Agent Carter: Secret Agent Woman

As I get older, I, like many others, find myself in front of news stories about gender equality and see people raving back and forth about whether or not there is a problem, just what the problem is, and if there is a problem how should it be solved.  This is something which comes up a lot in entertainment mediums and particularly in movies, video games, and comic books.

The arguments generally are, "Should women have greater representation?" "Do women already have enough representation?" "How should we represent women?" "Should we cater to social pressure?" "What about writer's rights?" "Is it a comic distributor's responsibility?" and many others I'm sure you're already aware of.  Many people see this as a pretty simple question with simple answers of "yes" and "no." In truth, the problem is far more complex and while some recognize that, many others simply make their answers more complex to fit the role rather than explore the situation at hand.  Some will give a "free market" answer along the lines of, "Men read comics predominantly, and so comics cater to men, and so long as men read comics then comic companies should cater to them."  Others will respond, "No, women are equal and are treated as second string.  Women don't read comics because there are no comics for women."

The answer?  For another post, because this one is about Marvel's Agent Carter.

Every once in the while a show comes along which transcends all boundaries and expectations and pushes past convention and argument to be something all it's own without need to cater or subvert any preconceived notions of what it should be.  Last night I witnessed this with Agent Carter, the miniseries which takes place a short while after the first Captain America movie and is focused on the titular (come on) character Peggy Carter.  In this little show Agent (not miss) Carter is an independent and very strong woman both physically and mentally who is continuing her work with the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR), which itself is the precursor to the cinematic S.H.I.E.L.D.  What is portrayed is her mission to stop a weapon from being released while dealing with the norms of her time such as sexism, lack of wireless communication, cloak and dagger business and so on. 

So is it a good show?  Well, only two episodes in and I can say I enjoyed them immensely.  The lovely Hayley Atwell plays a convincing and daring Peggy Carter who must be versatile, strong, smart, and even a little vulnerable as we must remember Peggy is still mourning the loss of Steve Rogers at this point in her life.  The mourning is a bit important because Captain America is still highly publicized and marketed and she is reminded of this in pictures and oddly on the radio as a radio drama of Captain America's exploits are played often.  It's actually a point of humor since Peggy is more annoyed with the portrayal of the stories, and in particular her part in them as her part has been replaced by a character named "Betty Carver" who is the breathy voiced triage nurse who enjoys hemming pants on her brand new electric sewing machine when she's not the damsel in distress for Cap to rescue as opposed to Peggy's actual role in the war and to Captain America.

The action is quick paced and how they portray Peggy in the rumpus is actually well handled as she looks like someone in that time as opposed to the "waif fu" action women we normally see doing high wire, high acrobatic stunts in the movies and film.  Notably she is very different from Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow in combat since the Widow prefers high acrobatics and twirling where Carter believably delivers a strong straight right to people's chins.  This can only really be done since Peggy isn't fighting superbeings, but it is still a very nice and separate way for Peggy to deal with action.  It's not to say Peggy is portrayed as strong as her male combatants, just that she isn't doing backflips and jumping six feet into the air to use her legs as choking tools.  No, Peggy wears a skirt and is an agile capable fighter, but in a way which is just enough for the viewer to see her as every bit equal a threat to her male combatants.

Personality wise Peggy is a stern, smart, incredibly capable Agent of the SSR who is able to do undercover work as a blonde party goer, switch to a mouthy health inspector, and oddly enough she commonly plays the role of slightly snarky but mostly obedient unofficial "office lady," which has her commonly taking harassment from the men aside from the one legged agent who sympathizes with her as an outcast.  Peggy is portrayed perfectly by Atwell as a woman who knows what to do, when to do it, and not in a way that seems forced or just shoehorned in.  Peggy is very much a capable Agent and it is very separate from her simply being a woman Agent.  She's an Agent who happens to be a woman, and is just damn good at it.  She doesn't walk into every scene as the immediate ass-kicker, nor does she show her authority and capability by walking in and ordering everybody around in a "bitchy" way like other strong female lead shows would have a leading woman should behave.  Peggy is smarter than her peers and knows how to manipulate her surroundings to accomplish her goal without being heavy handed and imposing.  Aside from her work as a false health food inspector where she instead invokes the "bitchy woman" trope to a T and still gets the job done.  What's nice is that she only plays that part as she needs to, without being an imposing authoritarian who must be a cold and headstrong jerkbag to get what she wants, and can achieve similar if not the same goals by relying on simply being smarter as opposed to smarter and meaner.  This isn't to say that I think women are better in this role and should "know their place under the man," but I would like to say it's refreshing to see women in more flexible portrayals in the same way I enjoy men playing roles which aren't machismo filled, gun toting, one liner spitting, death machine roles all the time.  Peggy's personality is very much a conflicted human being who wants to achieve deeds in a very self reliant way we would see in other roles attributed to male leads.  And when she pushes too far with the insistence of "I can do this myself, I don't need you," she is skillfully brought back down by Edwin Jarvis, played by the wonderfully charmful James D'Arcy, who reminds the strong willed Agent that no man or woman can do her job alone, and that even Captain America had a world of support for his strength.  And namely that Peggy herself was what pushed him on.  A revelation which forced her into quiet contemplation and a brusque acknowledgement by telling Jarvis to get back to patching up her leg from a recent skirmish.

