Practicality of Costume

In The Avengers, Black Widow’s costume is impractical and not realistic for battle. She wears high heels and skin tight, low-cut clothing. Her hair and makeup is perfect, even when she is fighting.

 

This is the ‘male gaze’, a theory introduced by Laura Mulvey. The ‘male gaze’ is when women in the media are created for men to look at. Therefore their physical appearance is the most important thing and the woman’s thoughts and feelings are not as important. 

 

The ‘male gaze’ is clearly shown in Captain America: Winter Soldier. On the promotion posters for the movie, Black Widow is seen strutting like on a catwalk, pointing to how her character should be viewed in the film. Rather than focusing on her skill as a superhero.

In the film, Black Widow’s emotions are criticised for being flirty with Steve Rogers, when realistically she should be stone cold and not show any emotions because that is how she has been trained.

 

These weird emotions are also seen in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Black Widow is the ‘damsel in distress’ despite being a feared and highly trained assassin. This is a damaging stereotype as women do not need men to rescue them, especially Black Widow.

 

The ‘male gaze’ is not only harmful for women who are sexualised but pointless as 47% of Marvel fans are women.

 

Opposingly, the Black Widow film was directed by a woman and so features the ‘female gaze’. This is when women are portrayed on screen as not objects for a man to view.

 

The costume in Black Widow is more realistic, with Yelena wearing clothes with pockets. This film makes fun of the previous films, joking at how Black Widow tries to make her hair look perfect and her posing.

 

In Black Widow, Natasha is given real emotions and her character is written truthfully.