It’s kind of grating/funny that MCU fans talk about how much work this or that actor put into their character when their character wasn’t in the film much, or there was no way for the viewers to notice how much work the actor was putting into the scene because so much of the work was in the background, or how hard they had to work out and choreograph scenes.
Because I just think of Emily VanCamp, who read all the comics featuring Sharon she could, who didn’t know she was filming a fight scene against the Winter Soldier until the DAY they filmed it and still nailed it, had her scenes cut down to a total of seven and a half minutes, remained supportive of her coworkers and praised them and their acting skills in various interviews – even if she didn’t have scenes with them, who responded with grace when an interviewer told her to her face it was insulting for her to play Sharon in the first place, and how fandom treated her so badly you’d think she was the bride of Satan or something.
Like, it’s not that the other people didn’t put in a lot of work. But you want to talk about someone who dedicated themselves to Marvel and have their work go almost entirely unappreciated, unmentioned, and unnoticed? That would be Emily VanCamp.
because I hate this “sharon carter was reduced to nothing but a love interest!” narrative, here is what it’s actually like when a character is reduced to just a love interest:
take Princess Tilde from the Kingsman movies:
she’s, by definition, basically nothing but a love interest (which is pretty much poking fun at the bond movies but w/e). she is very much her own person as we saw in the first movie (fighting back, standing up for what she believes in), but she’s in these movies to give Eggsy some sort of moral compass, emotional happiness, and the drive to finish the job. she’s sexualized and they hook up literally instantly after they met (which hey if a really hot guy rescued me I would too), and the only time we see her is a) when Eggsy is working through his grief over Harry, b) when he contemplates compromising the mission because of his feelings for her, c) when he’s mourning their relationship, and d) when they get married at the end of the movie. her main purpose is to serve as a normal, emotional anchor for a man who wants to feel normal even with the job he has. I love Tilde, and I love their relationship, but… facts are facts.
now let’s move on to Sharon Carter:
let me just say, the entirety of civil war wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for Sharon. she was the one who found Bucky. if it wasn’t for her, Bucky would be dead and Steve would be mourning not just Peggy but Bucky as well, and it’d be a whole ass mess. she was the one who stood up against hydra in winter soldier. she was the one who could fight back against the winter soldier just as well as Natasha could. she risked her job and her livelihood to help Steve and co. in civil war. she doesn’t serve as a means to give Steve conflict or emotional depth, but instead, we’re always shown time and time again that he’s grateful for her help. because without her, he wouldn’t be where he is today, he wouldn’t have any of his friends alive, and he’d probably be dead or arrested if we’re being honest. sharon carter can exist as her own character without Steve, and be a damn good one at that.
steve rogers’ love interest is Sharon Carter. it doesn’t mean she’s just a love interest.
I rewatched Civil War a few months ago, and I’ve been meaning to make this post ever since. It’s been sitting half-finished in my drafts for at least 2 or 3 months.
I want to point out something in Sharon’s interactions with Steve and Sam. It’s never actually said explicitly, but everything about how they interact implies that Sharon has spent considerable time with both Steve and Sam between TWS and CW. Possibly they were all running missions together, or maybe she was helping them try to track down Rumlow and/or Bucky, but that’s heading into speculation territory.
The first and most important thing is that when Steve and Sam are at Peggy’s funeral, when Sharon gets up on the podium to deliver Peggy’s eulogy, Steve is looking down and Sam nudges him to look up. Sam clearly recognizes Sharon and is surprised to see her there, and just as important, he thinks Steve needs to know she’s there. Which means he knows Steve is interested in her. It’s not a “hey, pay attention” kind of nudge, that would be unnecessary and OOC for Sam, who’s a counselor and knows when people need their space. Steve is grieving and Sam knows that; it’s very clearly Sam wanting Steve to specifically see Sharon. But how would Sam recognize Sharon when he didn’t meet her during TWS? And how would he know about Steve’s feelings for her? The only answer that makes sense is that all three of them spent time together doing something. (Possibly also with Natasha, but that’s neither here nor there.) And it would have to be enough time for Sam to pick up on Steve liking Sharon, so it wouldn’t have just been a chance meeting in the hallway or a quick passing-on of information. Steve might be awkward but he’s not that awkward anymore, Sam wouldn’t have picked up on his liking Sharon from a two-minute business-like interaction like an info drop.
Second, not as obvious, but the scene after the funeral and after Steve and Sharon’s chat by the elevator, when Steve and Sam see the Vienna explosion on the news and Sharon gets the phone call to go to work, the three of them coordinate way too well for that to have been the first time they all interacted. The way they’re all standing together and the way they move around each other suggests that they’re comfortable with each other. And the same goes for all their other scenes together. There’s the scene where Sharon passes Steve the file, the one where she gives Steve and Sam their equipment back (they would’ve had to easily be able to get in touch with each other to set that up, or have had a protocol in place for where and when to meet), and especially the ones at the Task Force HQ, where Sharon tells Sam and Steve what their political status is and helps them figure out what’s going on with Bucky. They all work so well together, not just physically but also intellectually, in figuring out Zemo’s plan, that they had to have spent time together to have that kind of teamwork.
