As much as some people want to write off Mark Ruffalo as just another offensive douchebag Avenger, I just can’t. I love him. I think he only made one mistake during the Ultron promotional tour, and he tried to apologize for it and I don’t know… I kind of forgive him. He had a “live and learn” moment with the Romani community. He’s still a feminist though! He’s been absolutely lovely to and about the actresses in Ultron, and he’s always self-identified as a full-throated feminist (and a pro-choice feminist at that).
So, Ruffalo did a Reddit AMA yesterday and he was asked about a lot of different things, obviously. You can read the full AMA here. The part everyone picked up was where Ruffalo was asked about the criticism leveled at Joss Whedon for not making Black Widow a stronger, more empowered character. This was Ruffalo’s response:
I think it’s sad. Because I know how Joss feels about women, and I know that he’s made it a point to create strong female characters. I think part of the problem is that people are frustrated that they want to see more women, doing more things, in superhero movies, and because we don’t have as many women as we should yet, they’re very, very sensitive to every single storyline that comes up right now. But I think what’s beautiful about what Joss did with Black Widow – I don’t think he makes her any weaker, he just brings this idea of love to a superhero, and I think that’s beautiful.
If anything, Black Widow is much stronger than Banner. She protects him. She does her job, and basically they begin to have a relationship as friends, and I think it’s a misplaced anger. I think that what people might really be upset about is the fact that we need more superhuman women.
The guys can do anything, they can have love affairs, they can be weak or strong and nobody raises an eyebrow. But when we do that with a woman, because there are so few storylines for women, we become hyper-critical of every single move that we make because there’s not much else to compare it to.
So I know Joss really well. I know what his values are. And I think it’s sad, because in a lot of ways, there haven’t been as many champions in this universe as Joss is and will continue to be. And I know it hurts him. I know it’s heavy on him. And the guy’s one of the sweetest, best guys, and I know him – as far as any man can be a champion for women, he is that.
So it’s been a little disheartening.
But I also see how much people love that aspect of it. There’s an equal amount of people who find the love interest between Banner and Black Widow to be a big standout. And it’s very satisfying to people. So it’s a movie. People are going to have their opinions. And that’s actually a great thing. The fact that this is a debate that’s coming out of this movie is probably a positive thing.
I just don’t think that people should get personal with Joss, because he really is – of anyone – an advocate for women. He’s a deeply committed feminist.
I think he’s dead right. He doesn’t dismiss the criticism as “internet trouble” (tip of the hat to d-bag Jeremy Renner) and he doesn’t negate Black Widow’s sexual agency either. The problem is not that Black Widow or any female character (or any real life woman) has sex, it’s a larger problem of the lack of representation of many types of women in film. And Ruffalo defends his friend Joss Whedon. Yes… Ruffalo is still one of my favorite people.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
This felt patronizing to me, but I love Ruffalo and want to give him a pass because this whole situation has gotten ugly. Yeah Whedon traditionally has written great female characters, but this whole Avengers franchise is a total fustercluck. It’s degraded to the status of pg-level live action cartoons to sell toys to a new generation of little consumers.
“this whole Avengers franchise is a total fustercluck.”
I agree with you but this is why I think it’s bizarre that Black Widow has become such a point of contention as far as the need for movies to depict a strong female character.
It’s like watching a rom com expecting to see a genuinely empowered, complex female character–with very few exceptions, you will not find that in the rom com genre. I admit that I don’t really care for the comic book movies so maybe I’m not equipped to discuss this, but from the outside looking in, these franchises have always seemed like wet dreams for teenage boys. I would never watch them with the expectation that I would see anything groundbreaking in terms of feminism.
Am I wrong?
@Kitten: you are not wrong at all! I completely agree with your assessment. While I do enjoy watching these movies (I find them visually stunning, and the action very exciting), I don’t go into them expecting some deep social commentary. They’re popcorn flicks that are meant to be fun, end of story.
You’re not wrong, but Avengers Is holding strong to that ethos, while X-Men managed to easily transition in the 21st century with an ensemble cast of complex characters and plot lines that don’t depend entirely on CGI. I’m not sure any of their female characters have gotten solo films either, but they’ve gotten back stories and development and purposes other than arousing teen boys.
