I was thinking while watching Avengers (which I guess is now over two months ago) that one of the more impressive scenes was the torture scene with the Black Widow. Granted the action was not all that well choreographed nor was the dialogue always not clichéd, but the entire situation showed how a superhero can deal with a situation outside of a suit of armour or super-serums. What I thought was a nice little addition to the scene was when she is walking away, that she stops momentarily to grab her high heels (which are somewhat high.) Kind of a minor point in the movie, but for me it served to highlight that she can be strong and feminine at the same time.

In terms of my appreciation for high heels on female characters though I have always been somewhat skeptical. I have been over this point before, that high heels are conceptualized by the men in charge of creating comics or movies as something quite easy for women to move around in when in fact they are not. That Black Widow was shown with high heels was nice, but she definitely didn’t use them during her fight scene as she would have fallen numerous times and therefore likely lost.

With this in mind a was a little hesitant about this aspect of the Catwoman character in the Dark Knight Rises (minor spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen the movie.) What we got here was something almost to argue against every time I had ever raised this point, as the high heels were not just an accessory but in fact a weapon. It is still not really clear to me how such heels would have worked, but I consider it among the many clever developments in this movie by the creative team. Selina’s heels were made not into a hindrance or a non-factor, but actually something which she used to her advantage on numerous occasions. Just like most parts of the Dark Knight Rises, this is not something which I expect out of the average comic book (or even action) movie, but for the summer’s two biggest movies it is interesting to see that for once they got the heels right.  

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I really liked what they did with Catwoman's heels. They could have just went the easy way and went with the claws. It was way cooler that they were thinking outside the litter box.

Black Widow have a super-serum on her blood.

Except it still would have made more sense for the blade to come out from the front of the shoe. Heels would still slow down a thief who needs to be able to run and they're not exactly good for stealth either.

Also, the association between high heels and being feminine is very arbitrary and governed by culture, similar to the corset and bound feet.