Wonder Woman as Role Model

Is Wonder Woman the film a perfect icon of representation? No, nor can it, or any film, hope to be. Is she a positive role model for girls? Consider this tweet from director Patty Jenkins: https://twitter.com/PattyJenks/status/874034832430424065

I mean to go see that, haven't found the time yet. Next week I hope.

My childhood was so poor in non-stereotypical female role models WW easily takes the spotlight--beside Pippi Longstocking, she was the only other one, and the only adult woman type I was remotely interested in being. Note, I only knew her through her comics.

So I'm glad her movie is a success, but I sure wish we could get to the point where it would not be a big deal to have a movie like that, and to have it succeed OR bomb and everything just continue as it does after the innumerable male-directed, male-focussed, male-orientated, male etc. crappy flops.

>2 LolaWalser: I hear you.

Haven't seen this yet, but I just saw on Mary Sue that the comic WW is... getting a brother. Have not read a WW comic since they made fucking shitbag Zeus her dad. Certainly will not be picking up on this novelty.

Spoiler alert: Zeus is also her dad in the movie, but he doesn't appear. Meanwhile, this is her aunt.

Aaargh to Z. and yay to auntie! :)

Might as well make a few notes before I forget everything... but first, I'm glad it seems to have been a popular success and as I'm about to go all Debbie Downer, please don't mind me, if you appreciate at all a woman "kicking ass", you'll probably enjoy the movie.

I still haven't read a single review so no idea what if anything others may have criticised.

For my part, the bad: it's so old-fashioned. It's not new, not fresh. It felt exactly like the memory of those comics I read '79-'81, only with less exciting and novel plot. There's a special woman alone in a sea of dicks, dicks as far as the eye can see. Some things were worse, though--Steve Trevor was a cipher in the comics and here he hogs not only the story, but is given a stupidly important role in Diana's emotional life. That she'd fall in love with literally the first man she saw I might tolerate, but that she'd then mope after him a whole century ("thank you for bringing him back to me" she writes at the end, in contemporary, 21st century Paris, to Buttman who sent her the photo from Diana's and Steve's WWI adventure) is simply garbage. Not only that, it's Steve's sacrifice that jolts her out of what looks like a defeatist position and renewes her sense of mission. The script, IMO, is dreadful. I can't help thinking that they really ought to have had at least one woman instead of THREE men write it--hell, if they had only consulted some female fans they might have avoided some of the worst crap.

I've always liked that Diana is a physical fighter but also intelligent, only that's not apparent here. In fact she comes across as something of an idiot. She may not have grown up among humans but the Amazons are complex beings themselves, no way could she be so clueless about motivations, psychology, even social cues. (Or sex, given that there are procreating animals on Themyscira.)

Steve's incessant shutting her up and pushing her aside, while played for comedy and supposedly understandable given her strangeness, nevertheless seriously got on my nerves and the worst was that when she finally told him off, it was so weak.

Must say that I hated the actor who played him on sight, he's exactly the type I can't stand--that oafish whitebread corn-fed fake-muscled bull-necked pug-nosed baby-faced oink dudebro that Hollywood for reasons unfathomable to me loves to push. (Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Dicaprio--you get the picture...)

So that was unfortunate.

Gal Gadot was a pleasure to watch. Visually she fits the character well, at least some versions, (notably not Alex Ross' majestic and much meatier one). But her acting... I don't want to pan it given what I said about the badness of the script, even a magnificent actor like David Thewlis could do only so much with that material, but, yeah, it wasn't great. Maybe her lines would have seemed less insipid if her voice projected more, it's oddly non-sonorous.

What I liked: Hippolyta and other Amazons, Thewlis, the trio of sidekicks, especially Sameer, Etta, the creepy chemist's face mask... this character and subplot seemed lifted from a better and of course obscure 1969 movie: Fräulein Doktor based on a real WWI spy, Elsbeth Schragmüller. There were several other earlier movies about Schragmüller but only this one features a female super-chemist working on poison gas.

In sum, glad it worked for so many people, but in the end I'm bemused by the success... is current cinema truly so bad? Are memories so short? Making a successful movie that's so much like the seventies comic can't be a good sign.

