I know that, but that rationale still doesn't fly with me; I mean, Black Widow usually isn't coded as being Russian at all, and she certainly wasn't in
Civil War, seeing as she's played by the biggest American actress currently working, and who tends to exclusively speak English with her natural accent when she's playing the part, so the idea that she was Russian was the farthest thing from my mind when I was watching it. I also doubt that the character's original nationality played any part in the decision to glam her up so much while making the movie; I think they just didn't want Johansson looking like anything less than perfect, even in a situation where it doesn't make much sense (I mean, did female Russian soldiers always apply makeup before battle in World War II?), so that feels like a cop-out excuse the filmmakers would offer to weasel out of criticism after the fact:
Also, that fight scene wasn't performative; it wasn't some scheduled sparring bout, or an advertised UFC fight in front of a live crowd/pay-per-view audience, and the average female MMA fighter doesn't try to look anything like Black Widow before their bouts (who looked glam-ier in that scene then Ronda Rousey has for some
photoshoots she's done), so the idea that Widow apparently thought "I better apply my cat's-eye makeup and feather my hair as I rush off to this unexpected fight!" is just silly to me.
Okay, this is from someone who has never cared about comic books in any capacity, so please don’t take this as any sort of truth claim - but Wikipedia tells me Natasha Romanoff/Romanova has been Russian and born in Stalingrad since 1964: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Widow_(Natasha_Romanova). She is apparently meant to have been a Russian spy before defecting to the US.
Johansson herself recently spoke in an interview (that she’s clearly been overcoached for, but whatever) about how integral Natasha’s Russianness is to her character. In terms of accents, that’s a reasonable adjustment to make to make sure the audiences could understand the character/the portrayal didn’t veer into parody. (Though again, recently watched
The Courier - the way actual USSR military prepared their spies is beyond anything there’s space in this post for; agents left Russia in their teens and passed for tenth generation Texans/ Canadians/Brits under years of torture, so I doubt the accent in this context is an issue.
Konon Molody, who left Russia as a teenager and operated the Portland ring, passed for a Canadian for decades and was only discovered to be Russian literally by accident.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konon_Molody)
Anyway, I was being light-hearted/sarcastic, though there’s a high degree of truth to what I said when it comes to Russian women. I’ll leave that there, don’t want to get bogged down in this, but you would be surprised re: WWII. Even during the Siege of Leningrad (3 years!) people ate paper but wore makeup.
Generally, though, this conversation is about something else. Are you looking for hyper-realism in Marvel? People with hairy legs and armpits and bad breath and messy hair? What purpose would that serve? Ultimately, popular cinema (which Marvel epitomises) is meant to be pleasing to the eye and not too complex, that’s what makes it popular.
Marvel itself is evidently performative and all fights are designed almost as dance sequences - of course, it has nothing to do with an actual MMA fight.
Now, I would not necessarily dispute that the idea of her putting on makeup is “silly”, but silliness has its place on Earth (that’s actually an idea I struggle with, but I admit the fact). So I read it as almost humorous - surely you wouldn’t argue it could affect suspension of disbelief in Marvel films, for crying out loud?
I do think, regardless of all of the above, that if someone hasn’t seen someone take such care of their appearance, that doesn’t mean people don’t do it. Although maybe I’m wrong.
I remember the point often made here that film should occupy a kind of middle ground between what works in terms of storytelling and reality. I guess I usually struggle with what that would look like in practical terms.