Endgame thoughts (about Natasha)
May. 8th, 2019 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowscastHello, world! I haven't posted in a long, long time. But I think I will today!
I saw Marvel's Endgame last week, and I have some thoughts about it.
I have lots of thoughts, really! Like: wouldn't having 2.5 billion humans suddenly reappear (into a world where the survivors have moved on, adjusted to a dramatically changed world, and presumably greatly reduced their agricultural capacity) cause quite a lot of problems?
But what I'd like to talk about in this entry is Natasha Romanoff. Because I'm really struggling to decide whether to see her fate as a heroic sacrifice or a callous short-changing of her character (which isn't to say that it couldn't be both).
Before I talk about her end, I want to talk about her journey, and what she means to me.
I've been watching the MCU movies more-or-less from the beginning (pre-Avengers, I mostly was seeing them on DVD a year or so after they came out, since I had a baby and wasn't getting to theatres very much in those days, but still).
I quickly discovered that my favourite characters were Loki (mmm, Loki...) and Black Widow. They've got a lot in common, actually, and they both conform to a trope that I clearly enjoy: the reformed villain with a lot of emotional damage, who is also pretty. (See also: Spike, Faith, Snape, Draco as seen in post-series fanfic where he actually reforms, and Prince Zuko. Actually I think it all started with Kit Cloudkicker in Disney's TaleSpin, which I watched when I was 13. Did you know that he used to be an Air Pirate?) *ahem* Actually Loki isn't even particularly reformed, but it's in the moments when he teams up with Thor that I love him best, and that's the Loki that I look for in fanfic. But I digress!
Black Widow had lots of delicious, mysterious darkness in her past, but she was fighting on the side of good. She was fighting alongside the boys—and to start with, they were all boys, except for her.
So—and this is just painfully obvious, isn't it?—besides being an appealing character, she was important to me because she was the woman who kicked ass alongside the men.
There's a lot of feminist theory to unpack there! I'm not saying that women (or people) have to kick ass in order to be great characters. I also don't want to undervalue traditionally feminine-coded roles or ways of being. But, that said: the MCU is a series of action movies, and the exciting roles are the ass-kicking ones. And also: I am a woman who works in a male-dominated professional field, and other than fanfic my hobbies also tend to be male-dominated. So I am deeply invested in the idea of women doing things that used to be reserved for men.
Black Widow never got her own movie, but she was sufficiently present in the MCU lead-up to Infinity War/Endgame that she felt to me like she was an Avenger on equal footing with Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Captain America. Anyway, my personal alternate title for Captain America: Winter Soldier is Steve and Natasha: Road Trip.
At the start of Endgame, I was thrilled to see that Natasha was now running the show. I mean, obviously she was tired and sad, and it was a messed-up world, but I was just super duper happy to see her sitting at that desk and coordinating her agents in the field. I could have enjoyed watching a timeline that legitimately continued from there: a lot of the people that we loved are gone, but there are new people to love, and they're growing into their new roles, and Natasha is in charge now. (And she wasn't the only woman anymore!) And since I was going into the movie completely unspoiled (other than knowing that there was another Spiderman movie coming out, which did suggest some kind of resurrection in the works—but prequels are certainly a thing), for a little while there at the beginning I wondered if that was the story that we were going to be told.
But it wasn't. And I can't really complain, because I do love me a good time heist. (I do! Time-travel-hijinks is another of my very favourite tropes!)
Okay, so now let's talk about what happens to Natasha.
I have a lot of "on the one hand ... but on the other hand"-structured thoughts.
To the extent that the story posits that Natasha was disposable because she didn't have a family, I am pissed off at it. Particularly because there was that one really questionable line back in some movie or other, when Natasha seemed to draw an equivalence between the fact that she'd been sterilized and the Hulk lurking inside of Bruce, in suggesting that they were both monsters. But on the other hand, in my own reading of that line of Natasha's, I always took it to have a slightly broader scope: she wasn't saying that she was a monster because she couldn't have children, she was saying that she was a monster because she had been raised to be nothing but a spy and assassin.
And one also has to consider: having an adorable tiny daughter did not save Tony.
And also, within the story, it is Natasha herself who decides that Clint must live to be reunited with his family, and that is a decision that she makes with love and agency. From an external-to-the-narrative point of view, Natasha gets sacrificed (because the writers decide to kill her), but internal to the narrative she only goes over the cliff because she fights very hard for it. She has to beat Clint in hand-to-hand combat for the privilege of dying, and he clearly wants it just as badly as she does.
Sacrificing one's self for the greater good is the ultimate heroic act, and it's a very exciting thing for a character to do, but being dead is an extremely boring thing for a character to do (which is why we see so many fictional characters get somehow restored to life following their heroic sacrifices!). I guess I'm finally permanently torn: I respect Natasha's sacrifice, but I'm disappointed that her story ended before we ever got to see her being a protagonist rather than a sidekick or ensemble-member.
