Black Widow is a 2021 American superhero film that uses a female protagonist, played by Scarlett Johansson. This film poster represents gender in many ways, mainly a positive representation of women.
The most obvious visual code on the film poster is the positioning of the main character, Black Widow, who is the centre focus on the cover and what the audience will recognise first when they see the film poster. This code can be combined with the code of her body language as it's active and dominant because you can see from waist up and her hand is grabbing onto her weapon. She dominates over the other characters in the film poster, who some are men, to show how she is the main character, which switches the expectations of the traditional superhero. These combined codes show that women can be the more dominant ones and are equally capable in being a superhero like men.
Another visual code is the use of the colour red in the background of the film poster combined with the written code of the title, as it uses a block font with all capital letters. This highlights how the Black Widow character must be taken seriously, like how everyone takes male superhero characters seriously. The use of the colour red has connotations of anger and violence, which stereotypically only men seem to portray in films, but Black Widow subverts this stereotype and reinforces the idea that women are also capable as a superhero.
A theory that can be applied to this film poster is Liesbet Van Zoonen's Feminist theory. It suggests that the female protagonist in this film is contributing to the social change in equality as it represents her playing a non-traditional role. This is because this industry could be seen as very male-dominated and Marvel usually use male characters for their superhero's, have done for many years, but this film shows how there is a change in society as they are getting women to play the main role of a superhero.
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