Agent Carter vid: Miracle and Wonder

[sholio]

Title: Miracle and Wonder
Fandom: Agent Carter
Song: The Boy in the Bubble
Artist: Paul Simon
Spoilers: all of seasons one and two; first Captain American movie
Summary: These are the days of miracle and wonder. Peggy and the SSR, doing what they do.

Streaming: https://vimeo.com/157705414
Downloads: 720px MP4 (78 Mb) | 1280px MP4 (129 Mb) | 1280px DivX (107 Mb)
(There are smaller download options at the Vimeo link.)

Agent Carter-Miracle and Wonder from Sholio on Vimeo.

"The Boy In The Bubble"

It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road
There was a bright light
A shattering of shop windows
The bomb in the baby carriage
Was wired to the radio

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry
Don't cry

It was a dry wind
And it swept across the desert
And it curled into the circle of birth
And the dead sand
Falling on the children
The mothers and the fathers
And the automatic earth
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry
Don't cry

It's a turn-around jump shot
It's everybody jump start
It's every generation throws a hero up the pop charts
Medicine is magical and magical is art
Thinking of the Boy in the Bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart

And I believe
These are the days of lasers in the jungle
Lasers in the jungle somewhere
Staccato signals of constant information
A loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires and baby
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry
Don't cry

Comments

[sholio]

Yes, I heard that about the possibility of London too! I'd LOVE that! Actually, since each season has had a slightly different feel, and with the Michael Carter hints, it makes all kinds of sense for season 3 to have a cold-war-spy vibe, and take place in various glamorous European locations (actually played by a dressed-up street somewhere in LA ... XD). It would also provide a good reason to continue with the show's general theme of having Peggy at odds with her employers -- in season 1 she was running around behind the backs of the entire SSR because no one trusted her, in season 2 she was having to do it again because the administration was corrupt, but for season three, having her in countries where she has no legal jurisdiction, pursuing her own investigation, would give us a new iteration of the "Peggy vs. The Man" vibe that the previous two seasons have had.

Reading the Tiptree bio with how she came in on the building of the CIA was amazing, and I don't think there have actually been a lot of movies about women in intelligence lately altho I could be totally wrong there.

... wait, is that James Tiptree? I had no idea whatsoever she was involved with the CIA! Details?

(Unrelatedly, my husband is like the TOTAL die-hard Steggy shipper and was slightly unhappy with Peggy/Sousa. "But you knew she got married after Steve died!" "But he JUST died. I thought that was LATER. And who says she's going to marry this guy anyway?")

haha. Well, if it makes your hubby feel any better, there seems to be a sizable contingent of disgruntled Steve/Peggy shippers on Tumblr as well (because heaven knows Peggy should remain celibate for the next 70 years of her life in honor of a guy she knew for a few months in 1944). Not that I can't relate to the original Steve/Peggy shipping -- I was all over that, and am still a little startled at how the first season of Agent Carter switched my allegiance entirely from re-imagining Peggy in various 21st century and/or time-travel situations that reunited her with Steve, Bucky, et al, to just wanting more of Peggy in her own time with her own people. Not that I wouldn't theoretically welcome a Peggy fixit that gave her a new lease on life in 2016, but then you'd have to deal with the fact that Jarvis and Angie and Daniel and Jack and EVERYBODY are all long dead and then suddenly it turns tragic.

[kore]

Actually, since each season has had a slightly different feel, and with the Michael Carter hints, it makes all kinds of sense for season 3 to have a cold-war-spy vibe, and take place in various glamorous European locations

I WOULD BE ON THAT LIKE WHITE ON RICE

for season three, having her in countries where she has no legal jurisdiction, pursuing her own investigation, would give us a new iteration of the "Peggy vs. The Man" vibe that the previous two seasons have had.

Oh, that would be great -- very Peggy too, she has her own moral compass, and doesn't question knocking down authority she thinks is corrupt. (OMG when she punched Evil Dude -- Vernon? -- in Sousa's office. That was glorious.)

