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An Analysis of Black Widow (2021): Marvel’s Most Feminist Film Features

Powerful Sisters and an Attenuated Male Gaze

Article in Journal of Feminist Family Therapy · October 2022

DOI: 10.1080/08952833.2022.2139926

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 Journal of Feminist Family Therapy

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wfft20

An Analysis of Black Widow (2021): Marvel’s Most

Feminist Film Features Powerful Sisters and an
Attenuated Male Gaze

Kyle D. Killian

To cite this article: Kyle D. Killian (2023) An Analysis of Black Widow (2021): Marvel’s Most
Feminist Film Features Powerful Sisters and an Attenuated Male Gaze, Journal of Feminist
Family Therapy, 35:1, 106-113, DOI: 10.1080/08952833.2022.2139926

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JOURNAL OF FEMINIST FAMILY THERAPY
2023, VOL. 35, NO. 1, 106–113
https://doi.org/10.1080/08952833.2022.2139926

RESEARCH ARTICLE

An Analysis of Black Widow (2021): Marvel’s Most Feminist

Film Features Powerful Sisters and an Attenuated Male
Gaze
Kyle D. Killian
Marriage and Family Therapy, Capella University, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
The representation of superheroines in comic books and comic Film; super heroine; male
book movies tend to subscribe to the patriarchal logic of the gaze; marvel cinematic
male gaze, with male subjects looking at women as hypersex­ universe; comic books;
ualized objects and corporeal spectacles. Black Widow is the sexualization
most fiercely feminist offering in the Marvel Cinematic
Universe to date, featuring young women resisting a powerful,
rich, old, white male villain and fighting against his evil design to
control the world. There are multiple refreshing developments
in this “Phase Four” film from Marvel Studios. Drawing on fem­
inist textual readings of superheroines’ depictions in comics and
cinema, this article (1) engages a shift away from the male gaze
and its impact on the representation of strong female characters
without the trappings of hypersexualization, and (2) suggests
what films like Black Widow can offer regarding notions of what
relationships constitute “family” in our society.

In both comic books and cinema, female heroes have received short shrift in
favor of their spotlight-hogging male counterparts. A “male gaze” in comic
book narratives and movie scripts has translated time and again to, at best,
relegation of heroines to supportive roles, and at worst, explicit objectification
and eroticization of female characters (see, Jones, 2022). In a trend dating back
to the 1940s, depictions of heroines have been a walking contradiction,
featuring stories of powerful, smart, fierce and “empowered” women fighting
for justice while wearing animal skins, a short skirt and bustier, or a catsuit.
Via an analysis of Black Widow (Shortland, 2021), the following article exam­
ines the ways in which Marvel Studios demonstrates a problematic postfemi­
nist sensibility and how it has, and has not, progressed beyond the male gaze in
its portrayal of Natasha Romanoff over the course of a decade.
In The Avengers (Whedon, 2012), Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) is a spy and
assassin trying to do good things to make up for all the red on her ledger. In
Black Widow, she confronts her blood red history and the broken “family”
relationships she left behind before becoming a heroine. (Some steeped in

CONTACT Kyle D. Killian kyle.killian@capella.edu Marriage and Family Therapy, Capella University,
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
© 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
 JOURNAL OF FEMINIST FAMILY THERAPY 107

comic book mythos might testily point out that since Natasha does not possess
superpowers, she’s not technically a “superheroine.” Further complicating her
status as heroine, super or otherwise, is her special skill set which includes
coercively extracting information and “neutralizing” people). Black Widow is
by far the most self-contained in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU),
which means one doesn’t have to see several of the preceding films in
Marvel’s plot arcs (i.e. four “phases” of films and TV projects developed
years in advance and brought to the screen in a strict sequence by Kevin
Feige, President of Marvel Studios) to understand or enjoy this one. And while
it’s an origin story, Black Widow thankfully skips clunky repeats of backstory
and scenes we’ve seen before, such as Natasha’s brutal training in assassin
school from Avengers: Age of Ultron. Similarly to 2019ʹs Captain Marvel
(Killian, 2019a, this is an origin story that deftly sidesteps unwanted retreads,
providing a look into Natasha’s tween years with her fake “parents” Alexei and
Melina (Soviet agents played by David Harbor and Rachel Weisz) and
Natasha’s “sister” and fellow sleeper agent, Yelena (the adult version played
by Florence Pugh), undercover in Ohio. While it is a “comic book movie,” this
film does provide some popular cultural insights into feminist identities and
moves toward a female rather than male gaze.

