The Avengers: too queer to succeed?

The Avengers (the proper one, not the Marvel one) has gone down in cinema history as an unremitting disaster. But time has been kind and, viewed more than two decades later, it’s a highly enjoyable 86 minutes if you’re in the right frame of mind - a queer frame of mind that is.

One of the lowest rated movies on aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, with a 5% ‘fresh rating, The Avengers appears to have nothing going for it. The film ‘bombed’ on release, although not as badly as many think.

A lack of confidence from the studio led to more than 20 minutes of footage being removed. With this knowledge of a troubled post-production in the public domain, reviewers went in with pre-conceived ideas about the film being incoherent. What struck me on my recent rewatch - 20 years after I first saw it - was how well it all holds together. Yes, the scenes move quickly and you have to do some of the dot-joining yourself. There’s a notable lack of establishing shots, for example, which means you are sometimes thrust into a scene without having time to gain your bearings. But if your brain can keep up with it, the film is a highly enjoyable romp which successfully emulates the tone of the original TV series, which - at its best - was simultaneously mysterious, funny, sinister, sexy and oh-so-antiestablishment.

A willingness to bend the rules of film grammar; a smorgasbord of conflicting tones; a gleeful desire to smash taboos… For many critics and viewers, just having one of these elements in a film is off-putting. A film with all three is probably going to be a bridge too far.

Personally, these are the sort of things that I relish in a film.

I’m not saying The Avengers is perfect. It could do with a bit more time to breathe at times and, should the director ever get his wish and be able to recut the film back to its original length, I will be one of the first in line. But this is not just a case of me championing an underdog because it’s an underdog. I was genuinely enchanted by it. A large part of this is because of how queer it is. Whether it was intended to be queer or not (and it really doesn’t matter if it wasn’t), it is one of the queerest mainstream films I’ve ever seen. Is this partly why it was so critically reviled?

The film sets out it queer stall right from the very beginning, with elegantly-dressed Steed walking through a quintessential English village. The village is trapped in the 1960s: the ‘look’ of the film is ‘60s with science fiction elements, destabilising us from the off. Even for the time period, he’s overdressed, more of a city banker or civil servant than a denizen of a respectable village. He stands out as ‘different’.

Steed - in his appearance and manner - here has shades of the Man from the Ministry characters played by gay actor Richard Wattis in films of the 1950s and 1960s and 1967’s Casino Royale.

It’s soon apparent that everyone is against him. Although this turns out to be a training exercise (a very Bondian conceit), we aren’t told that until it’s all over, so our mind goes off in queer directions…

His first attacker is dressed as a policeman: even the institution which is supposed to uphold law and order and protect citizens is against Steed. Remember that male homosexuals were were regularly harassed by the police until 1967, when homosexual acts were partially descriminalised.

Even the milkman gets in on the action, smashing two bottles together and lunging at Steed with the broken remnants. There are echoes of Necros in The Living Daylights. But here the idea is that the whole community is violently opposed to his very being, despite him having done nothing to provoke them, besides be himself.

A kindly grandmother turns out to not be pushing a pram (symbol of heteronormativity), but a set of throwing knives.

Another set of attackers - masc mechanics from the village garage - are quickly neutralised: a potential queer-bashing is turned on its head. It’s an empowerment fantasy for anyone who has ever been in this position. We all wish we could turn the tables on our would-be attackers.

As the Ministry man overseeing the exercise (played by Nicholas Woodeson, the psychologist in Skyfall) says to Steed when it’s all over: “There’s always an enemy Steed. You just have to know where to look.”

Homophobia is always a possibility.

If only standing our ground was as effortless as Steed makes it appear to be.

Nuns out guns out?

Steed expresses his surprise that the nuns were adversaries in his training exercise. But with a long history of discrimination towards queer people, why should religion be any less circumspect that any other institution?

The Ministry itself sees no distinction between male and female. The head of the organisation, ‘Mother’, is a man. The second in command, ‘Father’, a woman (played to camp perfection by lesbian actress Fiona Shaw).

“You are female!”

Dr Emma Peel blithely disregarding two centuries of male hegemony tells us more about her character than any scene of exposition. She strides through the gentlemen’s club, scarf flowing behind her. The shooting location - London’s Reform Club - has admitted women since 1981 but only an eighth of its members are currently women. [The club is supposed to be Boodle’s, which appears in two of Fleming’s Bond novels]

It’s the same club incidentally, that would later appear in two Bond films. Both appearances (Die Another Day, Quantum of Solace) feature women owning this male-dominated space.

