Melinda May Matters

Love Melinda May? Tell us about how she matters to you. Tag your post with #melindamaymatters, click submit above, or email us at [email protected]!

[pagebranson]

Ming-Na Wen Interview

Page sits down for a chat with Agent Melinda May herself, Ming-Na Wen! They discuss May as a role model, Ming-Na’s status as a Disney princess, and how May has grown over the course of the show.

Level 7 Access: A Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. podcast

Note from Page: Talking with Ming-Na Wen was a dream! She was so nice and funny! Love. Her. So. Much!!!

[multiplestars]

The 25 Best Onscreen Female Superheroes

Supergirl and Marvel's Jessica Jones give us hope, but let's look back at how far these ass-kicking women have come (hint: not far enough).

8. Ming-Na Wen as Melinda May As seen in: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013-present) One look at this supercut of Melinda May’s fight scenes from the first two seasons of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and you’ll be going “powers, shmowers.” As Phil Coulson’s onetime right-hand woman, this expert pilot and martial-arts specialist raises the question time and again of, “And a man is in charge of this team because …?” After taking out three large men with her bare hands in a recent episode, May herself had no qualms about pointing out to her victims that “a tiny little Asian woman kicked your ass.” Ming-Na Wen’s performance proves that you don’t need any sort of superhuman abilities to save the world, and that a small, non-Caucasian woman rocking a Blondie T-shirt is long overdue as an ass-kicking superhero.

[jaskim99]

How Melinda May matters to me :)

Melinda May is a complicated character, I guess that’s why I’m drawn to her. When I first saw Agents of SHIELD, I immediately got interested in her, simply because of her silence. I immediately started wondering what her story was and where she came from because you practically didn’t know anything about her in the first few episodes. Her being this cold, stoic, serious warrior, who never smiles, on the outside and then as the series continues to learn what happened to her, how she became this way and how she used to be and acts different around Coulson is extraordinary. All together it is super exciting to me to see her interact with the other characters on the show because you always see everyone respecting her so much, almost scared of her because of this story about Bahrain being passed on incorrectly. I also love how the audience gets to see her facade crack here and then and gets to learn who this silent, mysterious woman is and was before the incident. (Even though I ship Philinda 4 LIFE, I got so excited when Andrew started working with SHIELD again.)

She’s by far my favorite character on AoS and I think that’s because she is this wounded warrior, silent but deadly, cold on the outside, fluffy teddy bear on the inside and of course her MASSIVE fighting skills! (Words can’t even describe how satisfying it was to see her kick Ward’s ass in the end of season 1)

She matters to me because she makes me super excited for every episode even though she might not even say anything. The way Ming-Na Wen can communicate, only with looks, is incredible. Any scene with May in it has this sort of tension because you never know what to expect…silence? Beating the crap out of someone? You just know it’s going to be awesome either way. :)

Melinda May is one of the strongest and most amazing women ever and that’s why Melinda May matters!

[regionsofkindness]

Agent May is straight up kick ass. I have said to friends and family that if someone were to make a biopic of me, Ming Na Wen’s demeanor as Agent May would be perfect to portray the way I think I’m kick ass and that poker face cranky cat meme all at the same time. Agent May is a breakthrough Asian American character on primetime tv because she’s hooked up with some hot men of color and takes crap from no one. Wen’s ability to display sympathy and heartbreak in a snarl is a testament to her adept acting abilities.

Dawn Lee Tu, PhD, Director, Asian Pacific American Student Development, UC Berkeley (The Center for Asian American Media’s Best Asian American TV and Movie Roles of 2015)

[fuckyesmingnawen]

@MingNa:THANK U so much 4 this a-MAY-zing book! My Darling Mingalings: @themmmproject @eveningsandaj @Sairanb @_manquant

[pagebranson]

The Ming-Na Wen Lovefest

We love Ming-Na Wen. We know you do, too. How do we know? Cause you guys sent us a bunch of letters stating that fact! Enjoy an hour of us gushing about the greatest badass in the history of everything, courtesy of our listeners and posts culled from the Melinda May Matters Project (http://melindamaymatters.tumblr.com).

Level 7 Access: A Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. podcast

[melindamaymatters]

“She matters to us, and in turn, it is my hope that that matters to you.”

Volume Two is up! Read it here, or download it here. 

With much love and thanks to all who contributed, and a special thanks to onaperduamedee for the gorgeous cover art, and stardust-rain for the equally gorgeous cover design. We hope you enjoy.

[melindamaymatters]

“She matters to us, and in turn, it is my hope that that matters to you.”

