Agent Carter's Contribution to Feminism

SPOILERS: Agent Carter Season 1: Valediction

Let's not even talk about how many times I've attempted to write this post. Every time I sit down to start it I just spend six or seven paragraphs talking about how much I adored Agent Carter and very little time analyzing the actual content of the show. Let's hope this try is the winner. First let's talk a little bit about what I expected out of the show and how it utterly surprised me within the first ten minutes, then I'll go on to talk about how Peggy Carter should be held up as what all feminist characters should be. (Trying to narrow the subject from the entirety of the show, so that you all don't have to read seventeen pages about how much I love Peggy.) Anyway, when I first heard about Agent Carter it was from a friend of mine. Keep in mind, I'd never seen Captain America, I had no idea who Peggy Carter was, so when they first mentioned it to me I wasn't super excited about it. After they convinced me the show would be really awesome and feminist, featuring a leading lady who would beat down the 1940's patriarchy with her bare fists (pretty much literally), I couldn't say no, so on premiere night I sat down not really knowing what to expect and had my socks knocked clean off. (Literally or not, I'll let you decide.)

From the opening song I was pretty sure I was going to love this show, already there were ladies with guns, fabulous red hats, and 1940's fashion. Plus who doesn't love the imagery of Peggy fighting her way through a crowd of men-foreshadowing the struggles we'll see her go through, throughout the show. You almost couldn't go wrong with such a strong beginning. But guess what-it got better. Six minutes and forty-nine seconds into the episode Peggy says the line that sealed the deal for me and made me think, "Yes, yes, this show is for me." In response to a rude, sexist comment from Thompson about how she's "so much better at that kind of thing" (filing), implying it's because she's a woman, Peggy responds with: "And what is that, Agent Thompson? The alphabet? I can teach you. Let's start with words beginning with A." From this point on I became obsessed with anything that had to do with Peggy Carter.

Now, I'm going to be honest and admit I am a sucker for the sassy characters; Buffy Summers, Malcolm Reynolds, Felix Dawkins-if they have sass I'm probably going to love them. That line from Peggy is a pretty sassy line, not even going to try to hide that fact, but there is so much more behind it than just sass.  It's a very important line for us to have as an introduction to Peggy as a character because the tone of that single line sums up what she is going to be for the rest of the season. She's level-headed, understands the role she has to play, but refuses to let these men off without a sharp snap just to let them know she's still there and fighting. She knows that she has to keep her head down (for the most part) and play by their rules to get what she wants. Peggy is very aware of how these men look at her, as someone below them, inferior, but instead of whining and complaining about it, instead of giving up or lashing out at them she uses their misogyny to her advantage. This shows just how clever and intelligent Peggy is. She knows how to twist a situation to her advantage.

To start out let's talk about how Peggy is a revolutionary character because she manages to break down all these norms society has set up for women. When I started Agent Carter I knew the show was supposed to be pretty feminist, like I said before, but I expected Peggy to still be a rather typical leading lady. (To remind you I hadn't seen Captain America yet at this point,) It took less than ten minutes of the episode to prove me very, very wrong. In a lot of shows with strong feminist themes there are still molds the women fit into-emotional, excitable, obsessed with love and sex, and sentimental, but we don’t see any of that with Peggy. (You could argue that her refusal to let Steve's blood go as sentimental, and you're probably correct, but that's the only one I can think of.) But other than that one instance, Peggy is not at all a normal TV lady. We see a role reversal with Peggy's character. She has a stereotypical hero plot-line, but she just happens to wear high heels and lipstick. 

One thing I really love about Peggy is that she is this strong, masculine behaving character, but she can still be feminine. She breaks down boundaries by being able to occupy both of these spaces at the same time, and that isn't something we get to see very often. She’s very much a no nonsense kind of character, and even ruthless-she beats a man with a stapler for goodness sakes, but all the while she’s in a glittery gold dress with makeup done to a T. And we see this time and again with Peggy-using her lipstick as a weapon, coming to work every day with her hair in fabulous curls, and let's not even start on her impeccable fashion sense. This is a an important detail in the show because it's sending a message to girls and women everywhere that we don’t have to assimilate and become "one of the guys," we don't have to look or act like men to be powerful. Peggy isn't "one of the guys", and she’s probably the most competent person in the S.S.R. It tells ladies they can still be themselves and have a voice, an opinion, and be worthy of equal treatment. Being feminine does’t mean being weak. So often we are told that we have to abandon being feminine or give things that are typically feminine traits up in order to be seen as equals or in the same league as men. Agent Carter is sending a different message: be who you are because what you look like or your interests don't define what you can become.

