My Thoughts on Ant-Man: A Close-Up Look at an Enjoyable Film's Lesser Points

Spoilers. (Obvs.)

A couple of days ago I made a short text post about my reaction to Marvel's Ant-Man.

This is what it said:

If you had told me a year ago that I would like Ant-Man (with some qualifications) more than I liked Age of Ultron, I would not have believed you.

This is a sentiment that seems to have been very relatable for a lot of people—as of this writing, the post has nearly 600 notes. Consequently, I feel that I should say a bit more about the film and unpack the qualifications that I alluded to in my original post.

Ant-Man was a lot of fun. It was not the best MCU film by a wide margin, but it was definitely not its worst either. It was better than Age of Ultron, but in my considered opinion being better than Age of Ultron is not a high bar to jump (1). For me, Ultron is in the bottom three of to-date MCU films (2). In contrast to Age of Ultron, Ant-Man had a cohesive plot. It was well acted, it had several decent gags (and several very inappropriate gags), and it set things up for Civil War with an impressively deft narrative hand. That said, however, Ant-Man had some serious problems.

To begin with, the film had a massive race problem. This was one of the more diverse offerings from Marvel to date, and that fact (and its positive and negative implications) should not be ignored. Nevertheless, the film played its diverse characters like stereotypes. There were moments where you could see the filmmakers trying to play against type a bit (3), but for the most part the non-white characters were there to be played for culturally insensitive trope-dependent laughs. And also, they were all criminals. Which. That's a problem.

And no, the well-to-do African-American family who we saw for half-a-heartbeat getting their family barbecue obliterated by Ant-Man and Yellowjacket do not make up for the missteps taken with the film's prominent PoC characters.

The film also had quite a bit of a woman problem. As with the film's portrayal of PoC characters, there was a sense that the filmmakers were trying to subvert a trope (4). Obviously, the filmmakers were trying to somehow flip the Ridiculously Average Guy trope on its head by making the reason Scott Lang winds up doing the job that Hope Pym should have done that Hope is that much better than him and more important as a person generally. But first of all that's a trope of its own (see: Men Are Expendable), and second of all it only works if Hope—rather than Scott—is the person who goes off to help Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson fight a civil war and the Avengers wage an infinity war. And we all know that that is just not going to happen.

So, no filmmaker dudes. Nice try with the attempted trope inversion, but you have to stick the landing. And you did not stick that landing.

The same could be said of the film's treatment of Janet Van Dyne. Her MCU death was presented as the sort of classic comic book "death" that is easily reversible (and therefore gives Marvel a lot of room to claim that they haven't actually fridged her (5)), but until she actually comes back she's fridged. And it's a pretty safe bet that she isn't coming back anytime soon. Most likely not before Infinity War, which might just be cosmic enough in its scope to enable a return-of-Janet-from-the-quantum-dimension subplot, and that's ages away.

So, again, guys: nope. I do see what you were trying to do and what you think you were doing, but I also saw what you actually did. And you only get points for what you actually did.

But Ant-Man was better than Age of Ultron, and it had Falcon in it—and the MCU always benefits from MOAR Falcon (6). And as of now the Civil War setup is looking Bucky-centric enough to keep the ravaging fangirl in me happy. For the moment, anyway. So that's a thing. Speaking of which, can we have a Civil War teaser soon? Kthxbye.

Notes:
1) My review of Avengers: Age of Ultron can be found on this website.
2) Yes, I said bottom three, and I stand by that. Age of Ultron is better than The Incredible Hulk. It might even be better than Iron Man 2. It's not better than any of the other films Marvel has released. For those who are curious, I rank the MCU film as follows: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guaridans of the Galaxy, The Avengers, Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Iron Man, Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor, Ant-Man, Iron Man 2, Avengers: Age of Ultron, The Incredible Hulk. Interestingly, in every case except The Avengers, I think the sequel was better than the original, which is atypical for sequels.
3) Michael Peña's Luis, for example, very clearly had impeccable personal taste and a range of cultivated knowledge in spite of the fact that he was your garden variety Latino criminal caricature. Actually, I would love to know how viewers in the Latinx community felt about this representation. And indeed how PoC viewers felt about the supporting cast in general. I am not a member of those communities and do not speak for them.
4) In this case the "female supporting character who is better than the male protagonist in every conceivable way teaches him everything he needs to know to be a badass in 48-hours or less and then makes out with him upon his triumphant return" trope. There's got to be a shorter title for that one.
5) Which, as a matter of fact, they have already started doing. See Kyle Buchanan, "Spoiler Bomb: Ant-Man's Surprise Twists and Cameos, Explained," (Vulture, July 2015).
6) Of course Falcon was basically use to make the infinitely less badass white dude look good, which... I'm gonna start referring to that particular permutation of the Ridiculously Average (White) Guy trope as "pulling a John Diggle," and I'm sideeying the hell out of it, to be perfectly honest.

Review - Agent Carter: "A Sin to Err"

This review contains spoilers.

Well, Peggy Carter is in a tight spot now, and no mistake. After confirming his suspicions in what must be noted as a rather unscientific manner (isn't it bad form to only have one person in a lineup?), Agent Sousa took his findings about Peggy to Chief Dooley—igniting a manhunt that was equal parts exhilarating, intense, and at times distinctly amusing.

On a personal note, I have to say that Sousa's interruption of Dooley's debriefing with Dr. Ivchenko was one of the best instances of good timing/bad timing I've seen in a long time. I had a strong sense that Ivchenko was a Leviathan operative in the last episode (he was willing to kill a man under his care with far more ease than was plausible for a person in his supposed situation), but nothing could have prepared me for the near-apoplectic levels of fangirl flailing I would ultimately go into when I realized that he was shaping up to be the MCU's version of the iconic Captain America villain, Doctor Faustus. So, good job Sousa for saving the Chief, but bad job Sousa for busting Peggy.

