Remove ads

DCEU Wonder Woman Films

Reader mode
I do think Cameron has a point. I don't think you need to put down Wonder Woman to make that point. but Hollywood has at strong female characters for decades.
 
BunBun299 said:
I do think Cameron has a point. I don't think you need to put down Wonder Woman to make that point. but Hollywood has at strong female characters for decades.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Kind of? The point others are making is that most of those strong female characters are made strong by discarding most of their feminine traits and behaviors. And even then they usually have a story that mostly revolves around some form of motherhood trappings.
 
serra2 said:
Kind of? The point others are making is that most of those strong female characters are made strong by discarding most of their feminine traits and behaviors. And even then they usually have a story that mostly revolves around some form of motherhood trappings.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

One could argue that killing hordes of German soldiers with a sword, shield and lasso are about as far removed from traditional feminine traits and behaviors as you get.

I don't agree with everything Cameron said. But I do think we've had plenty of strong female characters out of Hollywood. This is just the first time one has taken center stage in a Super Hero flick and did it well.
 
BunBun299 said:
I do think Cameron has a point. I don't think you need to put down Wonder Woman to make that point. but Hollywood has at strong female characters for decades.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's better to say that they had them. At somepoint in the late 90's they stopped having female leads in action films. The ones that were there were more often than not side kicks to the heroes and love interests rather than leads in their own right. On top of that the obsession with waif-fu was a massive step backwards for female action stars because instead of casting physically capable women or at the least having the actresses train for the role they were now able to just cast the razor thin model types and have them do a bunch of really unconvincing martial arts to justify them beating up men twice their size. That's not to say small women can't take on large men. I've seen women in Krav Maga classes take men twice their size down. The thing is they didn't do a lot of back flips and hurricanrannas. They usually sacked them really hard and went for the eyes. Cameron is right that there were female lead action stars, but they were an artifact of yesteryear.
 
Except Wonder Woman somehow managed to both:
1. Kick ass with a sword and shield and crush her foes before her in an awesome action sequence.
2. Act with care and empathy for her fellow man, and show vulnerability and wonder at the world.

"strong" female characters of the past effectively got that way by abandoning the second in favor of doubling down on the first, playacting as Rambo with tits abandoning female story traits for male story traits.
 
serra2 said:
Except Wonder Woman somehow managed to both:
1. Kick ass with a sword and shield and crush her foes before her in an awesome action sequence.
2. Act with care and empathy for her fellow man, and show vulnerability and wonder at the world.

"strong" female characters of the past effectively got that way by abandoning the second in favor of doubling down on the first, playacting as Rambo with tits abandoning female story traits for male story traits.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Ignoring the troubling concept that empathy, vulnerability and wonderment are gendered ideals being Rambo with tits just meant that they were in 80's and 90's action films. Back then, when they did action movies right, the heroes were barely animate killing machines that butchered enough people to effect the carbon output of the human race.
 
I think the NYRB's review by Zoë Heller had an interesting take on how WW might not be all that great in not furthering bad concepts about women:

Article:
[...]

Sadly, whatever fresh potency she has acquired from the wardrobe department is offset by the film's anxious insistence on demonstrating the femininity that lies beneath her breastplate. (Both Jenkins and Gadot have acknowledged that their great goal was to avoid making Wonder Woman look like "a ballbuster.") Au fond, we are repeatedly assured, Wonder Woman is a very simple, soft, "relatable" lady. She adores babies and ice cream and snowflakes. She is sweetly oblivious to her own beauty and its devastating effects on those around her. She has absolutely no problem with men. She loves men! In fact, once she's left her Amazon family behind, she barely bothers talking to another woman for the rest of the movie. Gadot has real presence and charm as an actress—one longs to see her in something worthier of her talent. But the imperative to eradicate any hint of bossiness or anger from her character weighs heavily on the film, threatening to turn it into one long, dispiriting exercise in allaying male fears about powerful women.

[...]

iana is also oblivious to the fact that in the London of 1918, her sex radically limits her freedoms. She cannot see why she would be barred from attending an all-male parliamentary meeting, or why she would be expected to constrain her waist with a corset. (A bit rich, this, given that the Wonder Woman costume performs much the same function.) When Captain Steve's secretary, Etta Candy, explains that her job involves doing whatever her boss asks her to, Diana frowns and remarks, "Where I come from, we would call that slavery."