The male gaze and Marvel

Black Widow is the most fiercely feminist offering in the Marvel Cinematic
Universe (MCU) catalog of 28 films to date. Young women are resisting the
control of a powerful, rich, old, white male villain and fighting against his evil
design to control the world. This isn’t the spy movie you or your parents grew
up with, and that’s a good thing. Natasha’s story, as seen in Marvel comic lore,
begins with her parents’ deaths and her subsequent recruitment by Soviet
intelligence for admission to the Red Room Academy, home of the Black
Widow Program. She is transformed into an assassin with impressive fighting
skills who is willing to do whatever it takes to complete a mission. Like Carol
Danvers in Captain Marvel, Natasha is seen to possess a moral compass strong
enough to override her inculcation and brainwashing to becoming someone
more than a weapon or ruthless killer.
Black Widow breaks new ground from Marvel’s male-centric past, develop­
ing several strong female characters, presenting a less hypersexualized
Natasha, and taking on child trafficking, mansplaining, and sexism and mis­
ogyny in one fell swoop. How does it accomplish this? When we first see
Natasha, she’s a 12-year old tomboy (Ever Anderson). Prepubescent and
relatively gender neutral in presentation, she’s quick as a whip, brave, and
energetic as can be. Her value on screen does not come from wearing a skin-
tight catsuit, or being simultaneously ogled and googled by Tony Stark. In her
first introduction to the MCU in Iron Man 2, Natasha is presented as very
108 K. D. KILLIAN

attractive and Tony sees her as desirable and not because she is fluent in four
languages but rather as the female character that is a sexualized object for the
fulfillment of male fantasy. While Tony is viewing a series of images of Natasha
modeling fashion, the following conversation ensues between himself and his
administrative assistant, Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow), in the 2010 film:
Tony: Did you model in Tokyo? ‘Cause she modeled in Tokyo.
Pepper: Well . . .
Tony: I need her. She’s got everything that I need.
Natasha: Will that be all, Mr. Stark?
Tony: No.
Pepper: Yes, that will be all, Ms Rushman [a.k.a. Natasha]. Thank you very
much. [She leaves. Tony turns to Pepper]
Tony: I want one.
Pepper: No.
In the above conversation, the female character is a thing to be desired and
acquired. Modeling, in a sense, signals to the audience the sex appeal of
Natasha. Subsequent to the social movements of #metoo and #timesup, this
dialogue has not aged well; it feels dated because it is. Though Natasha is
a formidable fighter in the boxing ring in this scene, she is also highly
sexualized, reduced to cheesecake imagery on a laptop and the sexual object
of her leering, would-be boss. Pepper sees Natasha as a walking lawsuit, not
because of anything she is saying or doing, but because of how Tony is
explicitly behaving in her presence. In this framing, she becomes a potential
problem or threat to Stark Industries because Stark isn’t even trying to be
professional or appropriate. His behavior continues in the next scene, wherein
Tony, unbeknownst to Pepper, has hired Natasha and tells her how “fantastic”
she looks and suggests that she be his companion for a late-night dinner. That
film’s direction, dialogue, and expressed worldview of the protagonist are
replete with male fantasies, desires, and control. As Balsom (2020) wrote,
“the representational system of classical Hollywood abides by a strictly patri­
archal logic: the female star is a corporeal spectacle, connoting ‘to-be-looked-
at-ness,’ while the male protagonist is the ‘bearer of the look,’ tasked with
advancing the narrative” (p. 37).
In contrast, in Black Widow, Natasha’s portrayal is three-dimensional,
appearing first as a dewy eyed, vulnerable kid, and that’s a fresh take on her
character. Later, as an adult, Natasha eschews heels in favor of combat boots,
and more often than not wears a leather jacket rather than the form-fitting,
black bodysuit of the Russian assassins. No one comments on how beautiful or
attractive she is, and no character has been shoehorned into the script to be
even a potential romantic interest. This version of Natasha is all about the
mission; she advances the narrative, and she is not being gazed upon while
doing that. In a call back to the male gaze evident in past films, Yelena
pointedly critiques Natasha’s now well-established landing pose, legs splayed,
 JOURNAL OF FEMINIST FAMILY THERAPY 109

