Thoughts on Black Widow's characterization in Avengers
I've been reading people reactions to the movie all over DW, LJ and Tumblr, and following various discussions, and it's not at all surprising that Natasha's characterization comes in for a lot of scrutiny. When you have a superhero team movie with only one woman on the team, that one woman is going to have a whole lot of metatextual baggage attached, and people who care about the portrayal of women in superhero movies are going to feel the impulse to dissect every possible aspect of her character to inspect for signs of a sexist portrayal (Here's a hint for the future, Marvel: you can fix that problem, or at least alleviate it a lot, by having multiple women on the team.)
What comes up a lot in the dissection of Natasha's character is that she has several moments of emotional vulnerability during the movie. And the argument I'm seeing made is that even though she's shown skillfully using that aspect of herself to manipulate bad guys by getting them to underestimate her, it's still somehow sexist to portray her this way, because she's the only Avenger who shows this "weakness." And honestly, I think this argument has a lot more to do with people's expectations of what women in superhero movies are supposed to be than with who Natasha actually is.
First of all, Natasha is nowhere near the only Avenger to show emotional vulnerability. What else would you call it when Clint wakes up from his brainwashing and says "Do you know what it's like to be unmade?" Or when Fury says that Coulson believed in heroes, and Tony bolts from the room? Or when Steve asks "Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?" and Tony yells, "We're not soldiers!" Or when Bruce wakes up in the wreckage of an empty building and asks if he hurt anyone while he was Hulked out? Or, well, every single time Thor talks to Loki?
Natasha's emotions gave her the means to manipulate Loki into revealing valuable information. Thor's emotions got him stabbed. Tell me again who's being weak and vulnerable here?
This characterization of Natasha is actually quite consistent with the comics (well, allowing for the general vagaries of comics characterization, and the fact that Black Widow has been around since 1964 and that most of her history was created in a series of retcons by multiple writers). Natasha is well aware of being one of the few women in a world overrun with macho manly men with superpowers, and she has never shown any inclination to alter herself in order to play by their rules. Natasha can have these moments of emotional vulnerability not because she's weak, but precisely because she doesn't see her emotions as a weakness, and therefore doesn't see them as something she needs to repress or get rid of. They're a part of her, and she puts them to use just like any other part of her. She has a physical body, and has learned to use it for combat. She has an intellect, and she has learned to use it for plotting and scheming and figuring things out. She has emotions, and she has learned to use them to manipulate people. She doesn't try to eliminate her emotions any more than she tries to eliminate her mind or her body. People who think this makes her weak end up spilling their secrets while thinking they have the upper hand. And if having this additional weapon in her repertoire means she needs a few extra seconds to pull herself together after surviving being trapped in quarters with the Hulk... Well, damn. We should all be so "weak."
tl;dr -- Natasha rocks and we should have, like, a million Black Widow movies. Tomorrow, please.
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