Wonder Woman: Why Women Needed This

Look, I am the first to admit I don't like DC movies. They are too dark. They are too melodramatic. They try to hard too deliver that "the world is awful" realism that I just avoid in movies in general. I know a lot of people are into that, I am just not one of them.

HOWEVER. Wonder Woman, the first super hero movie about a woman. Wonder Woman, the first super hero movie directed by a woman. Wonder Woman. This movie is not one of DC's standard lineup, and that is why it might just save the franchise. But enough about DC. I wanted to talk about why women have been flocking to this movie in droves. Why they have literally been breaking down in tears while watching it. Why this movie is so damn important.

I just want to say that, apart from everything I am about to discuss, Wonder Woman is a really good movie. It is a genuinely a good movie, not just a miracle for women everywhere. I won't really be going into plot here, but on a scale of 1-10 I give it a solid 8.

The story introduces a society of perfect women. They were made to be compassionate, loving, and wise. They are warriors. They are strong. They live in a perfect society where there is no crime and the sun is always shining. What a vision. Immediately the audience can sense something different from what you would expect. What is it? It is the women themselves.

• In the world oh white washing that is a staple of Hollywood, this society is diverse and vibrant.  This spreads beyond the Amazons and to the male side characters as well. It is not a world made up of white and light skinned racially ambiguous characters. 
• In a world where ageism is rampant in movies and many actresses careers die as soon as they hit 40, women in their 50s and more are portrayed as powerful, intelligent, beautiful leaders. They are not airbrushed. Their wrinkles and age stand strongly and proudly on their faces for the entire audience to see as they ride down their enemies and stab them in the throat. 
• There is no one body type of strength. There are lean and fast women. There are solid muscular women. There are women's bodies on display that would never make the screen if this was made by a man, and they are shown to be powerful, not eye candy for the male audience. 

That leads to my next point. The infamous "male gaze" that dominates cinema? Or the "boner lens" as I like to call it. This is the view almost every movie made. It shows us every woman through how straight men would want to see them. Sexualized. In many cases its so subtle most people don't even realize it until it is pointed out to them. It can be as obvious as a scene where the male hero accidentally walks in on the female nude or partially nude (which is hilariously reversed in this movie), or as subtle as scenes with women fighting shot just at the right angle to accentuate her breasts or butt. A close up of her lips. Filming the scene to deliberately show the male hero looking down at the woman.

None of that crap was in this movie. Even though the Amazon's outfits showed most of their legs, they was not a single sexual shot of them. Their boobs are not pressed together and up for male consumption. Their legs and arms jiggled. JIGGLED. Women are never allowed to jiggle, especially in super hero films (unless it is their boobs). The women in this movie were god damn heroes, and they were shown to be that, nothing less. They are not there for men to drool over. They are there to save the day.

Our leading lady, Diana, rejects the "strong female character" trope that men (and sadly many women) think is good writing these days. You know the type. She can fight (but not as well as the man), she is emotionally distant (for the man to break down her walls), and usually says something like "I am not like other girls" or "I was raised with brothers, that is why I am good at this traditionally male activity". And usually in the end needs to be saved by the male hero.

Diana is strong, but vulnerable. She is innocent, but tough as nails. She is driven, passionate, and stubborn, but she is compelled overall my love and compassion. She doesn't do what she does because she can't leave her violent life behind, or is too traumatized to do anything else, or because she doesn't know how or can't (in the case of mutants) live any differently. She is a hero because she loves so deeply and so much she physically can not stand to let people suffer around her. This is a female hero we have never seen before.

And let us examine our leading man for a second. Steve. Oh Steve. He is the male love interest we have been waiting for. He is above all, kind. He is driven by a sense of justice. He understands the cultural norms concerning women that he was raised with, but he does not accept them as right or natural. He is continuously baffled by Diana and her strange behavior, but he does not try to stop her because she is a woman. When he does try to stop her it is because he genuinely believes she is putting herself or others in danger through her actions. He easily hands command over to Diana and never makes a stink about being led by a woman. He doesn't have an ego. He doesn't care if he is humiliated or mocked. All he wants is peace. He is inspired by Diana but his morality does not depend on her. He was going to do everything he could to stop the war and save lives whether he met her or not, but is more than willing to do whatever he can to support and help her.

His most powerful scene for me was near the end, when Diana realizes that it is men, not the mythical Ares as she has led to believe, that are behind war. That darkness is a part of humanity and she cannot save them from themselves. She doesn't understand, and Steve is in tears trying to explain it to her. He has always known this fact, that humans are corrupt. He knows he is part of the problem, that they all are, that they don't deserve someone as pure as Diana, but he cannot stop fighting for them anyway. He is shaking, crying, grasping for words desperately trying to make her understand. And even though he fails to do so, and she refuses to help him, he charges in to the fight head first anyway. He cannot possibly do anything else. It is who he is. He is not the male hero we have come to know. He is a common man, he has no tragic back story, but though he is common he is uncommonly good.

Diana herself has many scenes that are stunning to watch. The final battle is certainly one of them. And her scene of discovering WW1 era women's fashion was fantastic, but there is one scene that stood out. It has been much talked about for its ability to make women spontaneously burst into tears. It is the scene where Diana, when all the men are shouting around her to stay put, that she can't save the village, she sheds her cloak, dons her armor, and steps out of the trenches into No Man's land anyway. She is taking heavy fire from the Germans, but she continues on. She holds up her shield and drops to her knees as thousands of bullets are rained down on her, but she does not stop. In that moment, millions of women watching the movie, including myself, were overwhelmed by emotion, and teared up or began to openly cry.

It has been kind of hard to figure out why that scene hits home so hard, but I think the best way to put it is that women didn't even realize how starved for a woman superhero that was not sexualized, not eye candy for men, and is THE hero of her own story they were. A hero that they can look at and see themselves and their own struggles without a hint of having to look through a man's eyes. When they see that on the big screen, all the repressed feelings, anger, resentment, along with pure joy come pouring out. Representation is important. The response to this movie shows that.

And that, overall, is why this movie is so important for women, and men to see. It shows us what can be in the future of not only superhero movies but of cinema in general. A woman in the director's chair was a key factor in this, and the world has shown the skeptics that these times of movies ARE financially viable. This movie may just go down in history as the turning point for women in film, and I am very excited that I was able to see it.