steve rogers said “I can do this all day” bc as a 105 pound chronically ill man he would get into fights w men twice his size daily and get knocked down time after time after time. his whole mo was stand up for the little guy & for people who couldn’t stand up for themselves, despite the fact that he was the little guy. it is a phrase that was born in the back alleys of brooklyn, and belonged to a man that always stood up (as long as his body allowed him), and peggy carter should not have been given that line under and circumstance
these tags are fantastic @anniethelen and completely on point
What Marvel is doing with Captain Carter is really bad. They’re making some shithouse choices with her.
It’s clear the purpose is a female badass super hero on the same level as Cap, the problem is Peggy is not Steve Rogers no matter how much the writers of What If and MOM pretend.
What makes Cap great, both Steve and hopefully Sam depending on what Spellman does with him, is that they’re people of conviction, morality and courage. They have high ideals and live up to them. Steve’s Cap is the idealised version of Steve Rogers, but Steve is still the basis for those ideals and behaviours. He is “not a perfect soldier, but a good man” and someone that has spent his life disadvantaged, and pushed aside for everything but his gender. And remember, 1940’s America at the height of Eugenics and Masculine Manly Ideals and Steve was a scrawny, disabled, Irish Catholic lad that was poor, and probably written off as a ‘fairy’. So being male wasn’t much of a privilege in that context.
Mean while Peggy Carter is a spy. Not a soldier. And not a great person really, I’m sure others can and will elaborate but… I mean holy hell, losing your tempter and SHOOTING at someone in an enclosed space all because someone kissed them? Ain’t good.
And furthermore she does not share the same history of hardships and oppression Steve does. Aside from her gender, Peggy Carter is an incredibly privileged woman, and even then, feminism and equality was making some serious strides, even if it was set back after the war.
So taking Peggy, giving her the serum (after stepping over Steve’s bleeding body), and then slapping on all these elements form HIS story? Does not a compelling character or story make. You’re just slapping on red white and blue paint and calling it good and it loses ALL the depth and meaning it had in the original context.
And the line “I can do this all day” is a perfect example of this.
We first get that line from Steve when he’s the little guy, bleeding in a back alley, after getting up from a punch. After standing up to a guy being an asshole during pre-movie newsreels. And you get the feeling that he’s said this *a lot*. And he’s had to say it, each and every time he gets up after being knocked down, despite burning lungs, despite broken noses, bleeding lips, black eyes forming and whatever else he’s faced. “I’m not tired, I’m not broken, I can and will keep going, fuck you.” Because a disabled sickly little guy isn’t supposed to be able to keep going. It’s defiance. It’s will.
But what does it mean when Peggy says it? A healthy, athletic, woman, well off, well educated, now super enhanced. There’s no question she’s faced pushed back her entire life because woman with ambition wasn’t accepted really… But lacks the layers of Steve’s struggles. And more it lacks precise context. We’re never given a moment of her own when she’s had to 'go all day’. Where she’s had to get up again and again and again. We are not shown. It isn’t earned.
Which is why it feels half-assed, slapped on. It doesn’t have the meaning it does when it comes from Steve (that ridiculous moment in Endgame aside).
And that’s really the problem with Captain Carter. Narratively speaking, nothing’s earned with her and all the moments she has been given aren’t even hers. And thus they’re shallow, flimsy, and so is she.
It’s bad writing. As usual.
If she’d been given the time and good writing instead of being placed on a pedestal and covered in Steve’s schtick, this wouldn’t be a problem. If she had been given her own moments, her own lines instead of piggybacking of the male base model, the whole Captain Carter thing would not feel so forced and shallow. They could have riffed on her whole playing knight story as a kid, made references to her brother, shown us her doubts, her fears, her weaknesses and humanity. A great writer can do a lot with a few lines at the right moment. They had the Agent Carter series to build off.
But they didn’t. They just stole stuff from Steve and called it a day.
Its almost the end of the year and we’re all ‘reflecting’ at the end of another 365 days.
At the beginning of 2016 I made the decision to not set a list of resolutions to accomplish by the end of the year because quite frankly setting such resolutions for the end of the year only sets you up for failure. Instead, I decided that each morning I wake up I will write a list of things to accomplish…