A male space within a male space…

In the sauna, both Dr Peel and Steed and unembarrassed by the latter’s nakedness. And the angles chosen make it clear that Peel can see everything. Contrary to cinema tradition, the male star is objecified far more than the female star.

Social convention is well on its way out of the window.

We are less than seven minutes into the film.

“My father always wanted a boy.”

It’s clear who is keeping their tip up. Analyse this.

Steed has no issues with female authority.

“A little more flexibility in the wrist?”

Hardly the image of Alpha Male heroism we’re accustomed to in an action movie.

More tea? Yes please!

Genderfluid actor Eddie Izzard in ‘boy mode’ (with eyeliner).

Category is: evil doppelganger ice queen Diana Rigg Tracy Bond realness.

Recovering from his encounter with the evil clone of Dr Peel, the good doctor nurses him back to health. Somehow she got him - while unconscious - out of his clothes and into a robe. There’s a lot of CFNM in this film!

A room full of bears in rainbow colours. Need I say more?

Steed: “According to your file, you’re a psychopathic personality with schizophrenic delusions suffering from recurring amnesia based on traumatic repression leading to outbursts of antisocial and violent behaviour.”

Peel: “Is that really what you think of me?”

Steed: “Oh well, just my type Mrs Peel.”

Traumatic repression ring a queer bell anyone?

In this tremendously well-written scene, Peel and Steed play chess while she fills in ‘the science bit’ with everything having a sexual subtext. Who doesn’t love it when protons and ions come together with enough “excitement energy” to achieve fusion? Well, perhaps audiences just didn’t get the joke. Perhaps others couldn’t get their heads around someone feminine being the cleverest person in the room.

See also ^

“Mrs Steed lives in Wiltshire… (pause) My mother. … Duty comes first.”

Steed is a ‘confirmed bachelor’.

Author Helen Fielding asks: “When bachelordom is drawing closer to the norm than an aberration, why is there a growing association of the term bachelor with homosexuals?”

Why indeed!

(John Steed is one of her examples)

This whole seduction scene is deeply ‘off’ and not just because of its non-consensuality. Composer Joel McNeely (whose music replaced Licence To Kill composer Michael Kamen’s score when the film was re-edited) chooses to play a lush romantic waltz, the music working contrapuntally to make us feel queasy. (McNeely did a similar thing for his Star Wars project the year before where Princess Leia was almost seduced by the slimy villain.) Similarly, Connery’s sexual magnetism - so endearing in the Bond films - is employed to make us question whether someone as conventionally masculine is really what we want? Bring back Steed!

Compare the figure positions in these two scenes: De Wynter (Connery) seeks to overpower Peel, dominating her as he will the world. In contrast, Steed is usually below Peel, potentially vulnerable but actually just comfortable enough to put himself utterly in her hands.

What’s not to love about a magnificent granny with a machine gun?!

Further empowerment of a group marginalised by society.

Much of the film is shot in and around Blenheim Palace, location for Spectre. It’s the birth place and ancestral home of Winston Churchill, who is more than deserving of a place in queer history.

Another pillar of the Establishment features in the climax. Quite literally a pillar this time: Nelson’s column, priapic symbol of male Imperialism topples to the ground after Dr Peel steers the enemy hot-air balloon into it. Nelson’s column is conquered by another woman in 1967’s Casino Royale, where Ursula Andress’s Vesper Lynd purchases it so she has a nice view from her apartment window.

A warning to any would-be male suitors that she cannot be tamed?

Will he bong? We shall see!

What is it with this film and smashing symbols of male virility? Fittingly, Big Ben changed gender in 2012, officially being renamed Elizabeth Tower for the Queen’s Jubilee.

Here’s to a job well done!

The Avengers is available to purchase on YouTube and Amazon Prime Video.

It’s worth watching if you’re a Bond fan to play ‘spot the connection’ (I’ve barely scratched the surface in this piece)

I was inspired to re-watch the film by Cam and Scott on the Spy Hards podcast, who interviewed the director and writer.

All images copyright Warner Bros unless otherwise stated.

Used for educational purposes.