She has a name. Her name is Sharon Carter! On the way we discuss actresses and female characters in genre fare.

One of the big would-be stories yesterday was the announcement of five actresses apparently on the 'short list' to play Sharon Carter in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  Such stories are always big news in the blogsphere, mainly because it allows bloggers to write a handful of sentences and then decorate their site with various pictures of attractive women.  What's amusing/disconcerting about these stories is how pretty much every single website describes this role as 'the love interest' or 'the romantic interest'.  Most of the sites can't even muster a token 'female lead', opting to describe the role as Steve Roger's "arm candy".  Look, barring some inexplicable surprise, we all know that one of the five actresses in the running (Emilia Clarke, Jessica Brown-Findlay Teresa Palmer, Imogen Poots, and Alison Brie) is likely playing Shield agent Sharon Carter, distant relative (grand-daughter/great-niece, etc.) of Hayley Atwell's Peggy Carter in the last Captain America film.  She has a name, she has a character and a history that can be referred to when discussing this casting news.  How about we use some of that information instead of just referring to her as Steve Roger's newest sexy time partner?