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booksandabeer · 4 months

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Ramblings on Fandom: Peggy Carter, Steve Rogers, Delusional Shippers, and Alleged Misogyny

So with the release of Season 2 of What If…? emotions are once again running high, the outrage is outraging, and people are up in arms about the whole Captain Carter situation. While I do think that some reactions are a little overblown, even needlessly aggressive in tone to the unfortunate detriment of their otherwise convincing arguments, I share the confusion and frustration about the sudden centering of a long-dead & never excessively popular character, the sidelining of the Steve-Bucky friendship, and the as-inexplicable-as-it-is-total exclusion of Sam Wilson as Captain America. However, I’m not here to talk about the show because (1) I haven’t watched this season and have no plans to (why waste time torturing myself with something I know I’ll hate?) and (2) other people have already written dozens of metas about it, so what could I possibly add at this point.

What I do want need to talk about (lest I explode) is something that has irritated me for a long time and that is now happening again: Every time someone even mildly criticizes Peggy Carter, expresses doubts about her suitability as a heroine, or even just questions her disproportionate importance to the franchise post-EG, inevitably a certain section of fans will come out of the woodwork to immediately throw around accusations of misogyny and yell about how we’re all just a bunch of delusional Stuckies who are mad that she got "in the way" of our ship. Sigh.

This is gonna be a long one, so I’ll put it under a cut. Rant incoming. You've been warned. If you don't want to read, simply scroll on by.

First of all, let me state very clearly that I’m not debating the existence of misogyny and sexism in fandom spaces—or in the media from which these fandoms originate. At all. It exists, it’s a thing, I’m not denying that. Which is exactly why it frustrates me endlessly to see these accusations thrown around as a gotcha! argument to shut down any and all critical debate around a female character. All it does in the end is escalate rhetoric and radicalize attitudes.

In the case of Peggy Carter, specifically her treatment by Stucky shippers, I’ve always found 'misogyny as a motive' to be a largely unsubstantiated accusation.¹ Now, I neither presume nor do I want to speak for the entirety of Stuckynation, so I will not claim that there aren't corners of the fandom where people discuss her in ways that I find off-putting and deeply unserious, but I will say this: If you genuinely believe that disliking one (1) fictional female character equals “hating all women” and wanting to suppress and marginalize their presence in fiction and real life alike—then I think we need to take that word away from you until you’ve learned its true meaning.

You might also want to ask yourself how exactly reducing a female character to a mute trophy wife or a heroine who has to act out her love interest’s recycled storylines helps your feminist fight.

As to the “standing in the way of your ship” part of the argument. Very simply put: No character can stand in the way of something if there never ever was “a way” to that something to begin with. “Being mad” implies that there was a reasonable expectation that wasn’t met, a substantive hope that was crushed. Now, I’ve said this before and I’ll gladly say it again a million more times: No Stucky shipper in their right mind ever truly thought that there was even the slightest chance that Marvel Studios owned by the Walt Disney Company would allow Steve “Captain America” Rogers and Bucky “Winter Soldier” Barnes to be canonized as an explicitly romantic pairing in their billion dollar franchise. Be serious. That was never in the cards. I wish we all lived in a world where it was, but we don’t, and it wasn’t. The best we could ever hope for was for Steve and Bucky to get a good, satisfying, in-character ending. And if, in Steve’s case, that would’ve included hints (or more) about a possible rekindling of his, uh, aborted romance with Sharon—then so be it. But we never got any of that. The characters never got any of that. Instead they sent Steve into 1950s suburban hell, literally trapped him behind a white picket fence, and condemned him to a life of passivity and lies, all so he could be married to a woman he barely knew a long time ago in a completely different world; who built and ran a top-to-bottom Hydra-infested organization, but apparently never noticed that there was anything wrong with her life's work. For decades. Great. As for Bucky—well, we’ve all seen the devastatingly grim-faced, utterly lonely, and deeply sad version of him that was presented to us in TFATWS. Happy endings all around, I guess.

So. Am I mad that Steve didn’t get to ride into the rainbow-colored sunset with Bucky at the end of EG? No. Because that was never going to happen anyway. Would I have been mad had he ended up with Sharon or another female character in the 21st century? Also no. Granted, I wouldn’t have been ecstatic about it, but mad? No. But am I mad that Steve ended up with this specific female character under these specific circumstances as presented in canon? Fuck yeah, I am.

The thing is: I personally believe Steve and Peggy to be fundamentally incompatible when it comes to the way they view the world and their respective places in it; their morals and values; their capacity for compassion and empathy; their ability and willingness to compartmentalize, compromise, and collaborate with people and institutions whose ethics and/or politics do not align with their own. I have a real hard time believing that a relationship between these two (or worse, a hasty marriage) could be either happy or long-lasting.

