#or like that moment in rio where she says she still believes in carmen's innocence and her glasses are low and she has to recenter them

[youraveragecatastrophe]

We’ve talked in the past about Julia’s red shirt (in her season 1/season 4 outfit) showing her sympathy towards Carmen. What about other parts of her outfits?

First, to contrast with the red shirt peeking through her dark pantsuit, we have Julia’s ACME suit.

[ID : two cropped screenshots from the 2019 show Carmen Sandiego. The first one shows Julia Argent on the train in India, in her dark suit with red shirt outfit. The second one shows Julia in Rio de Janeiro, in her ACME suit. End ID]

The ACME suits, being uniforms, are all the same (the biggest difference being skirts for the women vs pants for the men), the same way the agents are asked for uniformity, conformity and following orders.

The suits have no color apart from a navy so dark it’s close to black - in fact, depending on the lighting they look almost black and white. Quite like their way of thinking.

[ID : a screenshot from the 2019 show Carmen Sandiego. Agent Zari and Random White Agent stand on either side of a door. They are in the shadows and their uniforms look dark and desaturated. End ID]

As I noted on a previous post, at the same time Julia receives her suit and as such lets go of her red shirt, she is asked to renounce her feelings that Carmen is innocent. Season 2, where she almost exclusively wears the ACME uniform, is the one where Julia briefly doubts Carmen and struggles to reconcile following her superior’s orders with her convictions. Ultimately, when she does not manage it, she resigns (season 3) and as such goes back to her red shirt outfit. It is in that outfit that she teams up with Carmen in a substantial way in season 4.

Other agents (and, notably, agent Zari, the most featured ACME agent apart from Julia and Chase) tend to wear black gloves. In line with their behavior, this suggests keeping a distance with their environment, refusing to feel things too deeply. Julia doesn’t wear gloves, however, not even in Stockholm where the weather would definitely justify it. Despite Chief's insistance, Julia keeps paying attention to her feelings.

Then, Julia’s glasses. Her glasses in seasons 2-3 are ACME regulation eyewear : once again, they’re part of the uniform, so the same model as the other ACME agents. Big, bulky, they’re almost rectangle in shape, all sharp angles : this suggests rigidity and an absence of flexibility in ACME’s mentality. Also note the dark lenses : they symbolically obscure the vision.

[ID : a screenshot from the 2019 show Carmen Sandiego. In Indonesia, Zari and Random White Agent stand against the sky. Their glasses' lenses are noticeably very dark. End ID]

And what about Julia’s original glasses, the ones she wears before joining ACME and those she returns to as she leaves ? They are the exact opposite of the ACME glasses : round and clear, what you need to look at the world as it is.

[ID : a cropped screenshot from the 2019 show Carmen Sandiego. In San Francisco, Julia wears her red shirt outfit with her round glasses. End ID]

#carmen sandiego 2019 #julia argent #if you think i'm reading too much into this. yeah. i'm me. reading too far into tiny details is what i do #(though tbh i keep going from 'this is reaching right?' to 'this is so obvious i'm breaking down an open door' so...) #and let me tell you i'm having the time of my life #you wouldn't imagine the glee i felt thinking about this #mentally i'm lying oin my bed giggling and kicking my feet as i type this #that post wasn't lying. the most fun a girl can have is analyzing making connections seeing patterns etc #anyway with all that (see: post) in mind if i had been in charge of the show i would a. have put julia in a uniform with pants #oh my god that skirt is the ugliest thing i've seen in my life. #also i want julia to be butcher #b. maybe more importantly i would have made julia wear her uniform sliiiightly wrong #like sometimes her tie isn't well fastened. or her vest is partially unbuttoned #or like that moment in rio where she says she still believes in carmen's innocence and her glasses are low and she has to recenter them #(they sort of have that with the gloves but she's not the only agent not to wear them so it doesn't really go all the way) #idk. like she tries to fit it tries to just put her head down and work tries to get into that mold acme wants her to be in #and she's. not terrible at it. she's used to being discrete and working well #with only a quick look you think she's perfectly in line with the other agents. a closer look however tells you otherwise #and shows you how she's not quite at ease with what's asked of her and it makes her miserable #which leads to her leaving acme later #do you see my vision