Writing Analysis

How “Agatha” Inverts Gender Stereotypes

It’s just not just all the queerness

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“I will find you, and I will kill you,” Liam Neeson tells the gang of human traffickers that kidnapped his daughter in Taken. We’re used to seeing father figures protecting young girls who could be their daughters: “Last of Us,” Léon, Logan.

Marvel’s “Agatha All Along” flips this paradigm on its head.

The father represents the knight in shining armor. His damsel in distress is his daughter. Her purity and/or vulnerability makes him step up as a man. Saving her gives noble cause to the protective and martial aspects of his masculinity.

Agatha is the opposite: a wicked mother figure to a naive boy, Billie. While Agatha clearly cares about the boy she once babysat, she’s just as likely to ridicule him and foil his efforts. In fact, now that the season’s over, we know she used him to acquire a “coven” of witches whom she planned to kill to replenish her own power.

This simple inversion of the father-daughter knight-damsel paradigm is important for two reasons.

First, it’s important to show boys can be worthy of love, too. Boys with mommy issues, especially teenage boys, are often depicted as evil. We Need to Talk About Kevin walks us through…