Black Widow and others: Women join the Superhero Boys Club

hen Scarlett Johanssonof Black widowAlso known as Natasha Romanoff in “Iron Man 2” for the first time in the film, she was introduced to Robert Downey Jr.’s assistant Pepper Potts by Tony Stark, played by Robert Downey Jr. (George Played by Winness Paltrow), saying it “may be a costly sexual harassment lawsuit.” Stark’s response was to search the Internet for some clumsy photos of Romanov in underwear, and then announced “I want one”.

We can only say that the scene has not aged. “You look back [the film] Although this is really funny…this character is too sexy,” Johnson said recently. “Really talked about…like a fart, really. “Eleven years later, the Black Widow finally Get the spin-off film she deserves, With Kate Shortland at the helm.This Australian filmmaker is the first woman to direct a film miracle Movie solo (please note that the Superhero Studio has released 23 movies so far).

As a prequel to Infinity War in 2018, this movie saw an initially reluctant Romanov, usually a symbolic woman on the screen, and an adopted sister Yelena (Florence Pew) And her mother Melina (Rachel Weisz) accept brainwashing, forcibly sterilization, and then let them act as child killers. If this sounds frustrating, then it’s actually a pleasure to see them hitting and volleying (and sometimes attacking each other). During the premiere weekend, it is estimated to have earned more than 215 million US dollars internationally (of which 60 million US dollars came from the distribution on Disney+ Premier Access), and its release marked the largest box office opening in the United States since the beginning of the pandemic.

In the ten years or so since Black Widow became the first major female character in the MCU, the female superhero (anti-gravity) thing on the screen has advanced by leaps and bounds. In the past few years, Marvel and its competitor DC have launched highly acclaimed independent films for Gal Gadot. Wonder Woman, Brie Larson Captain Marvel Harley Quinn with Margot Robbie (2020s) Raptor), there is more work to be done.

However, it has been a boon for the film industry that such films do not exchange tickets at all for a long time. In an email exchange disclosed in the Sony email hacking incident in 2014, it was seen that Marvel’s then CEO Ike Perlmutter expressed his contempt for such projects, as if by reference Catwoman (“disaster”) and Elektra (“very, very bad”).

Naturally, there are double standards in work. The poor box office performance of a male superhero—for example, Ben Affleck as Daredevil in 2003—does not make executives completely abandon the genre: if anything, they redouble their efforts, from the past Learned from the mistakes and established the first phase of the MCU. But after the defeat of the criticized Elektra, another female-led superhero movie took 12 years to appear and challenge people’s perceptions.

That movie is of course 2017 Wonder Woman, Directed by Patty Jenkins. Shortly before his debut, Jenkins mentioned how the same double standards work behind the camera. She suggested that if a man messed up an expensive blockbuster, “This would be another mistake made by the studio. But to me, it looks like I lost the ball, which sends a very bad message. “, may cause “great harm” to women in her industry.

Jenkins’s film eventually exceeded the box office forecast, with a global box office of over 800 million U.S. dollars, becoming the highest-grossing film by a female director—until 2019, when Captain Marvel directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Flake broke its record. “Frozen II” eliminated the top spot).

Money negotiations and these financial success stories will almost certainly help to give the green light to Black Widow’s personal projects and give birth to a series of new comic films and series based on female characters.Gadot and Jenkins reunited Wonder Woman 1984 Last year and prepared to make a third film. After she snatched the spotlight in Black Panther in 2018, there were rumors that the leader of the powerful Dora Miraj warrior in Wakanda, Danai Gurira’s Okoye’s Spin-off series are in production. Later this year, Marvel’s first Muslim superhero, Kamala Khan, also known as Ms. Marvel (played by Iman Vellani) will also receive her own Disney+ show, joining She-Hulk and the female-led Hawkeye on the streaming platform Restart.

The studio has finally made (small) progress in solving the gender imbalance behind the scenes. Nia DaCosta will lead the sequel of Captain Marvel, The Marvels, to become the first black woman to direct a Marvel movie, and Chloe Zhao of Nomadland will release Eternals in November to follow up her historic Oscar. The promising young female director Emerald Fennell is writing a DC film about Zatana the Witch, and Olivia Wilde of Booksmart is thought to be developing an independent Spider-Woman project.

However, progress always occurs intermittently, and some female names online and above sometimes act as a smokescreen.speak protector, Shortland described the “incredibly gendered” scene in London’s Pinewood Studios, where she and Johnson will be the only women working with “200 or 300 men.” At the same time, Argentine director Lucretia Martel claimed that she had contacted her about Black Widow, only to let Marvel hint that she did not have to worry about its action scenes.

Her accusation is disappointing, especially because of some truly shocking scenes in a recent series of female-dominated manga movies: Think about Wonder Woman crossing no man’s land. Regarding women as the center of action movies, rather than wandering on the sidelines, there are some very radical things.Just as Robbie’s production company developed the Raptor Squad, and since then launched a screenwriting project for women working in action movies, she said in a recent Vogue interview: “Everything in those scenes explodes around you. Running like a war hero…girl no way Get those. “Until now.

What does a superhero movie dominated by women look like? Of course, there is no simple answer, but the male eyes are happy MIA. In the early Avengers movies, the camera had a cautious habit of lingering on Johnson’s ass. At the same time, Shortland intends to cancel this sexualization. “I really worked hard to start a black widow where she was alone, because then you wouldn’t see her relationship with anyone else,” she said recently.

Clothing is also important: look at the difference between the armor worn by the Amazon counterparts of Wonder Woman in the Jenkins independent film and the glorified leather bikinis they wore in the Justice League, designed to reflect real ancient Greek armor. Natasha and Yelena’s clothes fit but are practical; there is a wonderful comic refrain about the latter’s obsession with an unpretentious black practical vest, which is the first dress she bought for herself. She happily praised its many pockets, how practical it was and how comfortable she felt in it.

Indeed, Pugh’s character feels like a sign of what is about to happen. She has no patience for her sister’s super-feminine pre-match posture and cheerfully laughs at her as a “poster.” If she is the future of superhero movies, then we will definitely have a good grasp of it. A generation of young moviegoers will see female characters as they grow up, not just sexual objects, victims or passwords, but real (super)human women.

Black Widow is being shown in theaters or subscribe to Disney+ through Premier Access and order on Disney+, Premier Access requires an additional charge