I wanted to see Natasha grow and change and be a team leader and get her own damn movie. But Natasha wanted to wipe out the red in her ledger and save her beloved friend and put his broken family back together. So, okay. I guess that's how her story ends.
I saw Marvel's Endgame last week, and I have some thoughts about it.
I have lots of thoughts, really! Like: wouldn't having 2.5 billion humans suddenly reappear (into a world where the survivors have moved on, adjusted to a dramatically changed world, and presumably greatly reduced their agricultural capacity) cause quite a lot of problems?
But what I'd like to talk about in this entry is Natasha Romanoff. Because I'm really struggling to decide whether to see her fate as a heroic sacrifice or a callous short-changing of her character (which isn't to say that it couldn't be both).
Before I talk about her end, I want to talk about her journey, and what she means to me.
I've been watching the MCU movies more-or-less from the beginning (pre-Avengers, I mostly was seeing them on DVD a year or so after they came out, since I had a baby and wasn't getting to theatres very much in those days, but still).
I quickly discovered that my favourite characters were Loki (mmm, Loki...) and Black Widow. They've got a lot in common, actually, and they both conform to a trope that I clearly enjoy: the reformed villain with a lot of emotional damage, who is also pretty. (See also: Spike, Faith, Snape, Draco as seen in post-series fanfic where he actually reforms, and Prince Zuko. Actually I think it all started with Kit Cloudkicker in Disney's TaleSpin, which I watched when I was 13. Did you know that he used to be an Air Pirate?) *ahem* Actually Loki isn't even particularly reformed, but it's in the moments when he teams up with Thor that I love him best, and that's the Loki that I look for in fanfic. But I digress!
Black Widow had lots of delicious, mysterious darkness in her past, but she was fighting on the side of good. She was fighting alongside the boys—and to start with, they were all boys, except for her.
So—and this is just painfully obvious, isn't it?—besides being an appealing character, she was important to me because she was the woman who kicked ass alongside the men.
There's a lot of feminist theory to unpack there! I'm not saying that women (or people) have to kick ass in order to be great characters. I also don't want to undervalue traditionally feminine-coded roles or ways of being. But, that said: the MCU is a series of action movies, and the exciting roles are the ass-kicking ones. And also: I am a woman who works in a male-dominated professional field, and other than fanfic my hobbies also tend to be male-dominated. So I am deeply invested in the idea of women doing things that used to be reserved for men.
Black Widow never got her own movie, but she was sufficiently present in the MCU lead-up to Infinity War/Endgame that she felt to me like she was an Avenger on equal footing with Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Captain America. Anyway, my personal alternate title for Captain America: Winter Soldier is Steve and Natasha: Road Trip.
At the start of Endgame, I was thrilled to see that Natasha was now running the show. I mean, obviously she was tired and sad, and it was a messed-up world, but I was just super duper happy to see her sitting at that desk and coordinating her agents in the field. I could have enjoyed watching a timeline that legitimately continued from there: a lot of the people that we loved are gone, but there are new people to love, and they're growing into their new roles, and Natasha is in charge now. (And she wasn't the only woman anymore!) And since I was going into the movie completely unspoiled (other than knowing that there was another Spiderman movie coming out, which did suggest some kind of resurrection in the works—but prequels are certainly a thing), for a little while there at the beginning I wondered if that was the story that we were going to be told.
But it wasn't. And I can't really complain, because I do love me a good time heist. (I do! Time-travel-hijinks is another of my very favourite tropes!)
Okay, so now let's talk about what happens to Natasha.
I have a lot of "on the one hand ... but on the other hand"-structured thoughts.
To the extent that the story posits that Natasha was disposable because she didn't have a family, I am pissed off at it. Particularly because there was that one really questionable line back in some movie or other, when Natasha seemed to draw an equivalence between the fact that she'd been sterilized and the Hulk lurking inside of Bruce, in suggesting that they were both monsters. But on the other hand, in my own reading of that line of Natasha's, I always took it to have a slightly broader scope: she wasn't saying that she was a monster because she couldn't have children, she was saying that she was a monster because she had been raised to be nothing but a spy and assassin.
And one also has to consider: having an adorable tiny daughter did not save Tony.
And also, within the story, it is Natasha herself who decides that Clint must live to be reunited with his family, and that is a decision that she makes with love and agency. From an external-to-the-narrative point of view, Natasha gets sacrificed (because the writers decide to kill her), but internal to the narrative she only goes over the cliff because she fights very hard for it. She has to beat Clint in hand-to-hand combat for the privilege of dying, and he clearly wants it just as badly as she does.
