SSC Film Studies

Megan McHugh

Avengers Assemble and the ‘male gaze’ Laura Mulvey

‘The determining male faze projects its phantasy on to the female form which is styled accordingly ‘

This can be seen in the scene where Natasha Romanoff or the Black Widow played by Scarlett Johansson is first introduced. In this scene she is portrayed as being a typical passive woman; the male characters are connoted with being the much more dominant sex. Scarlett Johansson is wearing a tight fitted dress; that exposes her chest and very much so her figure. The audience therefore is constantly drawn to her, however we are only adopt the males POV from the beginning of this scene, due to this we share his view.

The music at the beginning of the scene is very calm giving a peaceful sense. However, when Scarlett becomes more of ‘male character’ using violence something that a typical female character isn’t usually associated with. Scarlett is hardly ever framed entirely in the scene; she is usually broke up allowing the audience to only see parts of her at one given time, tis gives us the audience no other option but to look at her frame as we ‘gaze’ at her, this can be associated with what Laura Mulvey believes to be ‘to- be looked- at –ness’

The fact that Scarlett Johansson’s’ character has to seduce the male characters as her only weapon supports the theory of  ‘the scopophilic instinct’ (the pleasure in looking at another person as an erotic object) as her appearance has very much been ‘coded for strong visual and erotic impact.’

Laura Mulvey also believes that women are there to be seen as ‘An erotic object for the characters within the story, and an erotic object for the spectators within in the auditorium’

This is defiantly met within the Avengers Assemble film, as Scarlett Johansson plays the only female ‘superhero’ character, however thought-out the film she is both significant and something for the male audience to fetishize over as she is wearing a tight fitted suit that allows both the other male characters as well as the audience to ‘gaze’ at;  due to this she can be associated with as being an erotic object. She could also be described as being a passive character compared to the active male characters even though she does carry a weapon, gun it is similarly smaller than the other weapons.