As I said, Peggy Carter is in a tight spot, and it is one delineated by bitter ironies. The first irony is that Peggy got into this situation in part because of the internalized misogyny that prevented her from realizing that Dottie from Iowa was a threat. The second is that, as of "A Sin to Err," Peggy has only just managed to earn the hard-won respect of her male coworkers in time for that respect to be turned against her. Had she been caught in the conspiracy to aid and abet Howard Stark before she had earned that respect, Peggy might have been able to call upon the feminine wiles that served her so well when practically everyone in the office saw her as a creature of inherently lesser talents as a defense. Having seen her in action and developed a healthy appreciation for her abilities, however, none of her fellow agents were inclined to take it easy on her.

One of the primary driving motivational forces on the show has been Peggy's desire to be valued by her male coworkers, but that desire has manifested not in an attempt to improve her colleagues' perceptions of women, but in an attempt to be perceived as one of the boys—a strategy that in itself has sexist overtones. Joining the boys' club often seems like the solution to the problem sexist discrimination, but as this episode demonstrates it actually does little-to-nothing to advance the cause of gender equality. Though the agents of the SSR have come to respect Peggy's abilities as a trained operative, that esteem does not extend to women in general—a fact made all too clear by the fact that both Thompson (who has come to admire Peggy over the course of the show) and Sousa (who admired her from the very beginning) were taken in by the relatively simple subterfuges of both Dottie and Angie. Clearly, Peggy, like many women who find themselves in the boys' club, has won a battle only for herself—not for feminism—and the spoils of that battle are not nearly as valuable as she might have imagined.

It's interesting to speculate on whether or not Peggy would have had the opportunity to win her colleagues' approval without the chain of events that transpired as a result of her taking Howard Stark's offer to investigate for him. For my part, it's debatable. After all, much of her success in the department seems to have hinged on the mission to Russia that came about as a direct result of their acquisition of Sasha Demidov's typewriter, an object that the SSR—arguably—would never have acquired if Peggy hadn't provided them with Demidov's dead body and thus his identity, residence, and possessions. In ways both orthodox and un, Peggy has had to make all of her opportunities for herself, and she will undoubtedly continue to do so as the series draws to a close. But what this episode has made clear is that she has been making opportunities only for herself at this point, and not for women as a whole. The pressing question now is not so much whether or not Peggy has engendered enough respect amongst her colleagues for them to believe in the possibility of that her intentions were honest, but whether or not Peggy will realize what membership in the boys' club actually means for her and for the fight against sexism in general.

Review - Agent Carter: "The Iron Ceiling"

This review contains spoilers.

The plot of Agent Carter is heating up as we come into the back half of the series, with several threads weaving together for what will no doubt be an exciting explosion in the next episode, "A Sin to Err." Chief Dooly of the SSR (can I say again how much I love that he is obviously incredibly good at his job?) is onto the fact that there's a lot more at stake than a witch hunt for Howard Stark. Dottie from Iowa, now revealed to be a product of the Black Widow program, is advancing her covert agenda right under Peggy's unsuspecting nose. And Agent Sousa has—as we all knew he would—succeeded in uncovering the identity of the mysterious blond operative. There's a lot to talk about, but perhaps the most intriguing element is the dynamic that has developed between Peggy and Dottie and the way it represents yet another subtle layer of sexism's insidious cultural reach.

For the seasoned television viewer, comic book reader, film buff, etc., the introduction of Dottie from Iowa in episode three ("Time and Tide") immediately raised a ton of plot-twist red flags, which the showrunners were wise not to drag out. The show's reveal of her as a spy in episode four ("The Blitzkrieg Button") probably came as a surprise to very few people. In "The Iron Ceiling," however, the writers did give us something surprising—an exploration of Dottie's backstory in a manner that enabled us to contrast her experiences with Peggy's in a wholly unexpected way. Like Peggy, Dottie is a hardened soldier—skilled not just in warfare but in the ability to disconnect the emotional responses that is intrinsic to the successful pursuit of war missions. And like Peggy, Dottie is being underestimated on the basis of her gender. For just as Peggy's coworkers should have sussed her out ages ago and have not solely because she is a woman, Peggy should have noticed Dottie's maneuvers and did not solely because she is a woman. Internalized misogyny here we come.

Peggy has never really taken notice of Dottie. In fact, she had absolutely no interest in Dottie when they first met as she was lost in thought over her upcoming mission to trace the path of Howard Stark's stolen technology at the time. That motif of not taking notice, of being lost in thought, of inherently—and without even the slightest critical consideration—assuming that she can lose herself in thought around other women because women are safe was repeated in this episode's diner scene. Sitting across the table from an apparently-planning-a-walking-tour-of-New-York Dottie, Peggy loses her focus completely while looking at Jarvis' business card. She loses her focus so entirely that Dottie has to verbally recall Peggy to herself—something that would never have happened if Peggy had been sitting across the table from a man. But just as Peggy has consistently used the sexism of her male coworkers against them, Dottie expertly uses Peggy's own sexism against her. Dottie's method of stealing Peggy's room keys—knocking over her purse and then insisting on picking everything up as a penance—is such an obvious tactic that it's almost unbelievable that an agent as good as Peggy is wouldn't pick up on it. In the end, however, she is no more immune to her own prejudices than Chief Dooley and Agent Thompson were when Peggy botched their interrogation of Jarvis in the most staggeringly incompetent fashion.