This—a sly reference to the ignominious moment in comic book history when Wonder Woman was relegated to being secretary of the Justice League—is a feminist joke of sorts. But it's not a joke that Diana gets. Unlike the comic book Diana, who was always dashing about giving pep talks to abused wives ("Get strong! Earn your own living!") and reporting back to her mother on the progress of women's rights, Diana remains blissfully ignorant of the women's cause. The male sidekicks who accompany her and Steve to the war in Europe teach her about racial prejudice, the plight of Native Americans, and even the horrors of PTSD, but somehow the news that women don't have the vote evades her.

Maintaining her ignorance is of course a quite deliberate maneuver—part of the film's scrupulous endeavor to keep any hint of ball busting at bay. ("It was important to me," Gadot told Entertainment Weekly, "that my character would never come and preach about how men should treat women. Or how women should perceive themselves.")

A similar effort to avoid having Diana become too domineering is evident in the careful way that she and Steve are presented as equal partners in their mission. One good man, apparently, is equal to an Amazon demigoddess. (Gadot: "We didn't want to make Steve the damsel in distress.") If Diana has the muscle, it's Steve who has the tactical sense and the job of mansplaining the true nature of their mission. (She's under the impression that if she manages to kill Ares, she will end war forever.)

[...]

An astonishing number of women critics have reported being moved to tears by Gadot's performance. They have hailed Wonder Woman as an inspiring vision of female strength; a landmark in pop-cultural depictions of woman; an exultant portrait of pussy power in excelsis, perfectly timed to rouse our spirits in the dark era of Trump. But the film is far too cautious and focus group–tested an enterprise to be any of these things. Like so many recent girl-power extravaganzas that seek to celebrate what a long way we've come, baby, it ends up illustrating precisely the opposite.

[...]


I haven't seen WW yet so I can't fully endorse this review, though it seems pretty reasonable from what I've heard about the film, so read the whole thing to make your own opinion.
 
She immediately comes off as looking for problems and then finds them not in genuine issues with the film but because the film focuses on other things besides feminist issues. I actually like the fact that Diana doesn't have an entire scene dedicated to her railing against the lack of woman's suffrage or the lack of women leaders. Wonder Woman is a feminist icon, but that's not all she is. Does every story with Wonder Woman have to address issues like gender discrimination or domestic abuse? That seems pretty limiting as a character and turns her from a well rounded character into what her parody is often depicted as being. Also this is a choice quote:

A similar effort to avoid having Diana become too domineering is evident in the careful way that she and Steve are presented as equal partners in their mission
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Isn't having men and women being treated as equals, with each having their own strengths to add in order to overcome sort of the end point of feminism?

Edit:
I also love how she misuses the term "mansplaining".
 
Last edited:
xa na xa said:
She loves men! In fact, once she's left her Amazon family behind, she barely bothers talking to another woman for the rest of the movie. Gadot has real presence and charm as an actress—one longs to see her in something worthier of her talent. But the imperative to eradicate any hint of bossiness or anger from her character weighs heavily on the film, threatening to turn it into one long, dispiriting exercise in allaying male fears about powerful women.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
xa na xa said:
A similar effort to avoid having Diana become too domineering is evident in the careful way that she and Steve are presented as equal partners in their mission. One good man, apparently, is equal to an Amazon demigoddess. (Gadot: "We didn't want to make Steve the damsel in distress.") If Diana has the muscle, it's Steve who has the tactical sense and the job of mansplaining the true nature of their mission. (She's under the impression that if she manages to kill Ares, she will end war forever.)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Put together, these are, I think, two of the most egregious mistakes about the film in this review. Diana does talk other women, most obviously Etta Candy but also local people she saves, and she certainly has her times of anger and assertiveness. The No Man's Land scene springs to mind, among others I'll avoid mentioning for the sake of spoilers. Steve also doesn't seem to be there to 'mansplain the true nature of their mission' - rather, he's most obviously there to be flawed but reasonable in not understanding, but quickly accepting, what Diana is capable of. Again, the No Man's Land scene has had a lot written about it on this score. Steve tries to explain the true nature of the mission, and Diana more than once overrules him because of her ideals, then backs it up with her power, and the important thing about Steve is how he reacts to that, serving as a model for other men. Wonder Woman was a movie that far preferred to demonstrate its feminist themes than talk about them.

So, all in all no, I don't think it is an interesting perspective. It's simply off base.
 
Last edited:
xa na xa said:
I think the NYRB's review by Zoë Heller had an interesting take on how WW might not be all that great in not furthering bad concepts about women:

Article:
[...]