Volume Two is up! Read it here, or download it here. 

With much love and thanks to all who contributed, and a special thanks to onaperduamedee for the gorgeous cover art, and stardust-rain for the equally gorgeous cover design. We hope you enjoy.

[melindamaymatters]

Just a quick reminder that today is the last day to send something in for the Melinda May/Ming Na Wen podcast that Level 7 Access will be doing -- see details at pagebranson‘s Tumblr here!

[melindamaymatters]

In late August, Level 7 Access Podcast will be doing a Melinda May & Ming Na Wen lovefest episode, and they’re looking for submissions from you! Level 7 Access is one of our favourite Marvel podcasts, and we’re thrilled that they’re doing a lovefest episode for our very favourite characters.

We’ll be sending in quotes from the soon-to-be-published Volume Two of Melinda May Matters, but we’d love to see as much love going Melinda’s (and Ming-Na’s!) way as possible, so between now and August 14th, please do take the time to drop a short love note to the character, actress, or both to [email protected].

For inspiration, take a listen to Level 7 Access’ Phil Coulson/Clark Gregg lovefest episode here, and see our entries at melindamaymatters too! Level 7 Access can be found on Twitter here, and as always, we can be found here - come say hi and share in the love!

[melindamaymatters]

ETA: See more ideas about what to contribute at pagebranson‘s post here! (She’s a gem, so definitely check out her blog and her art while you’re over there :))

[melindamaymatters]

In late August, Level 7 Access Podcast will be doing a Melinda May & Ming Na Wen lovefest episode, and they’re looking for submissions from you! Level 7 Access is one of our favourite Marvel podcasts, and we’re thrilled that they’re doing a lovefest episode for our very favourite characters.

We’ll be sending in quotes from the soon-to-be-published Volume Two of Melinda May Matters, but we’d love to see as much love going Melinda’s (and Ming-Na’s!) way as possible, so between now and August 14th, please do take the time to drop a short love note to the character, actress, or both to [email protected].

For inspiration, take a listen to Level 7 Access’ Phil Coulson/Clark Gregg lovefest episode here, and see our entries at melindamaymatters too! Level 7 Access can be found on Twitter here, and as always, we can be found here - come say hi and share in the love!

[melindamaymatters]

Her unexpected but much welcome titular episode shed light on what devastation May met in Bahrain, the harrowing experience she lives with, every single day. It wasn’t some spectacular fighting off ten or thirty armed men in order to save her fellow agents on horseback, as the exaggerated stories say. If only it was that. Instead, it was deciding to free a little girl named Katya, lost in her own uncontrollable powers. Courage is not a circus: it is not about who’s watching. Making the hard choice of taking the child’s life was not a deed she committed to earn lofty praises. NO. She saw innocence undeserving of the wreaked havoc through the fear the child claims she wants to consume more from her. That’s why she must be shuddering whenever someone tries to refer to her as the mighty Cavalry because “no one would understand” why the moniker is so very wrong. Said event cost her the dreams she was building with Andrew, it’s unacceptable to mock the blood on her hands.

Courage is about not collapsing like a missed connection and crying about what a failure you are or it’s about crying about being a failure, but then taking the same ghost train tomorrow. She turned deafeningly quiet, the playful smiles became rarer and replaced with eyes full of perpetual mourning but then, Melinda didn’t let her story end there. Yes, grief temporarily clipped her metaphorical wings but she’s a S.H.I.E.L.D. specialist who grew up with the values her mother Lian May instilled in her. That fateful day to her is but a mere speck compared to the work that remains to be done in the name of protecting the world. And so, she soldiered on, waiting for the wounds to mend, and all the while, extending the help she can manage, even if it’s not on the field, per se. When Nick Fury presented her prospect, adjustments and qualms aside, she continues to be her life’s active medium and chose again.

