What do you think about Joss Whedon's influence on the MCU films?

[Agent Z]

Not more than the Russos, their movies also have enough shots that are sexualizing her.

Like when?

[Rincewind]

Not more than the Russos, their movies also have enough shots that are sexualizing her.

Did the Russos have any shots as bad as the "falling into Natasha's cleavage" shot from Age of Ultron?

[AndrewCrossett]

May be confusing "sexy" with "sexualized" here.

[chicago_bastard]

Like when?

I don't remember every gratuitous shot of Scarlett's body but there were plenty. A low angle shot of her backside after beating up the pirates in Winter Soldier comes to mind.

Did the Russos have any shots as bad as the "falling into Natasha's cleavage" shot from Age of Ultron?

I was talking about the first one, Age of Ultron's treatment of the character wasn't good, though still not worse than IW or Endgame.

[Bunch of Coconuts]

Comparing Whedon's first Avengers to all 3 of the Russo's films and saying that he (Whedon) didn't sexualize her as much is a bit unfair.

And what single moment from the Russo's was worse than Bruce falling into Natasha's cleavage (a moment he also copied in Justice League with Flash and Wonder Woman)?

[Phoenix Raptor]

My own opinion here is that, at the time (2012), Joss Whedon was probably the best choice to helm the Avengers movie. He had a fairly proven track record at handling large casts (Buffy, Angel, etc) and he was also a fairly huge comics geek so he'd treat it less as a job and more as an opportunity. As others have said, this is the film that proved beyond doubt that an ensemble movie based on previous solo ones could seriously work.

Is it perfect? Nope. Is there some sexualisation of women in it? Yep, but then men are sexualised all the time as well... there are shirtless scenes for virtually every male lead in the Marvel films, and who can forget Chris Evans famously wearing shirts that were a size too small, just to draw attention to his physique? Anyone saying that women deal with being objectified more than men in the MCU isn't watching properly.

I'll be in the minority here but I always believed that Natasha's line in AOU about being a monster due to being rendered infertile was actually quite poignant. Until quite recently, women have, by and large, had this opinion about themselves when told they weren't able to conceive... that they're less of a woman somehow. They're not, obviously, but they were almost conditioned by society to believe this about themselves, so Nat thinking it (in the presence of a man who can become a literal monster, no less) is hardly a stretch to me. Also worth bearing in mind is that she'd done some fairly unspeakable things in her past as a Red Room operative, that she was seemingly still trying to come to terms with (all the "red in her ledger") so the fact that she was made sterile to make her more efficient would potentially have her double down on her own feelings of self-disgust, hence she believes herself to be "a monster" because of it. Like I said, the line itself may not have been a reflection of the time the movie was filmed or based in but, given Nat's age and history, I thought it made some sort of sense for her to think this way.

Now I don't doubt that Joss Whedon as a human being can be pretty shitty on occasion, and there's enough people who've come forward with stories to tarnish his image. But everyone can be a prick when the moment takes them. I despise "cancel culture" and everything that goes along with it, and his treatment is no exception. If we're all really honest here, we should all be very worried about our own past actions catching up with us and ruining our futures because there'll be something that we've all done or said that, if made public, would have someone somewhere grabbing their pitchfork and organising some online lynch mob to make us pay. It's really sad, to me at least, that we live in an age where the past can be dragged up and the masses bay for blood. It can only be far far worse if you have some level of fame behind you, because then the whole world gets involved and then you're really fucked!

[Agent Z]

My own opinion here is that, at the time (2012), Joss Whedon was probably the best choice to helm the Avengers movie. He had a fairly proven track record at handling large casts (Buffy, Angel, etc) and he was also a fairly huge comics geek so he'd treat it less as a job and more as an opportunity. As others have said, this is the film that proved beyond doubt that an ensemble movie based on previous solo ones could seriously work.

Is it perfect? Nope. Is there some sexualisation of women in it? Yep, but then men are sexualised all the time as well... there are shirtless scenes for virtually every male lead in the Marvel films, and who can forget Chris Evans famously wearing shirts that were a size too small, just to draw attention to his physique? Anyone saying that women deal with being objectified more than men in the MCU isn't watching properly.

I'll be in the minority here but I always believed that Natasha's line in AOU about being a monster due to being rendered infertile was actually quite poignant. Until quite recently, women have, by and large, had this opinion about themselves when told they weren't able to conceive... that they're less of a woman somehow. They're not, obviously, but they were almost conditioned by society to believe this about themselves, so Nat thinking it (in the presence of a man who can become a literal monster, no less) is hardly a stretch to me. Also worth bearing in mind is that she'd done some fairly unspeakable things in her past as a Red Room operative, that she was seemingly still trying to come to terms with (all the "red in her ledger") so the fact that she was made sterile to make her more efficient would potentially have her double down on her own feelings of self-disgust, hence she believes herself to be "a monster" because of it. Like I said, the line itself may not have been a reflection of the time the movie was filmed or based in but, given Nat's age and history, I thought it made some sort of sense for her to think this way.