Sadly, whatever fresh potency she has acquired from the wardrobe department is offset by the film's anxious insistence on demonstrating the femininity that lies beneath her breastplate. (Both Jenkins and Gadot have acknowledged that their great goal was to avoid making Wonder Woman look like "a ballbuster.") Au fond, we are repeatedly assured, Wonder Woman is a very simple, soft, "relatable" lady. She adores babies and ice cream and snowflakes. She is sweetly oblivious to her own beauty and its devastating effects on those around her. She has absolutely no problem with men. She loves men! In fact, once she's left her Amazon family behind, she barely bothers talking to another woman for the rest of the movie. Gadot has real presence and charm as an actress—one longs to see her in something worthier of her talent. But the imperative to eradicate any hint of bossiness or anger from her character weighs heavily on the film, threatening to turn it into one long, dispiriting exercise in allaying male fears about powerful women.

[...]

iana is also oblivious to the fact that in the London of 1918, her sex radically limits her freedoms. She cannot see why she would be barred from attending an all-male parliamentary meeting, or why she would be expected to constrain her waist with a corset. (A bit rich, this, given that the Wonder Woman costume performs much the same function.) When Captain Steve's secretary, Etta Candy, explains that her job involves doing whatever her boss asks her to, Diana frowns and remarks, "Where I come from, we would call that slavery."

This—a sly reference to the ignominious moment in comic book history when Wonder Woman was relegated to being secretary of the Justice League—is a feminist joke of sorts. But it's not a joke that Diana gets. Unlike the comic book Diana, who was always dashing about giving pep talks to abused wives ("Get strong! Earn your own living!") and reporting back to her mother on the progress of women's rights, Diana remains blissfully ignorant of the women's cause. The male sidekicks who accompany her and Steve to the war in Europe teach her about racial prejudice, the plight of Native Americans, and even the horrors of PTSD, but somehow the news that women don't have the vote evades her.

Maintaining her ignorance is of course a quite deliberate maneuver—part of the film's scrupulous endeavor to keep any hint of ball busting at bay. ("It was important to me," Gadot told Entertainment Weekly, "that my character would never come and preach about how men should treat women. Or how women should perceive themselves.")

A similar effort to avoid having Diana become too domineering is evident in the careful way that she and Steve are presented as equal partners in their mission. One good man, apparently, is equal to an Amazon demigoddess. (Gadot: "We didn't want to make Steve the damsel in distress.") If Diana has the muscle, it's Steve who has the tactical sense and the job of mansplaining the true nature of their mission. (She's under the impression that if she manages to kill Ares, she will end war forever.)

[...]

An astonishing number of women critics have reported being moved to tears by Gadot's performance. They have hailed Wonder Woman as an inspiring vision of female strength; a landmark in pop-cultural depictions of woman; an exultant portrait of pussy power in excelsis, perfectly timed to rouse our spirits in the dark era of Trump. But the film is far too cautious and focus group–tested an enterprise to be any of these things. Like so many recent girl-power extravaganzas that seek to celebrate what a long way we've come, baby, it ends up illustrating precisely the opposite.

[...]


I haven't seen WW yet so I can't fully endorse this review, though it seems pretty reasonable from what I've heard about the film, so read the whole thing to make your own opinion.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I think its bullshit, personally.

Wonder Woman had a classic "young hero learns to temper their strength with wisdom" story arc. That calls for the hero in question to learn from more experienced characters, while still being the hero. The fact that Diane is a woman and her merlin/obi-wan figure is a man is incidental, I think.
 
Leila Hann said:
I think its bullshit, personally.

Wonder Woman had a classic "young hero learns to temper their strength with wisdom" story arc. That calls for the hero in question to learn from more experienced characters, while still being the hero. The fact that Diane is a woman and her merlin/obi-wan figure is a man is incidental, I think.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Not even, really. Steve is set up as the fallible viewfinder through which Diana sees the wider world. The ultimate 'lesson' comes from him not in some condescending 'mansplain' "THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS SILLY RABBIT". He has to struggle to find his words while trying to comfort her, and ultimately lands on a "Sometimes people are just dicks, and I wish that wasn't the only answer I had for you" sort of sentiment, because helping Diana has let him briefly see a version of the world where things actually work out pretty okay.
 
I'm largely uninterested in this whole thing, but I feel compelled to make a bit of a correction here:
serra2 said:
2. Act with care and empathy for her fellow man, and show vulnerability and wonder at the world.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Between the nuke scene, Sarah's pensive narrations on humanity and her interactions with her son, the Dysons and Enrique's family... I think it's fair to say Sarah Connor doesn't sacrifice this second thing. Now, these are all in Terminator 2, not the first film, but by the same token, she's a much more ferocious person in T2 and is much more of an action hero, where in the first film, she was more of a traumatised survivor.
 