... wait, is that James Tiptree? I had no idea whatsoever she was involved with the CIA! Details?

James Tiptree Jr., yes! She joined the Army in 1942 because she wanted to enlist under women officers, worked in photo intelligence, and second husband was in the CIA and she joined too in 1952, but resigned in 1955. My impression was she was one of the very few women there at that time and basically set up their surveillance branch, but I'd have to reread the bio to make sure. And apparently there was all that actual tussling between the FBI and OSS (which is basically SSR, down to the gadgets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Strategic_Services) and the OSS was split into different services and then kind of absorbed by the CIA, and SHIELD is kind of the superhero AU to the CIA, so it would be great to see Peggy right in the middle of all that turf-grabbing conflict.

still a little startled at how the first season of Agent Carter switched my allegiance entirely from re-imagining Peggy in various 21st century and/or time-travel situations that reunited her with Steve, Bucky, et al, to just wanting more of Peggy in her own time with her own people. Not that I wouldn't theoretically welcome a Peggy fixit that gave her a new lease on life in 2016, but then you'd have to deal with the fact that Jarvis and Angie and Daniel and Jack and EVERYBODY are all long dead and then suddenly it turns tragic.

Yeah, they handled that really beautifully -- Agent Carter S1 was kind of like Peggy's First Avenger, it really situated her in time and place and actually freed her character from Steve, where in TFA it was tragic because she thought he died and lost him, and then in TWS it was even MORE tragic (but thematic) that he came back but he'd lost her. S1 just completely blew all of that out of the water, and it was great.

[sholio]

Yeah, they handled that really beautifully -- Agent Carter S1 was kind of like Peggy's First Avenger, it really situated her in time and place and actually freed her character from Steve, where in TFA it was tragic because she thought he died and lost him, and then in TWS it was even MORE tragic (but thematic) that he came back but he'd lost her. S1 just completely blew all of that out of the water, and it was great.

YESSSSS. One thing I have SO many thoughts and feels about is how Agent Carter repositioned Peggy at the center, and made the 1940s part of the story about HER.

This is actually something that vidding is making me think about, too. The vid I posted today is one of three vids I've been working on lately (the first is the one we're talking in the comments of; the third one is unfinished) that mixes TFA footage with AC footage, and it has been an absolutely fascinating process to rearrange the TFA clips to reposition it in Peggy's POV, which is what I'm trying to do in all three cases. And it's subtle, that visual narrative POV -- it's whose face the camera lingers on, it's what order the reaction shots are shown in, it's whose face is in the center of the screen and who isn't; it's whose moments of weakness and doubt are seen, and whose aren't.

Now, obviously TFA is Steve's movie, so there's no reason why it would be in Peggy's POV. Still, the exercise of rearranging the clips to rearrange the POV has been an interesting one, and another thing that was interesting for me is that I watched the first season of AC last spring at about the same time that I got hooked on the French crime drama Engrenages, which is another show with a female showrunner and more direct than usual female POV in its protagonist. I don't recommend watching Engrenages without enormous caveats -- it's one of the most brutally violent shows I've ever seen, especially violence towards women; it has no less than THREE false-rape-accusation plots (one of which is a main plot thread throughout an entire season, which ultimately led to me skimming some characters' story arcs entirely), and other stuff. However, what it did do was position the main female cop's POV at the center of her storyline in a way that was absolutely undeniable, which in turn made it very obvious how many TV ensemble dramas, even the ones with female protagonists, don't do that.

Example: there's one minor bit in season two or three, I think, where Laure (the female cop) is accused of violence against a suspect, and the guys from the French version of internal affairs search her office. She's one of the only female cops on the police force and possibly the only one (that we see) who is an officer. So they're pulling stuff out of her desk drawers and dumping it on her desk in front of a room full of people, including everyone who works under her -- and the desk stuff, of course, includes literally handfuls of tampons (because who doesn't have a million of them stashed everywhere).