Peggy's dangerous dismissal of Dottie, predicated on her internalized misogyny, is presented alongside Peggy's first taste of success at making her way into the boy's club, and the juxtaposition of these two events is significant. This episode presented a radically different view of Agent Thompson that both humanized him and gave him some common ground to share with Peggy—thus laying the groundwork for the rehabilitation of his character that was hinted at in "The Blitzkrieg Button"—but the fact remains that Thompson is an ethically questionable figure. We've seen him beat, berate, and bribe witnesses; we've seen that he's quite capable of, and comfortable with, lying (although, he is—as I've noted before—not one to lie to himself). In short, we've seen that Thompson's desire to do his job, sometimes trumps his ethical standards—as the desire to do the job sometimes trumps many SSR agents' standards. And while that's okay for a government agent, if Peggy Carter really wants to be a hero she may have to rethink her club membership goals.

Just as it significant that Peggy's tentative acceptance into the boy's club has come at a moment when her own sexism is showing, it is also no coincidence that said acceptance came at the moment when the one person who has always respected her—Agent Daniel Sousa—has discovered a reason to doubt her. Right from the very beginning of the series, Sousa's quest to uncover the identity of the mysterious blond operative (Peggy) who was independently investigating—and possibly sabotaging—the SSR's case against Howard Stark has set him apart from his contemporaries. Unlike Thompson, and even Chief Dooley, who expressed frustration at the existence of this operative but otherwise ignored the conundrum, Sousa has been convinced that the identity of the unknown operative was a key to cracking the case. Neither Thompson nor Dooley ever felt that much time should be devoted to the problem because neither of them really thought that it was possible for a woman to be an important player in an espionage case. Sousa, on the other hand, knew that a woman could be an important player—an embrace of gender equality that actually puts him a step ahead of Peggy Carter for the moment.

Thus, in yet another ironic turn, it is not Peggy Carter but Daniel Sousa who has turned out to be the most emancipated thinker on the show.

Review - Agent Carter: "The Blitzkrieg Button"

This review contains spoilers.

Well, things have well and truly been turned on their head now. Howard Stark returned to New York in "The Blitzkrieg Button" in order to reacquire a specific piece of technology now in the SRR labs after Peggy's successful discovery of Howard's missing weapons at the end of "Time and Tide." However, his failure to tell Peggy the truth about his motives cost him, and, in my opinion, it was no less than he deserved.

Around about a month ago, a short (but apt) tumblr text post made the rounds on my dash. It said:

"I can stomach bro-type boys who actually are quite sweet and loveable beneath their bro exterior significantly more than like, guys who study philosophy and write “poetry” but beneath it all actually have the skewed moral compass and heedless self absorption of your common or garden[-variety] bro."

This post strongly resonated with me for the way it struck at the heart of an issue that had been troubling me for a while—the way some men either pretend allyship for the purposes of getting something out of a women or mistakenly believe themselves to be an ally when they are actually, at their core, committed only to a selfish personal agenda. For me and many of my friends, spotting a true ally has become an ofttimes fraught task, as discovering that someone you trust is untrustworthy is incredibly emotionally draining. However, on the flip side, the discovery of allies in places you never imagined they'd be can be a wonderful and uplifting experience.

As of "The Blitzkrieg Button," Peggy Carter has experienced the profound disappointment that comes with realizing a trusted ally was actually a self-absorbed snake in the grass, but she hasn't yet found that ally in an unexpected place. Of course, the dichotomy between false allies and allies in unexpected places is not so clear-cut in Agent Carter as it is explained here. Nevertheless, I find it an apt description of the lines that are being drawn between the characters of Agent Jack Thompson and Howard Stark.

On the one hand, we saw Agent Thompson riding Peggy hard over her continued commitment to the SSR. He said things to her that were utterly deplorable and cruel. And yet, I cannot help but admire that he had the guts to say such things to her face. Thompson has never hidden his disdain for Peggy and her doggedness. He has never disguised the fact that he considers her persistence to be a waste of everyone's time—not because she is not capable, but because she is a woman and the system will not allow her to succeed. Failing at this point to understand his role in perpetuating that system—and consequently his ability to change it—Thompson has been consistently unpleasant and unashamed of his unpleasantness, and I kind of love that about him. Because as a awful as he is, it is nevertheless clear that he has very few illusions about himself. (A fact that was made equally plain in his exchange with Agent Sousa.) Whatever else we may say about him, Agent Thompson—at the very least—is not a hypocrite.

Howard Stark, on the other hand, is a hypocrite. He's a user and liar, and he has used and lied to Peggy—deploying her desire to prove herself against a rigged system against her, not because he has no respect for her but because he has no respect for any woman. During this episode, Howard Stark spent his time wreaking havoc in Peggy's apartment building and ordering her around like a servant. And when his scheme to steal back a vial of Steve Rogers' blood was ultimately revealed, it was so very clear that he had viewed Peggy as just another girl he could manipulate. He claimed to respect her, but his intention was always to use her as his running dog—fetch this, fetch that—just like her coworkers do and with even less integrity. As Peggy rightly noted, when her colleagues tell her to do some menial task she at least knows that they mean what they say.

What we are seeing in Agent Carter is not just a depiction of sexism, but a deconstruction of it—an examination of its nuances and complications. This is not a black-and-white world but a world of greys and grays. And what has emerged thus far is the improbable notion that Agent Thompson—for all his faults—may well be a more redeemable character than Howard Stark is. Thompson knows the system is unfair, and he thinks Peggy is a fool for trying to change it, but he is neither completely oblivious to her merits nor entirely unsympathetic to her plight. By contrast Stark knows the system is unfair, and he thinks Peggy is a perfect mark because of it. He is surprisingly oblivious to her merits and unsympathetic to her plight. His first inclination was to take advantage of her weaknesses, and it never occurred to him that she would be able to look past his manipulation to see the truth. In the end, he had even less respect for Peggy than her SSR coworkers. And that's not exactly a direction I was expecting the show to go, though I'm rather glad that they have.