Overall Wonder Woman avoids falling into the usual pitfalls of Strong Female Protagonist, in the West that usually means a spindly supermodel that pulverizes everyone with waif fu, in the East it means a big boobed battle vixen that is impossible outside of a cartoon, and in either case their physical attributes are all they've got. Wonder Woman is depicted as naive and sheltered but she isn't stupid or emotionally dependent and needy. She doesn't just sit back and get mansplained by Steve about how the world works, their conversations and actions are a constant clash in all three of the acts', with a give and take.

The issue with making Wonder Woman into a 'ballbuster' is that doing so is actually anti-feminist. Its saying that the solution to gender inequality is to have a woman that is even manlier than then the men, that can push them around and dominate them just as easily as they push around and dominate women. That goes against the entire point of Wonder Woman. The original creator firmly believed that humanity must adopt the feminine ideals of compassion, diplomacy, and kinky BDSM, lest our machismo see our society burn itself to ashes. When Wonder Woman tries in futility to browbeat the Entente commanders, we are meant to sympathize with her but its also obviously a stupid and undiplomatic course of action. When Wonder Woman moves to break through the Central line in order to save the village as an act of pure compassion, its presented as her golden moment of heroism.

But note how that act differs from, say, Ripley beating the alien queen up with a power loader. In that feminine motivations are being applied directly, Ripley is acting as the protective mama bear of Newt, but she isn't really leaving the feminine role. Going "women can fight to protect their children" is not extending femininity beyond the household. By comparison Wonder Woman is making the whole world her household and humanity her children. Rather than rejecting traditional femininity, she transcends it, she expands its scope to a scale equal to that of "Man's World" where everything is settled through domination and force of arms, and offers an alternative.
 
Last edited:
Saw it on TV last night, and I was... underwhelmed, I think the word is. Of course, not being a woman, I cannot help but feel less concerned by the issues of representation1 ​; so in the end for me it was just Yet Onther Superhero Movie™.

Also, I was a bit surprised by the character of Chief. Or, well, his treatment: he's Native American, and there were such stereotypical and cliché things. Smoke signals? Really?

1​: Not that it's not awesome to have a good movie with a superheroine! It's just that this fact does not have the same impact on me...
 
Vyslanté said:
Saw it on TV last night, and I was... underwhelmed, I think the word is. Of course, not being a woman, I cannot help but feel less concerned by the issues of representation1 ​; so in the end for me it was just Yet Onther Superhero Movie™.

Also, I was a bit surprised by the character of Chief. Or, well, his treatment: he's Native American, and there were such stereotypical and cliché things. Smoke signals? Really?

1​: Not that it's not awesome to have a good movie with a superheroine! It's just that this fact does not have the same impact on me...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Do you want a spoiler, by the way?
 
Vyslanté said:
Saw it on TV last night, and I was... underwhelmed, I think the word is. Of course, not being a woman, I cannot help but feel less concerned by the issues of representation1 ​; so in the end for me it was just Yet Onther Superhero Movie™.

Also, I was a bit surprised by the character of Chief. Or, well, his treatment: he's Native American, and there were such stereotypical and cliché things. Smoke signals? Really?

1​: Not that it's not awesome to have a good movie with a superheroine! It's just that this fact does not have the same impact on me...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Chief's actor all but wrote his role in the movie, including the demigod headcanon.

edit: also like, are you aware smoke signals are not a "native american" thing???
 
Last edited:
Wonder Woman 2 villain casting announced!

Edit: woo, renamed thread!
 
Last edited:
I approve of this.

I'll also note is it doesn't narrow things down much, because said villain has multiple versions including multiple *good* ones!

Leila Hann said:
I think its bullshit, personally.

Wonder Woman had a classic "young hero learns to temper their strength with wisdom" story arc. That calls for the hero in question to learn from more experienced characters, while still being the hero. The fact that Diane is a woman and her merlin/obi-wan figure is a man is incidental, I think.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Also I'd say Steve is very much not her Obi-wan/Merlin. Her local guide, yes, but he was wrong about most things other than 'Ares not behind it,' 'We should do something,' and 'the Germans are bad.' In a ton of details, he says one thing, her another, she's right, he goes, 'Oh! Lead the way!'.
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top