This brings me to my next point, how Peggy uses society’s negative and inferior view of women to her advantage. We see within the first five minutes of the show that Peggy’s coworkers do not see her as an equal. While all the men gather for the briefing on Howard Stark, Dooley attempts to keep Peggy out of it, and have her answer the phones-do women’s work essentially. But she’s having none of that and maneuvers her way into the meeting with poise (and a bit of a sassy smirk). Later on we see more and more femininity being used as a weapon, and it’s not just Peggy who does it. Most of the women in the show manipulate their perceived femininity to their advantage. In that first scene with Peggy and her coworkers, she rejects their misogynistic behaviors, but later on she beings using their condescending actions to her advantage. We first see this in the scene where Peggy tries to get out of work by pretending she's on her period as an excuse:

“I wonder if I might request a sick day”

“What you got a headache?”

“Among other things. Ladies things.”

Of course all the men in the room absolutely

cringe at the mention of menstruation, but they don’t ask questions and Peggy is home free to conduct her investigation that evening with no suspicion. This continues through the entire season. Peggy lets the men belittle her, send her on meager errands, and overlook her in order to conduct her investigation.  In episode seven "SNAFU", Peggy makes a speech to Sousa, Thompson, and Dooley about how she is only a construct in each of their minds-they don’t know who she really is, and unless she has something they want she is invisible to them. She’s able to get away with it all because they underestimate her and what she is capable of. This right here is a giant statement: do not underestimate women, do not look at them as inferior because we are so much more than that. We will prove you wrong every time. The show is telling girls that they should never be held back and to fight their way through to what they want even if people (in this case men) are trying to stand in their way. Peggy shows women that not only can any object within reach from lipstick, to a stapler, to a strip of cloth be a weapon, but so can people’s actions toward you. Peggy used the men’s misogyny as a weapon against them and proved to them just what she is capable of.

Something I find very interesting about Agent Carter is the story-line format it follows for Peggy. She has a hero plot-line, specifically a male hero plot-line. Think Batman for example, he goes around protecting people, but he can’t let them get close to him because they’ll be in too much danger. Peggy has the same stoic “I must suffer alone to protect the people I love” complex. Throughout the season we see Peggy pushing Angie away and not letting her get close because Peggy is afraid of putting her in danger after what happened to Steve and what happened to Coleen. Not only does Peggy get the stereotypically male role, Jarvis gets the stereotypically female role, attempting to make Peggy become more in touch with her feelings and let people she loves in. All the time Peggy is willing to put herself in danger, but refuses to let anyone else make the same decision, she must protect them and it can’t be the other way around. So many times she shoots Jarvis down when he offers to help her, and she pushes Angie away to the point of hurting her feelings in order to "keep them safe." She suffers alone in silence, keeping the people she loves at a distance to protect them-the typical male hero, only she’s a woman.

Not only does Peggy have a story arch that is more commonly a male plot, she also has a lot of male characteristics. We see this the most in her fighting style-she doesn't do a lot of graceful turns or fancy flips. Peggy is brutal when she fights: punching, using her elbows, beating people with any object within reach, and generally bludgeoning the snot out of her enemies. I would hate to be the unlucky soul at Peggy’s mercy because I’d be likely to leave with a plethora of bruises and at least a broken nose if not a couple more broken body parts. She is ruthless. There are two scenes in particular that are perfect examples of how unforgiving a fighter Peggy can be-the scene where she beats a man with a stapler and the one where she is able to take down an entire room of S.S.R. agents without a weapon. We see her kicking, punching, elbowing, bludgeoning: there is nothing graceful about how Peggy fights and takes down all of these men. She’s powerful and she’s not afraid to hurt someone. And she's more than willing to turn to violence to get what she wants or to get out of a scrape. She plays dirty, and  to see a woman who fights with so much power and ferocity is something we don't get to see very often on TV. There is no hair pulling, scratching, or biting like we see with a lot of female fighters. She’ll use her fists before she’d ever even consider using her nails. Along this same vein Peggy doesn't hit like a girl either. When she’s fighting we see Peggy full on punch guys right in the face. We get to see a great example of this in one of the scenes with Howard after she discovers he lied to her about what she stole from the S.S.R. for him. If this were any other show she would have slapped him amidst tears and sobs, but instead she punches him square in the eyes with anger all over her face. There’s such a high level of rage and power behind that punch, and they don’t feminize her in a way that would be uncharacteristically Peggy in this scene. She's sad, yes, but she's also pissed and that is the prevalent emotion we see when she confronts Howard. The fact that she punches him instead of slapping him continues to prove that Peggy is strong, masculine, and driven by something more than just her emotions. This action furthers this strong masculinity that we see in Peggy. And continues to prove that women are not these weak, sniveling, over emotional creatures the media tries to make us out as.