Now I don't doubt that Joss Whedon as a human being can be pretty shitty on occasion, and there's enough people who've come forward with stories to tarnish his image. But everyone can be a prick when the moment takes them. I despise "cancel culture" and everything that goes along with it, and his treatment is no exception. If we're all really honest here, we should all be very worried about our own past actions catching up with us and ruining our futures because there'll be something that we've all done or said that, if made public, would have someone somewhere grabbing their pitchfork and organising some online lynch mob to make us pay. It's really sad, to me at least, that we live in an age where the past can be dragged up and the masses bay for blood. It can only be far far worse if you have some level of fame behind you, because then the whole world gets involved and then you're really fucked!

How are we defining "the past" here? Because everything we've heard states this was a consistent pattern of behavior going all the way back to his days on Buffy in the 90s and continuing into the present. If Whedon had shown any evidence he'd changed for the better, you'd have a point but that isn't the case here. But then again, it seems people only complain about "cancel culture" when assholes get called out for their crap and suffer no consequences for it as is the case for most of the "victims" of cancel culture.

If previous examples are any indication, Whedon will be back to work at some point.

[Agent Z]

I don't remember every gratuitous shot of Scarlett's body but there were plenty. A low angle shot of her backside after beating up the pirates in Winter Soldier comes to mind.



I was talking about the first one, Age of Ultron's treatment of the character wasn't good, though still not worse than IW or Endgame.

I've seen Winter Soldier twice at least and don't recall any such shots or if they were there in abundance. And I sure as hell didn't see any such shots of Natasha in Infinity War or Endgame.

[Jokerz79]

To be fair to Whedon both Tony and Happy who I might point was played by the director Jon Favreau ogled Natasha in Iron Man 2 heck Happy tried to sneak a peek when she was changing clothes and then Favreau cast her as his girlfriend in Chef. But it's Whedon who gets slammed for "Sexualizing" Natasha. I get media over sexualizes women to the point it seems it's all they care about but the MCU seems like one of the more balanced arenas yeah, she was sexualized but so were the Chrises I mean Evans has America's Ass.

As for the AOU line I always felt that line was about the fact the Red Room Assassins/Black Widows were committing kills that altered the world and not for the better. Having kids is usually something that makes people start caring about the future more and the consequences of our actions and the world we leave behind. Hence the idea that the sterilization makes the job easier. Natasha feels she's a monster because she sacrificed the ability to create life in a bid to make taking it easier.

Overall, I think Avengers was great and AOU was really good and IMO he doesn't seem to have a lasting legacy outside of those 2 films in the MCU so it doesn't bother me.

[chicago_bastard]

Comparing Whedon's first Avengers to all 3 of the Russo's films and saying that he (Whedon) didn't sexualize her as much is a bit unfair.

Two things are getting mixed up here, I'm mostly arguing that Natasha did get fleshed out by Whedon and not only by the Russos like one user claimed. Her being sexualized by either is only a side aspect as I wanted to point out the double standards applied.

For the record, personally I don't have a problem with those scenes in both cases, just pointing out that if one criticizes Whedon for them they should do the same for the Russos.

So as for the comparison between The Avengers and IW and Engame I was not talking about sexualization but about fleshing her out and therefore your argument backfires since the Russos didn't flesh out her character more in two movies than Whedon did in one.

And what single moment from the Russo's was worse than Bruce falling into Natasha's cleavage (a moment he also copied in Justice League with Flash and Wonder Woman)?

I'd say killing her off before her first solo movie was worse for the character than one bad and immature joke.

I've seen Winter Soldier twice at least and don't recall any such shots or if they were there in abundance.

Don't know what more I can do than to point out an exact example. Maybe if I show it:

caws.jpg

There is literally nothing else in the frame than her backside. This could serve as a prime example for the male gaze in film schools. Whedon's infamous back shot in The Avengers at least had her whole upperbody including the head and Loki in the frame. So if we wanted to rate them in terms of how objectifying they are the shot from The Winter Soldier would actually win.

We also have Scarlett on record calling out Iron Man 2 and one cut scene from The Winter Soldier for sexualizing her character. I'm not aware of any complaints from her about Whedon's treatment of the character, quite the contrary as he gets high praise from her. So if you disregard my view maybe Scarlett's should have some significance since she's the one who should be best versed to detect sexualization of her character.

