No, it's "the perfect woman enters an imperfect world to change it for the better."

[seriousfic]

Okay, so Nicolas Winding Refn, the director of Bronson, wants to make a Wonder Woman movie. Okay, any movie could benefit from having an auteur instead of hack, and certainly any story could use someone with a clear creative vision instead of "How much side-boob can I show in a PG-13 movie?" But, uh...

...the real origin of Wonder Woman is: What if women were more powerful than men? What would the world be like? That’s a subliminal theme. [...]But she does have her whole world that she comes from, which is fascinating. The whole idea of a woman who is basically more powerful than any man — and who will always be that, and comes from a society of women who are more powerful than men — is an interesting theme that I think can be very contemporary.

Waat?



I'm... not sure if he phrased that the best way. Perhaps I'm hopelessly literal. But A. The Amazons aren't literally powerful. The canon is inconsistent on this, because it's the Wonder Woman canon, and it's inconsistent on literally everything except that Wonder Woman is a woman, but generally Wonder Woman is the only (or one of a very few) Amazon with superpowers. B. There are no men on Paradise Island. C'mon, we've all heard the jokes. It's not a matriarchal society, because there's no men to deny power to. You could argue that there's xenophobia and misandry there, but I don't think it would fly far.

Are we sure Joss Whedon isn't still interested?

Comments

[jennyo.livejournal.com]

I am going to suggest that you're reading it a little too literally. The word Amazon has a fairly clear connotation in Western/Anglo society, that of, "super-powerful women" so even if the canon is inconsistent on this, Amazon = society of warrior women. And when you're making a comic book film, you have to deviate from the internal canon of the 'verse to varying degrees or the movie's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I mean, it's easy to point out when something goes too far (ahem, ending of Watchmen) but given the idea of Wonder Woman from a place where sexism doesn't exist because men don't exist, invested with more power than anyone except Superman...it is fair to say, "hey, that fits in pretty nicely with the archetype of the Amazon" and to want to make a movie of that.

I am eh on that trope, but I am eh on Wondy in general cuz my fictional preferences are met by Babs and Dinah far more than Diana (My superiority complex is vested in my cleverness, I tend to think of myself as the cheerful one in a world full of sourpusses, and Diana may have a goodly bit of lesbian subtext, but she doesn't really have a girlfriend as cool as Dinah and/or Babs) but "what if there was a woman who could kick the patriarchy in the nuts, as literally as you can kick a philosophical construct in the nuts?" is a decent comic book movie starter.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

I realize you'd have to remix Wonder Woman canon somewhat to get a compelling story (since even comicverse canon as is can't be a compelling story. Do we still have mindwiped Amazons lying around here and there?), but it seems to me he has a pretty shallow understanding of the character and her subtext. I mean, "a woman who's more powerful than men" could be used to describe most action heroines.

[telepresence.livejournal.com]

I think many or most action heroines could be described as more powerful than the average man, but I'm not sure that's what those action heroines are about thematically. When I think about Ms. Marvel I mostly think about someone struggling with her own potential and legacy as a superhero. When I think about Storm...actually, I'm not sure I think about Storm in those terms, she's kind of complicated and closer to a real person than most comic characters, IMO. Maybe being torn between mostly not trusting the world and being very cynical and being a leader and protector. When I think about Hawkgirl I'm thinking about her forgiveness and redemption arc, and being torn between two allegiances (because I mostly know her from the Bruce Timm Justice League cartoons).

(I'm not claiming any of these takes is definitive, just what I think of based on the slice of the characters I've been exposed to at a particular time, obviously under different creative teams and storylines and eras and editors and whatnot all these characters can change like crazy)

Anyway, so they're all powerful women living in a patriarchal world, but to me is seems like Wonder Woman has been more specifically about being a powerful woman in a patriarchal world than most. As far as the rest of the residents of Themiscrya go, my guess is that the general cultural perception is that pretty much all of them are at least Buffy/Xena class somewhat superhuman + highly martially trained + probably magic artifacts, certainly tougher than the average guy.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

And I think Artemis is at least as cool a girlfriend as Dinah. At the very least, redhead vs. bottle blonde? C'mon!

[rann.livejournal.com]

>>"what if there was a woman who could kick the patriarchy in the nuts, as literally as you can kick a philosophical construct in the nuts?" is a decent comic book movie starter.

Sounds more like Frank Miller's take on the character, to me.

Honestly, I'm not sure how anyone could possibly view this as a good take on things. "Sure, there have been plenty of female heroes and action heroes. And sure, they simply demonstrated their ability and worthiness rather than it necessarily having to be a huge point that a woman could be powerful and competent. So that's why, for this female hero, we're going to make her really, really preachy and point out every couple of minutes how amazing and strange it is that a woman can be more powerful than a man. It'll be awesome."