avengers

The Avengers

When I think about my childhood, I think that I watched *way* too much tv. Yeah, now that I'm my thirties, I love to hike and I've even started going to the gym. But when I was a kid, my friends pretty much had to drag me out to play. Which they did, fairly often, though the whole time I'd be out there dropping fly balls or whatever and thinking about how I was missing X, Y and Z shows, most of which I cannot remember and probably don't want to remember. However, there was one show that I still remember fondly, and that had a definite impact on me, growing up. That was, of course, The Avengers.

First off, there was Emma Peel, and her keen fashion sense. Second, there was Emma Peel and her biting wit. Third, there was Emma Peel, and the way that she was as intelligent as her male partner, got into fight scenes along with her male partner, and generally kept up the side for women in a way that the women on most shows didn't. (Remember, the heyday of the Diana Rigg-era Avengers was 1966-67, and I was watching it in syndicated reruns periodically throughout the seventies.) Fourth, there was Emma Peel and the way that men still found her devastatingly attractive despite (because of?) the fact that she wasn't the traditionally passive, deferential female. What a role model she was! I liked Steed a lot, too, but he always came in second to her, and though I watched the Tara King episodes as well, they didn't have the same impact on me. Tara could fight, but she was younger than Emma, and too obviously admiring of Steed. I'd think he would have found her rather boring after the fabulous Emma Peel.

There's a really comprehensive Unofficial Avengers Website to check out. I got the images from there, and the proper attributions are all attached.

Kudos to A&E for releasing the episodes in box sets. I'd taped it from late night tv reruns when I got my first vcr in the late '80s, and they were brutally cut in places. (Way crazy 2am commercials, too!) These are clean and fresh and crisp and the show doesn't look as dated as my off-air copies did.

And what about The Avengers Movie? Okay, Uma Thurman and Ralph Fiennes are not Diana Rigg and Patrick MacNee. Although I suspect they get paid a lot more. But . . . I appear to be one of four people in the known world who actually enjoyed this movie! I think the problem is that the fans hated the casting and nobody who wasn't a fan got the scriptl. I saw it with my friend Deborah, and we laughed our heads off at the witty lines and the twisted Avengers-ish sensibility. As we were leaving the theater, we heard people around us, and we realized they hadn't had such a good time. Hmmm, I thought. Okay, the performances were perhaps a little stilted, but the delivery left me in no doubt that a loving tribute was being paid to the original. Anyhow, a few months later, I was visiting my folks, and what was playing at $2 night at the Hamburg Palace (the local second-run single-plex theater that I love going to whenever I'm visiting the folks)? That's right, The Avengers Movie. Well, my dad and I used to watch The Avengers together when I was growing up, so I dragged him off to the movies. And the two of us laughed our heads off. We noticed that we were the only two who were howling when a kilted Sean Connery began with "Now is the winter of your discontent . . . " All, I can say is, I'm glad I saw it the second time, because I went two for two, and I know I'm not crazy. Just a little . . . unusual. ;-) (There is a third person who admitted to me that she liked it, too, for the worldwide total of four, but her name is being withheld to protect the innocent, isn't it Felicia? Er, oops.)

But what I *really* like about Mrs. Peel? In these days of Buffy and Xena, it may be hard to remember what an unusual sight this was . . . Usually women sat on the sidelines during fight scenes, and no matter what you may think about violence, in context I found her really empowering. Not that I knew what "empowering" meant in those days.