I thought about my comment before posting it, and I’ve kinda discounted your line of thinking. Yes, she’s supposed to be worn down by the war and the world of BS she’s now working within - that’s straight from any of a thousand postwar autobiographies.
But either the producers are overplaying this card or Atwell has simply passed that ‘fresh English beauty’ that made her so appealing in CA. She’s not the first - Portman, Winslet, Amanda Pays, others have become known for that spectacular and fragile beauty (which is more than just appearance), and some have matured past it well and some haven’t. Atwell is just not strong enough in the acting department to hold onto the peak she showed overall in CA. IMVHO. She’s not strong enough to carry the lead in a show, especially one as complex as this one. We’ll see.
My real fear is that the 1940s will be a disposable element - since SSR/SHIELD has vast reservoirs of magic on tap, any future tech or fantasy needed to get over a story hump will just pop out of the vaults. I can see advanced medicine, computer power, communications, weapons, “radar” etc. falling into the story with no more than a “Oh, we have one of those in Stark’s number four secret locker.” A *little *such goes a long way. A little too much fall-through of tech from our era (however it’s disguised) is just lazy and stupid. I hope they can keep it era-sensitive and era-relevant without giving everyone Stark mobile phones.
The waitress? Move over, English! May I have a cup of coffee and a slice of pie, please?
Atwell is not a great beauty, but she has interesting bone structure and will age well. The flat makeup they use on her does not compliment her, though, making her all planes and angles. Especially as a platinum blonde she was an epic fail. :eek:
Actually, the “Two Hour Premiere” was actually two separate one hour episodes- not one two hour episode. If this is to be a 7 episode miniseries, then we are already about through with the “first act” if one wanted to think of the series like a three act play.
I didn’t watch on Tuesday night, but accidentally started with episode 2 when I sat down to watch on Hulu the next day. Luckily, I realized very soon since the episode started with “previously on Agent Carter.”
I only know Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter but I’m quite fond of her as an actress based on this role alone. I’m looking forward to getting to watch her carry the series. I don’t agree that she looks especially aged (Amateur Barbarian’s observation) since her previous appearances as the character, but I do think she’s noticeably put on weight …beautifully.
:rolleyes:
No. But, I have read about that era extensivly and know many people who did live then. Sexism was rampant, but it was of the subtle and (IMO) more insidious kind. It went like “sure darlin, you can come and do that, but the action might get a bit much” as opposed to “shut up woman and make us some tea” as in the show.
In real life the SSR type organisations would have been delighted to have Peggy Carter. After the end of the conflict, many military, naval, intelligence and scientific agencies struggled to retain experienced people, many of whom had only joined up for the war and wanted out ASAP once it was over. Someone like Carter, with many years of war experience who wants to stay on? Sign her up!
In that time frame, Elizabeth Graves was appointed head of the remainibg research group at Los Alamos, so it’s not like they were totally opposed to women.
I enjoy the Thin Man movies. But Myrna Loy’s portrayal of a witty 1930’s heiress has little to do with the lives of women after WW2. Some of the job loss came from closing the defense plants, as has been noted; the Cold War hadn’t kicked in to make the Military Industrial Complex more permanent. And men coming back from the war did deserve jobs. Maybe some of the women would have been happier to retire to marriage if their men had returned. Agent Carter has a special job in a very special field & I think the realization of her value is an arc in this short series.
Mostly, I’m not watching for “serious” thoughts. I’ve got books for those. The art direction is interesting, as are some of the performances. Glad to see Enver again. (One bit I enjoyed–the ongoing radio program.)
Hayley Atwell does not seem a haggard crone to me. if she were more like an innocent English rose, would she have the “strength” to carry a series? Or is that A Man’s Job? Glad all that sexism is in the past…
In the first CA movie, she was in a brown (olive drab) army uniform for every scene except one, where she wore a red dress. In the second movie, she was 80+ years old and in a bed in a nursing home, probably wearing a white nightgown. In the One Shot, she was in a blue outfit.
That’s true, you never heard people say that, because you never had to say “shut up woman and make us some tea”, it was understood that the woman would make the tea and take the notes and clean up the conference room after the meeting. You didn’t have to tell her to make the tea any more than you had to tell the window to let in the light. That’s what it does. A woman who didn’t do that would be out of a job.
Yes. It is what they were there to do. And still are today. If they are secretarial and or support staff. At the time those were almost exclusively female positions. However, Carter is not a secretary. She is a full fledged Agent. They are treating her as if she was. That was an era where hierarchy and roles therein were quite strictly enforced. They would not expect Carter to be good at typing any more than you would expect Madam Curie to be. A woman who was not secretarial or support staff but a scientist or an Agent would not be expected to act as that.
Leona Woods for example was part of the group at Hanford during the Manhattan project setting up the reactors. She was the only women and the only time they had and issue with that was when she fell pregnant and they were worried about radiation exposure to a foetus. What happened? Her superiors hid the fact that she was pregnant from their superiors and monitored her exposure.
This does not mean that discrimination was not shown.
The nightclub dress was ENORMOUSLY padded to try and give her an era figure. You can clearly see how much construction fits around her boobs in a couple of shots.
I don’t mean she’s an aged hag, by any means - but what made her character work in CA was , in part, that special and short-lived beauty. She’s just another fairly pretty face now, and not nearly talented enough to hold up the role on her own. She’s one of a thousand her general age who will spend their careers in side roles - whatever the female equivalent of “character actor” (which seems an exclusively male term, for some reason) is, with a few brief shots at leading roles that go nowhere.
I get the looks argument–she does look more than 2 years old than she did in Cap A–her mouth and jawline are fuller.
I think most people are agreeing that she can carry this show. Really was there any scene or story element in these two episodes that made people say “Meh, would have been better with ______” She can do the action stuff and not look silly (something I did like is that no one anachronistically"faux-fu"), she can do snappy patter and she can do the character work.
I have no problem with Hayley Atwell’s appearance or her ability to shoulder the lead role she’s in. She’s fine.
Agents of Shield, and Agent Carter are about the people in the comics universe who *aren’t *super heroes, yet are. She pulls it off just fine in my book.