And what struck me about that scene is that it's very brief, very matter-of-fact, and not funny. It's obvious that the narrative sympathy is with Laure, who's trying to be matter-of-fact about it and ignore the way the internal affairs guys are trying to embarrass her in front of her subordinates. It is, basically, presented as an ordinary thing that the guys are being shits about; the POV in that scene is entirely Laure's. And it made me think about how subtle the little narrative cues are that give us her viewpoint in that scene, instead of making it a joke from the guys' POV -- how easily the joke could've been on her instead of them, but wasn't.

And, getting back to the actual topic here, that's what Agent Carter did for Peggy, because in TFA and TWS (movies which I do love!) she doesn't have that much of an existence apart from Steve. So of course in the fanfic she's defined in relation to him, and even when people flesh her out in fic, she's going to be tied to Steve with narrative strings. Whereas the show (her show) puts her in the center, and gives her a world and a place and people of her own, to the point where trying to separate her from it becomes cruel -- because this is where she belongs.

[kore]

One thing I have SO many thoughts and feels about is how Agent Carter repositioned Peggy at the center, and made the 1940s part of the story about HER.

That was really amazing! I loved her from the start in TFA, but she was definitely not in the spotlight in that movie, so it was great to see that yes, this show is going to be about her and her life and choices.

the third one is unfinished) that mixes TFA footage with AC footage, and it has been an absolutely fascinating process to rearrange the TFA clips to reposition it in Peggy's POV, which is what I'm trying to do in all three cases. And it's subtle, that visual narrative POV -- it's whose face the camera lingers on, it's what order the reaction shots are shown in, it's whose face is in the center of the screen and who isn't; it's whose moments of weakness and doubt are seen, and whose aren't.

Oh wow, that does sound amazing. I love vids that look at the original source from a different perspective like that. Your talking about Engrenages also reminds me of the first time I saw Fury Road -- it was so non-exploitive, and the women really were front and center, and it was just an almost visceral difference. It really made me aware of how flipped around that usually is -- I take on the male gaze etc., just because it's the default and don't think about it. And then Furiosa was so obviously the HERO of Fury Road I was just blown back in my seat.

[sholio]

it was so non-exploitive, and the women really were front and center, and it was just an almost visceral difference. It really made me aware of how flipped around that usually is -- I take on the male gaze etc., just because it's the default and don't think about it. And then Furiosa was so obviously the HERO of Fury Road I was just blown back in my seat.

Yeah; I remember thinking when I was watching AC and Engrenages last spring that the central-ness of the female characters' viewpoint (or lack thereof) is not really something that you tend to notice when it isn't there, because it's so common for it not to be. Lots of crime and sci-fi shows that I absolutely love don't have it! But seeing something that actually has it makes you realize how often you don't see it. Like, there aren't a whole lot of things I can put my finger on, in either show, that I can really identify as "yep, that's it, female character viewpoint, right there." And yet the overall impression is "this show has a thing that most shows don't." It's not as easy to identify as an ass shot or its absence, something of that nature; it's just where the narrative sympathy is placed. It's a feeling to the whole -- it's noticeable as an absence or a presence, rather than as a thing. For me, at least. Although there are scenes where you can see it clearly, like the tampon scene I mentioned above, or the scene in Fury Road where the harem women are washing off and it's not all filmy white things blowing in the wind over dimly concealed curves; it's just people, with bodies, getting clean.

The interesting thing about Peggy in TFA is that I didn't actually bond with her, as a character. I didn't have particular feelings on her one way or another until seeing her in AC and falling for her about as hard as I have ever fallen for a character. For me, the extra vulnerability and struggle that she has in AC is what made me tumble headlong into love for her, whereas the way she comes across in the TFA movie -- where you get the glossy surface and the badassery, but not most of the underlying layers -- didn't do it for me in the same way. Which was why Agent Carter was such an amazing surprise for me. I wasn't even that into Peggy! I was just watching the show because it was a 1940s period superhero show and I thought it looked interesting! And then I fell hard.

[kore]

Not that I wouldn't theoretically welcome a Peggy fixit that gave her a new lease on life in 2016, but then you'd have to deal with the fact that Jarvis and Angie and Daniel and Jack and EVERYBODY are all long dead and then suddenly it turns tragic.

