They were right when they said we should never meet our heroes.
“blacks in service, or no blacks"
Okay, first: let’s put a moratorium on white people using the term "blacks” for talking about black people. It’s dehumanizing. Full stop.
“the cast is primarily white, it’s the 40s"
"I would like to see more POC, yes, but that was the time"
.. I don’t even know what to say to this. I mean, how many times have women been told about shows "the cast is primarily male, but it’s the 1940s” or “I would like to see more women, but that was the time."
From anyone else, these remarks would be painful, but from Tamora "I will write female knights and female soldiers in medieval settings and fuck historical accuracy” Pierce?
(and if the excuse is “Tortall and Emelan are FANTASY worlds and Peggy Carter is in the real world”… uh, no. Peggy Carter is not in the real world. Unless someone was injected with super-soldier serum in the 1940s and I wasn’t informed)
What is this ridiculous (and historically inaccurate) excuse? People of color were not invented in the 1950s, as far as I know.
karnythia already has a fantastic explanation on why character of color would be perfectly accurate on Agent Carter, and I’m just going to add a few thoughts to that.
- Did we not notice Gabe Jones? Black soldier, member of Captain America’s commandos in Captain America: The First Avenger?
Who, in the comics, is *romantically involved* with Peggy Carter? Now there’s a character who would be easy and interesting to have along.
- Speaking of “blacks in service,” let’s talk about black people in military service, because while the military service may have been segregated, black men did serve. MANY black men did serve. And those men came back, after fighting for *freedom* and *justice*, to find the same old prejudice and racism and segregation - a storyline somewhat in parallel to Peggy’s, now that I think about it?
- There were black female nurses serving in WWII
- There were shittons of WOC who worked “men’s jobs” in army factories etc., during the war, and who, despite being dedicated and highly skilled, were turned out when “the men” returned from war - ripe ground for recruiting agents and allies
- And friends at the boarding house?
- So maybe Peggy could discover that (white) women aren’t the *only* people who have been left by the wayside in the postwar effort?
- And let’s talk about Japanese-Americans, while we’re at it! Who, on the west coast, have just been released from internment camps and been allowed to return to their homes/property.
- And Japanese-American soldiers, who were drafted directly from internment camps - again, imagine a story where Peggy needs information from a japanese-american soldier, but he’s not interested in helping the US out anymore because he was *essentially forced to fight to prove his loyalty*
- Hey, did you know the first female millionaire was a black woman? Madam CJ Walker? And that her adopted granddaughter was still running her company in the 1940s and 50s?
BECAUSE NOT ALL BLACK WOMEN WERE IN SERVICE?
- Not to mention all the lawyers of color who were laying the foundation of the civil rights movement
- or the professors of color teaching at segregated colleges?
- Puerto Rican civil rights activist and socialist Julia de Burgos was hanging around NYC around the 1940s and early 50s
- Toni Morrison WAS TWENTY in 1951. I’m not saying put Toni Morrison in Peggy Carter, but these are the kinds of POC who are young around the 1940s and 50s - massively successful future revolutionaries. Of COURSE people like them belong on Peggy Carter.
And maybe you’re like “oh, but the Toni Morrisons and the female millionaires and the japanese-american soldiers and the howard-university professors are the EXCEPTION” and I’m like “SO IS PEGGY CARTER."
This is the stuff I knew off the top of my head, with a migraine, and with a quick google search. It is not that hard to come up with hundreds of possible roles for people of color in the 1940s. And it is *necessary* to do it, obviously, because people are still spouting bullshit like "it was the times” when that is *obviously* and *demonstrably* false.
- For fuck’s sake, if this work is about the historical oppression of women and how Peggy (and other women) worked through and around that, why is it so hard to conceive that the show could ALSO portray the historical oppression of people of color, and how people of color worked through and around that? Those could be powerfully linked themes!
- And also: super soldier serum. There are only so many fucks I give about historical accuracy.
Peggy Carter *could* be a show with a diverse cast. It *chooses* not to be. No historical accuracy police is stopping them from casting Gabe Jones and Peggy’s brown roommate. And that Tamora Piece is defending their decision with language like that -
I guess solidarity really is for white women.
