#all of this from one jokey post about communal sub hawkeye -- all this and more

[variousqueerthings]

Its kind of funny how they have Hawkeye acknowledge how sexist some of his actions were when i feel like i always remember there being more women in those earlier seasons. I might be misremembering but i feel like if theyre going to do that they could at least make female characters more core. Like not every woman has to be plot relevant to be featured.

- Majoranon

Second post on your ask and much much shorter

I’m on my parallel rewatch atm and while there aaare overall more named nurses (especially in s1) they’re (thank you for pointing this out to me @genderqueer-klinger ) 1. not consistently named (ex. several nurses throughout the show will be called “Able”) and 2. named alphabetically, which can make them seem not quite real beyond a sexy conveyer belt (and there are exceptions AND I think it already started changing somewhat in “Ceasefire” s1 when Hawkeye pretending to be married immediately had several women rightfully drop him on the spot, AND I think it’s interesting that twice in the first couple of seasons -- and maybe later? Hawkeye makes a point of how he doesn’t pursue married peopl- uh... women, just women... yeah... sure...... Carlye is an important outlier, he’s going against his own principles!)

(also this is where I break in to imagine MASH form the POV of someone trying to tell their story and forgetting half the names and the timeline and that’s the reason for changing names/repeat names/odd ages/etc, but that’s another post + one of 100 versions of MASH one can imagine)

I do consistently wish there were more women who returned to the show (and you know... Ginger my beloved), but I do think overall there are a lot of interesting women throughout who have more single-episode plot-driven roles -- I have a feeling the difference overall between seasons 1-3 and 4-onwards is probably negligible but with less love-interests, but now just for interest’s sake will have a think about women whom I think are interesting in either a recurring role (Kellye, Rosie) or in their single episodes, and do a little comparison (again, more for interest than to make a point, because I generally just wish that there were more ladies with more screentime)

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and all of this being said and going back to the line itself for a bit -- I think that Hawkeye acknowledging past sexist behaviour is very interesting as a reason for him to not want to lead Marina on, when I might argue that it sounds more like a misdirection (a real thing he feels, but not the real reason he’s letting her down/feels like he does -- the best lies are the truth after all). Because what of course comes next is him saying that she deserves a passionate, starving, wide-eyed artist, and that he’s “seen too much to ever be wide eyed again.”

I watched Blood and Guts the other day (s10ep12) and it was interesting to me that Hawkeye had a date, because I think it’s been awhile since he’s had one of those? I did a cursory look-through and from what I see + remember the last time Hawkeye had something related to doing something with a woman was “Taking The Fifth” (s9ep9) and he didn’t even end up doing anything at all, unless the nursing staff took him up on the offer to get topped by every one of them........ and before that I feel like it was “Inga” way back in s7?

Again, I’d need to rewatch and pay attention to that, but overall we know that the tone of the show changes a fair bit from beginning to end and these late seasons in particular let Hawkeye have way less fun, never mind be a flirt, and so when he tells Marina that he’s not what she’s looking for, it really does seem sincere + like he’s just not got the will to want to seduce anybody -- never mind falling in love. I’ve also boarded the aromantic Hawkeye train and I’m not going to be getting off it anytime soon, but I do think that fits easily with the read that Hawkeye used to really enjoy being wanted + the giddiness of getting into something with someone. He didn’t often go about it the right way/he didn’t always take the partner’s feelings into account, but there was something about desire/being desired that he gravitated towards, if not an actual romantic relationship -- and on some level he still wants that, after all he still gets very upset/morose when he doesn’t feel appreciated

(this could now veer into “and so what does this tell us about Hawkeye-wants-to-be-wanted-Pierce sexually” and I’m gonna not do that this post, because I tangent enough as is)

again, was talking to genderqueer-klinger about this -- they mentioned that Hawkeye keeps having to suffer from Main Character Syndrome by getting all the really awful plotlines while everyone else gets to frolic, and I then called him Mad Max, because a lot of the time he has episodes where he’s there to step into someone else’s story (the episode where he tries to help the Korean soldier, only to then help dig his grave, the episode with the Korean brothers, also Blood Brothers, heck even Marina’s story has Hawkeye in the role of love-interest-that-never-happened) and most of the time that story is bittersweet at best and his job is to contain all of that Narrative and he’s only a single lanky guy (it’s the real reason his posture is so fucked, he carries it all on his back)

he’s not allowed much levity, so we cling to the times he gets to do something lighter, like help deliver a calf or gather pictures so that a soldier can pretend to his ex that he’s over her, etc. But you know... maybe someone oughta be giving him a kiss every now and then, because my goodness does he not get as much love as I think he needs, which again, if aro-read, it’s also hard to define that love under an easy “give him a romantic interest” because that wouldn’t feel right either (and that’s not even mentioning episodes where BJ is going through His Stuff and is therefore mean to him, or the Hawkeye-centric episodes where they’re like “what if he has extra trauma from his childhood on top of that”)

maybe if someone gave him a good smooch/ruffled his hair/put him in their lap/f***** him/touched him/etcetcetc... I mean it wouldn’t fix him, but I think it would be good for him to not feel like he can no longer enjoy those things/is made too fragile by the violence to be held 

Anyway, keeping a running list now of episodes that feature women in an interesting way (this may be somewhat subjective at times)

stay tuned!