And I sure as hell didn't see any such shots of Natasha in Infinity War or Endgame.

You didn't see such shots of her in IW and Endgame because she was barely in these movies and with that we are back at my main argument that Whedon did flesh her out better than the Russos did.

[Alan2099]

Is it really sexualizing something when it's sexualized to start with? Black Widow's original costume was a fishnet body stocking with a swimsuit over top. She was pretty darn sexualized to start with. At one point is it sexualizing and at what point is it just adapting what's already there?

If you were adapting, let's say, Lady Death (and this is a pretty extreme example) would it be considered sexualizing her to show a butt shot or focus on her boobs in one scene when she's already running around in undersized underwear?

[Agent Z]

Is it really sexualizing something when it's sexualized to start with? Black Widow's original costume was a fishnet body stocking with a swimsuit over top. She was pretty darn sexualized to start with. At one point is it sexualizing and at what point is it just adapting what's already there?

If you were adapting, let's say, Lady Death (and this is a pretty extreme example) would it be considered sexualizing her to show a butt shot or focus on her boobs in one scene when she's already running around in undersized underwear?

Um, yes. How is this even a question?

[godisawesome]

I honestly think the back and forth here on Black Widow shows the more banal reason why its smart to get female creators in on female heroes - because I'd argue most of the directors who handled Black Widow did some great things with her, but all have moments where, while we can debate if they were treated any differently than the guys who also get sexualized in these movies, things got... problematic.

It's just a lot easier to know there weren't bad intentions or biases behind things if its "Florence Pugh has an idea for some dark humor, and Cate Shortland let her improvise a line about it" in Black Widow, y'know?

Now... if you ask me about whether I think Whedon did a better job than the Russos, I'd be inclined to disagree because I think the Russos had greater strengths with the character as a more straight-forward action character than Whedon did, surprisingly enough, in part because they mostly refrained from ever writing her as "The Chick" of the ensemble, and instead wrote her more as "The Lancer" for Cap, with a refreshingly non-sexual friendship between them.

I do find myself thinking that, as good as Whedon can be with Action Girls, the entire Hulk Relationship is a bit of formulaic "MUST REWARD CHARACTER WHO MOST RESEMBLES ME WITH HOT CHICK!" nonsense, if well executed, and that the Russos portrayed her as more formidable overall... though the biggest blackmark for them was arguably having Natasha die before the final battle of Endgame, even if, like with Hulk and BW, it was well executed once you got past the premise.

And if we were arguing which directors did more to define BW's character for the MCU - that'd be the Russos.

[Bunch of Coconuts]

If we’re comparing ass-shots, it’s only fair to include all examples to help eliminate any bias…

F01FFA78-EC1D-48B7-BE6B-1E0F7FF6F8CA.jpg

…this was Whedon, btw.

You can definitely make out the…details more clearly than the Winter Soldier example.

And who wrote the line that had Loki calling Natasha a “mewling quim”?

As far as killing off BW, how much of that was actually on the Russo’s? Did they write that?

[chicago_bastard]

I do find myself thinking that, as good as Whedon can be with Action Girls, the entire Hulk Relationship is a bit of formulaic "MUST REWARD CHARACTER WHO MOST RESEMBLES ME WITH HOT CHICK!" nonsense, if well executed, and that the Russos portrayed her as more formidable overall... though the biggest blackmark for them was arguably having Natasha die before the final battle of Endgame, even if, like with Hulk and BW, it was well executed once you got past the premise.

I guess our definitions of formidable differ a lot. For me they actually utilized her mostly to showcase how formidable other characters are.

- Gets nearly killed by Bucky, Cap has to save her.
- Gets nearly killed by Crossbones, Cap has to defeat him.
- Gets nearly killed by Bucky again, TChalla has to save her.

Also I wouldn't say making her a sidekick for Cap is an improvement.

You can definitely make out the…details more clearly than the Winter Soldier example.

That would have more to do with the costume designer's work than with the photography/directing.

And who wrote the line that had Loki calling Natasha a “mewling quim”?

Loki was the villain of the movie and the audience clearly wasn't meant to approve of the things he said or did.

As far as killing off BW, how much of that was actually on the Russo’s? Did they write that?

They had a writing room for IW and Endgame where the Russos, the screenwriters, and Feige discussed the plotline together. And even if that weren't the case the Russos were allowed to make major changes to the scripts while shooting. There are several examples for that, one of them is even the Vormir scene as the script had it play out very differently and the scene that ended up in the movie was actually filmed during the reshoots. So if the Russos weren't in agreement with something it wouldn't have made it into the movie. But it's fair to put equal responsibility on the writers and Feige, not arguing that.