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Post by silicadaisy on Jul 25, 2015 7:22:59 GMT
(I was responding to shine's characterization thread, but then I started thinking too much about Natasha, and it turned into this.) I can't buy AOU Natasha/Bruce romance. No chemistry, and the flirting was painful. My take is that the romance was her attempt to get close to him and consequently gain control over the Hulk. I base this headcannon off of the assumption that if Natasha is going to go up close and do palm-press handshakes with the Hulk and sing him lullabies, she would try to minimize her chances of getting smashed. You can also tell she's willing to manipulate him for the greater good - "I adore you," going up for a kiss, and shoving him into a hole because she needs the Other Guy to go out there and fight. It's been a while since I watched AOU, so all I don't remember exact quotes. I don't remember all the problems I had with it either. For now, I'm just going to attempt to make the I'm sterilized/I'm a monster scene (Marvel? Joss? Wtf??? How the hell did this misogynistic line make it to the screen when 'before we get started, does anyone want to get off' didn't?) more bearable. - Natasha was essentially apologizing for being forcibly sterilized, her inability to start a family, and being a monster.
- The first two things she apologized for, she had no control over. If you apologize for something you have no control over, people trust you more. Say you're doing a presentation, and there's one light on by the door. You say to the audience, "I'm sorry the emergency light won't turn off. I hope you can all see the power point. If not, I'll email the slides after the presentation so don't strain your eyes too much." You didn't even have to apologize - the audience can see perfectly, but now the audience is thinking, "How considerate. I can trust this guy."
- The "monster" part, could be a bit of reverse psychology, challenging the ego. Of course, Bruce is a caring guy, prides himself on being a doctor and saving lives, so she has to challenge the side of him that cares about people. Natasha's challenge to him was cleverly disguised as fear and self-hatred, "I'm a monster. Can you really get close to me?"
- It also draws a parallel between Natasha and Bruce both being monsters. Bruce has a history of self-hatred, and he's worked a lot to accept the part of him that's a monster and destroyed lives. If he doesn't do the same for Natasha's inner monster, cognitive dissonance will form. "If I can accept my own monster, then if I don't accept hers, does that mean I can't accept myself?" The mind does not like cognitive dissonance, and the mind is happy to change perspective to get rid of cognitive dissonance. With a push from Natasha, Bruce sees her as someone he needs to accept. "Of course I can accept her and her monsters. After all, I accepted mine."
- With all that, Bruce now sees Natasha less as "manipulative spy who dragged me into the Avengers mess" and more as "emotionally vulnerable victim who is struggling with her inner monsters. Oh hey she's similar to me." Oh, and people like people who are similar to them.
Maybe Natasha had intentions beyond laaahhhhve and wasn't so jarringly out of character after all. Some day, I'll rewatch and analyze the body language too. What are your thoughts on AOU Natasha? |
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hyperthetical
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Post by hyperthetical on Jul 27, 2015 23:29:46 GMT
This is the only explanation I've read so far that could possibly fit within the framework of (what I've perceived to be) Natasha's MCU characterization to date.
My favourite Nat pairing is, fundamentally, Natasha x personhood. And I feel like what AOU did with her undermines that in so many ways -- ways that TWS got right, which somehow made it even more of a disappointment to see the backsliding.
I've watched AOU three times with three different groups of friends, and got different things out of it each time, but what comes across consistently for me every time is that AOU depicts Nat's role, both professionally and interpersonally, as almost exclusively a 'helper' for the male characters who are driving the action. And this drives me nuts, because one of the things I loved about TWS was that Natasha was clearly presented as having her own motivations, her own desires and agendas, outside of those of her male colleagues. Plus her own complicated relationships with various characters (e.g. the nods at a long backstory with Nick Fury).
From my viewings I felt like AOU had no interest in who Natasha was, apart from her emotional or physical utility to the male characters. And to me that's -- disrespectful, at the very least? I don't know how else to articulate it.
I mean, that boob face plant alone -- Jesus. How juvenile can you get.
Anyway, to me AOU seemed like it was utterly disinterested in Natasha apart from her relationship with the Hulk. It's nice to see an interpretation of that relationship that re-emphasizes her professional skill set and places her in a more active, self-determining role. It seems unlikely to me that a male character would be framed in the same way Natasha was in AOU (although an argument could be made for Sam being pigeonholed in the same way, I think, which is a whole other can of worms, but Sam was not a 'main character' in the way that Natasha was billed).
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shinelikethunder
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Post by shinelikethunder on Aug 23, 2015 9:33:22 GMT
I... hm. I can see a throughline from some of her characterization in CA:TWS, but I agree that the most important (and, not coincidentally, most autonomous) aspects were dropped. The thing about Natasha trying to set Steve up in Cap 2 is that their dynamic is very much not social butterfly vs introvert--it's more like she's recognized a bit of herself in Steve, someone who is cut-off and lonely, who has gone through a lot and hasn't had much chance to develop a personal life, who is now battle-scarred at the ripe old age of not-quite-thirty without ever having had much of a chance to be young. And she keeps nudging him towards doing something about it, because Steve Deserves Nice Things Dammit, without quite being able to accept that she deserves nice things too. Or at least that's my take on their running matchmaker gag in Cap 2.
So from that perspective, AoU isn't terribly incongruous--Natasha realizes she has strong feelings about Bruce, fear or fascination or control or whatever, that could be romantic, and decides it might be time to pursue a Nice Thing of her own. She doesn't quite know how to go about it, but it's a persona she's willing to try on for size. And the insecurities she airs with Bruce are undoubtedly tailored to what she thinks will win him over, but they're also consistent with "having trouble accepting that she deserves nice things too." I would've liked more about her guilt for past misdeeds, especially since the springboard for the conversation is family and we've had copious hints that she's killed children on the job--but I don't think it's intrinsically out-of-character for her to angst about whether she's really suited for romantic relationships, having been molded into a weapon in ways designed to stunt her capacity for strong personal ties. Just that the conversation, as written, went about it clunkily and awkwardly right up until the point where it tripped on the Unfortunate Implications and fell flat on its face.
(Hell, the fact that she's trying at all puts her one up on Steve, who's accepted his role as a living weapon/perpetual soldier even though no one's actively tried to tamper with his ability to pursue a personal life. Or maybe because of that: he was promised a life after the war, was probably expected to lay down his weapons and settle down and start a family, and he's finally reaching the point where he can let go of that expectation.)
Anyway, I'm not denying there are structural issues in which parts of Natasha's character were in play in AoU. Her entire past has been made public and people are probably questioning how she can be an Avenger with that kind of track record. She's all but admitted she doesn't know who she even is under all the masks that've just been stripped away. She's had to question her alignment as someone who does morally-gray things for the allegedly 'good' side. She's realized that despite all the mistrust and double-dealing inherent in her trade, there are people whose trust and respect she relies on, a small core of relationships where "nothing personal, you know how the game works" would be a gut-punch betrayal. And all that gets put on the back burner so AoU can be full of awkward conversations about her ability to pursue intimate relationships. It's a disappointing choice. But the stuff that's there, I can kind of see where it comes from.
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