The Avengers was a television series from the
British '60's. The program was a drama depicting British spies working for counter-intelligence within the UK, stopping criminals and
Soviet spies and giant
carnivorous plants. Wait, what?
The show is not exactly realistic fiction; indeed it is in the style of so much British television, a story about the main characters being thrown into whatever plot might be given them. The series was focused on the adventures of John Steed, a dapper English gentleman, bowlered and ever equipped with an umbrella, who must solve mysteries and fight evil men. With him is often someone, typically female, who embodies the straight-man to his enigma. Early on, he had a Doctor Watson to his Holmes, but as the series progressed his companions became more feminine and leather-clad. His most famous partner in avenging was Emma Peel, who kicked high in leather pants.
The kernel of the series is that the British action hero is a charming but decisive man who eschews guns while the British action heroine is attractive, smart and is packin' heat. The situation, this being the sixties is somewhere between mundanely dangerous to surreal-ly frightening, but no matter what Steed will soldier forth and fix the problem. This sort of character exists in other shows from this era, such as The Doctor or Number 6. The decision to make a spy type character anathema to guns was made on the part of Patrick McNee, whose experiences with firearms in World War II left him with supreme distaste for weapons aside from a well swung umbrella.
The Avengers belongs to the Pantheon of British Television, a spy drama that molds together science-fiction and cold-war anxiety with a quintessentially British hero and heroine. A subtle man. A strong woman. From a sociological standpoint, it gives a peek into the mind of an England that found itself on the frontline of yet another world encompassing conflict and dutifully struggles against adversity while championing its separation from warrior culture. An Englishman does not use a gun, but brandishes an umbrella as sword and shield. An Englishwoman is confident, beautiful and above all else professional. This positions The Avengers as an enjoyable primary source for Anglophiliac social scientists. Come for the Britishness, stay for the camp, wear a bowler.