Black Widow and Power

[jimhines]

I’ve been thinking more about Avengers, particularly about Black Widow. I liked her character, but something wasn’t sitting quite right. It wasn’t until I read cleolinda’s post on LJ that things started to click into place for me.

There be minor spoilers ahead…

When we first see Black Widow’s character, she’s captured, tied up, and being interrogated by nameless Russians. We see the Standard Villain Torture Kit waiting on a nearby tray. But when SHIELD calls, Black Widow goes from helpless prisoner to fully in control in an eyeblink. By allowing her captors to see her as weak and vulnerable, she got them to tell her what she needed to know. It’s set up as a reversal of expectations: the men expect the woman to be powerless, and she does a masterful job of turning that against them. She was in control the whole time, and you know it.

So far, so good. I liked the scene. I also liked the way it set up Black Widow’s later confrontation with Loki on the Helicarrier. Once again, Black Widow allows a man to play on her apparent vulnerabilities and weakness, and in doing so, tricks him into admitting his plan.

But this time, as she turns away, you realize the vulnerability wasn’t faked. She wasn’t in control the same way she was in that earlier scene. Loki got to her. You see it in her expression, and you see it again later.

Some of what bugs me is the intersection of Black Widow being both the only female Avenger and the only one to use her vulnerability as a weapon like that. In a way, it feels like a subversion of sexism, since she’s using her targets’ expectations against them. But it also feels seductive in a way that disturbs me — in the case of Loki, “I’m going to let you paw all over my very real pain so I can get the answers I need.”

And look at the way Loki treats her. He rips into her more viciously than he does anyone else in the film, including his own brother. That level of scorn and loathing is reserved for Black Widow alone — for the woman who dares to be as powerful as the men. He also — and I missed this in the theater — calls her a “mewling quim.”

I wasn’t familiar with that particular verbal assault. I believe the modern U.S. equivalent would be “whining c**t,” making it the most hateful and sexist insult in the entire film.

All right, so Loki is an asshole. But then I thought back to when Black Widow went to recruit Bruce Banner. Banner was calm and cool, except for one moment when he slammed the table and shouted something like, “Stop lying!”

Black Widow jumped back, visibly shaken. Banner immediately calmed down, saying it was just a test to see how she’d respond. He was fully in control, of himself, and of the situation. He learned she didn’t come alone, and that he’s completely surrounded by SHIELD agents. I.e., he learned what he wanted to know.

Yet the way he did it resonates with Loki’s treatment of Black Widow later on. He lashed out in a way we never see directed at men, and in that moment, everyone knew exactly who had the power and who didn’t.

I’m certain some people will read this and say I’m overthinking, or that I’m reading too much into it. To be clear, I loved this movie. And I liked Black Widow’s character a lot. She’s capable, competent, and kicks plenty of bad guy ass. However…

• The only female Avenger is sent in to use her vulnerability as a weapon of interrogation.
• There are at least two scenes that feel like she’s being “put in her place” by a more powerful man.
• The phase “mewling quim” was utterly unnecessary and not at all in keeping with the rest of the dialogue, so why it used?

I find this problematic.

Comments and discussion are welcome, as always.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

Comments

[buddleia]

Am I right in thinking that at one point, in a control room full of staff, she's asked to 'show someone [his] room'? That makes her a bit uncomfortably close to the one who makes the coffee, if you know what I mean. But the fact that she is not anybody's love interest (while maintaining a strong friendship with an ex?), is wonderful and exceptional.

[legionseagle]

I don't agree; interestingly, I've just listened to "Focus on the Family"'s archive podreview of The Avengers, as part of an exercise in seeing what the response has been to the "mewling quim" comment across a wide range of media outlets and they don't even mention her presence in the movie, which is, according to them, about "four superheroes".

The reason I don't agree is that we all know that things are not the same for men and women and especially not in comics. That is, a woman in any environment where she is, in any respect, competing with men or even just interacting with them has the shackle on her ankle of on-going workplace sexual harassment and sexual discrimination. Pretending - as a lot of careers advice aimed at women does pretend - that these factors do not exist is an insidious form of victim-blaming since it suggests that the career detriment suffered by women as a result of being sexually harassed and changing their behaviours to avoid sexual harassment is them not being strong minded enough to deal with the problem like a man - when it's not, by and large a problem men have, at least, not in the endemic and systemised way that women experience it. And it's assuming that men who perpetrate it must be doing it because they're clueless and "misunderstand signals" rather than because they've found it's a doubly effective weapon because a) it works on its own terms; and b) it works because the woman is shamed into pretending it doesn't happen.

So by acknowledging the reality of it for Black Widow and having her overcome it and being seen as overcoming it despite the fact that it got to her you get a trebly strong message:
a) it happens, it's real and even good guys and not just the designated evil Big Bad will sometimes use it to get their own way;
b) if it happens to you, it's OK to let it get to you - that's a normal response, not the "big girls take harassment in stride".
c) and you can be even more awesome by doing your job while being validly upset by the harassment.

I thought that was fabulous. Especially the fact that she got him to the point of delivering the "mewling quim" line which was supposed to show her weakness and it was the moment when in fact he'd just given her his.

[muccamukk]

Yeah. I found Loki's attack to be really sexual and hurtful (he talked about making Hawkeye torture her "in the most intimate way.") And then the quim comment. I cheered when she flipped on him, but it was still really hurtful.

She also kind of sat there huddling after the Hulk attack (which she again tried to deflect by appearing feminine and vulnerable as Bruce was changing), and had to visibly pull herself together to go rescue Hawkeye. Needing a minute after being attacked by the Hulk seems totally valid, but she's the only character in the entire movie who needed time to recover and pull themselves together.

I guess I was mostly happy Natasha wasn't as bad as she could have been. I've read a lot of Black Widow comics (all of them? Tonnes, anyway) over the years, and her character, as per the name, is frequently heavily sexual. She sleeps and seduces her way to information not infrequently, and in the hands of the wrong writer it can be an objectified mess (for example, Black Widow #6). So this... was way better than it could have been?