Posted in: Marvel Studios, Movies, Phase 4 | Tagged: black widow, disney, marvel, movies

Disney Black Widow Lawsuit Response Called "Gendered Character Attack"

It appears that Disney's attempt to turn the narrative to their side concerning the Black Widow lawsuit might be backfiring in a big way. When the lawsuit by Scarlett Johansson dropped yesterday, we all thought it was going to get ugly. It did, very quickly, when Disney went for the knees and put out a statement naming Johansson's salary and trying to make it sound like she wasn't being sensitive about the pandemic. [Even though Disney is planning to release a theatrical only release in less than two weeks with Free Guy when the numbers are worse than they were when Black Widow came out, which is neither here nor there.] CAA already released a response to Disney's statement earlier today. Now Women in Film, Los Angeles, ReFrame and Time's Up have also released a statement, via Variety, calling Disney's statement a "gendered character attack."

"While we take no position on the business issues in the litigation between Scarlett Johansson and The Walt Disney Company, we stand firmly against Disney's recent statement which attempts to characterize Johansson as insensitive or selfish for defending her contractual business rights. This gendered character attack has no place in a business dispute and contributes to an environment in which women and girls are perceived as less able than men to protect their own interests without facing ad hominem criticism."

Whether or not sexism is involved with this Black Widow thing is too hard to tell. Johansson was underpaid compared to her fellow Avengers for many years, but there really isn't a way to know if this response would have been the same if this was Chris Evans. This is still a developing story, and we'll have to see how it continues to pan out.

Summary: Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow, confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.

Black Widow, directed by Cate Shortland, stars Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, O. T. Fagbenle, Rachel Weisz, and Ray Winstone. It was released on July 9, 2021, in theatres and on Disney+ with Premier Access.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!