Courage is not about risking death but about risking life. Melinda is kickass, no question about that. The repeated statement “If I need a gun, I’ll take one,” goes to show even being weaponless wouldn’t held her back when people’s safety are at stake. Beyond her confidence in fulfilling her vows, staying in the field for her meant more than the consequence of facing inevitable death but putting relationships on the line. She cares so much for her team, probably to a fault, but that’s inherently who Agent May is. Her blunt honesty and being straight to the point is what’s normally noticed by people who shy away from her, just the bare surface. Pause for a fleeting second more and you’ll spot her beaming with pride for the little victories or in deeper sorrow for the unavoidable defeats. She’d give a scared scout baked cookies in the middle of interrogation to put him at ease, she’d gradually mentor a reluctant, often rebellious hacker who in truth, is searching for roots, to a capable field agent able to fend for herself, she’d stay and patiently wait for the recovering engineer to explain what the analysis was about when everyone else practically gave up, she’d support the young biochemist in her endeavors and allow arms who reach out to envelope her exhaustion in an embrace, she’d tap her mischief and share light moments with a sunny new member, she’d trust the security of a volunteering novice in the hands of a colleague deep in espionage, she’d empathize with a dear friend as he deals with secrets left and right despite him unfairly lashing out at her. May hates betrayals since those who earn her trust only do after a lot of consideration. Giving them a piece of her heart allows opponents, even if it turns out to be one of those she believes in, to leverage against her and there is no one to be in more pain when that happens than Melinda herself.

Courage is swallowing the ocean that tries to drown you but sometimes it’s drowning and drowning and going limp but still drowning and going salt but still drowning and making snow angels on the ocean floor. Getting up to fight back when life is so bent on beating you up isn’t easy and I personally know how much it could take you through dark, desolate places. Repeatedly. May had and continues to have her share of that. It’s necessary to have a firm grip on hope, like she does in order see light for the path back on the track she’s forging on. Times come when even her own doubt her actions, be it picking a side in divisive circumstances or her not slowing down to divulge the entirety of her calculated plans and merely relying on her team to have faith she’s doing the best she could. She resists caving in as long as possible; typically working around-slash-through her weaknesses in order to withstand obstacles. It does not hinder her from seeking help when the situation warrants it, though. She doesn’t forget she’s a valued human, needing, after all: there’s a mother willing to fetch her in the middle of nowhere after walking out of a secluded base suffocating the precious bond formed by her team, a infamous spy on speed dial willing to talk to just about anything, a ‘former’ commander to regroup with when the agency they’ve known together is crumbling in front of them, a husband whom she divorced and disconnected herself from, yet is still there on the other line with the comforting, supportive and absolutely unquestioning words, “Do good and come home.” Unwinding on the beach, letting the sun kiss her, a vacation involving red bikinis – it’s also her option, one she deserves and has.

As I write this, I’ve been blessed to be able to have two seasons’ worth of Melinda May and a third comes in a few more months. That’s 44 episodes of being thankful to Ming-Na Wen for portraying the fictional character I’m in constant awe of; you both share the top spot in my heart. And it isn’t so hard to pinpoint the many reasons why that faux death scene, if true, would have permanently leave a gaping hole in me. Her sheer existence in my life matters; she embodies all the forms of boldness especially the most important, hardest to learn and impart: sometimes courage’s just about going home.

(italicized lines taken from Aleph Altman-Mills’ Symptoms of Courage May Include)

[Written for melindamaymatters by melindaqiaolianmays]

[melindamaymatters]

“I hope you don’t mean, Captain, that you expect to come out of the war alive ?”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight over Arras

Melinda May matters to me as a way home.

Melinda, with her ghosts that communicate through shaving cream rather than anger, her look back at the Providence base she was quitting, acquitting her team in the process, her reasoned collaboration with the new, disruptive, order in place at S.H.I.E.L.D., her red bikini joyously packed after hell finished breaking loose - Melinda May reminds me that I am never stranded where I am.

For me, she embodies hope and agency, this belief that if all else should fail, let there be a way home, an “out”, a “somewhere else”. Where control and choice stand a chance.

The entire world cannot be a battlefield.

She hopes to come out of the war alive, and she does when she needs to. At Melinda’s core, under the quietness, hope is a sine qua non: the possibility of change, of balance, of home is irrevocable.

And the pilot’s job is solely to get you home.

When I see Melinda May’s familiar silhouette on the screen, I know that Skye and the others will eventually find a way home. Because Melinda knows the pathways, through winding gorges and sky-less traps, to get through and back. Be it monitoring Coulson, joining Gonzales, removing herself from a situation: these are parts of an itinerary, controls on the dashboard, to lead her crew. And she makes sure they are inhabited by the same self-reliance. Not being a hero; being steady and strong and unrestrained. She teaches Skye, in gestures contained and precise, the pressure properly applied to save and sustain her to the end of the ride.

Melinda doesn’t leave people stranded, including herself.

“Do good and get home safe”, as Andrew would say.

Melinda reminds me that in life your job is to “do good”, but not at your expense: at the end of the day, you need to get yourself home as well. Never to burn bridges or the ground you live on. You don’t buy victory with losses and certainly not yours. Comes the time to make sacrifices, they will be made, yet there will be a home to come back to, a core of hope and agency that is you.

