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Weak Woman Characters: Peggy Carter (Captain America)
You are probably saying: „What Peggy and weak? Isn't she the one who shoots so well and storms the Hydra Base at the end? You are out of your mind!“
I am not implying that she is physically weak, just that she is a weakly written character. While there is some personality to be found, she is treated by the writers as the other. She is a woman first and a person second. Her role is to nurture the Captain and to be his love interest. Her action scenes are there to give the appearance that she is a strong character.
For example: After the Hydra spy killed the doctor and took off, she is the one allowed to go after him. We see her do a marvellous shot at the driver of the escape vehicle. Then we see her standing in the middle of the road willing to die to stop the guy from escaping. I know the film teaches us that stupid and needlessly laying down your life is heroic, it is not her being incredibly dumb in this scene what annoys me. The fact, that she had to be saved by the male lead, is what reduces her from a strong character to a damsel in distress.
Another scene where she gets to be “strong” according to a lot of comments I read, is that scene when she punches the pathetic recruit who is coming on to her. To me that scene is just pathetic and it shows everything but strength. Resorting to unnecessary violence is weakness. What other than the physical ability to punch someone is shown, when she decks someone who is not going to hit back nor expecting it? But heh, women hitting men is hilarious, isn't it?*
At this point I already decided not to care about her. However, I was forced to go back to her and take a closer look. What I saw troubled me even more.
I don't mind that the colonel accused her of helping Steve because she has a crush, however, by making her have one, her whole reason that she did it because she believed in him was automatically tainted. Personally, I think both can apply, she did it because of her belief and not her crush and still had one. But don't tell me, that this is what everyone is taking from that scene.
There was no need to have them be love interests in the first place; of course Steve “dying” is made seem more tragic because she is sitting there crying. Although I got to wonder, was the romantic relationship really necessary to achieve the same impact? Furthermore, the whole thing seems somewhat empty in contrast with Steve looking around modern day New York at the end. You know when he is stating that he is okay just slightly miffed because he missed his date.
I know today we have problems showing people dating and loving as persons in their own right and instead go for showing them as others: man and woman. So maybe I should not be too hard on the film emphasizing the gender binaries considering the time. Nonetheless, the whole romance angle between them leaves me somewhat cold for this very reason.
Just think about it, Peggy realises that Steve has no confidence with woman, he admits to her that the longest he ever talked to one was her. Still, she acts like a whiny little teenager, when another woman kisses him and spouts of sentences like: You still don't know how to talk to women. What does that tell us?
First, she is incredibly childish and insecure. Rather than act like an adult and talk to Steve about what she saw, she goes off and fires a gun at him**. Then there is this whole idea that a woman needs to be talked to as a women and not as a person. Worse, she expect to be treated as a woman rather than a person.
On its own, it would just have been realistic in light of social conditioning but with the insecurity factor added, it just gives me really bad vibes. Just reduces her to the silly needlessly jealous girlfriend stereotype, since we the audience of course are shown that he has only eyes for her.
That is not the end of it. The double standard between the characters is not just apparent in her request to be talked to as a woman, but in contrast to the Captain. As I already mentioned, she is allowed to cry and grief, while the Captain is either not shown grieving or if he is, Peggy actually lectures him about it. If you recall, his best friend just died on a mission and Peggy comes in and tells him by grieving for Bucky, Steve is not respecting him. Which is pretty hypocritical compared to her grieving for Steve after his crash into the icy waters. (Which not only I think was lame.)
It is not that I am saying crying is a sign of weakness but it is portrayed here as a female trait. Playing into the stereotype, that manly men are not allowed to cry. While she obviously is. Col Phillips is not telling her that she is disrespectful to Steve's decision to crash the plane. So it's not her crying that makes her weak but the fact that she is permitted to while Steve is not.
Most of these instances by themselves would not be so bad, but all together are painting a picture of a very weak character who is only there to promote how awesome the male lead is. That sucks.
*Picture the situation with reversed genders and tell me if you still think that a male superior punching a female recruit is funny.