Review - Agent Carter: "Time and Tide"

This review contains spoilers.

Agent Carter is really, really killing it.

In this episode, Peggy and Jarvis set out to follow up a lead given to them by the mysterious (and now deceased) Leet Brannis, but before they can do so, Peggy is called upon to sacrifice her professional pride in order to save Jarvis from persecution at the hands of the SSR in one of the episode's most intriguing moments.

I've seen a couple of good metas that have pointed out how brilliantly the writers have fit the perception of Peggy as incompetent by her male coworkers into a pitch-perfect narrative that explores the institutional sexism of the period, and I'd like to expand on this theme a little bit. As has been noted, in "Time and Tide" Peggy flubbed in a major way to get Jarvis out of a difficult situation, and her flubbing was so obvious that if a man had done it he would have come under immediate suspicion. But in Peggy's case her fellow agents expect her to be incompetent, and so it never registers that her obviously deliberate actions are deliberate. It doesn't register even in spite of the fact that they know a) that she is an associate of their suspect, b) that she is on record as stating she thinks the SSR is after the wrong man, and c) that there is an unknown female operative in the mix who seemingly came out of nowhere. It's staring them right in the face, but they can't see it at all.

Now, it would be really easy for the writers to portray the male agents on the show as brainless hacks. (One of my major problems with Marvel's other spy show was that it regularly requires its characters to be temporarily, and inexplicably, bad at their jobs in order for the plot to move forward.) That's not the case in Agent Carter, however. As we have repeatedly seen, the male agents of the SSR are very good at their jobs—if occasionally unthinkingly impulsive. These men are smart; these men are experienced; these men are capable. From the chief on down, they have been shown to be highly observant, methodical in their analysis of evidence, and quick on the uptake. In the first three episodes, we've seen agents Sousa and Krzeminski pour over evidence with a fine tooth comb, leaving no stone unturned. We've seen Agent Thompson routinely move his investigations forward quickly using a combination of tactics (interrogation, carefully maintained personal contacts in the espionage world, etc.) and while coordinating the activities of an investigative team. We've seen Chief Dooley consider and implement good suggestions rather than simply give orders, and we've also seen him to be an expert investigator—as when he immediately noticed that Demidov's typewriter was unusual and had it impounded intact. Time and again it's been made very clear that these men know what they're doing.

And the fact that they so clearly know what they're doing makes their inability to recognize what Peggy is doing all the more explicitly rooted in sexism.

These men are not soft targets for Peggy to work her way around. These men are not tools for making Peggy's (and the writers') job easier. These men are rigorously trained and highly skilled operatives who are so blinded by the institutional framework of sexism in which they live their lives that they cannot see the rigorously trained and highly skilled operative who's going to save the damn day. At the same time, though, the fact that these men are sexist, and that their sexism has material costs (both to them and to the women around them) does not mean that they have no redeeming qualities or that they are inherently bad people. Just as it would be easy for the writers to make Peggy look smarter by making her male coworkers stupid, it would also be easy for them to paint these men with a stereotypical brush, and I am so thankful that they are not doing that.

The nuances of the show's writing came strongly to the fore with this week's handling of the death of Agent Krzeminski, who was not a nice man. The writers never shied away from this fact when dealing with Krzeminski. The reality of what kind person he had been was never glossed over, even as his death was treated with sympathy and respect, and what this indicates is that the writers and showrunners understand that the world is a place where people are complicated. Krzeminski was a sexist, abelist jerk. He was a cheat. He had a wife and a girlfriend and big, rude mouth, and (like a number of the men working under Dooley) he had a very flexible sense of ethics. But he was dedicated to his country, and he was good at his job, and he didn't deserve to die. And the fact that the writers acknowledged this, and showed Peggy acknowledging this, is so important. You can dislike someone and still feel sorrow over their untimely death. You can disagree with someone, and wish they would be different, and—failing that—wish them to stay the hell away from you, and still be cognizant of their fundamental right to exist.

The writers of Agent Carter are giving us so much more than caricatures and sloppy worldbuilding. They are giving us a time and a place and a story imbued with honest, relatable realism. And I am loving it.

Review - Agent Carter, "Now is Not the End" & "Bridge and Tunnel"

So I caught up with Agent Carter last night, and oh my gosh was it a breath of fresh air.

Obviously, quite a lot happened in the double-episode series premiere. The show established the main plot of SSR agent Peggy Carter attempting to clear her old friend, Howard Stark, of treason (with the assistance of Howard's butler, Jarvis), and quickly thickened it by introducing both the implication of a broader international conspiracy—with allusions to a shadowy organization called Leviathan, whose renegade agent Leet Brannis stole Howard Stark's weapons in the first place and whose unnamed assassin was sent to bring Brannis down and reacquire something—and a precarious situation for Peggy—with the SRR's acquisition of photographs that show Peggy, though only from behind, investigating the Stark case on her own. Nevertheless, the writing was super smart and the acting was fully on point throughout. Using a situation in which Peggy must turn traitor against her own organization to help her old friend prove his innocence in a weapons leak case as a framework, the show is taking on sexism in a pretty frank manner and challenging traditional concepts of masculinity as well with the inclusion of the Daniel Sousa character.

