There has been a lot of talk following the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron in regards to the alleged sexist portrayal of Black Widow. If you’re not caught up on that debate, then we covered it in detail here, but the problems people have with the character aren’t limited to just her appearance in the film, but also her appearance (or lack thereof) in Marvel’s toy line following the release of the blockbuster sequel.
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Black Widow hasn’t made many appearances in the official Avengers: Age of Ultron line of toys, and her suspicious absence has now reached its pinnacle after it has been revealed that she has been replaced by Captain America in a toy recreation of one of her major scenes in the movie. Disney, who owns Marvel and commissions the creation of toys related to the comic companies’ superheroes and villains, has saw fit to create a toy based upon the scene in which Black Widow drops out of a jet while riding a motorcycle in order to save Captain America, only in the toy version Captain America is the one riding the motorcycle, and Black Widow is nowhere to be seen.
If that weren’t bad enough, Disney has also decided to release another version of this toy set, only with Captain America being replaced by Iron Man, who was in no way involved in the scene in question. Also, why would Iron Man need to ride a motorcycle?
The considerable lack of Black Widow toys and merchandise has even led to the film’s cast calling for Marvel and Disney to significantly up the amount of toys they’re producing of the heroine, with Mark Ruffalo posting the following tweet:
.@Marvel we need more #BlackWidow merchandise for my daughters and nieces. Pretty please.
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) April 29, 2015
Despite this, it seems that Disney aren’t going to be swayed on this matter and will continue to fail to represent Black Widow as much as her male Avengers comrades.
