The Superhero Men Don't See: Evidence

by Doctor Science

As I said in my Avengers reaction post, I was surprised and pleased by how the character of Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow was treated: she has a major role, not-particularly-exploitive clothing, and lots of action both physical and psychological. This is what my many friends in fandom see, too: I've seen a lot of reaction posts, and they all talk about how impressed they are with Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner/Hulk, and also about how much they like Natasha.

But when I started looking at reviews outside my corner of fandom, I found something Ian Grey of PressPlay also noticed:

Two parallel realities! Men who see nobody at all and women who see the next Faith (without the crazy, I mean). Don’t tell Disney, or they’ll be marketing the film as 4-D.

Being me, I decided to gather data, not just examples.

"Rusalka", by Dutch artist Esther Bruggink. Not quite an Invisible Woman, but semi-transparent.

Cut because the rest will be chock-a-block with spoilers.

I took RottenTomatoes.com's list of 40 "Top Critics" for The Avengers and made a spreadsheet showing how they dealt with Natasha/Black Widow/Scarlett Johansson. Top Critics are designated by Rotten Tomatoes based on influence and reputation, so this list isn't biased by my choices or opinions. Sprog the Elder did most of the work filling in the chart.

The rxn column in the spreadsheet indicates whether the reviewer's reaction to Johansson/Natasha is positive, negative, trivial, or non-existent. 420 means I want to know what the reviewer is smoking, because the review includes statements that contradict what is shown onscreen.

Objectively speaking, the following things are true of Scarlett Johansson's role in The Avengers:

1. She has a great deal of screen time and large number of lines, probably second only to Robert Downey, Jr. (the putative lead)
2. She has multiple fight scenes: she defeats the Russians one-on-many, even though she's tied to a chair; she fights and defeats Hawkeye; she runs from The Hulk; she commandeers one of the alien's air-scooters and steers it by stabbing the pilot with knives; she fights Loki.
3. She has two scenes where she gets information from bad guys by playing their expectations: the Russians, and Loki himself, the Trickster God.
4. She has additional important one-on-one conversations with Bruce Banner and Clint Barton (Hawkeye).
5. Her usual outfit neither shows much skin nor is it skin-tight

Reviewers can have different opinions about what of these things mean, or how good they are, or the quality of Johansson's performance, etc. But, as they say, you aren't entitled to your own facts, and when you review a movie (or a book, or whatever) you have an obligation to review the movie shown on the screen, not the one you made up in your head.

I labeled 10 of the 40 reviews as "420" -- that is, one-quarter of the reviews are objectively wrong. They can be divided into 3 groups:

A. Ones which focus on the sexy outfit she isn't wearing:

• Rick Groen, Globe and Mail:

  [the reviewer's inner kid] had high hopes for Black Widow. But his youthful hormones, poised to rage at the mere sight of Scarlett Johansson in martial arts gear, remained disappointingly unstirred. In the token sexy female department, Scarlett was a pale pink at best.

  It's a little hard to tell through the smoky haze, but I *think* he's saying that he wanted Natasha to look like she does in the comics:

  

  Variant cover for Black Widow #6: J. Scott Campbell.
  
  Since she didn't look that way (those pesky laws of physics and human anatomy!), he couldn't be arsed to notice anything about what she *did*.

  

  Reminder: Actual Black Widow, made of real human.
  
  


• Anthony Lane, New Yorker:

  ... Black Widow repels invading aliens through the sheer force of her corsetry

  So few words, yet all delusional: her corsetry is nothing particularly spectacular, and didn't he notice that she repelled aliens with things like martial arts and sneakiness and *knives*?!? What did he see onscreen instead of what was actually there?


• Andrew O'Hehir, Salon:

  Or Scarlett Johansson in a catsuit, as superspy Natasha Romanoff, cocking her head just so as if to acknowledge that she’s the idealized fetish object of the 11-year-old boy within every so-called adult male.

  O'Hehir admits that

  I saw “The Avengers” less than a week ago, and already much of it’s a blur

  -- so it's possible that he doesn't actually remember enough about this movie -- the one he was paid to watch -- to write about what was actually onscreen, as opposed to what was playing on the screen in his addled mind. Because as Rick Groen said, the trouble is that she's *not* the idealized fetish object they were looking for.

B. Ones that do not notice her many fight and/or conversation scenes:

• Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal:

  Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, fill out the sextet without adding much pizazz; Black Widow spends lots of time looking puzzled or confused.

