Better by far that the Washington Post snapped her up. Alyssa Rosenberg, on her positive reaction to The Avengers’ Black Widow character, and other people’s negative reactions to the same character’s development:
…ultimately that’s a great deal of what I want from my female action heroes: that they not be required to take off their femininity when they suit up for battle, and that they not be required to leave it hanging in the closet when they return from the wars. Certainly, there are some female characters for whom violence may be straightforward and have few other implications for their senses of self. But isn’t the whole point of having women as well as men be superheroes and swordfighters that they bring a new range of perspectives to our experiences of these very old stories?
Read, as they say, the whole thing. Alyssa Rosenberg is, as always, commendably good at saying what she thinks, and not what the Activist Left would require her to say. And, if I may add: expecting (as apparently more than a few online feminists do) a female character who was sterilized against her will to be somehow indifferent to what was done to her is one of the most illiberal, anti-female, and just plain creepy positions a person can take. With “But they didn’t physically force her to do it!” coming a close second. Geez, I just wish that some people would simply admit that they’re nihilists, and be done with it. Then we could never invite them to parties, and everybody who matters would be happy.
Moe Lane
That is a good analysis. Thanks for the link.
I think there’s another factor. The team wanted ScarJo to have more screen time. Action scenes involving her character take stunt work and CGI, not ScarJo acting. They found a way to give her and her character time on the screen doing interesting stuff involving Banner and the Hulk. IMHO, those scenes worked really well.
The critics that Ms. Rosenberg is addressing are the same people in the linked article at Instapundit that state that they are going to vote with their lady-parts. Nothing matters to them other than their team/tribe gets one up over the other teams or tribes out there (the ones, at least, that they have identified.)
Far be it that the person elected be competent and trustworthy or that the characters in the story show their personalities changing due to the circumstances. No, none of that. There is a male Superman? Then there has to be a female Superwoman exactly. the. same.
And really, how boring a story is that?
She nearly discovers one* of the paradoxes of Feminism: “A woman only has value in her capacity to act like a man.”
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*The other is “Women are to embrace their sexuality, yet remain shocked when people notice.”
Hawkeye had his butt saved twice, nobody accused Whedon of Misandry then?
Heck Hawkeye was the Dude-in-Distress throughout the first Avengers movie.