Why Agent Carter matters

by mollykl

The ABC show Agent Carter, the continuing adventures of Agent Margaret “Peggy” Carter, post Captain America, was cancelled this week much to the chagrin of those of who value, oh, good writing, believable and complex characters and strong storylines.

As I’ve mention before, in “You’ve come a long way, baby”  Agent Carter was unusual in today’s t.v. programming in that it allowed it’s characters to be layered and complicated. The bright colors of the sets and costumes belied the darkness of the storylines, of the everything the characters had seen and done during the war, and the reality of going back to “normal life”.   The show was the perfect reminder that the right thing can be done for the wrong reasons, and vice versa. Peggy is not perfect, her male co-workers can be assholes, a couple of the female antagonists are psychopaths, the good guys have dark secrets and the bad guys are sympathetic in their own ways.

And that’s just the show in general – that doesn’t even begin to get to the heart of Peggy herself. Here was a character for the ages – and one that made you wonder why it’s 2016 and we’re only NOW getting our “Wonder Woman” movie made, why there’s still practically zip in the way of “Black Widow” toys and don’t get me started on how Rey, the main-freaking-character in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, was cut out of the merchandising. Watching Agent Carter and witnessing the open hostility that was faced by women, on the job, in the street, and well, everywhere is a reminder of how far we’ve come. Watching Peggy deal with that shit is a reminder of how it’s done. Given that we’ve got a presidential candidate who has publicly referred to women as “a piece of ass” I think it’s safe to say that while we have come a long way we have a long way yet to go. Peggy handled it all. This is the hero we, not just women but all of us, need. For that matter, I’ll say that both Dottie and Whitney are the villains we need – they are each in their own way reflections of Peggy – smart, skilled, in Dottie’s case expendable, and in Whitney’s case undervalued and overlooked.

Peggy’s not a real person – I get that – but we need  characters real and fictional to learn and grow from and women need to be represented. I have plenty of real women who I look up to and who inspire me: the “Night Witches”, Eleanor Roosevelt, Stephanie Kwolek (inventor of Kevlar), Misty Copeland, and Lillian Hellman, to name a few. At least for a little while I had a make-believe one who kicked ass while wearing red lipstick.

“Look at what we can do”

by mollykl

We have one of those movie dvd rental boxes at the front of the store I work at, and the previews for each movie will stay for months. So everyday I pass by…and see the Tibetan prayer flags, the perfect blue sky, and the beautiful mountain scenery…and I know what’s coming. The previews for Everest play every day, every ten minutes, and have for months now. Most days I manage to hold it together, but some days I don’t, and for that I credit some really good writing by Jon Krakauer.

One day I was getting my lunch and watching the screen and the checker said to me, “Well, that’s just stupid. Why would they do that – they put themselves in danger.”

So why do people climb mountains? The simple answer might just be: because it’s there. Because once you’ve seen it, how can you not want to? Isn’t that the whole point of being human? To try the impossible, until it is no longer impossible? Climbing, free diving, exploring – these things move humanity forward, they help us to understand our world and our place in it. It’s a physical philosophy of sorts, and just as important as the purely mental. Seeing what we are capable of is inspiring. “Look at what we can do.” There’s a sense of pride and satisfaction in seeing what we are capable of.

20 years ago, on May 10-11 several climbing teams were on Mt. Everest, either ascending from or attempting to summit and when the storm hit everything went to hell. As luck would have, or not, both a journalist, Krakauer, and an IMAX team, were on Everest, at that time. 8 people died.

There have been worse incidents on Everest since then. Higher death tolls. But the drive to climb the highest peak in the world, to literally touch the sky, is everlasting.

 

The quote “Look at what we can do” is from Aaron Sorkin’s days on “Sports Night” and the episode “The Quality of Mercy at 29k”.