Meanwhile other superhero films like Dark Knight aren’t even really appopriate for children, having transitioned so well into adult-level films. So I feel like Avengers is just a waste altogether. They just didn’t even try to go somewhere new and better while the other franchises are doing just that.
@ Kitten- this. exactly this.
No. You are spot on.
I think that’s a big part of it, but I also think that’s part of why the lack of a BW movie is such a problem. The other Avengers all have films establishing their pathos, so we come into the story ready to play. Hawkeye is the only other Avenger who doesn’t, but who cares? He’s boring. Natasha, on the other hand, is interesting, has hints at complexity, so it’s frustrating to see her story lost in a sea of testosterone laden action sequences.
@Bettyrose- I think Mark’s a good guy, but yeah I did find some of these comments patronizing. Especially calling Joss a champion of women, considering what happened with Charisma Carpenter.
What happened with Charisma Carpenter?
He fired her off Angel after she got pregnant.
@lore it was rumoured that her character (Cordelia Chase) was written out of the TV show Angel back in the early 2000s due to her hiding her pregnancy from Whedon. There’s a lot of old gossip (and debate) floating around the internet about it.
@Bettyrose: your comment on Avengers vs X-Men is spot on!
As far as I remember the only X-men character that got a solo film was Wolverine…
I love him.
What an excellent response. Good for him. He seems so awesome. He really gets the big picture.
Ruffalo is still cool with me. I kind of feel for Joss Whedon.
Yes, this was a nice interview and made me feel for Whedon, too.
How could anyone say he’s a douche??
I love him!
No, Mark, our problem with Black Widow is that she was turned into a mooning woman, who had to be rescued by her team, when just one movie before this, she was taking on the Winter Soldier and saving Capt. America. Natasha was already a woman in love in both the Avengers and Winter Soldier and she wasn’t having awkward as f*ck convos with Bruce in the midst of serious situations. Ugh. Stop talking. Stop justifying.
And lest we forget, Joss was the same feminist who was angry at Charisma Carpenter for getting pregnant and ruining his vision of S4 of Angel, and then wrote a gross storyline for her that had her involved with the child she’d helped raise. Yay, feminism.
Who was she in love with in Avengers or Winter Soldier?
Well, she’s supposed to eventually fall in love with Bucky if they follow the comics. And she definitely had a great amount of chemistry with Cap, much more than with Bruce.
@ Bunny
They aren’t following the comics, though, so you can’t read anything into her relationship (or lack thereof) with Bucky. All we know about them is that one time she ran across him in the field and he shot her. They don’t have history in the movies, and until they start flirting in the movies, they don’t have a relationship beyond antagonism. I think a lot of the problems with Whedon’s depiction of BW is that people are conflating the movie character with the comic book character. This doesn’t seem to be a problem for any of the male characters, though, who are all different from their comic book counterparts.
Isn’t that what Joss & Mark are trying to sell me? That she was in love with Bruce throughout those movies, but didn’t act on them until this one. To which, I say…bumpkiss. Forget the fact she has chemistry with Cap & Hawkeye, even if we buy Joss/Mark’s contention, she wasn’t reduced to a love interest in those films. Her scenes with Mark were like watching another movie. Where is the confident, strong, ambiguous Natasha, who was able to discuss Steve’s lovelife while simultaneously taking down terrorists. She was capable and competent and in control.
Okay, so, for real question. Most of the time, it’s just the odds, there will be times you’re the ass-kicker, and there will be times you rely on your team. You just said yourself that she has been the ass-kicker, so why is it horrible that she has a moment that she needs help from her team? Why does that negate all her strength? Other characters also have those moments, right? The men save other strong men from things sometimes?
It was symptomatic of her entire arc of the film. She was the little woman, who picked up after her boys. She was the coy woman, trying to seduce the nerdy doctor, who just didn’t see that she liked him. She was the damsel that needed to be rescued, even though, she’d just signaled her partner where she was using things she found in her cell. You mean to tell me she couldn’t have saved herself? No, they needed Banner to save her, so they could have their talk about leaving together. So she could kiss him and say she adored him.
I adore Mark. He has a really great record regarding women rights. If he thinks there’s misplaced anger then I believe him.
