Avengers: Age of Ultron and the Same Old Ideas Surrounding Motherhood

I wanted to do a post on the new blockbuster Avengers: Age of Ultron, and how it upholds certain ideas and stereotypes that Hollywood cinema, and mainstream culture incessantly peddle.  So I thought ok we’ve got all white main characters, few female characters, all heterosexual romance, foreign villains, and the non-gendered robots default to male stereotypes.  But what I really want to hone in on is the treatment of Natasha Romanoff/ Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson).

She’s in a privileged position as the only female Avenger, and what’s more is she’s non-American (though the actress is).  Natasha conforms to many conventions of female superheroes and film characters more broadly in variously occupying the positions of: carer, love interest and damsel in distress – as well as you know, saving the world.  What is most troubling about her is how her sterility informs her character.

Natasha confides in Bruce Banner/ Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) who she is beginning a romantic relationship with, that at the end of her training as an assassin she was sterilised to make her more efficient and less likely to be distracted from her missions.  Then she says “You thought you were the only monster on the team”.  This is problematic beyond the film because it says that women who can’t, or choose not to have children are monsters, not human, subhuman, not normal.  With regards to the film it makes her character ‘weak’, which I put in inverted commas because it’s a contentious description to apply to her.  She is a less effective fighter, gets captured and needs saving, and has emotional episodes.  In the eyes of the film which privileges machismo, feminine equates to weak, and her maternal yearning is used to code her as such.  This is primarily displayed through the strong relationships she has with fellow Avenger Clint Barton/ Hawk Eye’s (Jeremy Renner) children, and pregnant wife – who again reinforces the sanctity of the heterosexual romance and children as an essential part of that.

There’s another aspect to mothering in Avengers: Age of Ultron however, and the clue is in the title.  Ultron is created.  But more importantly, Ultron is created by a man.  Which is bad – apparently.  Whereas maternal parenthood is celebrated and glorified, male parenthood is a recipe for disaster – because Ultron basically tries to destroy his creator and the world.  Again this serves to link the feminine with parenthood and separate the masculine from it.

Lastly, I think this all comes down to Natasha’s defining characteristic being her femaleness.  Hawk Eye is a skilled archer, the Hulk is the Hulk, Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) is good with technology etc.  But Natasha is “a slut” in the words of Chris Evans and Jeremy Renner, because she’s entangled in romantic relationships primarily.  Then her fertility must be addressed – whereas the virility of all her male colleagues isn’t brought up, because their gender isn’t their defining characteristic.