Peggy Carter is not an over-emotional, sentiment, sniveling, whiny character at all. (Before you all get worked up about this-I'm not saying that emotional/sentimental characters are bad.) But I am saying women are stereotyped as not being in control of their emotions, making it more difficult to make rational decisions. This means most female characters are prone to crying or melodramatic emotions that leave them incapable of doing anything. Peggy is not one of these characters. She does feel emotions, she's not just a heartless robot. There are multiple scenes within the show where Peggy cries or almost cries, and some of these are my favorite scenes, but they are soft, quiet scenes. They're not blown out of proportion with Peggy losing her grip on herself in them. When Coleen dies, Peggy sits down on the bed and cries for her. When she explains Steve's blood to the SSR we see her tearing up, but she's not crying over anything and everything. All instances of her tears are large moments in her life-things that of course it would be logical to be upset or cry about. Her emotions are rational and realistic. We even see Howard try to use the emotions excuse against her as a reason for lying, but Peggy shoots him down very quickly. "You don't get to use my reaction to your lies as a reason for your lies." Here Peggy is specifically pointing out that just because she may react in a negative or emotional way doesn't mean Howard gets to use that as an excuse. Her emotions are not so fragile as that, and I think we see that demonstrated multiple times with Peggy throughout the series. But despite these moments of despair Peggy is able to stay in control of herself, push forward, and overcome these things that make her hurt. They do not define her, they do not hinder her. These moment are just a part of her character, and they don't make up everything Peggy does. She feels emotions, but that's not all she is. Peggy can make logical judgments and rational decisions even when her heart is broken.

So here we are at the end of this post, and I want to sum up everything we have learned about how awesome Peggy Carter is. First of all Peggy breaks down the boundaries of femininity. She pushes back against this definition of what society has decided being a woman means by following what is normally a hero's story arch and taking on multiple masculine characteristics. But not only does she take on male traits she also retains some femininity, sending the message that women can be whatever they want to be and still be powerful. She manages to occupy both male and female spaces, tearing down the boundaries that have been built between the sexes. On top of that she uses society's negative construct of women to push these boundaries even further. She let's them believe whatever they want about her and in return she's able to carry out her investigation right under their noses. She lets them view her as a weak, incapable woman even though the show proves Peggy is more than capable of keeping her emotions in check. Agent Carter has constructed a character who breaks down societies expectation of women without taking away her femininity. Peggy Carter utilizes these negative assumptions about women to prove what women are truly capable of. There is so much in this show that fights what we typically think a woman should be-Peggy turns it all on it's head. I want every little girl to see this show and see Peggy accomplish so much under such oppressive sexism, and realize that they can be whatever they want to be no matter what anyone says. That is what this show is telling our little girls, which I think is amazing. I wish more shows did this with their characters. We need more characters like Peggy Carter.

There is so much more I could say about this show, but I had to pick a single topic to keep the word count from being ridiculous. Let me know what you all thought, how you felt about the season, and want you want to see in the future. Coming up next is the evolution of Regina's character through the current run of Once Upon a Time. Stay tuned!

BONUS: Look at this dork!

Hayley Atwell would disappear during filming of Agent Carter and fall asleep wherever she could-as portrayed above. There is a whole set of these pictures. They're kind of my favorite.