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Monday, July 16, 2012

The Not-So-Itsy Spider (No, Not Spider-man)



         One word: Black Widow. So two words, actually.

           I’ve read mixed reactions to Scarlett Johansson’s part in Marvel’s latest orgasm of property damage, and after hours of thought-provoking research and hours of less thought-provoking tumblr, I’m ready to weigh in. The two sides of the argument, to the best of my research and exposition skills, are as follows: one camp seems to believe that Black Widow was portrayed in a tasteful, respectful, and well-developed way; the other holds that she’s the latest victim in Hollywood’s longstanding infatuation with sexism and superheroes. And then some people didn’t seem to notice she existed at all.  

           If you go through a lot of the Avengers comments, you’ll find some recurrent themes. More often than not, Black Widow’s character is mentioned in passing as a (female) master assassin; and then they go on to talk about characters that are more interesting (ie have more penis). When she is given some actual ink on the page, chances are that the majority of it will be dedicated to how hot she looks in leather. Because as soon as a woman steps onto the screen, audiences (and specifically male audiences, let’s not sugarcoat this) are conditioned to first see them in a sexual light. Decades of introducing women with slow body pan ups has helped see to that.

            Just look at this review at the New Yorker, where the critic decided that “Black Widow repels invading aliens through the sheer force of her corsetry.” Yeah, because her guns and combat training and intelligence and courage had nothing to do with it.



BITCH PLEASE


           But wait, you say. Our dear friend was just making a funny! Well I say, FUCK YOU, SIR. The internet is no place for laughter. It should be as dead and devoid of humor as the soul-sucking abyss that was the Jay Leno show.

            Seriously now. I have no problem with people making jokes about Black Widow. Hell, I’ve even trained myself to tolerate the inevitable “lol, women” punchlines that inevitably follow. It really becomes an issue when that’s the only way that a significant portion of the audience can seem to see her as: a woman (ie, a joke).  Just look at the questions Johansson gets asked in panels; while her male coworkers get to give interesting, in-depth explanations about their character’s motivations, Johansson is asked what kind of diet she was on. Black Widow just isn’t taken seriously. For example, in this review Black Widow is only mentioned in the context of a subplot with Hawkeye; and in this review, the author neglects to mention her at all in a list of all the Avengers. But for the record, they forgot Hawkeye too.

Hawkward.

           But these are mostly professional reviews we’re talking about. If you’re really looking for a healthy dose of misogyny, check out the comments section on otherwise inoffensive articles like this one. Warning: may cause high blood pressure and head-desking in people with pre-existing cases of basic human dignity.

            So now, to my side of the argument: I believe that Black Widow is a huge step forward for female superheroes in the film industry. Now here’s why. And when I say now, I mean like 6 paragraphs from now. Hang in there, cherished reader. The payoff will come.

             There’s a whole slew of standard (ie, negative) tropes associated with superheroines on the silver screen: namely, that they are often given little to no meaningful characterization, shoved into stereotypical moulds, treated as accessories or plot devices for the male characters they revolve around, and most commonly, shamelessly and mercilessly objectified.

Yep.

Yeah...

Okay well--

WE GET IT.

            I would go so far as to say that Black Widow gets more characterization than any other character in the film (not to be confused with development, which her character also enjoys). When you take all other factors into account, that’s slightly less impressive; all the other Avengers (except Hawkeye) had entire movies devoted to fleshing them out as characters, so we didn’t actually need to hear all about their tragic backstories again. But because Black Widow was mainly on the fringe in Iron Man 2, the most we know about her is that she kicks some serious ass and recently got a haircut. So Avengers dedicates a significant amount of screentime to revealing Black Widow’s character, history, and motivation. In her interrogation scene with Loki, we learn not only that her colorful past strongly favors red, but that she is clever, and resourceful, and loyal.