** Again a pathetic and weak action that for someone reason is presented to us as cool.
I am not implying that she is physically weak, just that she is a weakly written character. While there is some personality to be found, she is treated by the writers as the other. She is a woman first and a person second. Her role is to nurture the Captain and to be his love interest. Her action scenes are there to give the appearance that she is a strong character.
For example: After the Hydra spy killed the doctor and took off, she is the one allowed to go after him. We see her do a marvellous shot at the driver of the escape vehicle. Then we see her standing in the middle of the road willing to die to stop the guy from escaping. I know the film teaches us that stupid and needlessly laying down your life is heroic, it is not her being incredibly dumb in this scene what annoys me. The fact, that she had to be saved by the male lead, is what reduces her from a strong character to a damsel in distress.
Another scene where she gets to be “strong” according to a lot of comments I read, is that scene when she punches the pathetic recruit who is coming on to her. To me that scene is just pathetic and it shows everything but strength. Resorting to unnecessary violence is weakness. What other than the physical ability to punch someone is shown, when she decks someone who is not going to hit back nor expecting it? But heh, women hitting men is hilarious, isn't it?*
At this point I already decided not to care about her. However, I was forced to go back to her and take a closer look. What I saw troubled me even more.
I don't mind that the colonel accused her of helping Steve because she has a crush, however, by making her have one, her whole reason that she did it because she believed in him was automatically tainted. Personally, I think both can apply, she did it because of her belief and not her crush and still had one. But don't tell me, that this is what everyone is taking from that scene.
There was no need to have them be love interests in the first place; of course Steve “dying” is made seem more tragic because she is sitting there crying. Although I got to wonder, was the romantic relationship really necessary to achieve the same impact? Furthermore, the whole thing seems somewhat empty in contrast with Steve looking around modern day New York at the end. You know when he is stating that he is okay just slightly miffed because he missed his date.
I know today we have problems showing people dating and loving as persons in their own right and instead go for showing them as others: man and woman. So maybe I should not be too hard on the film emphasizing the gender binaries considering the time. Nonetheless, the whole romance angle between them leaves me somewhat cold for this very reason.
Just think about it, Peggy realises that Steve has no confidence with woman, he admits to her that the longest he ever talked to one was her. Still, she acts like a whiny little teenager, when another woman kisses him and spouts of sentences like: You still don't know how to talk to women. What does that tell us?
First, she is incredibly childish and insecure. Rather than act like an adult and talk to Steve about what she saw, she goes off and fires a gun at him**. Then there is this whole idea that a woman needs to be talked to as a women and not as a person. Worse, she expect to be treated as a woman rather than a person.
On its own, it would just have been realistic in light of social conditioning but with the insecurity factor added, it just gives me really bad vibes. Just reduces her to the silly needlessly jealous girlfriend stereotype, since we the audience of course are shown that he has only eyes for her.
That is not the end of it. The double standard between the characters is not just apparent in her request to be talked to as a woman, but in contrast to the Captain. As I already mentioned, she is allowed to cry and grief, while the Captain is either not shown grieving or if he is, Peggy actually lectures him about it. If you recall, his best friend just died on a mission and Peggy comes in and tells him by grieving for Bucky, Steve is not respecting him. Which is pretty hypocritical compared to her grieving for Steve after his crash into the icy waters. (Which not only I think was lame.)
It is not that I am saying crying is a sign of weakness but it is portrayed here as a female trait. Playing into the stereotype, that manly men are not allowed to cry. While she obviously is. Col Phillips is not telling her that she is disrespectful to Steve's decision to crash the plane. So it's not her crying that makes her weak but the fact that she is permitted to while Steve is not.
Most of these instances by themselves would not be so bad, but all together are painting a picture of a very weak character who is only there to promote how awesome the male lead is. That sucks.
*Picture the situation with reversed genders and tell me if you still think that a male superior punching a female recruit is funny.
** Again a pathetic and weak action that for someone reason is presented to us as cool.