her eyes staring directly into the camera: “You’re a poser. The way you
move . . . Who is it for?” This line of dialogue calls out a long running
phenomenon, in both comics and cinema, of artists and directors highlighting
heroines’ powers or skill sets while they'’re dressed in form-fitting and reveal­
ing costumes as modern day “pin-ups” for consumption. This line also pre­
sents audiences the opportunity to question and reflect on their relationship
with typical Hollywood treatments of female characters.
Such depictions date back to the 1940s to the pages of Sheena, Queen of the
Jungle and Wonder Woman during Marston’s run. The heroines are intelligent
and powerful, dispatching villains with aplomb, but they do so while scantily
clad and perpetuating Eurocentric standards of female beauty (see, Brown,
2011; Danziger-Russell, 2013; Jorgensen & Lechan, 2013). These depictions
extend to the portrayals in “feminist” superheroine movies. For instance, in
discussions of how superheroine films such as 2017ʹs Wonder Woman
(Jenkins, 2017) are and are not feminist, it has been argued (Killian, 2019b)
that it is not who the protagonist is on the outside but what she does that
should define her heroine status. Sex appeal should not be highlighted at all,
including in the film’s dialogue. “The audience can make up its own mind
about her attractiveness without characters repeatedly pointing that out . . .
This aspect of [Wonder Woman] reveals something that is still deemed very
important in Hollywood and society in general. How a woman looks” (Killian,
2019b, p. 60). Regarding Yelena’s commentary in Black Widow, director Cate
Shortland states in an interview that she chose to make explicit this male
fantasy of how a heroine “would” or “should” fight: “We were pointing at it,
allowing the audience to be aware of what they had watched before and what
they were watching now” (read the interview in Dockterman, 2021). Thus, the
male gaze (so far) appears significantly attenuated in the most recent phase of
the MCU.
Further, filmmakers frequently “try to have it both ways” with female heroes
in another sense. Operating in the realm of a postfeminist sensibility, film­
makers have demonstrated a tendency of temporal rupture, locking super­
heroines (Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, and Black Widow, to name a few)
in the past, telegraphing “a contemporary ambivalence towards feminism,
wherein female empowerment is both championed and contained” (Taylor
& Glitsos, 2021, p. 1). That is, female superheroes are portrayed as powerful,
even “liberated,” but they are simultaneously situated in a past that forecloses
or at least blunts modern day relevance. For instance, over in the DC universe,
Wonder Woman (2017) is set way back in the Great War when the suffragette
movement was going full tilt, but women have now had the right to vote for
a century, so that struggle seems distant and almost quaint in retrospect
(“we’ve come a long way, haven’t we?”).
Black Widow’s setting for the majority of the screen time is quite con­
temporary, located between the events of Captain America: Civil War (2016)
110 K. D. KILLIAN

(Russo & Russo, 2016) and Avengers: Infinity War (Russo & Russo, 2018),
but anyone who saw Avengers: Endgame (Russo & Russo, 2019) knows
(spoiler) Natasha died. Her “character development, long desired by fans,
and having been in the works since 2004, is tempered by the knowledge that
her history is all we can ever know” (Taylor & Glitsos, 2021, p. 7). As
Natasha’s ship has sailed, Black Widow serves a larger narrative function of
introducing audiences to Yelena, a character who does have a future.
In Black Widow’s central plot, viewers discover that Natasha and Yelena
were innocent girls taken from their parents as babies, transported in shipping
containers, and then systemically abused and sterilized in the Red Room. This
is a metaphor for child sex trafficking, a global, highly profitable, criminal
enterprise operating all over the world (Interpol, 2021; U.S. Department of
State, 2021). Taking on and taking down the sinister Red Room is a righteous
cause (freeing women and girls from being made into tools of murder), and
something the audience can really cheer on.
Further, Natasha’s and Yelena’s “father” isn’t just another deadbeat
“dad,” or a run of the mill washed up superhero. He’s pompous, over­
confident, schlubby, and frequently wrong – cringeworthily so. He’s often
not up to the task in scene after scene, and expresses pride at how many
people his “girls” have killed. Natasha, Yelena, and Melina aren’t interested
in his apologies, and they don’t have time to listen to his balderdash; they’ve
got work to do.
The arch villain Dreykov (Ray Winstone) is a slithering, sexist snake who
sees orphan girls as objects, trash to be “recycled,” and as a means to an
end: world domination, one murder (and possibly seduction) at a time. He
is the quintessential white male in power who loves the sound of his own
voice and weaponizing women via the outdated trope of femme fatales. The
danger posed by this mind controlling, malignant narcissist is uncomfor­
table to watch, especially when he moves from lengthy speeches to a savage
beating of Natasha for daring to question his power and position. The
audience is primed for seeing this mansplaining, woman-hating monster
dispatched. This article aims to be relatively spoiler-free, so suffice it to say
that Natasha’s final interaction with the other primary antagonist in the
film, Taskmaster, speaks to how good it feels to be liberated from patri­
archal domination, and that sisterhood really can be powerful, and trans­
formative. The freeing of the Black Widows from Dreykov’s mind control
serves to remove the red from Natasha’s ledger, completing her arc of
redemption. As the film moves the franchise’s narrative forward, it does
so without her, sustaining the “both ways” trend by both championing and
mitigating her (Taylor & Glitsos, 2021, p. 12). Natasha’s death leaves much
to be desired with regards to the audience identifying with a heroine who
possesses many admirable qualities and abilities, but who also has no
future.
 JOURNAL OF FEMINIST FAMILY THERAPY 111

