“And now it’s time for the Captain America Adventure Program,” a radio announcer proclaims in the second episode of the short-lived ABC drama Marvel’s Agent Carter. “Tonight’s thrilling tale takes us deep in the heart of the Arden Forest, where Hitler’s Nazi guard have ambushed the 107th infantry and taken Betty Carver, the battalion’s beautiful triage nurse, as their hostage.”
“You lousy krauts are in big trouble once Captain America gets here,” Carver tells the Germans.
Among the listeners of the 1940s radio broadcast is Peggy Carter, an officer of the Strategic Scientific Reserve during World War II who worked on the super soldier project that transformed Steve Rogers into Captain America. Carter was just as much a hero during the war as Rogers, and even developed a romantic relationship with the superhero that never reached fruition due to Cap’s apparent death.
The war is now over and Carter still works for the Strategic Scientific Reserve, albeit in New York City rather than Europe. Just as her role during WWII has been fictionalized into a helpless nurse who is continually rescued by Captain America on the radio, Carter’s position within the SSR has devolved into borderline secretary tasked with watching the phones and taking lunch orders for her male counterparts.
Frustrated with her current assignment, Agent Carter reluctantly agrees to help Howard Stark – future father of Iron Man and scientific genius in his own right – clear his name when he is accused of treason. The United States government maintains that Stark sold weapons to the enemy, while Stark insists that his most dangerous inventions where actually stolen. With the on-the-run millionaire’s butler Edwin Jarvis as her only ally, Peggy Carter risks treason herself to prove Stark’s innocence and save the world once again, even if she is “just a girl.”
Over the course of two shortened seasons, Agent Carter sets out to show just what a “girl” can actually accomplish on her own. Although there were no superheroes in the 1940s along the likes of Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America, Carter fills the void as a James Bond-esque secret agent that utilizes futuristic gadgets, superior fighting skills, and an abundance of wits to take down bad guys and remain one step ahead of her SSR cohorts who are more interested in keeping her under control than treating her like a fellow agent.
Carter’s refusal to conform to the docile female stereotype that her male counterparts bestow upon her is evident from the opening of the very first episode, in which Peggy Carter dons a red hat and blue attire as she makes her way through the streets of New York and a sea of bland, gray-suited men.
When an alarm later goes off in the SSR offices, Chief Roger Dooley tells her to “cover the phones” while the men huddle in the conference room. Carter instead informs the switchboard to “forward all calls to the briefing room,” then turns to Dooley and says, “Covered. Shall we?”
While going undercover as a double-agent to help Howard Stark does give Agent Carter the sense of purpose that has been lacking in her life since the end of World War II, it is still frustrating nonetheless. In order to protect Edwin Jarvis, for instance, she needs to intentionally screw up on the job and then deal with the indignation of having to apologize afterwards. When Carter finds Howard Stark’s stolen tech, meanwhile, Jarvis argues that she can’t take credit for the discovery.
“I will call it in and they will respect me,” Agent Carter insists.
“But they won’t,” Jarvis counters. “They’ll only use it to tear you down. If you wish to clear Mr. Stark’s name, you must do so from the shadows.”
While Peggy Carter proves she can go toe-to-toe with any man within the shadows, out in the light she is continually told the opposite. “You’re trying to hide something, Peggy, and the only one you’re fooling is you,” fellow SSR agent Jack Thompson tells her. “The natural order of the universe. You’re a woman – no man will ever consider you an equal. It’s sad, but it doesn’t make it any less true.”
Even the fictitious Captain America Adventure Program underscores that fact. “Meanwhile, in the snowy mountains of the eastern Alps, battalion triage nurse Betty Carver tidies up while the men defend their country,” the radio announcer tells the audience, to which Carver then adds, “What a beautiful day to mend these pants. And my new Singer Featherweight 221 sewing machine makes stitching so easy.”
While the norms of the times dictated that a woman’s place was in the home, World War II witnessed millions of American females either joining the war effort abroad or doing their part on the homefront. Like Peggy Carter, those efforts were forgotten after the war was over, with women expected to return to their traditional roles of housewives. Not all of them did of course, and their own rejection of conformity is personified by Carter.
When her subterfuge is finally discovered and she is taken into custody, Agent Carter is finally able to refute the chauvinistic viewpoints of her SSR counterparts. “You think you know me, but I’ve never been more than what each of you has created,” she tells her colleagues. “To you, I’m the stray kitten, left on your doorstep to protect. The secretary turned damsel in distress. The girl on the pedestal, transformed into some daft whore.”
She later adds, “I conducted my own investigation because no one listens to me. I got away with it because no one looked at me. Because unless I have your reports, your coffee, or your lunch, I’m invisible.”
Eventually Carter does win them over. When Chief Roger Dooley realizes he needs to sacrifice his own life in order to save the others, it is Agent Jack Thompson that he asks to tell his wife that he is sorry. Dooley then turns to the lone female SSR agent and says, “Promise me you’ll get the son-of-a-bitch who did this” – in effect reversing the gender roles of his subordinates.
In the end, Peggy Carter does indeed “get the son-of-a-bitch,” and is greeted with applause from her co-workers when she walks into the Strategic Scientific Reserve at the end of season one. When a United States Senator enters shortly thereafter, however, it is Jack Thompson that he singles out for accolades.
“What I hear, you saved thousands of lives,” the Senator tells Thompson. “The city and the country owe you a great debt.” He then addresses the crowd that has assembled and adds, “We need more men like Jack Thompson, fighting for freedom and security.” Despite having led the applause of Carter just minutes earlier, Thompson silently accepts the praise nonetheless.
Agent Daniel Sousa is appalled by Jack Thompson’s response, but Carter takes it in stride. “I don’t need a Congressional honor,” she tells Sousa. “I don’t need Agent Thompson’s approval, or the President’s. I know my value. Anyone else’s opinion doesn’t really matter.”
In the 1940s, that may have been the best a woman could hope for – to know that they made a difference in the world while accepting that they would never receive the recognition they deserved. The twenty-first century, however, has witnessed a slew of non-fiction accounts of the real life Peggy Carters of the past that finally shine the spotlight on their accomplishments.
From Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures, which relates the role that African American women played in the Space Race of the 1960s, to the Rise of the Rocket Girls of Nathalia Holt that focused on NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in the 1940s and 50s, to Code Girls by Liza Mundy that tells the story of American women code breakers during World War II, it is becoming more and more evident that the true story of American woman has only just begun to be written.
Agent Peggy Carter was not the only female who knew her value during the mid-twentieth century, as it was a knowledge that the fictional character shared with many factual women of the time period. Agent Carter is likewise more than a fictional offspring of the Marvel Cinematic Universe but a testament to the obstacles those real women faced, the recognition they were denied – and the self-worth that they ultimately found within themselves.
Anthony Letizia