On that note, I was surprised that this was more successful than the female Ghostbusters (which I loved) and I was also surprised that something as harmless and anodine as Mad Max Fury Road drew so much misogynistic hatred. I guess I'm not in sync with the zeitgeist but then, given everything I don't think I'd care to be.

P.S. That Zeus crap! Ugh! The awfulness of the fake cod-Greek/Christian combo myth! The Amazons being originally "given" to men for... "love"... I wish I had the energy to shoot some hate mail to the scriptwriters.

>7 LolaWalser: Thank you for the review. I loathe attending films nowadays (everyone has lost their manners, for one, and all those commercials for another).

You've saved me from seeking this out. Maybe I'll dip into it when it arrives on cable, but probably not.

I confess that I liked Matt Damon in The Good Shepherd (but he's playing a different role than the endlessly moronic Bourne movies).

Thanks again.

>8 Lyndatrue:

Yeah, unless you're a diehard fan of superhero movies, I'd say better save the 15 bucks I spent on this and borrow or rent.

Browsing this morning's headlines, came across this--Hollywood needs more female action heroes:

(...) Right now, Patty Jenkins’s film Wonder Woman is breaking records all over the world. But for four-fifths of the film, Gal Gadot’s Diana, Queen of the Amazons, is the only woman on screen, alongside a whole bunch of forgettable men including Chris Pine, who literally steps in and hogs their scenes. Wonder Woman is radical in that the sweet and strong character of Diana is openly appalled by and refuses to accept the corruption, hypocrisy and immorality she sees around her. She is disgusted and offended by the unevolved, patronising machismo she is forced to navigate when she arrives in wartime London.

But the truly thrilling, moving and radical section of Wonder Woman happens briefly and right at the beginning, during Diana’s formative years on Themyscira, aka Amazon Island – a glorious haven of dynamic, athletic, strong, active women. I’m crossing my fingers that the Wonder Woman sequel will be set exclusively there. I’ve never seen anything like it on the big screen: women, many women, creating the rules and values of a society together, bonding, arguing, deciding and dynamically occupying space.

Originally in my post I wrote about those first few minutes, but as it concerned my personal childhood fantasies (not necessarily shared generally) and turned out long and involving, I cut it out. But this encourages me to mention it, because obviously there's at least one other person who felt the same. I wrote that the introduction alone felt like a gift. That I was eerily moved because it was like meeting my earliest childhood fantasy I can recall in detail, about a band of women living free, for themselves--with lots of horses and swordfights and space travel involved, although it all owed more to The Count of Monte-Cristo, Ali Baba, Robin Hood and Space: 1999 than to the legend about the Amazons (I wouldn't encounter the WW comics until some years later).

So now that it seems I'm not alone I dare say that the need for THIS story hasn't been filled, that we still don't have THIS story to show and share, that even Wonder Woman has been yoked into the service of male enjoyment almost exclusively. Which is how it has been always, of course, and even re-inforced recently with the obnoxious intrusion of Zeus into her parentage--and about to get even worse with introducing a brother of hers into the world where women existed without men. Can't get rid of fucking man-babies even in fantasy! They actually kill us, annihilate from humanity in the real world by hundreds of millions and then they impose even in dreams.

In the meantime I must console myself with, flawed as it may be, TV such as Scott & Bailey and Happy Valley, where women are in evidence not just on screen but behind the scenes and it makes all the difference.

I'm sorry you didn't much like the movie, Lola.

I am NOT a fan of superhero movies, but since I live with two superfans, I end up seeing almost all of them. I find most superhero movies either dull and repetitive, or they are so overwritten as to be almost nonsensical. And the women in them are virtually interchangeable. As a superhero movie, Wonder Woman stands out heads and shoulders above the rest, and that's what I admired about it. Are there flaws? Sure. Like all movies now, it's too long. And yes, Chris Pine is not good in it. He's essentially playing his character Captain Kirk--my husband and I joked about that.

