Marvel’s “Black Widow” is a Decade Too Late
What was stopping Marvel from giving us a Black Widow movie from 2011–2021? Sexism. Plain and simple. And the audience who wanted this movie most has matured and moved on.
The Black Widow movie is 10 years too late. I’ve heard the excuses as to why it wasn’t made sooner, and they mean nothing to me and the leagues of fans who were begging for a Black Widow movie at the first height of the Avengers hype in 2012, and even before when she was introduced in the first Iron Man film. But from the moment hints were dropped in the first ensemble Avengers film about Clint and Natasha’s mysterious adventure in Budapest, I could practically hear people drafting fan theories on their phones in the theater back in 2012. Why there wasn’t capitalization on the hype then is beyond me.
The myriad of excuses as to why it couldn’t have been made sooner are silly. There’s no such thing as ‘could not’ but there is such thing as ‘would not’. It’s all a numbers game, and surely someone somewhere (or many someones somewhere) thought that Black Widow wouldn’t have the same pull as any of the ‘bigger heroes’ for some reason (the reason is she’s a woman). It took Marvel far too long to make Captain Marvel, and Black Panther, for example. Both of these films notably not focusing on the brooding super powered white men. When Black Panther and Captain Marvel proved to be able to make a huge impact on the box office just the same, if not better, I’m sure it had an effect on the Black Widow movie finally being made.
And honestly? That is such a shame. Because personally this movie is 10 years too late for me. That’s not to say it isn’t incredibly well made. But in the landscape of the Marvel-verse, we should’ve had 2 or 3 Black Widow movies by now. This being her first a decade later after the first Avengers movie, and it coming after her characters death in the franchise is comical. I used to be a huge Natasha Romanoff stan. I thought Age of Ultron was a fun movie and wholeheartedly expected an announcement of a Black Widow movie after that film. But it never came. Instead we got Civil War and that’s where my super hero film fatigue began to set in. It just felt like we were going to continue to get more of the same, and with Black Panther not releasing until 2018, and Captain Marvel a year later, I was growing older and more jaded by the year. These movies were great, and ya’ll can pry Black Panther from my cold dead hands, but I was becoming painfully self aware that these films were only being made because studios were finally recognizing they could exploit certain demographics now.
I can’t help but think about all the people who may have tried to get a Black Widow movie made in the past decade and were told no or not yet. While what was released in the past week is a great movie, an example being Yelena’s want of a dog as one of the most compelling character motivations I can remember in any movie in recent memory. But I resent the fact that I’ll probably never watch this again because its 2 hours long and I’ve had Marvel movie fatigue since Civil War. I resent that people throughout the years probably had loads of ideas and drafts upon drafts of scripts at the ready, just sitting on shelves somewhere that will never be produced because Black Widow is a woman and no one wanted to stick their neck out for this.
Oh how I wish they struck when the iron was hot and gave us a Black Widow story when we asked. Take me to 2012 where I’m in my late teens, or 2014 in my early twenties where I would have had such a movie memorized backward and forward. I would have reblogged and rejoiced just the announcement with the tumblr fandom day in and day out and screamed at my phone. But here I am today, having just streamed the movie unceremoniously on the Disney+ app, and already its becoming hazy in my memory. Watching this movie somehow made me feel nostalgic for a time in my life that never existed.
All images are ©Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