Bahrain changed her, naturally, rewrote her course, and she flew across lonely and ragged landscapes, for years. But she found a way home, eventually – to a different kind of haven, sheltering monkeys and floating cars, noise and funk. A place for nurturing hackers into agents, for challenging her boundaries, for leading and conceding, for building, breaking, rebuilding and at last willingly breaking bonds.

A place of hope and change, somewhere she was not stranded.

This is why Melinda May left Providence, crossing the frozen wilderness to save herself from what was brewing and poisoning the crew. And a year after, that is why she is leaving for the sun, for time alone, for herself. Melinda manoeuvres best when all the paths are kept open. One such path is herself. Keeping it secured is essential.

And it matters to me to be told that I deserve to be kept secured, to be self-reliant, to have somewhere else. I have paths to choose from. I have a right to believe I am worth being such an essential path. I am not a tool to my future. I can get myself out, and home. I matter.

Melinda May doesn’t let herself be cornered; she matters. She is prepared to be ever moving, but steadily, strongly, as the world would not stop to accommodate her. Like an airplane, fighting forces on a sky limitless with paths. She’s gliding, burning fuel, day-time, but never away. She has to get her crew and herself home.

Heroes, at times, burn bridges, the ground, themselves. Heroism believes that wars require human sacrifices, that victory is paid with blows, wounds and deaths, that selflessness is the be-all and end-all of fighting.

Heroism is a tyrant and Melinda May is not a hero.

She’s a pilot – she brings people back home.

Melinda has become her own secured path.

[Written for melindamaymatters by onaperduamedee]

[melindamaymatters]

Important

Hi, Melinda May fans! We plan on including all entries that came in after Volume 1 was published in Volume 2, so please take a look and see if you submitted something way back when (Sept/Oct/Nov/Dec 2014, or around pages 7-9 of melindamaymatters) and let us know by July 16th if:

you would NOT like your entry included; or

you would like your entry included but with different submission info; or

you would like your entry removed from the blog entirely.

Thank you so much!

[melindamaymatters]

If you wrote something for this volume and would like to include a name/age/country/Twitter or Tumblr handle with your entry, send us a message!

Also, last call for entries as I finish piecing together the book over the next week, so get them in :D

[melindamaymatters]

When I fell in love with SHIELD, I was at a really rough point in my life. I was approaching the end of my senior year of high school, which meant endless tests and projects, and I had to confront that beast of a decision: Where to go to college. I was scared, and I was stressed, and all I wanted was to curl up in a ball for a very long time. While it looked like everyone around me had their act together, I was drowning.

One day, when I was home sick, I binge-watched season 1, and that was when Melinda May became the kind of hero only a handful of people, real or fictional, have been for me. With each passing episode, I found myself being drawn to this woman who I initially believed to be just another character I liked. By the time I caught up, she had become so much more. To quote Pitch Perfect 2, she was my flashlight, guiding me through what can easily be described as one of the toughest times of my life (so far). If I felt like I was going to break, I summoned her strength to pull myself through. If I reached the highest level of stress, all I had to do was watch a clip from the show, and for a brief moment I would be reminded that everything would be okay in the end.

One of the things I love about SHIELD is how I can see a piece of myself in every female character. I am a quiet person by nature, and that often makes me feel like an outsider. To see May, the quietest person on the show, also be one of the strongest means the world to me. She’s inspired me to carry on when things seem dark. She’s brought out the confidence I sometimes lack. She’s made me happy when everything around me makes me want to cry.

This fall, I will be majoring in Visual and Media Arts at Emerson College. My dream is to become a screenwriter.  Choosing between television and film doesn’t matter to me; what matters are the characters I create. It is my hope that I will create a female character like May: Strong (yet vulnerable), brave, caring, everything she embodies (Okay, maybe not everything, because that would just be plagiarism, but you get my point). May is the kind of character I could only dream of creating, but here’s hoping. If my character could inspire one person the way May has inspired me, I will never want for anything else.

I want to thank Ming-Na Wen, Maurissa Tancharoen, Jed Whedon, everyone who had a hand in bringing May to life. I am incredible grateful for all you’ve done. I never expected to become this attached to May, but I’m really glad I did. Melinda May has made me a stronger person, and that is why she matters to me.

[Written by Rachel (14rae19) for melindamaymatters]

[melindamaymatters]

Hello :) Are you still accepting submissions?

Yes! Do send them in :)