Furthermore, the writers have given these themes a beautiful continuity with the world of the Captain America films. There's definitely a sense here of looking at inequality through the lens of Erskine's philosophy about strength and weakness. ("The strong man who has known power all his life may lose respect for that power," Erskine tells Steve the night before his procedure, "but a weak man knows the value of strength—and he knows compassion.")

In The First Avenger, Erskine's philosophy (in the context of the movie as a whole) was mainly applied to foreign powers and foreign serum-enhanced megalomaniacs, with only brief glimpses of how that philosophy is reflected in, and applies to, American culture. Though such glimpses were present, they mainly served to give shape to the reality of Steve's lived experience. In Agent Carter, however, we're seeing a world populated and run by the strong men that Erskine was so leery of, and we're seeing what that world is like for people who do not fit within the narrow parameters established by that hegemonic system. Taken together with the show's subtle but ongoing allusions to the threat of America's unnamed enemies, this exploration of a world run by strong men represents a superb social commentary. Contrasted as these allusions are with an examination of the world taking shape under the hands of the strong men running the American justice system, the American intelligence system, and the American government, a story that seriously considers the disconnect between propaganda and reality in the US is emerging—a theme that is beautifully echoed in the "Captain America Radio Program" sequences that are interspersed throughout the tale and whose timing couldn't be better.

I seriously can't wait to see what the show has got in store for us next.

Representation Matters: The Legacy of Antoine Triplett in Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

This essay contains multiple spoilers for the midseason finale of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. If you have yet to watch episode 10 of season two, please proceed with caution.

Well, it appears that Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and I have come to a parting of the ways. After weeks of relentlessly taunting the audience with the death of a black supporting character (first with the potentially mortal wounding of Antoine Triplett in episode 8, and then with the uncertain fate of Alfonso Mackenzie in episode 9), the showrunners of AoS went whole hog with the death of the fan-favorite character Trip in its episode 10 midseason finale—sacrificing him to the cause of creating an even more tragic origin story for the already quite thoroughly tragic Skye.

I was not surprised. In fact, I’ve been waiting for Agent Trip to die almost from the moment he was introduced (1). When he first debuted, I expected him to be the stereotypical bad black guy who dies (2). When he was ultimately revealed to be on the side of righteousness, I expected him to be the stereotypical good black guy who dies. I predicted (on the basis of rumors that actor B.J. Britt might have been spotted on the set of Age of Ultron (3)) that Trip would be killed in that film. So in that respect I was actually overly optimistic about the length of time the producers of the show intended to keep his character alive. Perhaps I should have suspected that his death would come sooner rather than later when Lance Hunter was introduced and the show’s dramatic tension began to focus almost solely on him, but somehow I didn’t.

The death of Agent Triplett is part of a disturbing trend in primetime television that has been ongoing for quite some time and shows no signs of abating (4). Just two weeks prior to the death of Trip on AoS, the showrunners of Sleepy Hollow killed off a black supporting character of its own, the universally adored Captain Frank Irving—much to fans’ dismay. When these characters are killed the excuses are almost always the same: the producers wanted the show to have weight, wanted the characters’ actions to have consequences, and wanted the struggles to have stakes (5). Anyone familiar with the patterns of dramatic motion picture storytelling—whether for the small screen or the big screen—and with the justifications put forward by content creators when they make these types of decisions, will not be shocked by any of this. But for a show touted for its diversity, the death of a major and beloved black character feels like a particular betrayal.

The indifferent treatment of black characters on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is particularly ironic given that it is one of the most diverse shows currently airing on primetime (6), but if I've learned anything from my time watching this show it is that a basically diverse cast is not enough—you have to deploy that diverse cast in a thoughtful manner, and, let's be real here: AoS has never done that. As I have noted in previous recaps of the series, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has a major problem with its treatment of its minority characters, and especially its black characters. It has had this problem since the beginning of Season 1 when they introduced Mike Petersen—a black character whose story arc saw him disfigured, abducted, subjected to extreme body modification against his will, and forced to perform horrific acts on behalf of a clandestine military organization in order to preserve the life of his son (who was also abducted), and who has since disappeared from the narrative entirely while the showrunners pursue other storylines. For those of us who went into the show expecting to see the unfolding of a superhero narrative for Mike Petersen, this handling of his character was extremely disturbing.

Other prominent black characters, like Akela Amador and Alfonso “Mack” Mackenzie, have been handled indifferently as well. Akela, like Mike Petersen, was a victim of abduction, subjected to body modification, and forced to work as a criminal, and she too has since disappeared from the narrative—having served her purpose as a tool to explore Phil Coulson’s evolving personality in the aftermath of the Battle of New York. Mack was possessed by an alien intelligence, robbed of his bodily autonomy, and left for dead by his teammates. He escaped death via as deus-ex-machina, presumably because he is set to become a key element in the struggle for trust between two white characters on the show—Lance Hunter and Bobbi Morse (7).

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has received a lot of praise for its prominent inclusion of minority characters, particularly Asian characters Melinda May and Skye—and the fact that the show puts an emphasis on these two women of color is indeed a wonderful thing to see (8). But given that practically no other minorities are privileged in this way, their inclusion only serves to reinforce the notion that you cannot simply fill your roster with a bunch of token characters and call it a day. You have to use them in ways that do not demean them. Having a couple of “strong (Asian) female characters” is not enough—not when you wantonly torture and kill your black characters (not to mention a significant number of your other female characters and your queer characters); not when everything is still about a bunch of cis-straight white dudes. Phil Coulson went to the ends of the earth to save Skye when she was mortally wounded in season one, but when Mack fell to his presumed death a mere two episodes ago, Coulson seemed immediately ready to sacrifice him to a higher ideal. The difference in those two attitudes is striking, and while such a contrast may seem trivial: it is not. This callous treatment of black characters on television is a direct reflection of (and subtle justification for) the callous treatment of black people every day.

