Black widow: femme fatale with superheroine<

William Blanc est historien. Il est notamment l’auteur de Winter is Coming. Une brève histoire politique de la fantasy, de Super-Héros, une histoire politique et de Le Roi Arthur. Un mythe contemporain. Il a également participé au Dictionnaire de la fantasy dirigé par Anne Besson.

Finally, the Marvel cinematic universe is back in theaters with Black Widow, a prequel taking place before the events of Avengers - Infinity War and Avengers - Endgame.This time, the public is invited to immerse themselves in the past of Black Widow, embodied on the screen by Scarlett Johansson.All can immediately reassure themselves: the ingredients necessary for a high spectacle film are indeed there: fights, waterfalls, prosecution, plethora of stars - David Harbor of Stranger Things or Rachel Weisz, who had made himself known in 1999With the mummy -, without forgetting a humor and a sense of self -mockery that are becoming so many trademarks of Marvel productions.This is also the second film of this franchise, after the most serious Captain Marvel (2019), to put a female character at the center of his intrigue.

Black Widow is the culmination of a long transformation of its protagonist, which of Nemesis has turned into one of the most famous superheroines of the Marvel franchise.To understand it, you have to go back, even before it actually appears. Dès le début du XX^e siècle, la peur des espionnes devient en effet une obsession.These are always foreigners, and use their charm to reach their end.The famous story of Mata Hari, executed in March 1917 in Vincennes while the fights rage in the trenches, gives birth in the interwar period to a large number of films.The most popular actresses of the time embodied fatal female female soldiers to encourage them to deliver crucial secrets to them.However, morality remained saved since the terrible spy ended up most of the time by falling through its "victim".A way of reassuring the male public, anxious by the sexual power of these devils, in the end completely mastered.

Inspired by fatal women

The Cold War recalls the fashion of fatal women.Particularly with the serial (soap of short films produced for cinema) The Black Widow released in the United States in 1947 in which a mysterious seductive called Sombra, of course-from an oriental country, tries to take hold of atomic secrets.She is interpreted by actress Carol Forman who, a year later, in another serial devoted this time to Superman, will play the Spider Lady (the "spider lady"), queen of the shallows of Metropolis who opposes theSuper hero.

But it is in literature, then in the triumphant spy cinema of the 1950s, while the conflict between the East and the West reaches its climax, that the spies know their hour of glory.In the novel by Ian Fleming Good Kisses from Russia (1957) adapted to the cinema in 1963, the Soviet Tatiana Romanova, on the orders of its superior Rosa Klebb, tries to seduce 007 embodied on the screen by Sean Connery.But, exactly as in agent x 27 or server 33, the young woman finally falls in love with the agent of His Majesty.

Sans aucun doute influencés par le succès de la franchise James Bond, Stan Lee, Don Rico et Don Heck créent en 1964 le personnage de Black Widow. Celle-ci, de prime abord, est une femme fatale venue d’URSS qui séduit des hommes afin qu’ils combattent pour elle. Pour sa première apparition sur la couverture de Tales of Suspense n° 52 (avril 1964), lookée façon vamp du cinéma de l’entre-deux-guerres, elle est ainsi placée au second plan comme si elle manipulait l’homme qui tente de détruire Iron Man. Son nom, comme celui des deux antagonistes des serials des années 1940 renvoie d’ailleurs aux araignées, notamment à une espèce particulièrement venimeuse, la veuve noire, réputée – à tort – pour sa fâcheuse tendance à dévorer ses partenaires sexuels masculins. La veuve noire devient bien vite le symbole des empoisonneuses. C’est que la peur des espionnes fait aussi écho à des stéréotypes bien plus anciens, certains datant de l’Antiquité, qui tissent un lien entre fourberie, poison – l’arme des lâches – et gente féminine. Avec en figure de proue, Agrippine, la mère de Néron. Cette imagerie ressurgit notamment au XIX^e siècle, dans une période où la presse, friande de faits divers, fait ses choux gras des meurtres à l’arsenic commis par des épouses ou des maîtresses délaissées.

But the black widow of Marvel, comic character, fundamentally serial medium where the heroes and their antagonists must return each month, is doomed to reappear and therefore to evolve.Like a number of fictional spy ones, she is first tamed, charmed by an American, Clint Barton alias Hawkeye, whom she thought she was holding in her rets.Then, it gradually yields to the West Sirens, especially from Avengers n ° 30 (July 1966).

Libérée des entraves du régime soviétique, la super-espionne devient aussi, aux États-Unis, le symbole d’un autre combat émancipateur en incarnant un nouveau genre d’héroïne qui convient mieux à un lectorat de plus en plus influencé par les discours féministes. Elle n’utilise alors plus seulement sa sexualité pour affronter ses adversaires, et apparaît, dès Tales of Suspense n° 64 (avril 1965), comme une lutteuse accomplie. Dans les pages d’Amazing Spider-Man n° 86 (juillet 1970), elle adopte enfin un costume moulant noir (le même qu’aujourd’hui) qui semble directement inspiré de celui de l’espionne et karatéka Emma Peel, protagoniste centrale de la série britannique Chapeau melon et bottes de cuir entre 1965 et 1967.

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But it is always the James Bond franchise which serves as the basis for the creators of Marvel when they finally reveal in Daredevil n ° 82 (December 1971) the real name of Black Widow: Natasha Romanoff, surname which strongly recalls that of the protagonistGood kiss from Russia.Cate Shortland, the director of Black Widow pays tribute to the influence that the secret agent created by Ian Fleming in a scene placed at the start of the film, in which the super-spy is watching-and recites byCoeur-A scene from the feature film Moonraker (1979) with Roger Moore in the role of 007.

The new image of the West East conflict

If Black Widow is part of the purest tradition of spy cinema, it is because it also clearly echoes a new cold war that the east and the west are.Admittedly, there is no longer any question of opposing communism and capitalism, but it is clear that Western democracies today feel threatened by autocracies, of which Russia is the archetype.The Black Widow clones that the main antagonist of the film infiltrates, General Dreykov, at all levels of the world leader circles are a reference to computer pirates and far -right politicians remote -controlled by the Kremlin.Dreykov himself clearly thinks of Vladimir Putin: former Soviet services obsessed with control, he also embodies, like the Russian leader, a violent machismo, who disseminates virilist speeches.

Besides, Black Widow does not hide his feminist opinions post #MeToo, by staging strong women-with a good dose of autoparodia-while making fun of certain men, like Red Guardian, superhero elderlyand bedonnant, clumsy but endearing.So many elements that will make us regret the disappearance of the screens of Natasha Romanoff (which we saw dying in Avengers - Endgame).But the torch is today in the hands of his young sister who will appear in the Hawkeye television series to come at the end of 2021 on Disney +.Now black widows are heroines.Ultimate processing?Yes ... while waiting for the next one!