Sacrificing one's self for the greater good is the ultimate heroic act, and it's a very exciting thing for a character to do, but being dead is an extremely boring thing for a character to do (which is why we see so many fictional characters get somehow restored to life following their heroic sacrifices!). I guess I'm finally permanently torn: I respect Natasha's sacrifice, but I'm disappointed that her story ended before we ever got to see her being a protagonist rather than a sidekick or ensemble-member.
I wanted to see Natasha grow and change and be a team leader and get her own damn movie. But Natasha wanted to wipe out the red in her ledger and save her beloved friend and put his broken family back together. So, okay. I guess that's how her story ends.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-05-09 01:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-05-09 01:31 am (UTC)But I do keep seeing rumours online that there will be one, even post-Endgame, so I guess that a prequel is an increasingly likely bet? If it happens, I'll certainly go see it. (Though I am nervous about the narrative constraints of prequels, in general; I've seen some good ones, but I've also seen a lot of terrible ones! *ahem* Star Wars universe, I'm looking at you...)
Also: hello, and thanks for commenting! It was thrilling to get a comment within a few minutes on my first post in four and a half years. :-D
(no subject)
Date: 2019-05-09 09:11 am (UTC)Four and a half years?! That's nearly a snap!!
(no subject)
Date: 2019-05-09 02:29 am (UTC)They've got a lot in common, actually
I also thought so at first, but I felt that as the films went on that those commonalities shrank. Although as I mentioned in my last post, I definitely see Natasha and Nebula as sharing a lot, especially in the competitiveness and utter horror of their upbringing.
But yes, I also like the reforming villain trope, which I see as a work in progress. And making a hero more grey as a result is also intriguing to watch.
So I am deeply invested in the idea of women doing things that used to be reserved for men.
I hadn't thought of that re: your experience but I agree, particularly because it is likely to be revealing or less explored.
I want to side mention how much I like the fact that the people Natasha is closest to -- Clint and Steve -- are not romantic interests. It's not that after a few films I'd mind her having that storyline, but it's always tricky when one is basically the only female character in a story packed with men. And I do like seeing friendships, especially work friendships like this, existing.
Yes, time travel/loop stories are also a great favorite of mine!
she wasn't saying that she was a monster because she couldn't have children, she was saying that she was a monster because she had been raised to be nothing but a spy and assassin
That was my take as well, both when I heard it in the film and then later through the controversy. I wasn't keen on the Nat/Bruce thing because I felt it was poorly set up but not because it couldn't happen. For example, I read some Bruce/Nat which was very pre-Ultron and I thought its arguments for the pairing were much more interesting.
And as I mentioned in my post about Endgame, the thing is that I see Clint's family as Natasha's family too. She is Aunt Natasha, having been around for the kids' whole lives. They were going to name their third kid after her. (There were fanfics which posited the farm was one of the places where she went to ground after Winter Soldier). She didn't have a family growing up, and while we don't know Clint's MCU background, neither did he in comics canon. I saw Tony giving Morgan what he felt his father didn't give him. And I think Natasha is trying to give Clint's family (Laura included) what she didn't have.
The downside about this is that I have issues with the way that the nuclear family is exalted in our culture generally and certainly in most entertainment, especially stuff that is seen as family entertainment. It's not just that it's seen as the goal to aspire to, but also that not having that leads to dysfunction. I asked the question a week or so ago about why so many superhero stories involve orphans or only children. And I kind of side-eye the fact that the dysfunctional kids (Gamora, Nebula, Loki) are all adopted. I mean Killmonger is created when his father is killed by his uncle -- whereas T'Challa (and Shuri) grow up in a harmonious nuclear family...
(no subject)
Date: 2019-05-09 02:54 am (UTC)Yeah, I guess really it's only in the very broad strokes that they're similar, and only if you squint (and focus on the moral ambiguity); when you get down to it, Natasha is control and Loki is chaos and the differences only build from there. Nevertheless, I think they both hit me in the same kink!
Yes, true. I don't feel like I've had much time to get to know Nebula yet (although I did accidentally name a cat after her that one time), and she might well become a new favourite character of mine after GotG:Vol3, if she gets some good stuff to do in that one.
Oh, yes, I was very pleased by that too! I love seeing intense m/f platonic friendships onscreen that do not develop into romances.
Yes, absolutely.
Not that I think that you're wrong in general, but I will mention Peter Parker as a counter-example, in that he's adopted by his aunt and doing fine.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-05-09 03:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-05-09 08:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-05-09 11:12 pm (UTC)they're going to want their stuff back!
Yep, that's certainly going to be a problem!
(no subject)
Date: 2019-05-10 08:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-05-17 07:23 am (UTC):Waves:
(no subject)
Date: 2019-05-17 11:13 pm (UTC)