  I don't actually know what he might possibly be talking about here, given that she spends most of the movie *fighting*. However, since he didn't think much of Mark Ruffalo's breakout performance as Bruce Banner, Sprog is of the opinion that he's probably a Skrull. It *is* the WSJ, after all.


• Christy Lemire, AP :

  a great deal of time is spent having them talk a lot of trash and square off against one another to prove who’s toughest. There’s Iron Man vs. Thor, Thor vs. The Hulk, Hawkeye vs. Black Widow ...

  Did not notice that Hawkeye and Black Widow's fight is because they were, at that moment, on *opposite sides*, and that this was not about trash-talking or proving who's toughest, but the old "can you defeat your mind-controlled friend without seriously hurting him" dilemma, a completely different dynamic.


• Owen Gleiberman, EW:

  Scarlett Johansson, with not enough to do

  
  See list above; this is objectively ludicrous.


• Tom Long, Detroit News:

  And who gets to tussle with the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo)? Poor little nonsuper human Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). Ouch.

  "Poor"? "little"? Moron, she will *cut* you.

C. Ones that are deeply confused: about the genre, about the English language, about what the hell they're talking about:

• Roger Ebert:

  Then there's Natasha (Scarlett Johansson), aka the Black Widow. After seeing the film, I discussed her with movie critics from Brazil and India, and we were unable to come up with a satisfactory explanation for her superpowers; it seems she is merely a martial artist with good aim with weapons. We decided maybe she and Hawkeye aren't technically superheroes, but just hang out in the same crowd.

  This isn't delusional in the way the other 420s are, but it made me face-palm. Dear Roger: next time, try taking someone with a little more expertise. You can't evaluate a genre work unless you understand something about its premises and what the audience's understanding is likely to be.


• Bob Mondello, NPR:

  martial-arts tyro Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson)

  He does not know that the word "tyro" means "newbie". Dude, *you're* a n00b.


• Richard Corliss, Time:

  In Marvel-land, there are always, and almost only, men. A cosmos created and illustrated by comic-book guys for comic-book boys, and brought to the screen by later platoons of males, is by definition homoheroic if not homoerotic. The movie’s tenderest relationship is between Captain America and his No. 1 fan, S.H.I.E.L.D Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), who asks nothing more than that the good Captain autograph the Agent’s superhero card set. There’s little room for women, except of the cartoon variety: the nasty spy Natasha, first seen in Madonna bustier and high heels, manacled to a chair in a sadistic interrogation. That she uses all these elements to secure her freedom is a nice Whedon touch, but also a tribute to the seductive gravity Johansson lends to her character.

  At the end Natasha shows she’s a good soldier, vanquishing a regiment of cyborg soldiers and fighting off Loki’s biggest weapon

  The worst part of this hot mess is probably the idea that Natasha is *more* of a "cartoon variety" character than the males are. The implication that it's only at the end that we see Natasha as a "good soldier" is frankly bizarre -- but then, the whole review gives the impression that he was throwing lumps of overdone prose against the walls to see what would stick. Bonus Fail Points for not knowing the difference between a "Madonna bustier" and a Little Black Dress.

Overall, 24 of the 40 reviews mention Natasha/BW/SJ only in passing, in a single sentence; 3 others do not mention her at all. But look at Point 1 of the objective facts: Johansson probably has the second largest part in the movie, including at least *8* two-person scenes (if you include the Russians). Not mentioning her or not giving the impression that she's a major character maybe should qualify *all* those reviewers for the "420" designation, or at least for a couple of tokes.

As she was filling out the spreadsheet (her respect for the profession of "movie reviewer" plummeting), Sprog the Elder was struck by the fact that the review that was most like a fannish reaction post was the one that is most "professional": Justin Chang, in Variety.

Fury's whip-smart operative, Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), who more than holds her own amid all the chrome and testosterone, and gets more of a chance to flesh out her troubled backstory here than she did in "Iron Man 2." Specifically, she has a vested interest in breaking the spell Loki has placed on her old ally, Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner, briefly glimpsed in "Thor"), a skilled archer with uniquely deadly arrows.

Like the fan(mostly)girls we know, Chang doesn't have to answer the question "Do you want to go to this movie?" His audience, like the fandom one, already knows they're going, it's a given.

What the fans and The Industry alike want to know is what to pay particular attention to. Yes, we're (partly) there to enjoy the movie, but both groups are also thinking, "What does this tell me? How can I use this?" We want analysis: breaking the movie down in our minds as we watch, splitting off pieces to use in our own works, whether fanworks or other movies.