Family bonds thicker than water, and blood

What constitutes “family” on the screen and in the therapy room? At first, the
idea that a staged family (e.g. photos together for Thanksgiving, Christmas,
Easter and July 4th were shot the same day) that was together for only three
years is somehow a real family who can experience a heartwarming reunion
and group hug feels forced. When one considers that these are people who
have been trained and tortured to become emotionless killers and/or have,
through their own intellectual labor, directly contributed to Dreykov’s capa­
city for mind control, one could be forgiven for the passing thought that it feels
like a tacked on Hollywood ending. On the other hand, the maxim “there’s
family one is born into, and family one chooses” may carry some weight here.
While Natasha, Yelena, Alexei, and Melina aren’t genetically or legally related,
the affection, attachment and love they feel for one another becomes increas­
ingly apparent over the course of the film, and despite all the machinations,
manipulations, and atrocities committed upon them by Dreykov’s organiza­
tion, they have clearly chosen one another by film’s end.
The ferocity with which a young Natasha defends Yelena in a scene at the
beginning of the film (laying her very life on the line) speaks to the depth of
their emotional bond and a family dynamic that persists to the film’s con­
clusion and, perhaps even beyond death, based on the continuation of
Yelena’s arc in the TV series Hawkeye and the anticipated film
Thunderbolts. The most poignant scenes in Black Widow are when Natasha
and Yelena interrogate the nature of their sisterhood, their lines land with
great impact and cutting deep, because they are in a sense “true.” Natasha’s
statement “You weren’t really my sister” is true but only in the biological or
legal sense, but so hurtful in the context of two orphaned girls needing
a place to belong and living in fear of being abandoned yet again. Yelena’s
retort “The Avengers weren’t really your family” also has the ring of truth
strictly from a biological and legal perspective, but really is a way to hurt her
big sister (and protector) back for trying to deny their bond. But despite
these claims and counterclaims, the love, loyalty, and total sacrifice demon­
strated in both of these relational systems (sleeper agent family and a team of
Earth’s mightiest heroes) shows that they are indeed families.
Family therapists can note such relational truths in the MCU and point out
to clients that sometimes actions speak louder than words, especially when
warmth and kind, compassionate communications have been, up until now, in
short supply in their own respective families. For instance, some clients come
from families that learned to fight with only their fists and feet, like Natasha’s
and Yelena’s family of origin. Other families learned to express dominance or
barely disguised disappointment and pain via the hurling of sarcasm and
insults. Clients come to therapy hoping to learn more satisfying ways of
expressing themselves and “doing” relationships, and Natasha and Yelena’s
112 K. D. KILLIAN

journey to a new way of relating that affirms their genuine love for one another
is a moving example of how this is possible.
Credit can be given to a comic book movie that discusses menstruation,
flouts mansplaining, shows how powerful sisterhood can be, and succeeds
in giving a strong female character the spotlight and a proper send off.
Films are sites of contestation among dominant, familiar and popularized
understandings of individuals, family, agency and expected roles in
families and society. Films can show audiences possibilities of how indivi­
duals and families can reach beyond the narrow circumscribing imposed
by patriarchal and racial hierarchies. Black Widow lays the groundwork for
new Marvel productions, such as the Disney+ streaming series Ms. Marvel
(Feige et al., 2022), which also features female directors (e.g. Meera
Menon) who, like Cate Shortland, invite viewers to examine a young
heroine’s background, struggles, and motivations, and to celebrate aspects
of her subjectivity that make her unique, rather than lazily and uncomfor­
tably zooming in on her outfits and her sex appeal. In Ms. Marvel, Kamala
Kahn (19-year-old Pakistani-Canadian actress Iman Vellani) is a Muslim
teen from an immigrant family who worries about passing her driver’s test
and finding a supportive community at her high school. Kahn also happens
to have superpowers. This offers hope that a feminist (and inclusive)
representation of female characters, bucking the trends of objectification,
hypersexualization, and Eurocentrism, can be sustained at Marvel Studios
going forward.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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