Saga of Black Widow: We Can Only Marvel

                                       Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow



The mishandling, at seemingly every turn, of one of the greatest superheroes ever to flicker across a screen, boggles the mind.  As one who has spent their entire life immersed in a consumer driven soulless capitalistic society, a society that will not only make a sex tape, but then have their own mother leak it and then broker a deal for its sale, I can't explain why there is such a dearth of Black Widow merchandise available to slake our unquenchable thirst for cheap plastic crap made in China, or cheap t-shirts made in Bangladesh, or cheap whatever made where ever the marketing Hydra at Marvel/Disney has found the lowest possible wages (as a bonus, this nation probably has the worst working conditions in the world, and employs only children, who they chain to their workbenches).  One would've thought that after the brouhaha kicked up when the first Avengers movie came out in 2012 they would've had some Black Widow action figures and bath towels and pencil boxes and cans of Raid endorsed by her.  But no, and the inexplicable thing about this is that there is clearly a market for it.  PEOPLE ARE CLAMORING  FOR ANYTHING WITH BLACK WIDOW ON IT.  Maybe we want it because we can't have it, because like unicorns and angels, it doesn't exist.  It then can't help but take on a mythical quality, something that we are compelled to pursue.  Call me Ishmael, but really, I'm Ahab in this.
And now, finally, a few thoughts on how no one in any universe gets how fucking funny Jeremy Renner is:  Sir, dude, asshat, you can mansplain all you want, the fact remains that for some reason you think it necessary to slut shame a fictional character.  I think he's jealous of all the screen time and arc that Black Widow gets versus what his fictional character, Hawkeye gets.  There's also the fact that Scarlett Johansson is a much more talented actor than Renner is, so his petty jibes come off as a bit obvious.  The best summation of everything problematic about the new Avengers movie can be found in this piece on io9.
I have not had the chance to see the new Avengers movie yet, and I think that now I have to give myself some time to set aside some anger on my own part before I dare see it.  The crazy thing is that so much of this was completely unnecessary.  I do hope that they kill off Renner's character.  They could do it off-screen so that we don't have to endure any more of his interviews promoting this movie or that.  He could get blood poisoning from a rusty arrow or something.  All of the remaining Avengers could meet up at his cremation.  It could be a comedy!