Now I’m not saying that you should be as mad about this as you are about the actual killing of black men and women in the US. What I’m saying, though, is that representation matters, and this is the flip side of Whoopi Goldberg seeing Nichelle Nichols on Star Trek and being able to image herself in the future for the first time (9). This is young black men and women seeing themselves depicted as cannon fodder—as disposable to their society. And they aren’t the only ones who see that, either. The young men and women who will grow up to be the police who brutalize those black men and women, who will grow up to be the prosecutors and judges who don't see the need to provide those victims with justice, who will grow up to be the you and me who ignore the suffering of our brethren in favor of the comfortable story we like to tell ourselves about how far beyond racism we’ve come in the last fifty years? They see it, too.

Representation matters. And I’m not going to support creators who don't understand that.

Notes:

1) If you go to my tumblr and do a search of posts tagged “don’t-you-fucking-dare,” you will find that every single one pertains to Agent Antoine Triplett, my love for him, and my fear that Marvel was ultimately going to kill him off to further the character development of someone else in their Cinematic Universe.

2) This expectation was not unfounded. According to a recent interview with BJ Britt, Trip was intended to die with Bill Paxton’s villainous John Garrett at the end of season one. See Terri Schwartz, “‘Agents of SHIELD’:B.J. Britt’s Agent Triplett Was Supposed to Die in Season 1, zap2it (December 10, 2014).

3) Kelly West, “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Actor Spotted onAvengers 2 Set,” Cinema Blend (June14, 2014).

4) Monika Bartyzel, “TV Needs to Stop Treating BlackCharacters as Expendable,” The Week (December12, 2014).

5) Maurissa Tancharoen gave this as the reason for Trip’s death; Mark Goffman gave it as the reason for Frank Irving’s. See Eric Goldman,“Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD Creators on the Midseason Finale, Inhumans, andSkye’s Identity,” IGN (December 9,2014); and Maureen Ryan, “‘Sleepy Hollow’ Fall Finale Secrets Revealed: Head Honcho onthe Big Shocker and What’s Next,” HuffPost Entertainment (December 1, 2014).

6) Prior to the death of Agent Trip, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was the fourth most diverse show on television, with POC characters comprising 39% of the main cast, and 40% of the recurring cast. For more information on AoS and how it stacks up to other shows, see this post on diversity in television.

7) The show’s handling of Raina, another black character, has also been decidedly mixed. Though she has sometimes been shown to be a highly intelligent and complex villain, she has also been subject to gross bodily harm and deprived of her bodily autonomy by both the heroes and the villains of the show. Our last glimpse of her indicated that, in contrast to Skye—who transformed into an Inhuman who still looks basically human—she will become a physically monstrous figure in the forthcoming half of the season.

8) I could get into the stereotypical handling of May as a distant, macho, and almost masculine character type who is so often mistaken for a “strong female character,” but that’s a whole other essay entirely.

9) Dave Nemetz, “Whoopi Goldberg Explains Why She Wanted to Be on ‘StarTrek,’ Yahoo TV (June 24, 2014).


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Fridging, Manpain, and the Cis-White-Dude Hero: Lazy Storytelling in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Poor Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

When the show debuted last year, they had the so-called perfect team setup: the world-weary, yet secretly soft-touch upperclassmen, Coulson and May; the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and brilliant (and British!) scientists, Simmons and Fitz; the idealistic, be the change you want to see in the world newcomer, Skye; and the hyper-masculine, stoic yet tragic, cis-white-dude hero, Ward.

You just can’t lose with that many character boxes checked, right?

But something happened on the way to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. becoming a network hit. The cis-white-dude hero fell flat. Oh, sure, he had his defenders in fandom—many of whom continued to support him even after the writers switched gears and made him the villain his character was far more suited to be (Captain America: The Winter Soldier says “you’re welcome,” by the way)—but for a lot of people he never completely clicked.

By contrast, Agent Antoine Triplett (affectionately referred to as Trip), who was brought in mid-season as an affable foil to Ward’s taciturn loner, was an almost immediate hit whose popularity only increased as the season progressed and plot twists revealed the true natures of Ward, his mentor Garrett, and Agent Victoria Hand (may she rest in peace). Initially treated with suspicion by some members of the team, including Coulson, Trip repeatedly proved himself to be loyal, dependable, and a complete and total badass. He turned out to be so popular, in fact, that Marvel is rumored to have given him a role of as-yet-undetermined significance in their upcoming film Age of Ultron (1).

You’d think that B.J. Britt, the actor who portrays Agent Trip, would have been a shoe-in to join the regular cast of the show in season two. (During a Q&A hosted by Comic Book Resources before the season two premiere, in fact, more than one person asked about the possibility of Britt joining the show as a regular cast member (2).) But it wasn’t him. Instead, the new member of the regular cast was an English actor named Nick Blood who had been brought in to portray Lance Hunter.

It’s not necessarily curious that the writers of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. would bring in Hunter—he’s an established character in the 616 universe with ties to S.H.I.E.L.D.—but it is curious that they would bring him in as a regular, and obviously with every intention of sliding him into the hero role that was vacated by Ward, when they already have someone—an awesome someone, a someone who is adored by the fans—waiting to take that role.

Think about it.

Agent Trip is, as has been noted, loyal, dependable, and a badass. He’s witty, he’s warm, he’s an adorable tech geek, and he’s a freaking legacy. His grandfather was a Howling Commando, for Stan Lee’s sake. He should be the guy. But he’s not the guy. Lance Hunter is.