I don’t believe Peggy to be inherently evil, I don’t hate her, I simply think she operates within a different moral framework than Steve (and even genuinely believes it to be a righteous one).² Your mileage may vary, but I personally happen to find that framework reprehensible, even indecent, and ultimately dangerous. After all, over the course of the 20th century, we have seen exactly where that kind of “the ends justify the means” brand of pragmatism leads—over and over again. Not to mention that the people who use this line of argument to defend characters like Peggy (or real-life politicians for that matter) never seem to want to look too closely at who gets to define what "the ends" are in the first place and who decides when they've finally been met.

(Never. The answer is never.)

And to be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with depicting, and even centering a narrative around a morally (dark)gray character—oftentimes it’s actually the more interesting option—but you cannot at the same time claim that they are purely good and should be only admired as such when their actions literally tell an entirely different story.

So, no. I will not accept Peggy Carter as the shining aspirational heroine that the MCU so badly wants to sell her to me as—while simultaneously continuing to reveal things that paint an increasingly darker picture of her character. And I will certainly not celebrate seeing one of my favorite characters of all time—whose defining trait was that he couldn't ignore "a situation pointed south"; who used to fight for the little guy and against the establishment; who once said about the very organization that Peggy Carter helped build that it was so corrupt, it all needed to go—rendered morally inert for some hollow happy ending that may as well be a conservative’s wet dream full of false nostalgia for an America that never really existed. I cannot find it in me to be anything less but mad about that.

But that does not make me a misogynist. It does not make me a delusional shipper. It makes me someone who looks at what the MCU has been telling me about Peggy Carter for years now—over and over again—and takes it at its own word.

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¹ If you’ve actually read a a fair number of Stucky(!) fanfics you will have noticed that the reverence afforded to and "page time" devoted to her character and her relationship with Steve is somewhat disproportionate to anything that's backed up by canon—well, up until EG, where she was suddenly reanimated as The Great Love of Steve’s Life—and in my experience, it's highly unusual for any fandom to put so much (mostly) positive attention on another character, let alone a potential love interest that is not part of the endgame ship.

² I also want to emphasize that if you love Peggy and she's your fave: good for you! I genuinely have no beef with you. People can agree to disagree. All I ask for is that we maybe stop willfully ignoring the less savory aspects of her character. You don't need to pretend she's perfect to justify your affection for her. I LOVE Steve, and yet I have no problem conceding that he is FAR from perfect.

#*drops post & runs away* i may regret this but it's my blog and i rant if i want to #i know some people will roll their eyes & i debated posting this at all but i simply had to get it off my chest once and for all.#so there. now i can be free. or something.#also i have no idea what to tag this & i personally find 'anti' tags silly bc why is critical discussion automatically labeled as 'anti'?#but whatever i'll play nice. so i guess:#anti peggy carter #anti steggy #anti endgame #hope that covers it #wading into the dIsCoUrsE

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all-mirth-no-matter · 1 year

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What is it about Grace that you hate?

No hate, she’s just not my favorite.

I think it started with me being really disappointed with how her character was fleshed-out (or lack-there-of) by the end of the first season, and then it just never felt like it got better through two and three. I remember thinking it was such a cool twist in the pilot when we found out she was a spy. Not only to see a female in law enforcement during that time, but to be trained in undercover work and having had a father who obviously had some kind of traumatic death that left her seeking vengeance — like, recipe for something really awesome, right? Especially pairing that with gangster boss, morally-gray Tommy. Spy who falls for her mission, I’m there for it!

But what we got… it just felt so boring and underwhelming, or even embarrassing at times (thinking about how in one breath she chastised Campbell for underestimating her and then in the next shot a man who had nothing to do with her mission in broad daylight).

I get that her character was ultimately supposed to represent the softness that Tommy longed to protect, or the posh-ness/legitimacy that he wanted to reach, or whatever. But it just felt like a lot of pining or “wanting what they couldn’t have” without any actual substance for them to fall in love to. And then the fact that she’d been a spy and ultimately lying about herself the entire time and we never really got to see them unpack that.

Idk. It felt like they were trying to make her fit these two roles that they needed to propel Tommy’s character on (the innocent flower and the heart-breaking betrayer), but after it was all mixed together it just didn’t work for me.

And that’s just season one! I hate when there’s a cheating plot for absolutely no reason. She didn’t need to be married! I get that it was the 20s and blah blah. But ugh. Just to then have the “sweet and kind” husband kill himself just so she can birth Tommy’s baby and marry him. And then the bulk of their actual relationship happens off screen, cut to them trying to have us sympathize with her because she was doing all this charity work and Tommy finally had the picture perfect life, just in time for her to get shot and forever be this idealized martyr in his heart and just again be another catalyst to Tommy’s character development and guilt.