I'm not a comics reader, so I can't speak to the old-fashioned nature of the story, but I might venture to say that this actually might have worked in its favor. I find the plots of most superhero movies to be so unnecessarily convoluted and ridiculous. Don't get me started on that last Avengers movie. Maybe it's good to go back to a more basic, straightforward plot, since a big part of the target audience is, in fact, kids.

So, two thoughts. Wonder Woman is a blockbuster movie about a woman, directed by a woman, that is a huge success. Maybe Hollywood will now realize that it's not a big risk to make these kinds of movies and they'll make more of them. Maybe they'll even make the movies you want to see.

Second, kids love Wonder Woman. It gives kids a choice in role models, and I feel this is so, so important. Not only for little girls who need some good role models to emulate, but also for little boys to see that women are also heroes and the stars of their own stories. I don't have a daughter, but I was glad I could take my son to see this and give him a contrast to the ultra-macho Iron Man, Thor, et al that we usually get.

For my part, I found it to be a highly entertaining summer popcorn movie. I am a fan of summer popcorn movies, at least how they used to be.

>10 sturlington:

Kids have always loved Wonder Woman, that's why she survived for so long. I'm just regretting that it's the same story kids get to like in 2017 that I liked as a kid in the 1970s. That's not progress, regardless of whether you read the comics or not. As for Hollywood, one could make an excellent case that it's continually regressing. There was a time in the 1920s and 1930s when women carried pictures and commanded salaries commensurate to or higher than their male co-stars. Ida Lupino directed men in movies she also wrote. Mae West was a self-made media phenomenon. Cinema WAS women. Now it's eternal teenagers like fratboy Chris Pine in a video game.

It gives kids a choice in role models, and I feel this is so, so important. Not only for little girls who need some good role models to emulate, but also for little boys to see that women are also heroes and the stars of their own stories.

Yes and no. It "gives a choice" in the same way it gave it to me forty bleeding years ago--dream of being that ONE special woman in a suffocating sea of dickery. I don't know what's that supposed to do for boys, but I don't see how it's particularly good to teach them that yes, of course they rule everywhere in every way and are the norm everywhere in every way, but hey, sometimes there appears a demi-goddess who is much stronger than them but who will nevertheless depend on them and adore them for hundred years and counting. Isn't that, um, kinda like what mothers are? We already have motherhood cults, and we already love our mummies. The trick would be to teach us to respect them and all women, to the point where we could bear to watch a movie about two, three, or even FOUR women like it makes no difference.

Maybe they'll even make the movies you want to see.

There ARE people already producing screen stories about and with women I want to see, outside Hollywood. Check them out and compare and maybe you'll see what I find so frustrating about what they did with Wonder Woman. Or, rather, what they DIDN'T do. In fact, even modern comic WW has produced stories evolved far beyond this type of representation and plot.

I'm sorry to be negative, you can imagine how much I wanted to like this unreservedly, but I don't see what would be the point of insincerity. I did mention several times the point you make about the popular success etc. It wouldn't have given me any pleasure if this had failed, regardless of what I think.

However, I think it still succeeded because of the very typical suppression of women, and less because of a female lead. If there's a sequel as the article I linked mentions, it will be interesting to see if the picture changes at all.

>11 LolaWalser: Obviously, we feel differently about it, but I think we're coming it with very different expectations. From the point of view of having seen every major superhero movie released in recent years, this was a breath of fresh air. Many of the geek women I know feel the same way. Obviously, it didn't work for you. But I don't think that negates the fact that it did work for a lot of people.

I can only repeat what I posted already in >7 LolaWalser:

In sum, glad it worked for so many people, but in the end I'm bemused by the success...

In some respects, this exchange echoes a conversation I sat in on last week. To (over)simplify, I have the impression that, along with the important feminist questions at stake, there's also the matter of what one makes of super-hero narratives in general. Can this be an aesthetic question apart from the politics? Broadly speaking, do you go in for that sort of super-hero thing, or not?

One woman in the conversation said she stood up and applauded at the end of the movie. It was a big deal for her, quite heartfelt. Another found the whole spectacle infantilizing, not as bad as exposing the kids to lead poisoning, but why even go there? She wanted nothing to do with it.