What's important and best is Peggy's portrayal.  As I've talked about it is unique given how most female leads either are not just unflinchingly strong, but almost offensively so, must have quirky personalities, isn't emotionally fragile, and more or less is just isn't reacting to the world around her as it happens to her, but moves with her world to best figure out what needs doing and simply does it.  In short, Agent Carter isn't a one trick pony who is not some scorned and hurt woman who lashes back against the world, or a leading doctor in her field, or even some highly respected leader in her community due to personality and results.  She is both soft and hard without having to be too much in one way or the other.  She doesn't have to be strong to the outside world to protect her soft and fragile inside in the way some women characters are portrayed.  She isn't just good at her job and bad at her life because of some sort of defect in her biology.  She understands her world and bucks the convention when she knows it will work, not because she feels she has to, and knows how to navigate a world men lead at the time.  Peggy is a very unique character in this regard and foils perfectly to D'Arcy's much more softer Jarvis.

So who is Jarvis?  Unlike some reporter who said it was a shout out to Tony Stark's robotic butler, he is actually the adaptation of the comic character Edwin Jarvis who was the butler to both Howard and Tony Stark.  In this show he is portrayed expertly as a tight schedule keeping man who wants to help, both out of direction of his boss and of his personal desire to see Agent Carter not killed in her pursuit of stopping terrorism nor does he want to see her lose her sense of purpose through poor decisions.  "But Mak, you just said she ISN'T that!" What I said was Peggy wasn't one dimensional, she is actually very subject to complex human behavior, and this is perfectly pointed out when Jarvis responds to a comment by Peggy of her not needing anybody by saying to the effect, "I cannot tell if that was from ignorance or arrogance," and then following up after another comment with, "You wish to save the world by detaching yourself from it?" forcing Peggy to realize she needs to be more than what she currently is.  Perhaps his best deliveries are when he sees her pushing the "stiff upper lip" and reaches out an understanding hand as a fellow British when he hands her a handkerchief in the diner they talk back to back at to let her know it's okay to feel the way she does, and truly his best when he tells her about the line already mentioned about Captain America:  That she can accept him and those who wish to help her as support and strength as no person can do it alone, in the same way Captain America drew strength from her.  In truth, Jarvis plays the very entertaining and secondary comedy act with his naive nature and his comfort with being given precise direction and assuming servant.  In one scene Peggy radios him to pull a car around while she's escaping an implosion and he asks, "When?" as he's used to with Stark, which of course has her calmly giving "Now."  Another he is instructed to stay inside the car when he and Peggy go to find a milk truck and he foresees her need of help and disables a car because, "A good butler knows when they're needed without being told," or something to that effect.  His own vulnerabilities and sensibilities are just entertaining as all out and I cannot wait to see how they further develop. The show is a miniseries which means laser sharp focus, but I can already tell I'll miss this show when it's gone if anything due to the great characters I've thus far seen.

There's so much more to talk about, but I implore you to go watch this show yourself. 

Shine the Spotlight: Bayonetta

Seems early for another post about Bayonetta, doesn't it?  Well, screw you.  It's my blog.

After asking a friend to go over my other post about the game, they immediately told me I rambled far too long and never got to any solid point and probably should revise what I was doing.  They also decided to share their thoughts with me about how this crass character was probably not exactly a good one.  This made their advice about the post null and void to me and so I decided to Shine my Spotlight on Bayonetta herself.