            You could argue that we don’t actually learn that much about her. Loki drops a few names, makes a few insinuations, all of which are meaningless to us as the audience who isn’t privy to Black Widow’s memories. But we don’t actually need to know what the hospital fire is; all that we need is the flash of genuine horror in Black Widow’s eyes as Loki torments her with her own intimate history. And then, even more importantly, she takes her emotions and uses them to her benefit, transferring into a ploy which tricks the trickster god himself. Yet at the same time, she isn’t portrayed as a cold machine that dispenses intelligence and flying kicks because the writer wanted her to be awesome. She’s reserved, not emotionless.

            One thing I’ve been thinking about recently is her relationship with Hawkeye (Agent Barton, for the non-nominally savvy). You could argue that the majority of her storyline in the movie is spent trying to win back Agent Barton, and then avenge/protect him from Loki’s further plans. After all, the only reason for her rounding up the Avengers that we’re given besides her obedience to S.H.I.E.L.D. is that Barton’s been compromised. She directly reveals to Loki (with debatable honesty) that the reason she’s doing what she does is for Barton’s sake.

            However, in that same conversation she also clarifies that she isn’t doing it because she loves him, or any similar brand of gooey childish emotion. She’s doing it because she owes him a debt, and because if she can’t pay that debt then her red ledger will continue to seep. So yes, much of her motivation in Avengers is directly related to Hawkeye. But in the end, although she may genuinely care about Barton’s safety, her motivations are always her own.

            Probably the biggest complaint I’ve heard about Black Widow is that she’s been vacuum-packed into a curve-hugging leather suit and then sent out to flail her ass around as much as possible. By looking at the promotional posters, you’d think that her superpower involved being able to twist her spine into grotesque proportions, creating the optimum amount of ass and tits at the same time. Just check out this hilarious subversion by Rachel Marie if you don’t know what I mean.

I wonder who this marketing campaign was geared towards? The correct answer is people who enjoy punching randomly at things.

            However, interestingly enough I found this problem to be mainly limited to the media outside of the movie itself, which avoided being shown exclusively through the male gaze. It doesn’t have to do with whether or not the characters are sexy; I mean, there’s only so much you can do when you’re trying to film Scarlett Johansson in a skintight leather suit. On top of that, Black Widow is supposed to be a very attractive character who uses her looks to her advantage. What matters is that Black Widow’s body is never the emphasis, except for when it’s twisting some unfortunate(?) sod’s head off with her legs. We see in the opening scene of the movie that she uses her looks to her opponent’s disadvantage, which you could easily write off as being another sexist cliché. But even then, her sexuality is emphasized mostly through the actions of the men around her, not through what the camera shows us. Avengers seemed to recognize the fact that they don’t need slow panning camera shots around Black Widow’s body and uncomfortable close ups of every crotch-shot to make her look attractive. She’s just there, doing what everyone else is doing, with no extra-special attention from the camera, and she’s still sexy.

            “What’s that you say?!” Hollywood exclaims. “You can have the exact same thing for a lot less work? Amazing! And here we’ve been putting three times the effort into churning out sexist crap!”

            Funny story, when googling “Hollywood sexist female superheroes", Google automatically corrected it to “Hollywood sexiest female superheroes”. Not sure whether that’s yet another indicator of how entrenched the sexy superhero complex is into movies these days, or if Google is just perverted.


You tried.

            Perhaps most significant is that they don’t draw attention to the fact that she’s a good character. They don’t put Black Widow on a feminist pedestal with “FEMALE EMPOWERMENT” scrawled across it in flashing neon lights. They didn’t shove it in your face, force you to think of Black Widow as a feminist icon. They didn’t beg for cookies just for doing something right for once. No, you see Black Widow as a character with flaws and triumphs and goals and fears and awesome badass combat skills, who is also a woman. As Scott Mendelson explains with much greater detail or eloquence than I could ever muster, that’s what’s really important.

            You see her as a character, sexy, instead of a sexy character. It’s a crucial distinction which is often and intentionally overlooked. But not this time, friends. Not this time.

[If you're interested by this topic, the lovely Stargazer recently published a more comprehensive look at the female action hero phenomenon in movies, right here on this blog. It's awesome, and you can read it here.]



Aeon Flux: http://saturdaynightscreening.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/aeon-flux-pj.jpg
Starfire: http://cdn.ifanboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/starfire.jpg

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