>14 krolik:

I think that--superhero narratives, what are they for etc.--is a different topic to what was discussed here so far.

>11 LolaWalser:

"There was a time in the 1920s and 1930s when women carried pictures and commanded salaries commensurate to or higher than their male co-stars. Ida Lupino directed men in movies she also wrote. Mae West was a self-made media phenomenon. Cinema WAS women."

Yes! Myrna Loy is one of my favourites. No Wonder Woman, but a real wonder woman, one who - though constrained by the social limits of her times - took no shit from anyone.

This is interesting to read for the contrast with the movie, with which it shares a lot of basic points:

The Legend of Wonder Woman Vol. 1: Origins

THIS is how you focus on female characters. It's Diana's and Etta's adventure, with Steve in his proper place in the background. And, heartwarming detail for me, Hippolyta isn't demeaned by a relationship with Zeus, Diana's birth is again, as is traditional, of a being made of clay on whom the gods bestow life.

>9 LolaWalser:, and lola in general

i'll preface with acknowledging that i have little background knowledge of wonder woman (or other superheroes) and by saying that superhero movies really aren't my thing. still, my wife and i wanted to support this director and movie and went to see it opening weekend. (i suggested buying the tickets and then doing something else, or sitting in the back of the theater so i could bring a little light and a book, but we actually watched it instead. she's into superhero movies and really wanted to see it. i just wanted to put my money where my mouth is.) anyway.

i loved the first what? 8 min? the beginning you reference in >9 LolaWalser:. i want a movie just of those kickass women training each other. amazing. the rest i thought was more or less schlock. (although gal gadot was pretty badass throughout.) but. i guess what i wonder is why. was it an intentional first step, not wanting to to go too far, not wanting to push too much? or did the filmmakers all buy into the same stereotypes, too? i was so disappointed in this movie, was still glad i paid to see it and support it, and just hope that it is a good first step and that it can and will get better and better from here. for me that was the main question i had after watching. if this was what she wanted to make or if she measured how far she could go to make something that would have an impact on more people, and not go past that.

>18 overlycriticalelisa:

Hollywood won't do women justice, on or behind the screen. This is just another "strong woman" character but rigidly bound to men and their interest, except this time she got top billing.

The legend of the Amazons as given originally in the Wonder Woman comics is feminist and misandrist--let's remember misandry is a response to the oppression of women and therefore a positive, emancipatory force--so no wonder they spent all of ten minutes on Themyscira, no way were they going to dwell on that society in any meaningful way. Use Wonder Woman to explicate how the oppression of women in the real world makes real women wish for a world without men? DYNAMITE. Let's opt for the tea party cosiness of WWI, the safety of an overwhelmingly male cast and a hokum romance, and never tell off anyone for the sexist remarks we'll keep making, because, authenticity!

>19 LolaWalser:

This is just another "strong woman" character but rigidly bound to men and their interest, except this time she got top billing. yes, totally this. it drove me crazy. i hated the steve character and was super annoyed he was even in the movie. afterwards i understood that he's part of the cannon so he had to be. same for the ludicrous love story. i just really wonder what the director's vision was, and if this was it. because i understand not pushing too far, to get mainstream buy in. i mean, having gal gadot as top billing really is progress. but yeah, disappointing overall for sure.

maybe this is neither here nor there, or just a break from the canon, but i was also like - seriously? i don't even need a gay superhero but you've got all of these badass women living together on this island with no men in their world and they aren't lesbians? please.

speaking of themyscira, i had no idea it was created as misandrist, in response to patriarchy and oppression. i'm surprised they did that back then. yeah, i want that movie for sure.

>20 overlycriticalelisa:

i don't even need a gay superhero but you've got all of these badass women living together on this island with no men in their world and they aren't lesbians? please.

Ha, I chickened out of commenting on this because I don't expect the straight women majority to care and I was already being negative. But it's absolutely a problem, from a narrative and every other point of view. I mean, not even to HINT, however casually (in fact, casual would have been the way to do it). It's as ludicrous as it is humiliating.

speaking of themyscira, i had no idea it was created as misandrist, in response to patriarchy and oppression. i'm surprised they did that back then.