The problem is a lot of the women represented in comics are misogynistic towards women. The issue for me is that the female characters are mostly large breasted, wearing absurd clothing. My son was big into comics and I had to sit him down and tell him that these comics are not a correct representation Of what a real women body looks like.
Mark, I’m all alone tonight from seven to ten-thirty. The door will be unlocked.
Okay, but I get all day on Saturday.
He gets it. Its the under representation of women onscreen that forces us to be so vigilant over how female characters are depicted.
Spoiler alert: I still think the sterilisation sub plot was a step back and that the character would be better served by saying that she had been forced to have say an experemental lobotomy that maybe removed her sense of empathy or ability to gauge right and wrong. Her “humanity” was stripped in more ways than one yada yada and this is why she struggles so hard trying to figure out where the line between right and wrong lies. Even with multiple female characters onscreen, the sterilisation thing would still be off imho.
I knew he wouldnt touch the questions on Renners slut shaming (partly because the boys of Reddit voted them down) but still disappointed though.
Except we’ve seen enough of Natasha to know she does know right from wrong (her whole “red in my ledger” thing from the first Avengers), and she is shown to be capable of empathy (her comforting Clint after Loki, her obvious ease and friendship with Clint’s wife and kids). To suddenly say “oh I had a lobotomy and I can’t feel feelings” really *would* be rewriting her character. The sterilization thing is a moment of genuine body horror, it clearly communicates the drastic lengths the Red Room went to in training Natasha, and also the extreme loss of agency she experienced. I don’t think that scene plays as well as it could have, but the “fix it” is not to remove the sterilization aspect, it’s to not have so much else going on at the same time that there is room to misunderstand the meaning. I saw Avengers 2 twice and the second time, after I’d had a chance to think about it, that scene made a lot more sense. The problem is, it should have made sense the first time.
See I disagree there.
I have to give Mark props because he voiced this so perfectly. The whole point was this horrifying thing happened to her and shaped who she was from a very young age. She didn’t have any more choice in that being part of her legend as Bruce (Wayne) did in having his parents murdered.
Heroes need tragedies to overcome. Secret weaknesses to gently define them. Pain and sorrow that touches on our basic needs as humans. Natasha can’t take back the past but she can define and change her future, to suddenly make it all her choice removes one of the few interesting plot points she had.
Algernon
I take your point but I could argue that its not like Whedon is averse to shoe horning plotlines. See what he did with Natasha and Bruce, where we are to believe that shes had a thing for him from get go. Besides you could simply have great back story on how she finally came to acknowledge the “red ledger”, maybe an incident or a person who teaches her to apply ethics (not morality, because she wouldnt have an “instinct” for that) to her work.
In any case, a lobotomy isnt the only plot option. Theres plenty of things her trainers could have taken from her or made her do that would have created the same challenges for the character. Sterilisation was such low hanging fruit, I’m surprised Whedon didnt just throw in a rape too.
@ Chichi
If you extrapolate what Natasha is saying when she talks about the sterilization, he kind of is including rape in the sense that she has undoubtedly slept with people she’d rather not have slept with, either for information or to get close enough to kill, etc.
I’m not defending the plot as perfect, it isn’t. It is shoehorned in, and there are a lot of different ways to deal with the same ideas with Natasha that would have been more elegant. But I don’t think sterility is “low hanging fruit,” per se. I think that’s probably a valid concern for female agents, especially those at risk of capture/torture, and it’s the kind of thing that an unethical organization could easily twist around to further warp the child soldiers they’re grooming. I don’t think Whedon nailed it completely, but I appreciate what he’s trying to do with her character. Part of the reason people like Black Widow is because she changes every time she shows up. If she was always the same she would just be Maria Hill.
What debate? Sorry, blissfully unaware of any larger social ramifications of this film. Is this about the slut comment?
No its about character development of the only female Avenger (Black Widow). There are a number of issues with her depiction.
Okay.
There’s a problem marketing hero’s to girl too. At target there was only 1 dress for girls with hero’s on it And a hundred shirts, pants, pj’s, hats and shoes for boys.
I spent 18 bucks on a 2 year Olds dress because I felt like I’d never see a dress with the avengers on it again. At least make a few things keyed for girls. My daughter likes to tea party with the hulk and my little pony. Girls like hero’s too!
This!
