Wonder Woman Controversial Opinions Part 2

[AmiMizuno]

We have to show that the Amazons for the most part aren’t sexist rather just want to be left alone. Yea there should be some Amazons who hate men but that’s due to their mistreatments. For the most part the main reason that the Amazons don’t want to go outside is due to the fact of protecting the outside world. That if a man did go to the island they will heal him. So I’m thinking some Amazons maybe did go and leave paradise a once in a while. Just to check the outsider would. If they are in the Black Sea it’s not that far to say the could go to islands around their island

[AmiMizuno]

What if the Amazons did leave the Island to go to the outside world? That they would just recuse women who need them? But it wasn't until Steve that they decided to be get a real champion?

[Agent Z]

A story about some Amazons (some not all) in and of itself shouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, DC doesn't always handle it very well.

[AmiMizuno]

If we want some modern-day stories about the amazons. What could it be about?

[DrNewGod]

Any call for xenophobic Amazons is a result of misogyny and the way patriarchal privilege rejects any idea of society not centered around men.

...or, just a different opinion of how the Amazons grew into the society they are today. Not every alternative to a progressive idea is inherently seething with a desire to consign said idea's beneficiaries to an oppressive hell-scape.

[kjn]

...or, just a different opinion of how the Amazons grew into the society they are today. Not every alternative to a progressive idea is inherently seething with a desire to consign said idea's beneficiaries to an oppressive hell-scape.

And not every sexist or misogynistic thought is conscious or comes from actual malicious intent. That doesn't stop it from being sexist or misogynistic, and damaging to other people.

Can a story with some Amazons being xenophobic or misandric work? Sure. Gail Simone wrote The Circle, and it's one of the most well-regarded Wonder Woman stories. Can a story with the Amazons dealing with the fallout of their enslavement and their healing after that work? Yes, though there are very few writers I'd trust with such a story.

But just like there is a lot of pushes to make Wonder Woman a "safe" character by shipping her with Superman (or Batman), or by forcing a paternal narrative onto her, or by reducing her to her warrior persona, there is another way to make her "safe": by making her special. The exception. The girl who is just like the dudes. If she chooses Man's World over Themyscira, then she becomes a female ally of patriarchy instead of someone who challenges it. She becomes a champion of Man's World instead of a teacher sent from a female utopia.

Demanding Themyscira to be an unhealthy or narrow-minded place is exactly the equivalent of demanding that Ma and Pa Kent were bad parents to Superman.

[Ascended]

Everyone can be sexist, at least some of the time.

To me, the idea of making the Amazons misandric or xenophobic goes counter to everything that Diana should stand for, as it fundamentally changes her from a teacher who is here to show Man's World a better way to live, to someone who rejects their old bad upbringing for living in a world with men. It's not even critique of Marston's decidely skewed views of gender: merely turning them inside out.

So what you want isn't actually Themyscria, what you want is.....something quite different than what the Amazons have always been.

...or, just a different opinion of how the Amazons grew into the society they are today. Not every alternative to a progressive idea is inherently seething with a desire to consign said idea's beneficiaries to an oppressive hell-scape.

Right? Gods forbid the Amazon culture be written with the flaws they've always had, so they have something to learn and overcome.

No disrespect to anyone, truly, but I'm not getting deeper into this conversation here. CBR isn't the place for it. Unless someone remembers an era where the Amazons weren't xenophobic and wants to talk about the publishing history anyway.

[SiegePerilous02]

The Amazons being xenophobic depends on the execution and the reasoning. Philippus and Hellene from the Perez run and Philippus again in Rebirth are good takes. We were shown the reasons for their attitude in the origins, we can't really blame them for not wanting anything to do with men or outsiders in general. But they didn't go out of their way to harm anyone or be made into villains, and they came around to the idea of letting in outsiders. In Rebirth, Philippus was instantly distrustful of Steve because he was a man. That wasn't fair of her, but she also didn't harm him either.

