For someone
who has barely read any comic books, I’ve spent a lot of time discussing movies
based off them. If anyone were to come up to me and say that I’m not qualified
to talk about comics and should therefore just stop together, I wouldn’t even
put up much of an argument, but the truth is that, for anyone who’s interested
in pop culture nowadays, it’s pretty much impossible to avoid talking about
Marvel, DC and the like. Geek culture, whether we’re talking about comic books
or Star Trek or A Song of Ice and Fire, is no longer a niche; in fact, it’s now not
only mainstream, but so
dominant that it has redefined the entertainment industry, shifting
perceptions of what projects are capable of finding an audience and lending
greater weight to pure hype and fan anticipation in marketing. While some
protectiveness is understandable, given that people always feel a bit of
ownership over the things they love, this expansion and diversification of
audience means “original” fans need to accept that not everyone is going to
approach their favorite characters and stories in the same way and that they no
longer get to be the sole authorities on what works and what doesn’t.
Superheroes aren’t confined to comics anymore, so why should their fans be?
Frankly, if someone can’t appreciate or understand a movie without reading the
source material, then the movie probably wasn’t that good to begin with.
All of this is to say that,
despite having little interest in delving into the comics they’re based on, I
feel oddly fascinated by and invested in superhero films. It’s a genre
exploding with exciting potential, most of which Hollywood frustratingly has
yet to explore, and with characters and narratives that can reach mythological
proportions, they tap into current
societal anxieties and obsessions in a way that realistic/literary drama never
could. However, as cliché as the mantra has become, with great power comes great
responsibility. Now that these movies have gained widespread popularity and a
level of respectability, they can’t be dismissed as escapist fluff anymore,
even if that attitude remains prevalent amongst both fans and critics. The
stories they tell, the people they portray and the issues they’re willing to
confront – and, perhaps more importantly, how
they do all these things – matter.
And that’s why, even to a comic
book n00b like me, the announcement that Wonder Woman was going to be included
in the upcoming Man of Steel sequel
and the more recent unveilings of her casting and costume were a really big
deal. It’s not just that she’s somehow never been in a live-action feature film
before, despite being one of the most iconic superheroes ever. As a well-known
female superhero, that rarest of entities, she has the power to singlehandedly
either transform the comic book movie industry by convincing studios and
creators to finally take the women in the audience seriously or indefinitely
shut down any chance we have of improving female representation in
blockbusters. Fairly or not, Batman V.
Superman: Dawn of Justice will essentially
sink or swim based on its portrayal of Diana.
Wonder Woman preparing to stab whoever thought of that movie
title
Opinions flew
fast and furious when director Zack
Snyder tweeted the first official image of Gal Gadot in costume during San
Diego Comic Con last weekend. While some, including actual
comic
writers, expressed optimism, the majority of comments I’ve seen about the
costume have been complaints: there isn’t enough color, she’s showing too
much/too little skin, Gadot’s too skinny to be convincing, why do the boots
have heels??? That’s not to say I think the criticisms
are all invalid. I’ll concede that it would look better with
more color, and sure, no heels are usually preferable to heels for female
action heroes, even if the heels are at least wedges instead of stilettos and
Wonder Woman doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who would be impeded much
by her shoes. Overall, though, I was surprisingly pleased by the photo. It
shows her in an assertive, feet-planted stance, rather the impossibly
contorted positions women are often forced into so that fanboys can ogle both
their breasts and their butt, and it stays faithful to both the comics and
the franchise’s chosen aesthetic without objectifying her. Only so much can be gleaned
from a single publicity still, but this was enough to give me hope for the
first time that maybe, just maybe we’ll
get the Wonder Woman we deserve. Moreover, I’m starting to tire of the scornful
dismissiveness toward a movie that won’t even come out for another two years.
Also, I have absolutely zero tolerance for anyone policing Gadot’s body, no
matter how innocuous your intentions are. If you care that much about an
actor’s original body type matching their character’s, go whine about Jaime
Bell getting rather inexplicably cast as the
Thing in the Fantastic Four
reboot, or debate whether Ben Affleck needed to be super-buff to play Batman.
Most unsettling before and after pictures ever
The thing is, I totally get most
of the skepticism surrounding this movie as a whole, and their approach to
Wonder Woman in particular, and as recently as six months ago, when
Gal Gadot first got cast, I shared it. Not only was I among the many
detractors of
Man of Steel when it came out
last year, but I’ve long openly disliked Zack Snyder as a filmmaker, primarily
because of Sucker Punch and its
sickening fetishization of violence and young women’s bodies. Beyond that
grossness and the utter lack of interesting, well-written female characters (or
really, any kind of character, regardless of gender) in his work, I find his
visual style, supposedly his greatest asset, to be self-indulgent and ugly. Despite
being known as an action director, he’s never actually shown that he’s capable
of competently, much less compellingly directing an action scene. Add in the
film’s writer David S. Goyer, who’s made some off-putting comments
in
the past, and it would seem we’ve placed Wonder Woman’s cinematic future
into the most ill-equipped, careless hands possible.
