I publicly rolled my eyes at the social media outrage on Twitter, and asked everyone to stop playing to ugly and untrue stereotypes about feminists being humorless. In my own defense, if you watch the interview, it seems, in context, that the joke is ironic. Natalia Romanova, alias Black Widow, has not actually slept with any of these characters, and the question was about fan fantasies.
Evans and Renner seemed to be laughing at the absurdity of the question. Now, Renner is trying to be silly here, so perhaps his biggest victim is himself, in demonstrating that his sense of humor is decidedly pedestrian. Just getting Steve Rogers alone should at least get you a gold medal. Romanova is a character that exists in a world that seems, after all, to have gender ratios that are quite unlike the real world.
We live in a world with a roughly male-female ratio, but the Marvel cinematic universe seems to produce 5 men for every woman. The only time it ever comes up is when someone wants to rationalize labeling women with that word. On the other hand, Renner did, at least, commit to a number, in this case four.
That takes ovaries, sir. They selfishly want to keep their own options open while reserving the right to judge othersβalways women, mind youβfor the same behavior.
But Renner bucked this tradition and settled on a number, which is four. Which is, depending on who you ask, is the average or half the average number of sex partners over a lifetime of the average American woman. Of course, Renner did caveat it by saying four Avengers. Which is a technically impossible feat for any real world woman, unless you count those who have a fetish for trawling cosplayers at sci-fi conventions.
