Lost souls, victims and deviants: radicalization and gender in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Marvel TV series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which is set in a fictional American intelligence agency, reproduces contemporary media, academic, and governmental discourse surrounding violent radicalization and its causes. Furthermore, it replicates a number of stereotypes that are specific to women who participate in terrorism, portraying them as victims and/or as the types of clichéd figures that Sjoberg and Gentry have named ‘mothers’, ‘monsters’, and ‘whores’. This article illustrates these points mainly through a comparison of the narratives of two characters with similar backgrounds, one female, Daisy Johnson, and one male, Grant Ward, who each become involved with a series of violent groups. While Ward’s trajectory is one of gradually gaining power, Daisy remains framed as both a follower and a victim. Although the series does make some gestures towards undermining Manichean post-9/11 discourse about terrorism – through slippages both between Daisy, one of the show’s heroines, and Ward, a key antagonist, and between the eponymous intelligence agency, S.H.I.E.L.D., and the terrorist organization Hydra – these are ultimately disavowed.