We're often not interested in the same pieces. Movie industry people may think a lot about how shots are composed, what kind of special effects are most convincing, or whether the music is well-integrated. Fans want to notice and discuss things we've learned about each character's personality or backstory -- or talk about shallow objectification via certain camera angles.

Shallow, shallow. source.

In either case, the first step is to see what's actually on the screen. I'll make a follow-up post in a day or so with some theories about why so many "Top Critics" were apparently unable to actually *see* The Avengers when it was put in front of them -- and especially how they couldn't see the woman in the story.

Comments

[Sam Johnsson]

Regarding SJ's role in the movie, Gilbert Cruz at the Vulture clocked Natasha as the character with the third most screen time, and the most unbroken dialogue scenes of any of the six: her introductory interrogation scene (3:14); recruiting Banner in the slums (2:49); a face-off on the Helicarrier with Loki (3:30); and a conversation with Hawkeye following their fight (2:40).* So yeah, even more so you've got a case where you really have to wonder what the heck the critics are watching.

*(The next sentence is borderline fail, but what can you do?)

[Sam Johnsson]

Bah. Stupid typepad. <q> is perfectly good markup.

"the most unbroken...fight (2:40)." Op. Cit.

[Porlock Junior]

Why didn't they see her? Clearly, though you seem not to have noticed, she must have been wearing a gorilla suit.

[Shane]

What The Avengers tells you about proper ensemble stories: Give the biggest plot to the smallest[1] characters.

Gender issues aside[2], Black Widow and Hawkeye have the most important roles in the story, and perhaps the only growth. Additionally, BW got to be the 'normal', viewpoint character. Giving perspective and letting us connect with all these larger than life folks.

I think the writers did this on purpose, because these two are the least known, least popular Avengers - without even their own movies. Flashier and better known characters will hold their own, and get drawn into anything going on.

[1] Please don't read me as dissing on Scarlett as 'smallest' here, nor women generally. Happy to discuss why if anyone wants.

[2] Although they are important. Frex I think it's no accident which of Hawkeye and Black Widow got to be the mind-controlled villain.

[Phil]

I read a similar piece earlier this week at IndieWire which makes a very convincing case that Black Widow is the actual hero of the movie. Which she is, when you think about it. Aside from Iron man spoiling the spoiler into the spoiler at the end, her actions are the only ones that actually affect the resolution of the threat in any significant way whatsoever. The superpowered characters could have fought invading aliens all day and all night, and it wouldn't have mattered a bit unless she did what she did.

Still, Ruffalo gets the best line in the movie.

[Julian]

Doctor Science, this is a great post. Thank you for doing it.

[Countme-In]

"... Black Widow repels invading aliens through the sheer force of her corsetry"

Haven't seen the movie yet, but I've gotta say that even if it that observation isn't remotely true, that's pretty good sentencery.

If they have a go at the film version of "Madame Bovary Vrs Alien" someday, I hope Lane trots that image out again.

I always want what I can't get with a minimum of effort, or rather with a maximum of inner turmoil and despair while appearing to do nothing, and a good friend the other week told me about some such that "I might as well expect Scarlett Johanssen to call me on the phone because I happen to walk around Beverly Hills".

Don't think that hasn't become the new expectation.

[liberal japonicus]

This ties in with this recent Harvard Business School article comparing Amazon reviewers with professional ones.

I haven't seen the movie (but I don't mind spoilers, if I did, I'd probably fail to understand most of the Japanese movies I watch), so I can't comment on the stuff related to the movie, but from the trailers, the BW fight tied to a chair seems to function as a 'prowess presenter' (I just made that phrase up, so if anyone makes any money off of it, you can send my cut here).

In most action movies, there is a preliminary fight to show just how tough and serious a character is. As such, it is not a 'real' fight, because it doesn't really draw on that character's inner strength, as it were. These kinds of fights are quite different from the more climatic fights where the hero or heroine has to make some dramatic insight to win the fight, identifying the opponent's weak point and taking advantage of it. I'm assuming that those later fights are more climatic fights.

I'm also reminded of the great scene in Iron Man 2, where Natasha and Happy Hogan, Stark's bodyguard go into capture Ivan Danko and she tells Hogan to stay in the car and he plays the gallant protector who won't let her face it alone and upon breaking in the building, have to run the gauntlet of security guys. While Happy Hogan is conducting a long drawn out fist fight with the first guard, BW basically runs the table, so at the end, when Happy says 'I got him' and looks down the hall and sees all the out of action guards that BW has left, the crestfallen expression on his face is great.