For anybody who knows me, the whole "Shine The Spotlight" thing is where I go a little bit more in depth about a character, their personality, traits, and why I like them.  It's all a personal thing and what attracts me to them.  The opposing view is called "Lock Em' Up" where I go in depth about a character, their personality, traits, and why I dislike them.  Clearly this is about the former.  Also, Spotlights are VERY LIKELY TO HAVE SPOILERS SO BE CAREFUL.

So Shine the Spotlight:

Bayonetta aka Cereza

Doing what she does best: Being stylish and violent

 Introduced as the amnesiac last witch of a clan of witches known as Umbran Witches, Bayonetta is the foul mouthed, flirtatious, outrageous, hyper violent, and always fun as heck primary protagonist of the Bayonetta franchise originally released on the X Box 360 and followed on the Wii U.  We soon learn she's the last of two witches and she is a very special Umbran witch, not just because for an Umbran witch she's powerful, not just because she can curb stomp angels the size of lunar sattelites with demons she summons from hell, but because she carries in her the left eye of the overseer which when combined with the right eye allows the user to restructure reality.  While that story is more complicated, the story of Bayonetta is significantly less so.  She's just the abomination child of an Umbran Witch and a member of the Lumen Sages who happens to be the Umbran mortal enemy.  Her father is also the holder of the right eye of the overseer, and it turns out one eye was given to each clan to maintain balance and can resurrect the god of the universe but the eyes really belong to the god of chaos and ARGHGHGHG!!!

Bayonetta is basically spastic, stylish, playful energy cranked up way past eleven, handed four weapons to put on her very long appendages and told to kill angels.  She is a witch which means she made a pact with a demon (the demoness Madama Butterfly in this case) and must kill angels every day to keep this side of hell which she is ultimately doomed to upon death no matter what.  Though with the sheer volume she slaughters within an hour should get her a week long vacation.  Also the 500 years she was asleep wasn't held against her because demons are understanding.  And really not much of that matters.

Appearance wise, as you can tell from the picture, Bayonetta is a very lanky individual.  Tall (or just perhaps has a very tiny torso and head), raven haired, and bespectacled, Bayonetta almost has a geekish charm despite the fact she's very not geeky at all.  Crass, disrespectful, and extremely inappropriate are all terms that can describe Bayonetta.  From the way she blows expletives and tells people to screw off, to how she treats some of her friends far more like slaves, to her rather "whatever" regard she has for huge world threats, you quickly get the whole brushing off and overly cool feel of her personality.  She doesn't care, you annoy her, she just wants to more or less do whatever she wants to do.  And while she also enjoys the act of crushing angels, she isn't exactly someone who lusts after battle.  She doesn't really want to fight, but when she is fighting she makes sure to enjoy it.  She's also considered and extremely classy and literate lady who expresses her desire of etiquette upon others even if she herself barely shows restraint, up to and including pointing guns at others if they disrespect her.  Also she wears her hair as fine intricate black leather body fitting clothes.  You read that right, she wears her hair and it can take on the texture and shape of very detailed clothing.  Look at the picture above and note the only things which aren't hair are her shoes, the gold chains, her glasses and her guns.  The rest is HAIR.  And it must come off for her bigger attacks.  Which leads to the next bit.

