How Marvel Studios' Black Widow Supports Free Will & Condemns Using People As Things

Catholicism is a huge defender of free will and emphatically says no to using people merely as things.  Black Widow, one of Marvel Studios' 2021 MCU film installments, joins the Catholic Church in upholding free will and denouncing using people merely as a means to an end through the actions of its titular hero, Natasha Romanoff, and her adoptive sister, Yelena Belova, played by Florence Pugh. Natasha and Yelena grew up in Ohio as the adoptive daughters of KGB agents Alexei Shostakov, also known as the Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz). The foursome were actually a Russian sleeper cell masquerading as a normal middle class American family. 

Alexei gets word that the quartet has to return to Russia for further assignments and spy training, as their mission in the US is complete. An injured Melina is taken in an ambulance back to Russia while the girls are separated from Alexei. A montage shows Natasha and Yelena going through secret agent training in the Red Room, a Russian spy program that recruits and trains women in the ways of espionage and assassination. 

Years later shortly after the events of Captain America: Civil War, Natasha is on the run from US government authorities while Yelena comes across a Black Widow who has been freed from the Red Room's mind control serum during an assassination operation that goes awry in Budapest. The renegade Black Widow administers an antidote for the mind control serum to Yelena and tells her to free the other Widows.  Drekhov (Ray Winstone), a name MCU superfans will recognize from Loki's line, "Barton told me everything. Drekhov's daughter, Sao Paulo, the hospital fire," in The Avengers, is the head of the Red Room and he remotely  executes another Widow against her expressed will as Yelena watches, powerless to stop it. 

Later after Natasha reunites with Yelena in Budapest, Yelena tells her about how Drekhov treats his operatives as disposable instruments and condemns it in disgust. 

Natasha and Yelena break Alexei out of Russian prison. During their escape, the audience is reminded of the sterilization via involuntary hysterectomy that Black Widows are subjected to once they're ready to go out into the field upon completion of their spy training when Alexei remarks on Yelena's sudden moodiness, thinking its due to the women's menstrual cycle.  They go visit Melina. The reunited quartet works together to destroy the Red Room and free the Widows inside. Natasha heads back to the US to break some of the Avengers out of prison while Alexei, Yelena, and Melina, and the freed Widows, including Drekhov's daughter, Antonia (played by 007 star Olga Kurlyenko), set out to free the other Widows working on Red Room ops across the globe. 

Aside from the message, the action, and the elaboration on Loki's aforementioned line in The Avengers, it was great to see Olga Kurlyenko in another spy movie besides the Bond franchise. And Rachel Weisz is one of my favorite actresses, so it was great to see her join the extensive MCU family as well as finally play a secret agent like her fellow actor and husband, Daniel Craig. Now, Melina Vostokoff isn't as iconic as 007, but it's nice to say that Daniel is in good company now since his fellow actor and wife has now played a secret agent like he has.