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Hollywood producers, the internet, and all of my heterosexual male friends all want me to think that Scarlett Johansson is some kind of sex symbol, and I just don’t buy it. It’s not that I don’t think she’s hot. She’s a very attractive woman and I’m sure that most people I know want to sleep with her. But the thing is I don’t think she’s a sex symbol in the same way that Kate Upton (who gleefully posed nearly naked in zero gravity for a magazine) or Kim Kardashian (who also gleefully posed completely naked for a magazine) are. Scarlett Johansson is a character actress who is playing the part of sex symbol.

Scarlett Johansson is first and foremost an actress. And like all actors, she is both strengthened and weakened by her looks. Because cinema is so visual, an actor’s appearance often determines the types of roles they get. Consider Steve Buscemi. Steve Buscemi’s unconventionally attractive looks mean that he gets saddled with quirky roles. He plays characters that are dark, and if he’s playing a hero, he’s always going to be the anti-hero. Scarlett Johansson is a very conventionally attractive woman. She is also, dare I say, a very sexy looking woman. This means that she will always get cast in roles that capitalize on the audience’s physical attraction to her. In short, she gets cast as a sex symbol.

What’s interesting though is that Johansson’s no idiot. She knows the value of her looks, and she’s been increasingly choosing roles that subvert the expectations of the “sexy” woman. In Under The Skin, she might strip down, but she’s doing so in a creepy, menacing way. She’s an alien from another world who lures men so she can kill them. In Don Jon, she plays a New Jersey dream girl — all blonde hair and push up bras — but she ultimately isn’t the key to the lead character’s happiness. In Lucy, her character starts off as a weakling, preyed upon by the men around her. The first thing Lucy does once she undergoes her transformation from normal woman to super being is to use her sexuality to ensnare her captors and inflict revenge. In Her, Scarlett Johansson delivers a nuanced performance with just her voice. Her sultry voice crackles, giggles, and breaks. She creates a fully-formed character who plays into the fantasies of Joaquin Phoenix’s lonely Theodore Twombly, but ultimately this character also lets the hero down.

As the Black Widow, Johansson literally uses her allure to undermine her enemies. When we first meet her in The Avengers, Black Widow is tied up by a group of Russian goons. They are beating her and interrogating her. She looks scared and she looks cornered. At one point, the ringleader makes a derogatory remark implying all she is is a pretty face. She snarks, “You think I’m pretty?” Then, a call comes in. She slips out of character as the sexy damsel in distress and snaps at Coulson, who is on the other line. Immediately it’s revealed that she was always in control. Once more, Johansson’s character is self-aware of her beauty and how it makes men think less of her.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OJqPJRjHkE]

To that point, throughout her career, Johansson has always chosen to play nuanced women who are initially discounted because of their sex appeal. It’s an interesting career choice, right? To play women who are completely aware that they have a hold over men, but who later reveal themselves to be smarter, sneakier, or more complicated than an obliging dream girl. It’s almost as though Johansson is constantly teasing the audience. She is using her looks to poke holes in our society’s perception of what female sexuality should be.

If we can assume one thing from Scarlett Johansson’s evolution as an actress, it’s that she is completely aware that you want to turn her into a sex symbol. She knows why directors put her in tight clothing and frame her curves on film. She understands that even the rasp of her voice can tear some men asunder. However she also knows that women are more than just their bodies. And if you still think that the best part of Under The Skin is that you get to see her naked body, then you’ve just proven how empty your mind is.

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Photos: Everett Collection