Agent Carter, BtVS, Joss and feminism etc etc

[shapinglight]

Some rather incoherent thoughts on the above, some of which I should probably have waited and posted on the BtVS rewatch, but whatever.

I'm still enjoying the hell out of Agent Carter, though...

Spoilers behind cut



...I am left wondering, at the end of the penultimate episode, why Carter didn't tell Jack and Daniel who Dottie was right away. Okay, she was a bit out of it, but surely still capable of speech? Anyway, my own theory is that Carter said nothing because she thought if she did say anything, Dottie would probably kill both of them right in front of her.



Speaking of Agent Carter, I saw someone on Whedonesque (this was a while back when they were still talking about the show on that site, which they don't seem to be doing any more) saying that they thought it was the best show in terms of being centred around a great female character since BtVS. I made a comment agreeing with them.



And I still think so, with the following proviso: I haven't seen all shows and some of the ones I haven't seen could be about great female characters for all I know. Also, I think The Good Wife could more than give Agent Carter a run for its money.

However, I suspect that where genre shows are concerned I think it probably is true.

Yesterday, there was a link on the su_herald to a piece on Tumblr taking issue with Joss's claims to be a feminist because of the repeated trope in BtVS where every time Buffy has sex she gets punished for it. Not the first time in the last ten years or so that this subject has come up, of course, but I guess lots of people on Tumblr are watching the show for the first time and consequently think they're the first people to discover it.

Anyway, I thought, yes, this is true, Joss does seem to punish Buffy (and not just Buffy) for having sex.

I thought, it is of course true that you could rip Joss's feminist credentials to shreds, should you so choose. But I also thought that, despite some horrible mistakes (the aforementioned sex+Buffy=badness thing, the fridging of both Cordelia and Fred in AtS, pretty much everything in Dollhouse, the execrable Buffy comics) ultimately Joss's heart is in the right place, and if you want evidence of that you need look no further than his (and SMG's because it's a joint thing, IMO) creation of Buffy Summers.

That's what keeps coming back to me over and over while I'm re-watching the show. Buffy's an absolutely remarkable character. There was nothing like her before BtVS, and there's not been anything like her since, though yes, Peggy Carter comes close.

Hmm. Maybe that disgruntled fanboy on Buzzfeed was right about Agent Carter. It is about 'feminism, pure and simple' after all.

Comments

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

On the topic of men writing feminism, Angie was rehearsing Ibsen's A Doll's House. (The same play that Cordelia's in in that Angel episode where she ends up using the power of acting to fool Angelus, much like Angie does here. Well, it wasn't an original plot the first time around either.) Yeah, they're not subtle about it, but for the most part I think it works (a 2015 series having a 1940s woman ironically quote an 1880s play to point out how far she hasn't come since...) FWIW and IMMO, it's always going to get tricky when men try to write feminism, since it's easy to approach it from a male POV and define it by what it's not. You could make the argument that some/a lot of the time, both Agent Carter and Buffy (and Ibsen) focus more on pointing out misogyny - a world that treats women unfairly - than promoting feminism. Those can be two sides of the same coin, but it takes a subtlety that far from all writers can pull off without coming across as revelling in it.

That aside, yeah, this was a really good episode (though I don't get why Dottie needed that rifle to send a message when she could have just used any old mirror?) They don't seem to be drawing out the plot unnecessarily - if this is all the Agent Carter we get, there should be a cracking ending. (Which hopefully isn't all about clearing Howard Stark's name.)

ETA: I was reminded of a line from the movie Seven Psychopaths, where Christopher Walken's character chews out Colin Farrell's.

Hans: Marty, I've been reading your movie. Your women characters are awful. None of them have anything to say for themselves. And most of them get either shot or stabbed to death within five minutes. And the ones that don't probably will later on.
Marty: *thinks* Well, it's... a hard world for women. ...I guess that's what I'm trying to say?
Hans: Yeah, it's a hard world for women, but most of the ones I know can string a sentence together!

[shapinglight]

On the topic of men writing feminism, Angie was rehearsing Ibsen's A Doll's House. (The same play that Cordelia's in in that Angel episode where she ends up using the power of acting to fool Angelus, much like Angie does here. Well, it wasn't an original plot the first time around either.)

Heh! No, and to be honest I think Cordelia carried it off better. I wasn't convinced by Angie's sobbing act.

You could make the argument that some/a lot of the time, both Agent Carter and Buffy (and Ibsen) focus more on pointing out misogyny - a world that treats women unfairly - than promoting feminism. Those can be two sides of the same coin, but it takes a subtlety that far from all writers can pull off without coming across as revelling in it.

Very good point, and very well illustrated by Joss's failure in Dollhouse, which at too many times came across as the torture porn it was supposed to be condemning, and by the plot of Buffy season 8, where Buffy's feminist utopia (or whatever it was) was so quickly undermined by reality (and her own failings). Neither of those were terribly subtle. I think for the most part Joss succeeded with BtVS, though.

I don't get why Dottie needed that rifle to send a message when she could have just used any old mirror?)

Yeah, that was a pretty silly red herring, wasn't it?

I don't mind so much of the final episode deals a lot with clearing Stark's name. It's not as if Peggy is in love with him. He's a friend. It's not often that you see female characters go out on a limb the way Peggy has for friendship alone.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I don't mind so much of the final episode deals a lot with clearing Stark's name. It's not as if Peggy is in love with him. He's a friend. It's not often that you see female characters go out on a limb the way Peggy has for friendship alone.

That is true. I just don't like the idea of the lasting effect of Agent Carter being "And thus, Stark was saved. Yay!" Her story, as shown on screen, is far more interesting than his.

[shapinglight]

Oh, I agree, but I don't think her story would necessarily be undermined if the major outcome of the final episode was Stark being cleared for good.

But I don't think that will happen. Chief Dooley already believes Stark is innocent.