Yeah, the problem for me with time travel or fix-it is she didn't know Steve or Bucky very long, and her relationships are obviously more with the Howlies and Howard and the SSR and her contemporary friends, her husband, her children/grandchildren, and so on. So the fix-it fic basically shoves the whole rest of her life aside so she can be with Steve. Steve and Peggy lose each other and have to go on without each other, and rebuild new lives they actually want, and it's like that's the triumph and tragedy for both of them -- there was a recent beautiful vid that really showed this, but of course I can't remember what it was or who did it. It emphasized both the sadness, and how they actually weren't defined by it. It's a very kind of wartime tragedy, to me.


(I DO headcanon that Peggy maybe gets some dream cure for Alzheimer's, or her brain was really messed with by SHIELD/HYDRA and can be undone somehow, because while it fits perfectly into the themes of TWS and mirrors poor Bucky's mind getting wiped, it's so awfully sad. But that's more a personal thing for me, I know other people who aren't as bothered by that.)

[sholio]

... and how they actually weren't defined by it. It's a very kind of wartime tragedy, to me.

Yeah, that's exactly how I've come to see Steve and Peggy's relationship in the end. They knew each other very briefly, in the grand scheme of their lives; it was that particular kind of passionate, intense relationship that you get during war, but it ended up being bittersweet wartime tragedy rather than an enduring basis for a lifetime relationship. I've ended up getting heavily invested in the Agent Carter view of Steve as Peggy's dead wartime lover, part of Peggy's war story that she's now leaving in the past as she moves into her postwar life. And I'm a lot more interested in Peggy's post-Steve life than I am in AUs where she builds a life after the war with Steve.

[kore]

YOU ARE ME. I love Steggy, but I really love it for that kind of lost bittersweet tragic quality. The moment there's a fix via time travel or cryogenics or what have you it loses a lot of that epic feeling for me and is more....just like a regular romance, I guess.

I forgot to say earlier a big thing I also LOVE about Agent Carter is Cooper's Howard -- he's awesome (and a lot like MCU Tony). The little we see of Howard in MCU is kind of awful, and I remember him actually being mean and alcoholic and abusive in at least some of the comics, so seeing him as a slick fast-talking charmer who enjoys Peggy putting him in his place was great. We did get that in TFA, but it was almost all focused on Steve. I could watch Jarvis and Peggy crisply disapproving of Howard in an affectionate way for an hour, easy.

[sholio]

Steggy: YES. :D It's the bittersweet/lost/epic quality that makes me love it, and it kind of provides this ... mythic underpinning for the AC show, I guess -- and for TWS, too, from Steve's perspective -- that is completely lost if you "fix" it in some way.

I forgot to say earlier a big thing I also LOVE about Agent Carter is Cooper's Howard -- he's awesome (and a lot like MCU Tony).

AAAAA YES, HOWARD! The thing I love most about AC Howard is how ahead of his time he is in so many ways (not just technological), and how good a person he really is, while also being a charming smart-mouth. You can also kind of see the seeds of how he might turn out to be an alcoholic and a jerk and a terrible dad in his later years (though, leaving non-movie sources aside, I also think it makes a big difference that we see him mainly in the present day through the eyes of a son who resents him and is disinclined to see his good qualities). But he's also the guy who treats Peggy as an equal, interacts with Wilkes as a fellow scientist and nothing else, and derives gleeful delight from completely upending the Arena Club's stuffy good ol' boy atmosphere.

And Cooper really makes the role. He's got the perfect blend of smarmy and genuinely charming to pull it off. I think my favorite thing about it is that when I originally watched TFA (before seeing Avengers) I really wasn't that interested in it, and tuned in and out during the movie, so I first noticed Howard in the middle of the movie during the scene where he's flying Peggy and Steve into enemy territory in his plane. And even without having heard his name at all, it was blindingly obvious that this was Tony's dad; I picked up on that immediately. They found a guy who does a bang-on 1940s Tony Stark, while still managing to be distinctly his own character.