I have not yet seen Ultron but I have to give Joss the benefit of the doubt b/c he has always been so conscious and outspoken about strong female characters.
He has a point about the lack of women. Natasha is held out as a lead but given the character development of a side kick. That doesn’t work. If you’d had Captain Marvel there planning with Iron Man and flying around with Thor then this whole romance might have made a cute side plot. As it was to have your returning female lead suddenly in a romance with a guy that last we saw she was terrified of (remember?) felt shoehorned in and unearned. The idea had potential but the execution was poor.
I think I read somewhere that Whedon tried to get Captain Marvel in this movie, but Marvel thought it was too soon to introduce her or something
I am finding the concept of every movie being every thing to everyone, disheartening.
As a tomboy who grew up reading comics I noticed that comics were written mainly for adolescent males….. Which means females were eye candy and plot lines. Not the reason you were buying the comic. There is only one female avenger. And she’s a damn sexy one.
When I got older I started reading catwoman (and not the horrible Halle berry version) and she hulk. Maybe someday we’ll make it there as our society expands our ideas of what it is is to be a woman- outside of male expectstions.
All this to say – he is right. The main thing is that the topic is now open for discussion and being talked about. We’ve come a long way – and it’s refreshing to know that most of us recognize we can go a lot further.
He’s definitely right. Joss always wrote complex female characters and this is no different. People think that because she’s a badass that Black Widow is never supposed to want the normal things. Why is that? It doesn’t make her weaker to want love and family at all. That’s stupid and part of the problem. It’s the same commentary that surrounds Katniss from THG. Because she’s ansteong female shes not “supposed” to want Peeta in the end because that makes her weak. Never mind the fact that she’s 18 at the end of the series.
But if it was a guy no one would give a flying crap because guys can kick ass AND have families. No one said anything about Hawkeye being weak for having a family in AOU
Bulls eye! Yes to everything you just said. And that’s just as wrong has thinking the only place for a woman is the household. Nop, we are complex human beings with the right to choose and want different things and that choice doesn’t mean we are weaker or stronger than other women, it just means we are different.
This exactly.
I also think a lot of the people upset about this are just mad that Black Widow’s romance wasn’t with Hawkeye or Captain America. I bet if Joss had written in that she and Clint had a secret relationship people would have lost their minds with joy. And don’t tell me it was more built up than a romance with Bruce, it wasn’t. Nothing about her interactions with Clint in Avengers was romantic, and she was blatantly trying to partner Cap with other people in Winter Soldier. ScarJo has good chemistry with everyone she’s on screen with, so Joss could have reasonably paired her with Clint, Steve, Sam Wilson, Bruce, Nick Fury, Maria Hill, Thor, Loki, Tony, Pepper Potts, etc.
You just summed up my feelings on this whole issue. I feel like I saw a completely different movie to everyone else. As for Natasha being relegated to a side kick, please. She was the one who leapt into and out of a moving vehicle to get Vision and was consequently kidnapped by Ultron. Ultron whom Iron Man, Cap and even Thor had trouble fighting and suddenly she’s supposed to single handedly kick his ass too because she kicked ten (human guys)’ ass in Winter Soldier? I honestly feel like there’s a lot of projection going on here. I also take exception to the pervading perception that strong female characters must necessarily involve physicality and the ability to kick ass.
This has been utterly ridiculous. I cannot believe the amount of vitriolic comments about a comic book character. Sheer nonsense.
He’s right that so much of the problem has to do with under representation. I think that’s true of basically any character who isn’t a white man. The rest of us have been under written, and poorly and under represented for so long, that while white male characters are individuals, women and POC characters are considered representations of entire groups, and that is going to lead to tons of debates about whether these characters are “good” or “bad” representation. There’s never going to be one true answer to that question, so I think it’s important to keep making movies with major characters who are women, and POC, or gay, or transgender etc. until those characters get to be seen as individuals, and not stand ins for entire groups of people.
Good post, I agree. If there were more diverse characters, we wouldn’t focus so much on one, and there would be others to compare and contrast with.
While JW may not always be perfect in terms of creating strong female characters…at least he’s trying. At least he doesn’t always write to the default white male like so many others do. I haven’t seen the new Avengers yet (I’m kind of burnt out by all the hype and the horrible press tour) but Buffy and Firefly remain favorites of mine.