Another way to view this, she has to have multiple fight scenes because the audience is not inclined to accept her as the equal of the rest of the Avengers (and in that trailer scene where they form a circle and she puts a new clip in her pistol, I have to admit to thinking 'you brought a gun to a superhero fight?')

This isn't to totally excuse the reviewers' cluelessness you present here, but just to point out some other aspects of BW's character as it seems to have been developed.

[Chicagojon]

Fantastic post -- I look forward to sending this to my 13/10 year old nephews and seeing what they think about Black Widow and the movie in general (if they saw it/see it that is).

This is awesome: Bonus Fail Points for not knowing the difference between a "Madonna bustier" and a Little Black Dress.

[Jon]

I was quite a fan of Black Widow in the movie. My secret hope is for a movie featuring Black Widow with the Hulk. The dynamic between the two characters was very interesting, and fill a whole movie.

[Slartibartfast]

Even if she were wearing some kind of corsetry, it takes a special kind of stupid to imagine that ordinary humans can actually fight while bound up like that.

So: if Black Widow can fight like that laced up, imagine how quickly she could dispose of all those movie reviewers at once were she to unlace a bit.

[McKinneyTexas]

I can't imagine not being very much aware of Scarlett Johnsson, even if her role was limited to watching someone change a tire. Maybe that's just me.

[cofax]

There's something about this that bugs me: it's like a reverse of that phenomenon where a population which is 30% female is perceived as "female-dominated", and yet I think it comes from the same place.

Anyway, I loved Black Widow, and I hope they get to make a Black Widow movie.

[Doctor Science]

Porlock Junior:

The "gorilla suit theory" is actually one I'm seriously considering.

That is, maybe people were paying attention to other things while watching, and then "pasted in" Black Widow's appearence & actions from the comics to cover up the gap in their memories.

It's plain to me that some kind of widespread cognitive illusion is taking place.

[thebewilderness]

They be confabulating like mad hamsters in those reviews.

[liberal japonicus]

Phil's link to the IndieWire piece above suggests a reason why that I like. It is that when confronted with change that is happening too fast, folks tend to fall back on old understandings.

[wj]

I figured out long ago that there was only one worthwhile kind of movie reviewer. Find one who always dislikes the movies you like and pans the ones you do like. (For me, it was Pauline Kael.) Then studiously avoid anything that they like, and consider only the ones that they dislike.

Which is, I suppose, another way of saying that whatever the official qualifications for a job a movie reviewer, I don't find their tastes to be particularly helpful.

[bob mcmanus]

At least he didn't cast Ellen Page.

A reviewer might be cautious about drawing attention to Whedon's fetish. The fact that this time he has diminished a few of the more obvious aspects (SJ is not River-size, but neither is she Jolie) might actually have served to re-eroticize something that has been de-eroticized by over-familiarity and outright parody in Sucker Punch

Incidentally, I have been interested (dispassionately, not my fetish)in this particular fantasy since John Brunner's underrated and prescient Quicksand 1966. Brunner seemed to posit the eroticization of the pubescent Urchin as ultra-violent sexual aggressor as a feature of decadently peaceful and feminist softly authoritarian societies. See:a whole lot of manga/anime.

Anyway, I considered it polite and healthful not to focus on Black Widow.

[bob mcmanus]

Hmmm...just realized.

Little white girl stalked and attacked by huge colored guy.

Has anybody examined Hulk as 60s racist metaphor?

[Julia Cape]

Another example of women needing to do twice the work to get half the credit.

[QWERTY]

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with your assessment. I believe the dismassal of Black Widow is not due to her being female but a function of her role and acting in the film. Black Widow plays an important part, but she is also not necessary to the film. Her role is necessary (and world saving ultimately), but nothing she does requires her specifically. Any other loyal, kickass SHIELD agent (heck even Coulson) could have done her job. Even the only "Black Widow" spy moment, the "interrogation" of Loki isn't really necessary, since it's fairly obvious the danger that Hulk poses to the helicarrier. This combined with the actress' lack of presence on screen (debatable, but I don't find her acting particularly riveting) may have lead to her dismissal in reviews. Yes, the wording is exaggerated but the sentiment behind it is understandable.

[Jay]

I went into the movie realizing that the writers had to justify BW and Hawkeye as Avengers material, so they were probably going to stick in some scenes to showcase each of them. Hawkeye's big scene seems to have been cut, but I expect the DVD will have a scene about his trick arrows or something.

Also, whenever there's a job that could be done by anyone, it's always BW or Hawkeye. It's never a random agent, because that wastes the opportunity. It also won't be Thor, Iron Man, or Banner, because each of them already has a justification for being an Avenger.

