Florence Pugh Says Black Widow Is About The Abuse Of Women

Natasha Romanoff has some traumatic experiences in her past, and it seems Black Widow won’t be shying away from exploring them and the bigger themes that go along with the character’s troubled beginnings in life. Florence Pugh will be making her MCU debut in the upcoming movie as Yelena Belova, the fellow Widow and surrogate sister to Scarlett Johansson’s Nat. And according to her, Black Widow is all about “the abuse of women.”

As part of their exclusive preview of the movie, Total Film spoke to Pugh, who explained how the story of Nat and Yelena is “so important” and needs to be told.

“This film is about the abuse of women. It’s about how they get involuntary hysterectomies by the age of eight. It’s about girls who are stolen from around the world. It’s so painful, and it’s so important.”

We’ve previously got a glimpse at Nat’s origins in the Red Room in Avengers: Age of Ultron and she also revealed to Bruce Banner in the same film that, as Pugh reminds us in her comment, she cannot have children after what was done to her when she was young. Another Black Widow – Dottie Underwood (Bridget Regan) – was also introduced in Agent Carter, revealing that the Red Room has been brainwashing young girls since the war. As such, expect a deep dive into the full horror of what goes on in the room in this movie.

The trailers have revealed that the mysterious Taskmaster has acquired control of the Red Room – literally, in fact, as he’s found a way of mind-controlling the Widows to do his bidding – and Natasha and Yelena will need to team up to take down the supervillain and give the Widows their freedom once and for all. Like Pugh says, you can see how this would link into “painful” real-world themes of women being abused by men, both in a systemic and personal way.

While it may yet be delayed a second time, as of now, Black Widow is still set to release in cinemas on November 6th in the US.