kontextmaschine:

Black Widow: weirdly, now the best Marvel movie to use nostalgic classic rock to tell a story about resolving issues from your Gen X upbringing

Marvel movies have like 4 slots they have to fill - an action movie, an advancement of the universe, emotional resonance, and an aesthetic.

The first two are action scenes and plot bits. We learn how and why Natasha goes from the Avengers breakup to wanting to reassemble (she learns lessons about the importance of [found] family!)

The aesthetic is “gee, the aesthetic of the early 90s was more 80s than you remember!”

The resonance is about like, Boomer parents of early 80s children who had a come-up into the middle class over their lives who saw feeding their children into that same system as providing for them but ultimately inhabited a moral world of humans as suitable to purpose and not their self-fulfillment.

And how that like, set up #MeToo systems of powerful men controlling things using women as disposable objects? Like they drape that one lightly because I think it’d tear if wrapped that tight but it was definitely there.

Like I’m not totally sure it was a better movie than GOTG, but it told those themes better.

Also the aesthetic draws attention to the fact that while Scarlett Johansson might still be fresh and attractive, she’s not youthful anymore