Film

‘Black Widow’ Finally Views Natasha Romanoff With A Female Gaze

'Black Widow' offers a striking humanised view of the character, that even critiques how Natasha Romanoff was viewed by men in the MCU.

by Merryana Salem  13 July 2021
Black Widow

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After over a decade in the MCU, Black Widow shows us Natasha Romanoff from an angle we’ve never seen before — her own point of view.

This article contains spoilers for Black Widow.

For years, people have critiqued the objectification and misogyny  Natasha Romanoff has been subjected to. There’s the pervy camera angles, Whedon’s insensitively punishing take on Natasha’s inability to have children, and Natasha’s on-screen storylines almost exclusively revolving around men. There’s also the fact she gets fridged.

But Black Widow director Cate Shortland shows us Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff under the light of a female gaze. After 11 years of films featuring Natasha written and directed by men, a difference in gaze was long overdue, even a welcome relief and Shortland far from disappoints.

Black Widow offers a striking humanised view of the character that even critiques how Nat was viewed by men in the MCU.

Nat’s Connections To Women Are The Heart Of The Film

I can count on one hand the number of scenes Natasha shares with women in the MCU, prior to Black Widow. Even the few scenes where Nat does interact with other women are viewed from the perspective and in the presence of men.

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In stunning contrast, the driving force of Black Widow is Natasha’s relationship with women from her past — her sister, Yelena (Florence Pugh), and mother Melina (Rachel Weisz). There is a third significant woman, but I don’t want to get too spoilery.

Nat’s connection to her sister Yelena is not only what sets the plot into motion, but Nat and Yelena operate as the film’s central duo. Despite their estrangement and shared trauma, the pair join forces to free other young women who, like they once were,  are under the control of Dreykov in the Red Room. It’s a motive that decentralises men as an endpoint by keeping its focus on the young women in need of their help, rather than the man deserving of revenge (but don’t worry he gets what’s coming).

The film itself opens and closes with scenes containing only women. The opening scene is a glimpse of Nat’s childhood as a Russian sleeper agent in which her “mother,” Melina imparts advice to her that keeps her alive through her near-fatal red room training. “Your pain only makes you stronger,” Melina says. A piece of advice that Natasha later explains helped keep her heart after so many years of hardship and pain in the Red Room and beyond. Melina is later revealed to be one of the Red Room’s grand architects but uses her knowledge to help Nat and Yelena rescue the young women trapped there.  She’s a complex character, with a complex relationship with Natasha.

In this way, Shortland offers a Marvel film whose main narrative builds and relies almost exclusively on layered relationships between complex women. Even Captain Marvel‘s narrative hinged on Carol’s relationships with her male mentors and allies for most of the film.  In this way, Black Widow isn’t just unlike any Natasha characterisation we’ve seen before, but unlike any MCU film.

Just for extra points, it also passes the Bechdel test with flying colours.

This Is Natasha’s Film

Black Widow is the first time we see events unfold from Natasha’s point of view. Unlike Captain America films where we view Natasha via Steve’s point of view or Avengers films in which we experience Nat from the viewpoint of various team members, Black Widow is almost all Natasha.

The result is not only seeing how Nat sees the world and her relationship to others in it, but also seeing her alone. Something we were never really shown throughout the MCU, except in few seconds here or there. Director Cate Shortland treats us to who Natasha is in private, which ranges from lighthearted moments of her chilling alone in her van eating noodles and quoting James Bond films word for word, to melancholic moments on the run.

These moments alone are a more humanising side of Natasha than was previously allowed. Moments when characters are alone, not performing their role in relation to others, remind us they exist as their own person. A vital aspect of any female gaze is not just showing women in relation to other women, but showing women as they just exist. For the first 30 minutes of Black Widow, we’re treated to Natasha as she is outside of others for the first time ever.

On a larger scale, unlike other female-lead superhero films like Wonder Woman, or Captain Marvel, Black Widow isn’t attempting to tell a story that resonates with all women or even tout itself as a film about empowering all women. The film is about Natasha telling her story. It’s not trying to appeal to the nebulous concept of *the* female gaze, but a female gaze. Specifically, Natasha’s — thanks to the careful work of Cate Shortland.

The Handling Of The Red Room’s Sterilisation Policy

One of the few things the MCU revealed about Natasha’s past prior to Black Widow was that she was involuntarily sterilised in the Red Room to make her a more “efficient” assassin. Joss Whedon revealed this in Avengers: Age of Ultron as a way of attempting to bond Bruce Banner (The Hulk) and Natasha. To make matters worse Whedon ends this reveal with the Nat asking, “still think you’re the only monster on the team?”

Whedon’s framing of Natasha as a monster for not being able to bear children feeds into misogynistic ideas of childbearing, but it also missed the point. Assuming that the most traumatic element of a forced hysterectomy is being unable to bear children implies that a person’s most basic desire is to have children — rather than safety and autonomy over their body. Either way, Nat isn’t a “monster” for experiencing horrendous medical abuse.

But Black Widow offers the perfect response to this infamous scene, thanks to Florence Pugh and Cate Shortland. Like Natasha, Yelena is a Red Room graduate. In a scene when Alexei (David Harbour) remarks that Yelena must be in a bad mood because she’s on her period, she claps back with, “I don’t get my period, dipshit. I don’t have a uterus. That’s what happens when the Red Room gives you an involuntary hysterectomy.”

Where Whedon placed the focus of Nat’s trauma on her inability to have children with a man, Cate Shortland focuses on the trauma of the non-consensual and invasive nature of the Red Room’s policy. Yelena is angry, not monstrously guilty, speaking casually of her organs being chopped up to make Alexei feel a fraction of the discomfort she was made to feel. It’s a clever scene that might seem callous at first glance but is a much more survivor-centred take on the Red Room’s trauma than offered by Whedon.

The Movie Lacks Objectifying Bullshit And Makes Fun Of It

A delightful running gag throughout Black Widow is Yelena teasing Natasha’s “posing,” aka the iconic hair flick and stare Natasha does when fighting throughout the MCU. “They’re great poses,” Yelena teases. “But it does look like you think everyone’s looking at you all the time.” It’s a gag that doubles both as classic sibling ribbing and as a critique of how, even in combat, Natasha was objectified under the male gaze. With a focus on objectifying her body for the viewer, rather than on the skill of her fighting.

Speaking of fighting, I cannot express how joyful it was to watch Nat fight in minimal makeup with her hair tied up in practical but beautiful braiding. Seems trivial, I know, but for years I have shaken my head at the screen at all these male directors and writers who had Nat fighting in a full face of obvious make-up with her hair down and yankable. The lack of sexy low angle shots was also refreshing and undoubtedly a credit to a female director who isn’t objectifying her subject.

None of this is to say that Black Widow is a film without flaws or a piece of revolutionary feminist cinema. Films empowering conventionally attractive white women are common, even popular. Even considering Natasha is dead in the MCU, the film is, in many ways, too late to really be the film Natasha deserved.

What it is, however, is a film that gave Natasha the perspective and voice that male creatives in the MCU deprived her of. Cate Shortland’s Black Widow is a fitting tribute, a eulogy in which Natasha Romanoff’s humanity is honoured, albeit heartbreakingly too late.

Merryana Salem (they/she) is a proud Wonnarua and Lebanese–Australian writer, critic, teacher and podcaster on most social media as @akajustmerry. If you want, check out their podcast, GayV Club where they gush about LGBTIQ rep in media. Either way, she hopes you ate something nice today.