Raayan Brar

"Historical Influences of Russian Espionage in Black Widow"

Black Widow, directed by Cate Shortland, is a Marvel movie about Natasha Romanoff and her quest to defeat General Dreykov, an evil Russian spymaster. In Black Widow, all the main characters are Russian and are influenced by Russian stereotypes in American popular culture. All the Russian characters in the movie, both the good and the bad, are portrayed as deadly spies. This depiction of Russians is frequently used by Hollywood, and it originates from historical events from the Cold War era.

At the beginning of the movie, Russian undercover agents Alexei Shostakov and Melina Vostokoff pose as a normal married couple in Ohio. Their mission is to steal government secrets and deliver them to General Dreykov, the Russian spymaster. This part of the movie is inspired by real historical events. For example, in 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of stealing top-secret information about nuclear weapon designs for the Soviet Union. This is similar to the beginning of Black Widow when Alexei Shostakov and Melina Vostokoff stole important information from the United States government.

A major part of the movie is General Dreykov’s Red Room, which is a secret Russian training facility for women spies and assassins, known as Black Widows. The spies from this program would frequently seduce foreigners to gain their trust and learn their secrets. Although Natasha Romanoff escaped the Red Room, she still made use of her training. For example, in Iron Man 2, an earlier Marvel movie, Natasha was tasked with flirting with Iron Man to become his assistant and spy on him. This depiction of the Red Room and Russian women being trained to seduce foreigners appears to be inspired by a school in the Russian city of Kazan. The women from this school were referred to as “sparrows”, and were trained to seduce foreign officials in order to blackmail them, which is not unlike the Black Widows in the movie. According to former CIA agent Jonna Mendez, in the 1980s, a sparrow was successful in seducing an American Marine who guarded the embassy in Moscow and was allowed onto the embassy’s property. Events like these have influenced Hollywood’s portrayal of Russian women to be attractive, deceptive, and dangerous, as shown through the character of Natasha Romanoff and the other Russian female spies.

All the Russian characters in Black Widow are either deadly spies or somehow connected to Russian espionage. Natasha Romanoff used to be a KGB agent and was regarded as a master spy. Alexei Shostakov was a Russian agent undercover in Ohio. General Dreykov is the evil Russian spymaster and overseer of the Red Room program, created to perform espionage all over the world. These spy-like depictions of the Russian characters are rooted in historical contexts that date back to the Cold War era. The Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Trial, the Soviet Union sparrows training school, and other examples of Russian espionage, all culminate into a prominent depiction of Russians in American popular culture, as shown in Black Widow.