One of the more interesting plot points in Black Widow that doesn’t get explored anywhere near deep enough is the celebrity status of the Avengers. The guys and gals that comprise Earth’s Mightiest Heroes see their faces slapped all over the news any time they step in to save the planet, but they’re also deeply flawed individuals.
At one stage, Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova even criticizes Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff for her hypocrisy by saying that she’s a cold-blooded killer just like the rest of the Red Room experiments, except she was lucky enough to find another surrogate family that ended up with her being plastered all over magazine covers and TV specials.
It’s definitely something the Marvel Cinematic Universe should circle back to at some stage, but Natasha’s worldwide fame also factored into the post-credits stinger where Yelena visits her grave, and we see it covered with a huge number of tributes which clearly aren’t just from those who knew her best, given how small her circle of friends was.
It additionally gives fans the opportunity to pay their respects after she didn’t get the big funereal sendoff in Avengers: Endgame that Tony Stark did, and in a new interview director Cate Shortland revealed why Nat was buried in the rural Midwest, away from prying eyes.
“Scarlett talked to me about it: Her character would have hated a public funeral. So I felt like the fact that she’s buried in a really private place, in the boondocks somewhere, is perfect.”
After eleven years in the role, nobody knew the character better than Scarlett Johansson did, so it’s fitting and more than a little poignant that the star and executive producer of Black Widow knew exactly how and where her onscreen alter ego would want to be buried, and Shortland was more than happy to give her the last word on Natasha’s final resting place.