(As an aside, Sharon’s tag team with Natasha during their fight with Bucky also suggests that that friendship has carried over from comics too. Which makes a ton of sense, they were both SHIELD agents and their personalities mesh well together. I really hope we see more of their friendship on screen at some point, because it’s great. And ditto for Sharon and Sam.)
So what does all this mean? It means that all the people who say Steve and Sharon’s relationship came out of nowhere just to “prevent Steve and Bucky from being gay” are ignoring not just all of Sharon’s development and all of Steve’s interactions with her in TWS, but also a lot of things in CACW too. Should it maybe have been more obvious, and should Sharon have had more development, both on her own and also with Steve? And with Sam, Natasha, etc. Yes, of course. But it was also clear enough that the only way it could’ve been more clear was if they had explicitly said it in dialogue. IMO people who say there was no development at all for Sharon or for her relationship with Steve aren’t seeing it because they don’t want to.
Like left field? They talked for like two minutes in Winter Soldier and then she helped him out with escaping and finding Bucky in Civil War and they shared the loss of Peggy.
But… I was confused about the kiss. Maybe a hug but… a kiss? And like a serious French Kiss to boot?
First Steve was the biggest dork and now he’s snogging anyone?
I think the writers and directors depended on people catching on to subtext, and they whittled down Sharon’s role to make room for other things (the directors said they cut an entire storyline of Sharon’s in TWS without even filming it because there wouldn’t be time for any of it, and she also was touted as a lead in the film before they brought on some other people they’d said they wanted to work with, we have some leaked storyboards of her in CW, and the writers talked about how they wrote her out of Infinity War after several drafts because they didn’t have time to focus on a B story). This ended up creating more and more subtext.
But it’s important enough that Steve felt comfortable asking Sharon out when he lived across the hall from her. By the end of TWS, Steve asks Natasha about her, and it’s implied he’s still interested in her even after knowing she was spying on him (similar to how Nat spied on Tony).
There was a Civil War tie-in book where it turns out that Sharon wasn’t spying on him to protect him solely from external forces, too. SHIELD was concerned about his PTSD and worried that he might self-harm or try to kill himself. Sharon was stationed across the hall as a familiar figure so that she would be in a position and have a reason to suddenly appear whenever she was worried he might be on the verge of doing something. That makes FAR more sense than her hanging around on the opposite side of the hall in case he was attacked – after all, the Winter Soldier shot through a wall to get to Fury in the apartment. And that would explain why there were no visuals in the apartment – she was trying to give him as much protection as possible while still trying to monitor his well-being. But that line got cut, so… subtext.
In Civil War, it’s SAM who recognizes her at the funeral. You could argue that Steve’s crush has remained in place enough that Sam has seen sketches of her. @notallthosewho-wanderarelost wrote a meta on how it’s implied that Steve, Sam, and Sharon spent time together after TWS and got to know each other better. The deleted scene at the wake backs this up.
Even without that, we see in CW that Sharon and Steve work together to figure out Zemo’s plan in Berlin. We also see that Sharon wants to help Steve and Bucky (one of the scenes giving some of her motivation – and making clear it wasn’t about getting into Steve’s pants – was storyboarded and leaked but never made it to the movie). We also see that Steve knows he can trust her and rely on her.
Could the relationship have been done better? YES. They gave Sharon 7 ½ minutes total in two 2 ½-hour-long movies two years apart, and in that time they wanted to set her up as her own character AND set up the relationship with Steve. But they never have Steve or Sam say, “It’s good to see you again, how’s the apartment-search going?” or anything suggesting a familiarity with her life (or her with theirs outside of that deleted scene). I think they wanted each film to feel like a self-contained story, even though they were building on previous films, and they did it… poorly. They literally put more work into Peter Parker walking down the hallway. They put more work into decorating his apartment and choosing a song for him.
But this is also the fandom that wrote reams of fanfic for Coulson and Hawkeye, that wrote essay’s on Tom Hiddleston’s blinking choices, that wrote scores of fanfic for Bucky and Rumlow and Pierce based on the one brainwashing scene and turned it into a romance between Brock and Rumlow. Don’t even get me started on how this fandom treats Steve and Bucky or Steve and Tony, even though those two pairings are not canon and based on interpretations of (wait for it) subtext. This is a fandom that can explore subtext when it wants to. But weirdly, when it comes to women, minorities, and minority women, it’s much more difficult for fandom to do. In Sharon’s case in particular, her lack of screentime and her treatment by some of the other actors, directors, and even writers, seems to have reinforced the idea that fandom can, on a whole, dismiss her contributions to the story, her character and actions, and subtext to justify hating her.
They had a very long love affair in the comic books. Quite complicated, at times. You know, I can see how it would be strange, but I can also see how it would bring them together, so because I play Sharon, I can sort of identify with her and what that means to her, and what Cap means to her.
There are many layers to this Sharon that we have yet to explore, so it will be interesting to see if we do that or not. I don’t think she’s just a love interest, at all, but I think it was nice to see how loyal she is to Steve. We all know that, that was most likely infused in her since she was a kid. You know, with her relationship with Peggy, and you see in the film, she speaks about her relationship with Peggy and how close they were.
Wide Spread Interests 