I just got
home from seeing Wonder Woman. I was in tears for half the movie: Diana was
never once presented as a sex object, she was never sidelined, her thighs shook,
and she is a fighter. Not just a girl
who can be dressed up in a sexy catsuit and fight sexily, but a fighter. Not
one of those fight scenes was choreographed so she could land in an awkward
pose that showed off her ass. She is gorgeous but not once was her worth
correlated to her beauty.
All of that, and she was still able to express a full
range of human emotion – she didn’t have to be a hardass bitch who could only
be angry or disappointed. She got to show joy, and wonder, and confusion, and
horror, and sadness, and love – and anger, yes, real deep anger that comes from
the pit of the soul. She is a whole, dynamic person who also happens to be a
bad ass warrior. AND she could be this bad ass warrior without having a father or mother to hate, or trauma to catapult her into the world. Diana grew up loved and happy, and she stepped out into the world because it was the right thing to do, not because she had a personal ax to grind.
My husband
was with me, and I remember coming to the realization part-way through that he
was born into this. He has had this
his entire life. It makes me so angry, and it also makes me so happy that there
are little girls right now who will grow up with what I didn’t, and little boys
who will grow up with this as well, who will be awed by Diana and see how Steve treats
her.
Wonder Woman wearing an evening gown over her suit of armor while arriving uninvited to a fancy dinner party with an entire sword strapped to her back ready to kill a man is by far the Biggest Mood of 2017