[Jen R.]

I had a big long comment here, but it all comes down to "I want to go see this movie again just so I can enjoy more of Black Widow kicking ass."

[bexley]

Black Widow plays an important part, but she is also not necessary to the film.

Strikes me as a slightly weird assessment, I thought this more about Thor/Captain America.

When it comes to smashing enemies all you need is the Hulk. It looked like nothing could hurt him in the film and he could hurt any enemy. The key is to point him in the right direction.

So an Avengers operation looks like it contains two jobs:

1.Working out what they need to do to beat the bad guys(and here BW, Banner and Stark provide the brains and intel).

2. Smash. Here all you really need is the Hulk.

Hawkeye was important only for his dynamic with BW. Thor and Cap weren't really important at all.

[hairshirthedonist]

I didn't see the film, but the "it didn't have to be BW" seems to me that, even if correct, it doesn't require any sort of disagreement with Doc Sci's post. The main problem being pointed out is that reviewers didn't seem to notice what happened in the film. Whether or not what happened required BW, specifically, to do what she did, she still did those things, and people somehow failed to notice (going by what Doc Sci wrote about the film).

Another potential problem with the "it didn't have to be BW" formulation is that it might hold true for any given single action she took, but that only someone as extraordinary as she could have done all of them. It may not simply be about unique or overpowering physical ability. It may also be about courage and foresight.

You could argue that none of the characters were needed. They could have simply written a movie about a single superhero, sort of like Superman, only without any weaknesses whatsoever, perhaps with even greater powers than Superman, who could have just done everything necessary, without being subject to any limits of time and space. So what?

To my point on the totality of BW's actions, I'd add that Joe Montana was one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the NFL, but he never did anything physically extraordiary on any given play. He wasn't fast. He wasn't strong. He didn't have a great arm. He just did what he had to to win over and over again without succumbing to the pressure of the situations he was in. He was smart, confident, a good leader, and he didn't screw up. By NFL standards, his physical abilities were more or less average. He was great none the less.

But, again, I didn't see the film, so I may be talking from that which rests on my chair.

[Hartmut]

That specific sub-discussion reminds me of the old joke about an economist trying to make a symphony orchestra more cost-efficient. All redundancies are removed, e.g. only two violins remain. Also some instruments rarely or never play at the same time, so a single player could do them. And for recordings a single generalist can record all voices separately and mix them together afterwards.
Not a joke: Hollywood operated that way occasionally. Max Steiner's famous score for King Kong was recorded with some musicians having to play four different instruments (and the score got orchestrated with that necessity in mind).
In 'Kind Hearts and Coronets' (Ealing not Hollywood) Alec Guinness played 8 roles (male and female) and on one occasion all of them in the same scene.
So, even if for unknown reason one superhero is not enough, there is no need to hire a whole bunch of actors. And with modern technology it should pose no problem to even have them fighting themselves, so the villain cast could also be done without more guys/gals.
It's all blue/greenscreen anyway, so record the performences of one female and one male actor, each playing all roles, then put them in the otherwise recorded/composed background and leave the viewers the choice. Or even better, project the one version for the right, the other for the left eye, so viewers can switch between them anytime by closing one or the other. Reviews can be sorted into left eye and right eye too.

[Cornekopia]

I noticed the same thing about the reviews; that though SJ carries the movie emotionally in several scenes (allowing us to better understand both the Hulk and Hawkeye's identity struggles, for just one thing), many of the reviewers seemed to dismiss her altogether.

I'd point out, though, that your comic book illustration of BW used above is actually one based on her appearance in Iron Man 2, so circling back to movies again. Her more typical look in comics involves straight hair and even a little hair-bump, sixties-style. But it begs the question: would she made more of an impact on male reviewers had she kept her long sexy perm rather than the more efficient and no-nonsense flip?

[ArtemisScribe]

I went to see this film with a huge (male) comicbook geek. He also suffers from strong-female-lead blindness, but when we came out the first thing he said was "Did you see BW?" I was expecting him to talk about her costume, but instead he told me about that scene in Charlie's Angels when Drew Barrymore is tied to a chair and tells the bad guys that she's gonna beat them up "and then moonwalk out of here".
BW's first scene in the warehouse reminded him of that, the first action movie he ever saw where girls got to be badass and that conection kept him focused on her in every fight.
So there was purpose to that first scene, because I made that connection too. And whenever I mention it to people they know exactly what I mean. We needed BW to be reminded that we aren't just the sidestory in big movies. And it's a shame that it still shocks us to see characters like her on our screens.