Scarlett Johansson recalls when Marvel treated Black Widow as a “piece of meat”

Black Widow, the first new Marvel movie to come out since Spider-Man: Far From Home way back in June of 2019, hits theaters tomorrow, and it’s…fine. The critical consensus seems to be that it’s “good, not great,” but the fact that it’s here at all is a big deal, and not just because it’s the first Marvel movie in forever. Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow has been a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2010’s Iron Man 2, and it’s wild to think that only now is she getting a solo movie.

As Johansson told Collider, a lot has changed since then. “Ten years have passed and things have happened and I have a much different, more evolved understanding of myself,” she said. “As a woman, I’m in a different place in my life, you know?”

And from that different place, she looks back at how Black Widow was depicted early on and has some…thoughts. “I mean, you look back at Iron Man 2 and while it was really fun and had a lot of great moments in it, the character is so sexualized, you know? Really talked about like she’s a piece of something, like a possession or a thing or whatever — like a piece of ass, really. And Tony even refers to her as something like that at one point.”

She’s talking about a moment where Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) ogles Black Widow from afar. “I want one,” he tells Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). “No,” she says. Everyone laugh. I remember that bit from the trailers, and it does indeed feel like something Marvel wouldn’t try and pull today.

At the time, when Iron Man called Black Widow a “piece of meat,” Johansson thought differently about that kind of tone. “[M]aybe at that time that actually felt like a compliment. You know what I mean? Because my thinking was different. Maybe I even would have, you know, my own self-worth was probably measured against that type of comment or, like a lot of young women, you come into your own and you understand your own self-worth. It’s changing now. Now people, young girls, are getting a much more positive message, but it’s been incredible to be a part of that shift and be able to come out the other side and be a part of that old story, but also progress.”

How Black Widow was influenced by the #MeToo movement

One of the things that precipitated this sea change was the #MeToo movement, wherein powerful people like Harvey Weinstein were being called to account for engaging in abusive behavior against women for years. The movement was getting underway as writing on Black Widow began, and it had an affect on the movie. “We had to comment on what is this incredible movement of women supporting other women, and coming through these shared experiences of trauma on the other side by really coming forward and supporting one another,” Johansson told Yahoo Entertainment. “At the very beginning of really seriously talking about what this could be about, it was right during the beginning of the #MeToo movement and felt like, you cannot miss the opportunity to draw the comparison between these two things.”

"[Black Widow has] been the victim of childhood trauma and exploitation and it’s a past that she doesn’t want to face that she’s running away from. And then her sister [Yelena, played by Florence Pugh], who’s this very self-possessed kind of firecracker liability in some ways, but person who is fiercely independent, basically forcing her to come to terms with that, forcing her to face it. It felt very much like what is happening now. It was amazing to have the platform to be able to comment on that."

Beyond the way the female characters were depicted, Johannson pointed out that there just weren’t many of them when she started. “It was basically [Maria Hill actor Cobie Smulders and me] holding down the fort,” Johansson told Jess Cagle during an appearance on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Podcast with Julia Cunningham. “And then when [Elizabeth Olsen] came on, it semi-balanced out. It was very heavy on the testosterone for a very long time and now [it] has calibrated, [and] finally caught up.”

At the end of the day, even though it took a while for Marvel to balance things out, Johansson is glad it got there. “In some ways, I’m actually very thankful that [a solo Black Widow movie is] happening now, because we can actually make a movie that’s about real stuff and audiences want that,” she said. “I think they always wanted that. Now the studio’s kind of caught up to that, which is fine. It’s all good. Better late than never.”

Black Widow leads into Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe

As for what’s next, Marvel boss Kevin Feige said in a new featurette that Black Widow will “evolve into” Phase 4 of the MCU. “You will look at the past again in a new light, and we are sowing the seeds of new characters into the future of the MCU.”

Black Widow opens on July 9, 2021.

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