She just never felt like a genuine, thought-out character — I never cared about her the same way I cared about the others. Again, there’s no hate, just apathy.

I did like her ghost scenes in the later seasons.

#mirth replies #peaky blinders #anti-grace #not really hate but just in case #anti-grace shelby #idk her maiden name #hope that covers it #please don’t come at me #just an opinion

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percabeth4life · 6 months

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how are you feeling about chalice of the gods? so far im up to the bit where ganymede is introduced and its feeling very questionably accurate. and i dont even KNOW any ganymede myths

I actually don't have a copy yet, I decided if I was forced to read it I would at least have the pretty copy from the UK. So a friend is sending it to me, I should be receiving it soon...

However, just because I haven't read it doesn't mean I haven't seen spoilers- I can't imagine I'll enjoy it once when the very premise is something I hate. It builds off of nonsense, the reasoning for the quest is idiotic and biased, and Rick continues to showcase the Gods as needlessly cruel while simultaneously doing nothing about it! It's not cute to show them as so horrible and then go "lol anyways-". Make them change or put a war against them at this point, his writing is just- ignoring all the demigods fought for!

Oh, and it totally fucks up the myths.

#anon asks #cotg #cotg salt #anti cotg #i don't know the tag for hating on it...#hope that covers it #anyways yeah haven't read it but not feeling great about it #cringing quite a bit and dreading the reading #though him screwing with the myths is a given #also I used to just be a bit annoyed by it #but apparently he claimed he actually is mythos accurate and just adds stuff too #and I'm gonna fucking lose it #he is NOT mythos accurate wtf #Oh there's many versions he claims #DOESN'T MATTER WHEN YOU MAKE SHIT UP #DO YOUR RESEARCH #life answers

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wibble-wobbegong · 1 year

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Can you summarize the Peter stuff from last night?

I can try, but it’s definitely still a work in progress theory that @aemiron-main and i just went absolutely nuts over lmao

essentially, there are 4 different mentioned peters in the show; the unidentified peter that works at the lab, owens’ unidentified son, peter bingham, and petey mchew. there’s also a 5th peter who wasn’t mentioned in the show, peter ballard. that was the cover name used for jamie’s audition for henry creel

when trying to make connections between each of the different peters, there was only one connecting force; henry. the problem was that the qualities of this mysterious peter character didn’t completely match up with henry himself. things like being scared of victor and having curse symptoms didn’t align, and the loose connections suggesting henry might be peter fell apart pretty quickly. peter is a character who is intrinsic to henry’s story but couldn’t be henry himself

one of my anons suggested that peter could’ve been a boy from henry’s past, specifically one he was romantically involved in. things started making more sense like the fear of victor as well as the possibility that peter was owens’ son which is could be why owens is so heavily connected to the creel family. there ended up being a lot of evidence suggesting henry and peter may have met at a “summer camp” run by brenner, possibly having tried to escape together

we also found that peter is likely to be mike’s parallel, or an antithesis, similar to how henry is will’s antithesis. both peter and michael are saints, and we see a painting of saint michael in the russian church. saint peter is said to have had a vision in which he saw an apocalypse where blasphemers and liars were punished for their false words and those given power above others, like rich people, were made to be forced to live the lives of the people below them. this is something we see in henry’s goals, having killed many people who were considered normal/privileged by society and targeting those who lie about themselves. saint peter also saw a heavenly bliss for those who deserved to be saved, and we see henry trying to have will and el join him because they are above other people in his eyes, they deserve to have power. as for saint michael, it’s important to note that he was said to battle with satan and the religious imagery in s4 turns henry into a metaphorical satan and all the sword hints towards mike and saint michael having a sword really connects the two

this is more of a concept, but it’s also possible that when henry takes mike he’ll hold him captive in a crucifixion, as is suggested with the cross imagery associated with mike in s4. that’s important because saint peter was killed via crucifixion and because of the connections between peter and henry as well as henry’s constant eye over mike, carefully watching him since the start of the show, henry may project his own grief and rage onto mike and will’s relationship. henry has become the very monster he hated, and as such he may be seeking to use mike and his life against will to make will see how unfair the world is and how it needs to be changed as a way to convince him to join him

em also found some major tommy parallels that you should ask him about!!

there are some other details, but i think that sums up the majority of it!! i’ve been posting peter stuff under ‘#peter owens’ and stuff specific to discoveries under ‘#petergate’

#hope that covers it #but yeah there’s a ton of smaller details im still digging through #there’s something incredibly important about how owens connects to the creels and i think this could be a very solid explanation as to why #and how owens came to be so involved with them as well as brenner #petergate #asks

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