Yet, imagine if Snyder and co.
manage to defy all odds and expectations and this new Wonder Woman turns out to
be good, maybe even awesome. Perhaps I’m just feeling generous now or perhaps
I’ve gotten so sick of Marvel president Kevin Feige’s lame,
patronizing
excuses for not giving us a single female- or POC-led film that I’ve started
actively rooting for hapless DC and Warner Brothers to one-up them, but it
seems to me that that fantasy of a Wonder Woman worth applauding remains an
enticing possibility, at least until the movie actually comes out to confirm
either our wildest dreams or worst nightmares. Honestly, she’s not all that
difficult a character to grasp, particularly when the movie-going public has
already shown itself willing to accept a grown man who flies around in a bat
suit to fight crime and a talking raccoon and tree teaming up to save the
world. So, here are some key ideas that Snyder, Goyer and the rest must understand if they want to create a
successful Wonder Woman (hint: it’s not all that different from creating good
characters in general):
1. Pass the Bechdel and Sexy Lamp Tests. I’ve
written about the
Bechdel Test on here before, and the Sexy
Lamp Test, which asks whether a female character could be replaced by a
sexy lamp without changing anything else about the surrounding narrative, is a
similarly basic tool for evaluating female representation in movies.
Essentially, they require female characters to not only exist, but to play a
pivotal role in their film’s plot beyond being a love interest and to have some
kind of life outside their relationships with men. Unfortunately, way too many
movies continue to spectacularly fail both tests, but although it’s still
heavily male-dominated, Batman V.
Superman is in position to pass with flying colors, given that it has not
one, not two, but five
women in its main cast, if IMDb is to be trusted. It would be a
shame if none of those actresses got the opportunity to interact with each
other. Personally, I’d love at least one scene with Wonder Woman and Lois Lane
exchanging intellectual or philosophical musings with each other, or if nothing
else, have Lois and Martha Kent bond over something other than Clark.
2. Respect her origins. While her arcs in
the comics have tricky and problematic elements and will need to be simplified
for a feature-length movie, the basics of her origin story – namely,
that she was crafted and empowered by the gods and lived on an island inhabited
by Amazonian women – should translate just fine. Before you argue that her
origins are too fantastical, let me just say that, once you’ve already had
Superman arriving from an alien planet whose denizens still talk like
Shakespeare in a capsule
resembling a penis, how hard is it to imagine that an isolated island
populated entirely by women might exist? Also, while Wonder Woman has been
depicted as willing to use force in the past, one of her central missions in
the comics is to spread peace throughout the world, and that utopian aspect of
her personality should be incorporated into any cinematic version of the
character. Lastly, comic books and blockbusters are both meant to be
awe-inspiring, and though I’m totally game for the thoughtful gravitas DC is
aiming for and a work’s darkness/seriousness doesn’t inherently have any
bearing on its entertainment value, it wouldn’t hurt to let Wonder Woman and
your other characters smile or even laugh once in a while.
3. Keep in mind who you should be appealing
to: women, not men. One of the biggest issues with female characters in
blockbusters – or, really, any kind of movie, especially if they’re written and
directed by a guy – is that, no matter how complex or interesting they are on
paper, they too-often ultimately get reduced to either eye candy or an
idealized fantasy, a la Manic Pixie Dream Girls, for the men in the audience. Other
than simply developing a nuanced character with agency, there are a number of
ways to avoid turning your female characters into sex objects, like eschewing
cinematography and lighting that pander to the male gaze (for God’s sake, no
more slo-mo pans up women’s bodies!) and making sure they have narrative
purpose besides romance and/or sex. Wonder Woman has a long history as a
feminist icon, so don’t you dare erase or soften that for the sake of making
her more palatable to men. Instead, embrace her cultural heritage as an
empowering figure for women, and show her openly fighting for equality and
championing people who have been marginalized or oppressed by society. I’ll say
it once more, for emphasis: Do not
turn Wonder Woman into a sex object. Seriously.
4. Resist Strong Female Character Syndrome. Tell
me if this sounds familiar: the action heroine of this film is independent, clever
and assertive. She knows how to fight and is perhaps even better at it than the
men around her, and she isn’t opposed to using violent force in order to get
what she wants or to defend herself and those she loves. She’s not interested
in romance and sees emotions as a waste of time, a sign of weakness. The list
of stories that rely on this particular stereotype is way too long to go
through. It’s an insidious trope not just because these characters are often as
dull and thinly-written as the damsels-in-distress they’re no doubt reacting
against, but because it perpetuates the notion that women are only admirable or
valuable if they possess traits and skills traditionally associated with men.
The solution to this isn’t to merely balance a character’s masculine aspects
with feminine ones, though that can be a good start in making her more
well-rounded, but rather to realize that traits and skills shouldn’t be
associated with a specific gender in the first place. In other words, don’t
make Wonder Woman a remorseless killing machine and think you’ve created a good
female character just because she doesn’t scream and whimper at the sight of
blood. Don’t subject her to sexist comments or crude, sneering misogyny just so
she can brush it off or punch a guy and show that she doesn’t put up with
anyone’s bullshit (for real, I’m banning any rape and sexual assault-related
storylines. Just…no). If you want to make her seem real and to convince the
audience to sincerely care about her, give us insight into who she is, into her
dreams and desires, her fears and flaws. Make her an individual with depth, not
a stock cliché.
5. Give her time to shine. This one seems
straightforward, but in crowded ensemble movies like this, it’s impossible to
give every main character adequate screen time. Unsurprisingly, women tend to
get the short end of that stick. Seeing as Wonder Woman has been positioned as
the most prominent supporting character in Batman
V. Superman, perhaps even as a co-lead, she should hopefully get plenty of
room to evolve and reveal different facets of herself to the audience. Most
importantly, don’t let her disappear
when the climax rolls around.
Of course, much more goes into writing
good female characters and bringing them to life on screen, and those more
knowledgeable about Wonder Woman in the comics could offer more detailed
suggestions, but the five above points should provide a solid foundation.
Bringing the most famous female superhero to the big screen for the first time
is an enormous responsibility, the magnitude and pressures of which I can only
hope Snyder and co. fully understand. Please don’t fail us.
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