With Black Widow opening this week, a lot of attention has been paid on Marvel Studios' attempts to reverse its earlier depictions of Black Widow and do a better job on the character in her solo film, but the studio is looking past just improving its handling of this one female character, as an executive at the studio promises that they will be doing better with their female characters going forward in terms of avoiding the objectification of them.
Victoria Alonso, executive vice president of production at Marvel Studios, knows the checkered past of Marvel Studios when it comes to the sexualization and often dehumanization of female characters in the early days of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and she is making a point of avoiding the problems in the future.
Alonso referred to Natasha Romanoff's first appearance in 2010's Iron Man 2 (where Tony Stark looks at pictures of her online and says, "I want one" after Pepper Potts' response to his inquiry as to who Natasha, undercover as a Stark employee, was was that she was "Potentially a very expensive sexual harassment lawsuit.") as “It bothered me then and it bothers me now. I remember thinking, ‘She’s not a thing.’ But how apropos: the world sees a sexy woman and thinks that because she is beautiful, that’s all she has to give.”
Alonso also noted that there's a reason why Black Widow is only happening now and not a decade ago, “And I’m like, ‘It couldn’t!’ It was a different climate. I wouldn’t have been able to have conversations [about sexism] with my director and see it actually translate onscreen.”
So while Alonso and Black Widow director Cate Shortland, are making sure to rewrite Black Widow (Shortland notes, “She was a character created for the male gaze. Initially, even the way she moved, the way she dressed—it was helpful as a stepping-stone. But it wasn’t who she was"), Alonso is also rewriting the future of female superheroes at Marvel period.
Alonso explains, "I think there is a conscientious effort to not objectify women" in the Marvel Cinematic Universe going forward. So the future will be more Black Widow and WandaVision and less "I want one."
Source: Time Magazine