Bayonetta is unabashedly sexual.  From the way she dresses to the way she speaks to the way she behaves to the way she fights.  Everything about her has some aspect of sexuality to her.  She purrs out her words at others with her breathy English accent.  She walks in an exaggerated hip swaying manner which emphasizes her well structured behind, she wears everything open back, her suits are skin tight, she dances around and strips for her Wicked Weaves and demon summons, even most of her attacks are something you imagine a fictional super stripper to behave like.  It's part of her charm, like a naked woman behind fogged glass which only hints at the sexuality without being completely naked or doing God of War sex scenes.  One of her attacks known as Breakdance has her spinning and crawling about the ground firing her weapons up and around only to finish with her on all fours, legs spread wide with her facing the screen with a wink and a camera shutter like some sort of magazine shoot.  Another called Umbran Portal Kick which has her land on her back to pose for another camera shutter.  I'm not going to say this is bad.  Not that needlessly sexualizing women in comic books and video games is good, but in the case of Bayonetta it isn't putting sex to simply put sex, but sex is actually woven into her character in a powerful way. "But Mak, that just means women only have authority and power if they're sexual objects."  To this I say no.  Bayonetta is both sexual and powerful, and one needn't the other in this case.  Bayonetta blends them in a satisfying and fun way.  Sex isn't bad, nor should it be disdained.  It shouldn't be used just to be used, but only when it helps craft a better story.  Bayonetta is her own woman, and she definitely comes off as all of this being her absolute choice in the matter.  It isn't like she's just the side character who has to flash skin to be recognized as the most attractive and hence the most important female.  She flashes skin because "Screw you, chump."  She is in control of herself and sexuality is just something she happens to enjoy.  She doesn't worry about what people think of her, or what man she is after, or relationships.  She is definitely a woman of her own being.  If she wants it, she gets it.  If she hates it, she shuns it.  She's a bitch but only in the best way.  An interesting character to say the least.  I have never really gotten the feeling that none of her traits are anything but the product of her own desire.  Never have I really seen or felt like she strips and dances for anything but fun of her own making or just to be a "cheeky" individual.  Sort of like the big tough guy who walks into a bar and orders frilly drinks and when called out he just is jolly and explains how he dislikes the taste of beer and prefers drinks with umbrellas.  You sort of gain a respect for that sort of confidence and that's who Bayonetta is at her core.  Confidence defines her.  Whether she's telling an enemy she doesn't have time for them, compliments them on their work, insults them for wasting her precious (immortal) time, about how ugly they are or how good looking they are, referring to partners as pets or her friends as almost slaves, Bayonetta knows she's the queen and is more than happy to play the role which makes things like her dancing all the more fun.  She knows nobody is going to call her out on it, and if they do she is more than smart and capable enough to simply shut them down or shut them up because nobody tells Bayonetta what to do.

Her powers also match her beyond over the top personality.  She's a witch and thus magic.  Magic enhances her through having infinite amounts of hair, ridiculous durability and strength such as taking falling buildings to her face or just punching them outright into orbit.  She's fast, really fast.  Bullets shot in her face can be avoided and it triggers a time manipulation event called Witch Time which allows her to sashay around, hold conversations, or just wail on enemies with beyond ridiculous weapons which are forged from the souls of powerful demons.  Speaking of demons, all witches are contracted to demons and in Bayonetta's case, this demon is Madama Butterfly.  A giant woman like demon with a butterfly motif, Madama Butterfly assists Bayonetta by imparting wisdom and great power to her which includes all sorts of techniques, but the most notable is the summoning and subjugation of lesser demons such as dragons, fire spiders, demon horses, devil dogs, nightmare millipedes, hydras, and even access to Queen Sheba the ruler of Inferno (though she needs help for that one).  Bayonetta can also "summon" Butterfly through her Wicked Weaves which strips Bayonetta of her hair suit and opens portals which allows fists and feet through temporarily to slam her enemies as part of her combos.  She also can call the weapons of the witch hunts as punishment attacks and commonly puts angels in iron maidens, wooden horses, burning cages, torture wheels, etc.  Everything you use with Bayonetta feels powerful and reminds you she is in charge.  And these are all over the top such as when she beats an angel into a guillotine then snaps her fingers with a little heart over them and the blade falls.  And going back to weapons, she has a plethora.  In the beginning of each game she wields four pistol like guns known as the Scarborough Fair in the first game and Love is Blue in the second.  Four guns seems a lot?  Not when you keep in mind she puts two on her FEET.  She is an extremely adept pistoleer with a strong skill in shooting all around her in super rapid fire sequence and her weapons just get more insane.  Shotguns, demon katanas or demon double swords, whips, fire/ice claws, ice skates, triple bladed scythes, gigantic hammers, even rocket launchers.  The variety is insane as she can pair things like the scythe in her hands and flaming chainsaws on her feet and use them with such deadly proficiency it has allowed her to conquer world ending nearly all-powerful gods more than once.

She jokes, she flirts, she's fun, she insults, she kicks all sorts of ass.  Bayonetta is truly a character while not being the first of her kind, is among the best of them. Bayonetta is no hero, and she's as happy to admit it.  But Bayonetta is the best thing to protect your world with so long as it happens to coincide with her own plans.

Bayonetta, a witch with true fun attitude.