Wonder Woman – I am torn. I want so badly to look up to her, to see her as a
symbol of both early and modern feminism. Although there are some instances of
female empowerment throughout the first fie issues, the reoccurring comments on appearance makes it difficult
to look beyond the surface of female characters and see them for the superheroes that
they could be.
The one and only moment
when I felt the series really made a comment on the equality of women occurs in
Sensation Comics No. 2 “Dr. Poison.” In this issue, we are introduced to the
villain, you guessed it, Dr. Poison. On page 43, in the final panel, Dr. Poison
is revealed to be a woman. I loved this plot twist! The revelation forced me to
step back and ask myself, why can’t a woman be a villain? I always assumed the
villains to be male. But this decision to create a female villain showed that
author Charles Moulton really believed that woman could be just as powerful and
just as threatening as their male counterparts.
You could argue that in
that same issue of Sensation Comics, the rallying of the band girls to make
Wonder Woman’s mini army also shows the power of woman. Although it is
refreshing to see a group of young women take down a group of Nazis, too much
of this take down was because of their beauty. The women, in this case, were a
visual distraction instead of a forceful or cunning distraction. And Wonder
Women picks them to be so. As mentioned on page 40 in the final panel,
“Hundreds of women volunteered and Wonder Woman picks the prettiest and the
strongest.” To me, this comment tells girls that, yes they can be strong, but
they must also be pretty in order to be seen as powerful.
This scene, along with
the continuous references to Wonder Woman’s attire (“The hussy! She has no
clothes on! – “Wonder Woman Comes to America” page 20), and her obsessive puppy
love for Captain Trevor makes it difficult to see Wonder Woman as a feminist
comic.
From what I can tell from
these first five issues, Wonder Woman is just another stereotype of a woman motivated
by the hopes of gaining a man’s affections. She will continue to fight for him,
and she will look good doing it.
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ReplyDeleteLaura, I think you're so right here. My biggest problem with the "Wonder Woman as a feminist hero" lens was that her entire journey to America/to fight for justice, is motivated by 'love' for a man. There is very little talk of her want for justice or respect or protection of humanity, and rather her noble morals and impulses are pushed to the background to make way for a burgeoning love story. I think this forces the character into being romantic ahead of heroic, and reflects an editorial/authorial assumption that girls will only read about women in romances. Like you, I wanted Wonder Woman to be different, to be a bastion of equality among a never-ending sea of white male stereotypes, but unfortunately this was never realized.
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