neither the US nor UK had anyone fighting on the Eastern Front.
Who says she did all her fighting with the US and UK? It's pretty clearly implied that she didn't. She did quite a bit of fighting with the Howling Commandos, which were Steve Rogers' hand-picked strike force who were selected from rescued POWs based purely on their ability rather than nationality or anything else. I get the feeling that Captain America doesn't give much of a fuck about what he's "supposed" to be doing. He just cares what's right.
There's also that young Black Widow that overpowers them in Russia, and there's also Rose, who might mostly just watch the phones when she shows up but shows that she carries a gun and is ready to use it. But that's not the point. The point is that the SSR's sexism completely blinds them to the possibility that a woman could be a serious threat, much less the ruthless killer that
Dottie
is.
If it's possible for one woman to work with the SSR, it's possible for two. It's a missed opportunity.
But the whole point is that the SSR's short-sightedness blinded them to the abilities of women. Having two women working for them would have undermined that.
It worked in MGS 3. But I guess we'll agree to disagree.
I haven't played MGS so I can't comment on how it works specifically in the context of that story, but generally I find unexplained lapses in historical accuracy to undermine the credibility of a story.
The thing is, a lot of those fall under acceptable breaks from reality. Violations of historical accuracy don't, at least in cases where we're not dealing with alternate history or something.
What's acceptable depends what the individual viewer cares about. Somebody very interested in cryptography will call out the decryption of that one time pad, or the fact that Snow White hadn't been released in 1937. (While it's possible a spy stole an advance copy, do they really have nothing better to do?)
Who says she did all her fighting with the US and UK? It's pretty clearly implied that she didn't. She did quite a bit of fighting with the Howling Commandos, which were Steve Rogers' hand-picked strike force who were selected from rescued POWs based purely on their ability rather than nationality or anything else. I get the feeling that Captain America doesn't give much of a fuck about what he's "supposed" to be doing. He just cares what's right.
And caring what's right, he elected to work for Stalin? While we're still pre-Cold War, nobody actually likes him. But maybe.
he point is that the SSR's sexism completely blinds them to the possibility that a woman could be a serious threat, much less the ruthless killer that (SPOILER) is.
It's one of the commandoes that underestimates the Black Widow. And he would have killed her if Peggy hadn't stopped him.
Rose already does work for the SSR, now that I think of it, she could easily have had a bigger role.
I recommend Metal Gear, if you don't mind lots of long cutscenes.
Okay, it looks as though we aren't going to agree. Even if the tropes are well justified, though, they're still pretty well used. There have been action shows with female leads that have been successes in the past (Buffy, Korra, Fringe), so it might be worth considering that the reason for the low ratings could be more complicated than people just being 'morons'.
Have you played Metal Gear Solid 3? Did you throw your controller down in disgust at the presence of The Boss in the Normandy Landings (while pregnant, no less)?
I suppose MGS isn't any more "out there" or absurd than the MCU, but for a series whose whole schtick seems to be "history isn't what people thought it was," something like that may seem less out of place. Not that "Agent Carter" definitely couldn't have made it work, mind you, but it's also possible that the more clandestine nature of MGS operations lend themselves more to that sort of thing than the more structured setting of "Agent Carter."
I wasn't saying that going this route would definitely break the fiction, by the way (I even said that strict conformity with historical accuracy isn't always necessary), but that it is something to be mindful of. If you break it, you can't blame the audience.
I suppose MGS isn't any more "out there" or absurd than the MCU, but for a series whose whole schtick seems to be "history isn't what people thought it was," something like that may seem less out of place. Not that "Agent Carter" definitely couldn't have made it work, mind you, but it's also possible that the more clandestine nature of MGS operations lend themselves more to that sort of thing than the more structured setting of "Agent Carter."
I wasn't saying that going this route would definitely break the fiction, by the way (I even said that strict conformity with historical accuracy isn't always necessary), but that it is something to be mindful of. If you break it, you can't blame the audience.
I brought up the boss because I thought she was a near perfect parallel
They essentially work for the same organisation, the fictionalised quasi OSS/CIA, came to prominence by great deeds in WWII, met their boyfriend there (and lost them). I didn't think either was more or less covert . The Boss' missions are covert, but she's well known.
The route Agent Carter took was valid (and probably true to life), it just was a little too well trodden to be interesting for me.
With Daredevil and several others airing on there this year, I wouldn't be surprised if Netflix are making that move. Although some of the shows on there don't have the budget of the networks, the quality of the writing and acting seem to be a lot better at the same time. Regardless of whether it's renewed or not, hoping it's still aired one way or another.
It hasn't been cancelled, but the ratings weren't great so the odds of it being renewed aren't particularly high. I like the idea of having it jump to Netflix if ABC doesn't renew it though. I'd definitely be on board with that, if they can make it happen.
Note: I may make a longer post responding to some of the things people have said later. I've been busy, hence my generally reduced activity on this board.
Done. Gave a lengthy rant about Agent Carter and why people are stupid for not watching a great show with a female lead. Also there was an option for which show that was not cancelled but it should be and I put that offensive, piece of shit 2 Broke Girls. Not that that's gonna do anything to get it off the air.
Granted I haven't taken the tie to watch it on a while so I'm not quite sure what is happening g on that show anymore.