Stealing Your Relics for Your Own Good

Agents of SHIELD returns

 
Well, I was supposed to have another post today, but it fell through…so. Second episode of Agents of SHIELD, just as racist as the first? Somewhat improbably, yes.

Our team heads off to Peru to find an object of great power, which they appropriate in the name of international law and harmony and because white people are the best ones to hold onto bombs, just ask Hiroshima. The Peruvians understandably don’t see it quite that way, and try to get the object for themselves. In particular, one of Coulson’s old flames, a (surprise!) hypersexualized Latina woman tries to use her wiles on him, but he’s too stoic and smart and white. The team sets aside its internal differences to self-actualize through the slaughter of the brown people whose stuff they’re stealing. Then at the end Samuel Jackson shows up and gives forth with the silly over the top indignation just to show that there’s no hard feelings from POC about the pillage and murder. Happy ending all around.

What’s interesting here is that this isn’t even really a superhero narrative. There aren’t any metahumans about; it’s a basic action-adventure narrative. Yet, the superhero filled world it exists in remains important — and part of the way it’s important is in the racism. Superhero genre default is that the powerful are good; the righteous who win are right. In the context of international security arrangements, this ends up meaning that stark imperial condescension is justified, and the bad guys are the indigenous people who object to having their borders violated and their resources robbed.Similarly, online activist Skye’s efforts to argue for people resisting oppression are pooh-poohed; rebellion against authority is portrayed as violent while the gun-wielding international agents with the flying fortress are just protectors.The connection between superpower narratives and the international superpower couldn’t be much more naked, or much more unquestioned.

8 thoughts on “Stealing Your Relics for Your Own Good

  1. I haven’t seen this show yet, but your analysis has me curious now.

    It’s kinda funny how Marvel is often seen as the more progressive of the big two, yet they have a long history of pulling stuff like this.

  2. On a similar note: The first Indiana Jones movie starts of with our hero stealing a relic from the Hovitos tribe. But this serves a purpose in the story, according to this (awesome) analysis:
    http://sevencamels.blogspot.dk/2008/07/why-character-arcs-in-raiders-makes.html

    TINTIN AND THE SEVEN CRYSTAL BALLS begins with a random guy telling the reader that people dying from a mummy’s curse kinda deserves it:
    http://www.kelvi.net/books/comics/albums/Tintin/The%20Seven%20Crystal%20Balls/TinTin%20-%20Seven%20Crystal%20Balls%20-%2001.jpg

  3. Well, one *could* argue that the extraterrestrian thing – though hidden within the Peruvian borders – did not belong to the Peruvians. It did belong to the professor/blacksmith guy who was an Asgardian and hid it there. And the authority to deal with Asgardian artefacts is – you guess it – SHIELD, who seem to be supranational or something. If anyone had a right to the… thing it was the Asgardian. But apparently he was fine with giving it up and leaving it to SHIELD.

  4. I really doubt the US would be okay with a supranational body launching a military invasion of its territory to retrieve a superweapon under any circumstances. It’s not clear to me why Latin American nations should be in the wrong when they resist such a thing, or why murdering your way through the people who do resist is in any way heroic.

  5. I didn’t say that the US would be okay and neither did I say that murdering Latin Americans was okay. OTOH there *are* plenty of SHIELD-actions happening on American soil that the government is not okay with and Americans getting in the way of SHIELD get killed as well. *shrug*

  6. I wonder though, speaking to the point about SHIELD being able to enter and seize the object because they are the custodians of Asgardian stuff, aren’t they the custodians of that stuff because they decided they were? The Peruvian government certainly never agreed (to our knowledge) to recognize SHIELD’s authority, and why would they? SHIELD lawfully entered Peruvian airspace according to it’s own laws.

  7. I really have no idea, Mike. As SHIELD was operating worldwide I just assumed that there was some kind of agreement/contract like UNO/NATO etc. that authorised them to do so. Otherwise they’d just be a rogue organisation without any authority anywhere and they seemed at least to be acknowledged by some officials.

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