Did Everyone Else See A Different Age of Ultron?

I came out of a glorious movie on Friday, and finally allowed myself to read some articles about it. I think there must have been a distribution issue though, because the Internet didn’t see the same Age of Ultron that I did. Somehow in their movie Black Widow was just a love interest, and all she contributed to the movie was getting Hulk to the final battle. This shocked me. In the movie I saw, we finally got to see past Natasha’s super-spy emotional control. We got to see her humanity. So yes, Internet, I agree that we got to see her weakness, but that was the point!

Quite often in movies, men have had to make decisions between a relationship and their work. Especially in super hero movies, a woman falls in love with the superhero because of his heroism, and then asks him to stop since it is dangerous. It is a ridiculous position to put someone in, and it is ridiculous that women in these movies seem determined to have the world end, rather than have their boyfriend risk his life defending it.

In Age of Ultron, Black Widow was finally that hero. She had to choose between work and love. She chose work. She chose saving the world. Somehow the Internet has taken what is a very common story, but since it was with a woman, it is now sexist. Instead of recognizing what a horrible position Natasha was in, and what she was forced to give up, they act like this instead showed that she’s just around to direct people to the battlefield like some sort of battle hostess. Your table with Ultron is right over here, Hulk. Your server will be with you in a minute if Ultron doesn’t kill them first.

What movie were you watching, Internet?

In Captain America, Natasha lamented that there wasn’t anyone she could bond with on a deeper level. No one has lived a life like Natasha. Shared life experience isn’t something she could find so she described just using her spy craft to change or highlight parts of her personality when she’s with people. She even showed that the same disconnect exists between her and Cap when she asks him what he wants her to be.

In Age of Ultron, though, we see another side of Natasha. We see something beyond her simply adjusting her personality to the situation or person. Bruce Banner may not have been raised in a scary spy school, but he’s afraid of what he’s capable of, and Natasha connects with that. It’s something she’s struggled with since she was recruited away from the dark-side.

Before anyone uses the argument that Natasha having a relationship makes her just a love interest, or having to be rescued at one point makes her a typical flat female character, these are things that happen to humans. Are we really saying that these can never happen for female comic book heroes because at one time they were done poorly? How does letting her have a complex and messy emotional ride, allowing her to need someone to share herself with, or having problems she can’t solve on her own; how does that make her a less complex character? And how does it make it sexist? In the fight to make sure female characters are as complex as males, we’re now saying that female characters can’t do all the same things in a movie? No one complained that Banner was “just a love interest.” The million times Black Widow saved her fellow teammates, no one accused those teammates of looking weak because they needed help at one point also.

None of us want a flat female character with zero personality, but if we don’t allow female characters to have story lines that show their complexity, their humanity, then we are doomed to that fate. We’ve all wanted a complex female character in comic book movies for so long, that I think it is hard to let go of our expected disappointment. To stop scrutinizing every word female characters say, and every action they take, looking for sexism.

Internet, if you saw a movie where Natasha was a flat character, barely given a voice beyond expected female silliness, then you wrote and directed that film in your own head. Black Widow was forced to make a horrible choice between what she wanted, and what was necessary to save the world. Banner trusted her, and she betrayed him. Now, the job is all she has. She thought that being an Avenger was the dream she was waking up from, but really her dream was that she could ever let herself walk away.