Oscar-nominated actor Scarlett Johansson is synonymous with Marvel Cinematic Universe’s superhero Black Widow, and the Hollywood star will soon be seen in a movie dedicated solely to her character. However, Scarlett admits that her role was oversexualized in the beginning and that she wasn’t too happy about that. The 35-year-old actor was first seen portraying the role of the red-headed superhero for the first time in 2010 when she starred alongside Robert Downey Jr in Iron Man 2, and now 11 years later she will be seen headlining her own show in July of this year.
In an interview with Collider, Scarlett shared how the character of Black Widow, real name Natasha Romanoff goes from being a KGB assassin to an Avenger. She shared, “It definitely has changed and I think part of that change has probably — it’s hard because I’m inside it, but probably a lot of that is actually from me too. I’ll be 35 years old and I’m a mom and my life is different. Obviously, 10 years have passed and things have happened and I have a much different, more evolved understanding of myself.”
She shared how she started to feel her character was hyper-sexualized, saying, “As a woman, I’m in a different place in my life, you know? And I felt more forgiving of myself, as a woman, and not — sometimes probably not enough. I’m more accepting of myself, I think. All of that is related to that move away from the kind of hyper-sexualization of this character and, I mean, you look back at Iron Man 2 and while it was really fun and had a lot of great moments in it, the character is so sexualized, you know?”
The actor said her character is talked about in Iron Man 2 like “she’s a piece of something, like a possession or a thing or whatever — like a piece of a**, really.”
Referring to a scene when Black Widow knocks out Tony Stark/Iron Man’s right-hand man Happy Hogan (played in the movie by director Jon Favreau) in the boxing ring with an impressed tycoon later telling Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), “I want one”, Scarlett shared that maybe that felt like a compliment but not so much now.
“Yeah and at one point calls her a piece of meat and maybe at that time that actually felt like a compliment. You know what I mean? Because my thinking was different. Maybe I even would have, you know, my own self-worth was probably measured against that type of comment or, like a lot of young women, you come into your own and you understand your own self-worth.”
She continued, “It’s changing now. Now people, young girls, are getting a much more positive message, but it’s been incredible to be a part of that shift and be able to come out the other side and be a part of that old story, but also progress. Evolve. I think it’s pretty cool.”
In the new film, also starring Florence Pugh, David Harbour and Rachel Weisz, Black Widow confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises, forcing her to deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left behind.
Directed by Cate Shortland and produced by Kevin Feige, Black Widow—the first film in Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe— launches in Indian theatres on July 9, 2021, in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada.