Avengers: Age Of Ultron - Exploring The Criticism Controversy.

I never planned to write a review for Avengers: Age Of Ultron and this still isn’t it really. You’d have to be living under a rock not to have heard about it and the general consensus agrees it’s a great film. My succinct (ish) opinion believes it’s less watertight and focused than the first, there’s very nearly an overload on the one-liners and some of the jokes are more miss than hit. The pacing is a little jarring in places and the film feels bloated with content resulting in some scenes feeling overly cut down or missing important moments. Those are my criticisms.

Besides that it’s still a fantastic movie that delivers on the action scenes, the character interactions and development, the comedy and the comic-book fan appealing lore accuracy. It’s not better than the first but it comes close if not reaches being on par with it.

Incidentally my favourite scene. Probably also one of the cheapest to create.

Now that’s out of the way let’s talk about certain people’s reaction to the film and how their insanity outdoes Ultron himself’s own warped logic. For those unaware there was a considerable backlash to parts of the film and also a few events surrounding its release. The main points of criticism were Scarlet Johansson’s Black Widow character and her storyline in the film, then exacerbating matters was a joke Jeremy Renner made in an interview where he called Black Widow “a slut.” 

This culminated in Director Joss Whedon deleting his twitter account and although he denies claims that the violent criticisms were the cause, looking through the expansive archived comments, it’s hard to believe they weren’t at least a contributing factor to his departure.

From interviews and the general palpable hype and expectation for Avengers 2, it’s clear the pressure was getting to Whedon so a break to “focus on writing” again seems like a reasonable idea. Frankly I think it’s astounding the film came out as impressive as it is, given the tendency for overhyped sequels to collapse under the weight of their own expectations (See “The Dark Knight Rises”).

Going into the details of these criticisms I think it’s important to point out that I’m definitely not saying criticisms of the film are invalid or invaluable. Art should always have constructive criticism and feedback, it’s how we improve and grow. Deconstruction and analysis often progresses everyone’s knowledge. I’m both an amateur critic and filmmaker and I like to think I understand both sides of the coin. 

My problem is that much of these criticisms have been anything but constructive. At best they’ve been whiney nit-picking on personal preference and at worst they’ve been directed insults and violent threats that don’t help anything or anyone and continue to harm a “nerd culture” that is already heavily scrutinised for this kind of behaviour anyway.

So what does the film contain to spark such an inferno of controversy? Well the Black Widow character has more of her backstory fleshed out in Age Of Ultron alongside a romantic subplot with Bruce Banner. This backstory involves how Natasha Romanoff a.k.a Black Widow was trained from birth to be an assassin. We see glimpses of this past when Scarlet Witch’s mind powers send the team into traumatic states of recollection and/or future predictions. In Natasha’s case she sees her "home" (an orphanage?), ballet dancers and increasingly punishing training sessions involving murdering live hostages and reinforcing Guantanamo bay style “you are nothing” sentiments. 

This comes to boiling point when she and Bruce discuss escaping the Avengers together. Bruce clearly has feelings for Natasha but doesn’t trust himself (or rather the Hulk) to ever stop being a threat. Trying to persuade him otherwise, Natasha reveals that she can’t have children. Part of her assassin upbringing was mandatory sterilisation and she finishes the confession by saying “You’re not the only monster on the team”

Critics took this as an implication that infertile women are monsters.

I can see how they reached that interpretation but if you think about it for more than a second, do you honestly think that was the writer’s intended message? What would that add to the film? Do they have history of holding these kinds of views? No, nothing and no respectively. I took it to mean that her manipulated upbringing and everything she was forced to do has left her as more of a monster than her own person. The culmination of what her training did to her, rather than this one feature of it being the definition of a monstrosity.

Her and Bruce have both been forced into lifestyles they'd rather escape from.

 When I first saw this scene, I was moved by it and found it a real strong point of the film. The Marvel movies are only getting more and more absurd so bringing some heart and real human drama back into the story was really needed and effective I thought. Did the scene feel a little rushed or overly edited? Arguably so yes, but I don’t think that results in the filmmaker’s intentions to be a message of misogyny or sexism. 

The film actually goes on to accuse almost all of The Avengers of being monsters at some point, (I remember at least Stark and Vision) Captain America also has dialogue as they sit in the jet en-route to the finale along the lines of “Time to see if we really are monsters”

People took a repeated theme in the film and cherry picked it to interpret as a discriminatory statement from the filmmakers.

Other criticisms latched onto how Natasha is taken prisoner by Ultron towards the end of the film and eventually rescued by Bruce and the other (Male) Avengers. This is considered clichéd and falling back on the “Damsel In Distress” trope and whilst that’s technically true there is again a lot of missed context and information surrounding this that makes it far less offensive than it seems. 

Black Widow is far from incapable and that has been demonstrated frequently in every film. That said, her and Hawkeye are still the two weakest of the Avengers and the film itself even highlights this. The opening scene shows Hydra villain “Strucker” ordering his men to “focus on the weaker ones” because “a hit will cause them to close ranks” and sure enough, Hawkeye is injured and the team is caught off guard by the Maximoff twins whilst Natasha and the other Avengers try to save him.

When Natasha is captured she is taken to Ultron’s factory and he intimidates her by tearing apart his own body by a new superior vibranium-infused model. This could appear stereotypical as Natasha shuffles backwards in fear but the purpose here is just for Ultron to have a cool monologue and for Natasha to move back so he can close the prison cell door on her.

Three of the Avengers couldn’t be put in this position due to super strength and being able to break out of the cell immediately, so that leaves Iron Man (assuming he has no access to any of his suits or gadgets) Bruce Banner (assuming he has a reason why he can’t transform into the Hulk), Hawkeye (assuming he has none of his weapons and gadgets) and Black Widow (assuming she has none of her weapons or gadgets). With all these assumptions in place would the others scuttle back unknowingly into a jail cell at an approaching violent Ultron? I’m pretty convinced they would.

Y'see he rather outmatches them individually.

 So yes, Natasha being the one locked up is a bit clichéd but it could have just as easily been coincidence. We have to be careful not to condemn every instance of something falling in line with a common trope otherwise women characters would never do certain things and that’s kind of creating clichés of a whole new type. Furthermore, the only reason the rest of the Avengers find Ultron’s base is because Black Widow has a secret communication device (I’m not sure exactly what it was. Morse code?) unseen by Ultron that she uses to contact Hawkeye.

Once Bruce lets her out of the cell, it’s him who wants to run away together and not get involved in the conflict, but Natasha knows they’re needed and forces a Hulk transformation before they both join the fight. I’m not a huge Whedon fan who’s seen everything he’s ever done, but I’ve seen enough to know he doesn’t generally write the kind of characters he’s being accused of and Black Widow has more than enough badass moments in Age Of Ultron to stop her being anything close to a damsel in distress. 

The kind of people making these criticisms seem to actively search for things to be offended by and then fuelled by crusader-like righteous fury they paradoxically become some of the most offensive and discriminatory people on the internet.

The other event I mentioned was an interview outside of the film. Jeremy Renner and Chris Evans were being interviewed and the opening question was about the romantic hints between Black Widow and Hawkeye and then Captain America in films leading up to Age Of Ultron and how it was surprising that she ended up with Bruce Banner. Renner becomes completely deadpan and states “she’s a slut” to uproarious laughter by Evans. I only saw this clip after all the controversy so it didn’t strike me as funny by that point if it would have at all. 

Chris Evans later apologised, Renner ultimately didn't.

The point is, it’s quite clearly a joke, meant as an icebreaker for the start of an interview.

This wasn’t mid-discussion in a serious topic with Jeremy Renner stating that “I think Black Widow is fundamentally a very slutty character”. No, it was a dumb joke because Renner had nothing better to say on the subject and you’re well within your right to not find it funny at all or to find it rib-splittingly hilarious, that doesn’t matter. 

The level of vitriol and hatred directed at Renner afterwards was nothing short of ludicrous. Some even tried to stir up calls for him to lose his job acting in the Avenger’s movies. I can’t believe I have to point out how much of an absurd overreaction that is and whilst we’re stating the obvious, Renner made this joke about the fictional character Black Widow NOT his co-star and the actress portraying Black Widow, Scarlet Johansson. 

Overall there’s this sense that certain people are forcing something onto these movies. Whether it’s their own ideologies, a desperate scrape for self-righteous fame and superiority or a cathartic need to be enraged by something, there’s a considerable amount of people irrationally displeased with the content in these movies. I say “irrationally” because in terms of very mainstream cinema, Marvel has actually one of the most liberal and diverse movie franchises being released these days. 

Are they perfect and immune to criticism? Of course not but should you form that criticism in death threats and unconstructive barrages of swearing and insults? No you definitely shouldn’t because in case you weren’t taught this in primary school, that’s mean and offensive. If the counter to this is that you are offended by the content in the movie I bring up another age-old lesson “An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind” 

It’s not impossible for filmmakers to hide offensive messages and ideas in their films but if that’s the case you need to decipher them through rational and civil discussion. You then bring these criticisms to light and if other people see truth, logic and coherence in your argument then you can take these criticisms further and hopefully influence the filmmaker’s themselves or the studio producing the films.

Oh I’m sorry did you fall asleep? Yes I suppose that can happen with boring old logic, fairness and civility. You’ve been brought up on action, explosions, shouting and violence. The stuff of blockbuster movies. You’d better just apply that strategy to real life then because loud, controversial, accusatory yelling will get you more noticed than logic. Let’s keep going with that until we live in a culture of entitled crying immature babies all trying to yell the loudest and the most crassly. 

Do you want to live in that world? A chaotic, uncivilised and violent world? If you don’t and are culpable for the kind of reactions I’ve detailed here you need to look at yourself and listen to yourself and then think long and hard before you open your mouth again. You think you don’t influence anything? Well you do, and whilst you might think the ends justify the means, very often the means actually define the ends.