Black Widow and Unrealistic Fantasy Heroines

[cest_what]

I've been thinking about movie-verse Black Widow in relation to this excellent blog post lately. In particular the idea that because women in comics/video games/geek media tend to be portrayed as unrealistically sexy and eye-candy-esque in their clothing and poses while doing kickass masculine-coded things (being amazing fighters, hackers, engineers etc), people often consider that that competence itself is part of the fantasy, rather than a quality that's realistic for a female character.

I have mixed feelings about parts of Natasha's arc in Avengers. On an individual character level, the fact that Natasha is afraid and deals with it is great: it's part of what gives her the human depth that's missing from her role in Iron Man 2. On a broader level, the fact that Natasha, the only female Avenger, is also the only one of them we see frightened and running scared, is unfortunate.

What I don't have any mixed feelings about, though, is that in addition to seeing her scared, we see Natasha doing things that are fucking hard, and that we see the effort it takes. Natasha's coolest moment in Iron Man 2 is, undoubtedly, her fight scene in the corridor. It's well choreographed, her hair looks great, her outfit looks great, and basically the whole thing looks really cool. It's also effortless: she doesn't break a sweat, she never looks less than stunning, and every move displays her body in, not a hypersexualised way, but in an entirely photogenic way. It's not something you would look at and think "god that's so objectifying", but in the most literal way, that's absolutely what it is: there's nothing at all to take you inside the character's POV, you're just watching a beautiful kickass fantasy woman do cool shit.

I think the photogenic damn that's cool moments are really important for action movies and superhero movies in particular. Natasha gets as many of them in Avengers as the other Avengers do. But she also, like the other Avengers, gets the moments where effort makes her ugly. When she catches a ride on one of the alien planes, for example, you see her look incredibly cool as she jumps and then you see her with this brutal grimace of effort while she struggles with the aliens and wrestles the vehicle into submission.

In Avengers, unlike in Iron Man 2, Natasha's super agent competence isn't undercut by a need for her to be unrealistically attractive in every shot - especially during her fight scenes. Sometimes she is, sometimes she isn't, just like the boys. It's a pretty simple thing, but I almost think it's the most important thing the film did for her.

Comments

[jamafanta]

I agree with you, and I would further say that portraying women in a kick-ass but still three dimensional fashion is something that Joss Whedon does so well he's really in a class by himself, Buffy (since you can't talk about Joss without referencing his iconic creation) was as fascinating in her flaws as in her strengths, but no more and no less than the best of the male characters (like Spike). It's too bad that that's so rare.

[cest_what]

I definitely went into Avengers trusting that Whedon would do well by Natasha in a way that I would trust few directors. I do wish Buffy had worn heels patrolling a little less often, but she was for sure a hero as a hero should be.

(I don't know much about Joe & Anthony Russo, but the Community connection makes me really hope they'll do well by Natasha too, in The Winter Soldier. Female characters feel so vulnerable in a franchise.)

[jamafanta]

My pet peeve when it comes to female characters is that their Achilles’ heel always seems to be their softer emotions. I don’t mean that they shouldn't be allowed to find love, but it’s like Irene Adler in the Sherlock Holmes franchise. In the books, she manipulates and blackmails in order to free herself from her past and rides off into the sunset with her husband. I don’t mind at all that it’s done for love rather than for financial success or an ideological crusade, that’s a perfectly noble motivation. And as one blogger mentioned, her being a ‘loose woman’ who isn’t punished for it was practically revolutionary at the time Doyle wrote the story. In the recent miniseries, though, she’s undone because despite all her clever planning she goes and falls for Sherlock and is so sentimental as to use his name as her password. I really hate that. I hate the “woman led astray by her emotions” trope, and I hate that they made her directly subservient to Moriarty too. In my opinion, they bankrupted the character of all the elements that made her remarkable.

Tl;dr comment, but here’s my point: I love the Winter Soldier storyline like burning, and I’m beyond excited for all the fanfiction that will come out of it. But I do anticipate being disappointed by them reducing Natasha’s involvement to “lost love”.

[cest_what]

I haven't watched most of Sherlock, but I agree that the trope that women are somehow more vulnerable to bad-decision-making due to love is pretty awful.

But I do anticipate being disappointed by them reducing Natasha’s involvement to “lost love”.

Do you mean she'll be Bucky's love interest? I'd heard people saying they hoped that wouldn't happen, but not anyone talking about it being confirmed - has it been? That's potentially super disappointing /o\

(Although I do have to admit that one of my fondest hopes for this movie is that it will spontaneously make a fandom-wide OT3 out of Clint/Natasha/Bucky. Because of ... reasons.)

[jamafanta]

Not confirmed, no! It just seems like such an obvious move that I'll be quite impressed if they don't go for it. Regardless, the fic coming out of it should be fantastic!

[acerbictomes]

I wish I had something more intelligent to add than "wow, yes, this" but, well, wow, yes, this. I didn't notice it while I was watching, but yes, Natasha gets to be ugly in Avengers (and how sick is it that female characters have to get to be ugly) and now I kind of want to rewatch the movie just to notice all the moments where she's not, you know, awesome pretty fantasy lady.

[cest_what]

I didn't notice or properly articulate it either, until I was watching vids, and seeing that Iron Man 2 scene specifically juxtaposed against the Avengers fights. And just ... noticing how dismissive I was of that scene, I guess, how much I shuffled it to the side as not a real thing, in my own thinking about Natasha?