“What I liked about it when I read the script was that the relationship seemed to be very clearly based on the premise that they both had limitations that they were struggling and fighting against, just to be able to their jobs. So for him, as “skinny Steve”, he wasn’t taken seriously, wasn’t given the chance, was kind of always humiliated. And with Peggy, the fact that she was a woman in a male dominated environment at that time, was just a fulltime job overcoming the prejudice of that as well as just trying to do her job. So I think it was clear in the script that it wasn’t just the oversexualized, sexy love interest but a relationship that was connected through their inner struggle.” — Hayley Atwell on what caught her attention the first time she read the script for Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
So who else wants to see the scene where Chaos makes his demands known to Parker and Sophie? With Nate, Eliot, and Hardison just standing around waiting gleefully for the fallout.
Right?! Women as complex, layered characters: this is how you do it. I also love this bit of the DVD commentary floating around:
JOHN ROGERS: And also, this is an informal rule, is, y’know, and we’ll probably wind up breaking it eventually but, I have a real bug up my ass about female characters being in danger. Like hostage. And it’s kind of the rule we don’t give up.
CHRIS DOWNEY: Is it just female? I thought it was in general.
JOHN ROGERS: No, very specific. If our women get kidnapped, they either rescue themselves or they kick ass on the way out of the rescue. If you see, every time our girls get grabbed there’s a punch thrown or- No, I- I hate that crap.
ASDJDSASKL JOHN ROGERS, LET ME LOVE YOU.
Even the female villains are handled fairly. Their monstrous crimes are committed because they are greedy, power hungry, or callously ambitious—failings that can apply to all of humanity. In other words, they are never villainized just because they are women. They are not sainted either: women are shown to be capable of the same evil as anyone else, and are taken just as seriously.
Even the most likely candidate for female character assassination, Nate’s ex wife Maggie, turns the cliché on its head: she is literally everybody’s favorite. Even Sophie’s. I LOVE THAT IDEA SO MUCH I HAVE NO WORDS FOR IT. Another typical evil female caricature, The Catty Workplace Bitch, is subverted in Tara. She has all the signs at first: her overt sexuality and hidden motives make the audience suspicious of her, but she turns out to be a genuine ally in the end. And even before we know that, even when the crew doesn’t like her and she doesn’t like them, Tara is able to work with them like the damn professional she is. HOW GREAT IS THAT?! IT’S SO GREAT I JUST WANNA HUG THIS SHOW SO MUCH FOREVER. GAH.
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