Ha – you’re like in my brain. I’m also passing on AoU for now b/c the press tour has tired me out. I want to not look at those actors faces for a while.
I’m also total Buffy/Firefly devotee. Which is not to say there aren’t aspects of JW’s work well worth discussing, and criticizing, because there are (Xander makes me want to punch things), but I think sometimes JW gets flack for things that aren’t his fault, and have more to do with how poorly women have been portrayed throughout the rest of media.
…well damn, I was of his general opinion before but he really won me over with this. I also agree Kaiser, Ruffalo occupies a special room in the ‘not perfect but trying’ category.
Tbh, I don’t want a sanitized perfect Adventure Barbie! version of ANY female character. I struggle when people say, “So and so isn’t feminist because she cares for a man” because that seems to go back to the issue feminism is facing of respecting some women are happy being wives and mothers and there’s nothing weak or lesser about them.
I want a character who is flawed. I want someone who struggles. I want to see pangs of humanity mixed in with face punching. Natasha was created to be this hyper-effective deadly spy, she is literally fighting against years of the most consuming training during her formative years and is now in a position where she’s starting to hope or want for more. She is NOT weak to want that. She does NOT reduce herself to some princess needing saving for hoping to not have to murder people for the rest of her life.
Mark is right, there are so few female representations of fighting women in media that many have attached to her and angry she’s not teaching at Yale while simultaneously being perfect in every other way. Even I struggle with this so I’m not totally innocent but my “Ah you just made this woman less strong” radar didn’t go off with Natasha at all. She impressed me for staying true to her personality and being so subtle.
I saw the movie and can’t for the life of me understand the fuss. I picked up on a BW/BB romance during the first movie when she was sent to pick him up. Is it the classic “beauty tames the beast” plot that we’ve seen over and over? Yes. But I didn’t have an issue with it. I think Natasha sees her past self as a monster (she was an assassin after all) and she identifies with BB/Hulks duality.
Is it the fact that she is kick ass but still wants love? Sheesh. Some of us can do both. I don’t get wanting to pigeonhole everyone into one neat package. Hawkeye had a family and honestly I thought it was stupid for him to bring everyone into his home. He just put his wife and kids out in harms way. What if they were followed? His weakness showed there.
In one scene Thor and Tony were fighting over who had the better girlfriend, Pepper or Jane. They came across like two stupid schoolboys and not like big tough secure heroes. No one said anything about that either.
I picked up on a BW/BB romance during the first movie when she was sent to pick him up. Thank you! She was intrigued by him from the get.
I saw the movie again last night and I’m still confused by all the talk about the “suddeness” of BW and BB’s romance. Did anyone see the same movie I did? The opening scene was there to tell all of us that after the chaos of the first movie’s alien invasion, this group is a well-oiled machine. They fight well separately, but more importantly, they fight well TOGETHER. That does not come overnight — that comes with practice and with time TOGETHER. I don’t know about anyone else, but I definitely got the feeling that this group is close. They tease, they joke, they have ROUTINES ffs! Thor and Cap with their hammer and shield maneuver; Hulk and Black Widow with their “lullabye” (or whatever the heck they called it) — anyone, anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
I understand that they have their secrets (Hawkeye’s family was a welcome surprise), but they are uniquely situated — Earth’s mightiest heroes as they are billed. The circle of friends and acquaintances will necessarily be small so both bromances and romances going on among the group doesn’t seem to be out of place. And neither bromances and/or romances weakens any of them IMO. In fact, I find myself more sympathetic towards the characters the more “human” they seem. Frankly, the only thing I’m wondering about is if Marvel will venture into the Scarlet Witch/Vision coupling. They were my favorite couple when I was young, but I know that a lot of people were not too happy about a romance (and eventual marriage) between a human mutant and a synthezoid, as I believe he was labeled. There was a rather tender look from Wanda during the whole synthesis process…so who knows?
I enjoyed the hell out of this movie and am looking forward to “Ant Man” this summer. I love me some Marvel!!!!! And to a lesser degree, DC.
Can he do absolutely no wrong? No. But he’s intelligent, mature, understanding, capable of recognizing his mistakes (and of learning from them) and overall a good man.
^This. I hold to my earlier opinion – Renner is a douchey instigator.
Still one of my favorites too.