There’s an elephant in the room, people: Antoine Triplett is an African-American character.

Lance Hunter is a British mercenary with a heart of gold; he’s a man with a checkered past who just needs someone to believe in him. He’s a cis-white-dude, and he’s ready to be a hero. And, more importantly, the cis-white-dudes who traditionally run everything in the entertainment industry are ready for him to be the hero. They aren’t ready, in any way, shape, or form, for Antoine Triplett to be the hero.

There’s so much wrong with this that it’s hard to believe it gets worse.

But it does.

The casting news about the introduction of Lance Hunter was made during the Marvel Television panel at this year’s San Diego Comic Con. At the same time, another piece of casting news was made: legendary fantasy icon Lucy Lawless would play the role of Isabelle Hartley—another, albeit extremely minor, character taken from the pages of the comics (3). This news was very well received by just about everyone, and Marvel quite quickly set about the task of fanning the flames of viewer excitement—releasing a first look at Lawless as Hartley in late August (4) and a spate of interviews with her teasing her character in the week leading up to the season premiere (5).

Imagine everyone’s surprise, then, when Isabelle Hartley debuted in episode one and promptly died a rather horrible death (6).

At first, I wasn’t sure what had happened. “So is Lucy Lawless going to come back to life with superpowers?” I asked my roommate, who was watching the premiere with me. “Are we going to have, like, a zombie Lucy Lawless who’s kind of like zombie John Cho on Sleepy Hollow?”

The way Lawless’ character had died made such a scenario barely possible, “But still,” I thought to myself. “Stranger things have happened. This is a comic book, after all.”

In that moment, even such a flimsy origin story was preferable to the alternative: that Isabelle Hartley had been fridged (7) in order to advance the storyline of her male counterpart, Lance Hunter—the cis-white-dude ready to be a hero and in desperate need of a sympathetic backstory to grease the wheels of fan acceptance.

As episode two premiered, however, and Hunter went on his crusade to ensure a proper burial for “Izzy” and do the right thing by her and her surviving relatives, the grim reality of what the writers of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. had done began to sink in.

They fridged a female character, played by a prominent and beloved actress (whose death was therefore guaranteed to elicit an emotional response on the part of the viewers), for the sole purpose of providing their new cis-white-dude hero with a conveniently tragic backstory (8).

Lance Hunter might be a mercenary son-of-a-bitch, but deep down all he really cares about is doing the right thing—because deep down he’s got a heart of gold and he was deeply, deeply hurt by the death of his friend. And Coulson can see it. Coulson—the everyman stand-in for the Marvel fandom—is ready to give Hunter the deep and meaningful speech about joining the team and making a difference. And Hunter is ready to hear it, because he’s the hero we’ve been waiting for. He’s the guy that made regular cast, the generic cis-white-dude hero that every show supposedly needs if it wants to succeed.

Don’t you just love him?

There’s a blatant calculation at work in these narrative (and casting) choices that reveal a profound lack of respect for the audience’s intelligence. It’s very clear that the writers are essentially trying to get a Ward-type character right. Viewers seem to like British people so let’s make him British (9), and the straight-man archetype didn’t play well so let’s shoot for funny-man this time, and clearly he needs to be someone people can empathize with right out of the gate, so let’s show him being devastated by the sudden death of a character who is played by a beloved actress. Because even though the viewers know nothing of the Isabelle Hartley character, their love for the actress will transfer to her and, consequently, to her friend, and we’ll finally have our perfect team-up courtesy of some well-placed manpain (10).

And meanwhile, Antoine Triplett—the guy who by all rights should be the guy but isn’t—is left to badass his way around the show’s background scenery, being the dude you can always count on, a member of the recurring cast, probably waiting to make his Age of Ultron sacrifice play.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Lance Hunter will grow to be a character of real depth. Maybe Antoine Triplett will become a fixture of the show for seasons to come and make the regular cast roster in season three or four (if the show gets that far). Maybe the writers have plans that I can’t yet appreciate and will heartily approve when they finally do come to pass.

But the fact that Antoine Triplett has been passed over now is a problem. And the fact that Isabelle Hartley has been fridged in order to legitimize the character who has taken his place is also a problem.

And those problems will stay with the show until someone in charge steps up and works to solve them. Ball's in your court, Marvel. Let's see if you've got what it takes.

Notes:

1)  Kelly West,“Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Actor Spotted on the Avengers 2 Set,” Cinema Blend (June 14, 2014).

2) “‘Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD’ Showrunners Answer YourPre-Season Premiere Questions,” ComicBook Resources (September 23, 2014).

3) Andrew Wheeler, “Agents of SHIELD Blooper Reel, CastingNews, Mockingbird, and Agent Carter Directors Revealed,” Comics Alliance (July 26, 2014)

4) Kevin Fitzpatrick, “Marvels ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’Season 2: First Look at Lucy Lawless as Isabelle Hartley.” Screen Crush (August 26, 2014).

5) A Google search of the terms “Lucy Lawless” or “Lucy Lawless Agents of Shield” will return a large selection of these articles, which were posted mainly in the third week of September 2014.

6) Isabelle Hartley has essentially been confirmed as really and truly dead. See Nick Tylwalk, “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: In Case YouWondered, Lucy Lawless’ Character is Really Dead,” Bam! Smack! Pow! (September 25, 2014).

7) For more on the “fridging” trope, see “Stuffed into theFridge” TV Tropes (accessed October19, 2014) and “Women in Refrigerators,” TV Tropes (accessed October 19, 2014).