I can't get to my WW books now and don't recall all the details about the idea for Themyscira (whether it was William Marston's or later), but the basics are these: that a band of women led by Hippolyta, the "queen" of the Amazons, revolted by the evil of the "man's world", break off and create a women-only society on the island of Themyscira. They have no contact with men whatsoever (unlike the mythological Greek Amazons, who'd meet up annually for procreative sex). In the comics they are either immortal (but not invulnerable) and/or receive female refugees. That's escaping patriarchal oppression and establishing misandrist principles.

As I mentioned, I only read the comics for a few years in the late 70s-early 80s, and later on very sporadically so I don't know everything that was done with and to the character, I believe there was the usual amount of crossover and variations and "character dies!", "character resurrects!" and all that sort of thing DC and Marvel do to get attention. Steve Trevor is a canonical character, dating from the earliest, 1940s period, but in what I read makes a less substantial Lois Lane (he's even incapable of telling Diana is Wonder Woman because she puts on glasses)--I'm guessing few writers in the past (Marston excepted) were comfortable with a superwoman's weak human boyfriend. I didn't mind him in the comics because he was a minor character and as a kid I loved it when Wonder Woman would save him. But I never believed that she was in love with him.

If you can borrow the book I touchstoned, I think you'll find more or less the story the movie should have told, at least from the point of view of female representation. But the "less", unfortunately, still includes lesbianism (no mention).

>21 LolaWalser:

yeah, it's really not that i want a lesbian superhero; it's that from a narrative perspective it made no sense. most or all of those women would be gay and not to mention that felt ... like the story didn't make sense.

But I never believed that she was in love with him.
i'm curious if you think this was just your take or the general consensus on their relationship. i assumed, after watching the movie and hearing that he was part of the comics, that her being in love with him was part of the commonly known backstory.

i'll see if i can find that book, thanks!

>22 overlycriticalelisa:

Their relationship simply wasn't in focus much nor given any depth, in a way that I'd say was pretty much typical for action stories and heroes. Wonder Woman was this superwoman Steve was in love with, but she was kinda busy all the time, and her "day-job" persona was Diana with the confoundingly camouflaging glasses who was Steve's secretary or something like that. A ridiculous setup, just like Superman/Clark Kent and Lois. But it was never the point, the adventures were what mattered (and Steve took no part in them except occasionally as the messenger, the sender-on-mission, or damsel in distress). Note that this was the situation at the time when I stopped following the main comic.

In the nineties I read Alex Ross Kingdom come and there Wonder Woman is with Superman, a pairing quite a few other people seem to have taken up because--it seems--it's popular with the public.

thanks, lola! i appreciate your taking the time.

>21 LolaWalser:
But it's absolutely a problem, from a narrative and every other point of view. I mean, not even to HINT, however casually (in fact, casual would have been the way to do it).

lola, check out saturday night live's handling of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2cRZL70C0w&t=3s

Here's Zoë Heller's review in NYRB, with echoes of the above:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/08/17/wonder-woman-gods-gift-to-men/

>25 overlycriticalelisa:

Aww, not available to the True North--I'll see whether I can find it on some Canadian channel.

>26 krolik:

OMG yes, all of that!

Couldn't find the sketch, only some weird secondary-comment vids talking about it with the help of still pictures. I get the point is that she kissed some woman? Lucky Kate whomever. :)

Too little too late.

great article!

yeah, so sure, kate mckinnon gets to kiss gal gadot in the sketch, but the point of it (and why i linked it for you; i forgot that they don't show everything to you that they show to us) is how unbelievable it is that none of the women on themyscira were into women. just thought you'd like to see how they made fun of that. sorry you couldn't see it!

>29 overlycriticalelisa:

Yeah, I can at least imagine. Better laugh than cry!

I'm sure it will pop up somewhere for me to see properly, it's embarrassing what a miserable googletician I make.

>30 LolaWalser:

i had to have a 30 min conversation with someone today to help me do something very basic on the computer. so i understand. computers are not my friends. books are. ;)