8) The use of Isabelle Hartley as a mere plot point, and not as a full-fledged character, becomes even more problematic when you consider that the Hartley character is thought to have been modeled on a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Isabelle from the original comics, who was the girlfriend of canonically-LGBTQ character Victoria Hand—herself fridged near the end of AoS season one. This, combined with the casting of Lawless, who is most famous for her portrayal of lesbian character Xena in Xena: Warrior Princess, suggests that the creators have undercurrents of queerphobia running through their writing as well.

9) As an attempt to forestall any potential but-Lance-Hunter-IS-British-in-the-comics rebuttals, let me make it clear that when I say “let’s make him British,” the “him” I am referring to is “the Ward-type character” and not the character of Lance Hunter specifically.

10) As of right now, the perfect team-up is somewhat compromised by plot developments from the end of season one and the beginning of season two. (I would argue that it has been compromised in a potentially good way.) However, for the purposes of this essay I have omitted discussion of those developments because they are not directly relevant.

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Redemption in the Marvel Universe: Grant Ward and Bucky Barnes

The following essay was originally posted to my tumblr blog.

Warning: Here Be Spoilers.

In a recent interview, Jeph Loeb—the executive producer of the show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Head of Television for Marvel Entertainment—spoke about the possibility of a redemption arc for the AoS character Grant Ward.

One quote of Loeb's, in particular, caused something of a furor on tumblr:

The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) has done things that are far more heinous than anything Grant Ward has ever done as far as we know, and yet, at the end of the movie, you’re rooting for him to come back on the side of the angels. (1)

While not outraged by this statement, I am genuinely conflicted about it.

On the one hand, Grant Ward is a horrible person, who has chosen to do horrible things and who—as of the season 1 AoS finale—has demonstrated no sense of remorse for his actions. Thus, in my opinion, there is no redemption for Grant Ward as he currently exists.

On the other hand, however, redemption arcs are the bread-and-butter of comic book stories. Many, many people who are superheroes in comics today started off as supervillains or have gone through supervillain phases: Rogue, Emma Frost, Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton, Magneto, Scarlett Witch. Alternatively, many superheroes have fallen into supervillainy and subsequently recovered (or not): Charles Xavier, Jean Grey, Bishop, Tony Stark (subject to dispute, I know, but in my opinion everyone on the side of the Superhuman Registration Act in Civil War counts as having a supervillain phase, and I particularly dislike 616 Tony Stark—deal with it).

What’s troubling to me about Loeb’s statement is not that it implies a possible redemption arc for Grant Ward, but that it seems to do so without an awareness of what makes a redemption arc plausible. People are rooting for Bucky Barnes not because they are capable of looking past the crimes he committed as the Winter Soldier but because they understand him to have been nearly as victimized by those actions as the people he killed were. His experience of years of torture and mindcontrol at the hands of HYDRA (in the MCU) constitutes a viable excuse for his actions. Simply put, he was not in control of himself when he committed those crimes—i.e. he is not culpable for those crimes.

However, while Bucky Barnes is clearly a victim, Grant Ward is clearly not (2). There are explanations for why he did the things he did, yes, but there are no excuses. (Recognizing the difference between an explanation and an excuse is, I feel, absolutely crucial to understanding a character like Grant Ward.) As a result of this, a majority of people are not rooting for Ward. They understand that he, unlike Bucky Barnes, is fully culpable for his actions. Now, I’m not saying that Ward cannot be redeemed, but redemption is an uphill battle. Even for someone like Bucky Barnes, who wasn’t in control of himself during his time as the Winter Soldier, it is a task that takes time and dedication. (And this is another major reason why people root so hard for Bucky; in the comics—and no doubt in the films—he took [will take] full responsibility for his actions as the Winter Soldier and actively, tirelessly worked to make things right.)

In all honesty, I could see a redemption arc for Grant Ward that played out over the course of several (later) seasons, but not one that happened immediately within the second season. But if he did go on to have a redemption arc, his culpability for his crimes would mean that he would not be starting in the same place that Bucky Barnes did/will.

There’s a lot of room to explore interesting themes with the character of Grant Ward and the characters who knew him and were betrayed by him. I think he has the potential to make a great ongoing villain—the sort of character audiences love to hate. The kind of villain whose past relationship with our heroes makes for a lot of high drama and emotional resonance and whose continued presence provides room for the exploration of themes of guilt, mistrust, and grief in the wake of betrayal (and attempted, or hoped-for, redemption) that comic books do so well.

But this quote by Jeph Loeb definitely makes me nervous. As it stands right now, Deathlok has more remorse for his actions than Grant Ward does, so if they’re thinking redemption arc for Ward then they’re going to have to be extremely careful about how they handle it. And rushing is absolutely not the way to go.

Notes:
1) Vanessa Frith, "'Agents of Shield' Season 2 Spoilers: How Much Will Ward Feature [POLL]? Execs Discuss Skye & Ward's Relationship [VIDEO]," Enstars (July 18, 2014).
2) I realize that this is a potentially inflammatory statement. However, I stand by my assertion that Grant Ward is not a victim. He was at one time a victim of child abuse, but having suffered abuse does not absolve him of responsibility for his crimes. The stereotypical character who does bad things because bad things happened to them is an exceedingly sloppy narrative device that, in my opinion, perpetuates extremely damaging stereotypes about people who have been abused. Abuse cannot be framed as an excuse for acts of violence; to do so is to insinuate that anyone who has suffered abuse cannot help but enact a vicious circle of abuse. There must be a point where an abused person who goes on to abuse others ceases to be considered a victim and comes to be seen as a victimizer. You may still feel a sense of sympathy for them—an understanding of the context in which they do the things they do—but you cannot absolve them of their actions.


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