Morrison's Amazons were more jerkish than Perez's and Rucka's, so overall I'd prefer their take to his. But even with his, it was really just Hippolyta and Mala, and mostly just in the first volume. The Amazons there just wanted to be left alone and didn't go out of their way to harm anyone unless they felt threatened first, and even then they didn't do irreparable harm. Regardless of which of the three takes we go with, I think there is merit in the Amazons having their own arc where they don't want any contact with the outside world and learning to overcome their trauma and fear and be willing to try again. Diana is the bridge between worlds, she needs to teach the Amazons as much as learns from them, same with teaching Man's World as much as she learns from us.

Azzarello's Amazons are really the prime "Do Not Do" example, they harm innocent men and children for seemingly no reason and no provocation and don't have anything to offer the outside world. However...

But just like there is a lot of pushes to make Wonder Woman a "safe" character by shipping her with Superman (or Batman), or by forcing a paternal narrative onto her, or by reducing her to her warrior persona, there is another way to make her "safe": by making her special. The exception. The girl who is just like the dudes. If she chooses Man's World over Themyscira, then she becomes a female ally of patriarchy instead of someone who challenges it. She becomes a champion of Man's World instead of a teacher sent from a female utopia.

Do we really have a take where Diana champions Man's World over her home? Even in the Azzarello run she didn't really do that.

[Tzigone]

But just like there is a lot of pushes to make Wonder Woman a "safe" character by shipping her with Superman (or Batman), or by forcing a paternal narrative onto her, or by reducing her to her warrior persona, there is another way to make her "safe": by making her special. The exception. The girl who is just like the dudes. If she chooses Man's World over Themyscira, then she becomes a female ally of patriarchy instead of someone who challenges it. She becomes a champion of Man's World instead of a teacher sent from a female utopia.

Do we really have a take where Diana champions Man's World over her home? Even in the Azzarello run she didn't really do that.

I don't know that she ever champions man's world over her birth home, but she's always chosen man's world - from her very origins. Sorta hero's journey - they leave home. And, in some cases like Diana's (depending on version) - they go where help is needed even when they could remain safe and no one else wants to take the risk. Admittedly in the some versions, all the women wanted to go. But she leaves the island and decides to spend the bulk of her life in man's world. She has always been a champion for the world we live in - though not necessarily championing it (though certainly early on she had her political "right" side v. wrong but I think that is easily enough discarded if not using WWII-era origin). She often teaches, and that is good (they have good things to teach). The issue is whether or not you wan them to have things to learn, too, or if they are innately superior in all ways. And are they still sexist and that sexism is just correct? That is a no go for me. I cannot get behind anything that says men are inherently bad or inferior compared to women.

And, of course, what the things Amazons have to teach man's world are. Loving submission is not one that works for me at all. Sorry, but the heavy domination and bondage and female superiority themes of the early comics do not work for me, even though I like a lot of the stories that don't deal with that. It's the reality I just don't like that fundamental philosophy that was such a big component of the character in the early days. But that did definitely take a back seat, if not disappear entirely, in later comics. I absolutely do not want the Amazons to be a negative society, to hold negative values fundamental, but I cannot deny that they had values that I most certainly think negative in their original incarnation.

I do like their technological advancement, that they did achieve great things, but I do agree (with someone, can't recall who said it) that that sort of isolation of a society does not historically bring technological advancement in our world. I'm willing to overlook that. As long as the message isn't "women could totally be a perfect society if they didn't have to deal with men."

[VonHammersmark]

Maybe they can strike a happy medium where Paradise Island and the so-called “patriarchy” are neither perfect nor completely flawed and worthy of contempt, where both places stand to learn something from each other…

The Perez free-range Amazons as I like to call them, got nothing to “teach” Mankind though, they need to fix that first

[Ascended]

Maybe they can strike a happy medium where Paradise Island and the so-called “patriarchy” are neither perfect nor completely flawed and worthy of contempt, where both places stand to learn something from each other…

I think that, by and large, that's more or less where modern versions of the Amazons sit. There's exceptions like Azzarello's version (among a few others), but generally I feel like Themyscria does a good job of walking the line where they have a lot to teach the world, but they've got lessons to learn as well. The example SiegePerilous mentioned about Phillipus not trusting Steve just because he was a man is a great one; she's got viable motivation for her bias (the Amazons suffered greatly because of men in the past), and she doesn't hurt Steve (she's not a monster), but she's still making a judgement call based on nothing more than Steve's gender, which is definitely not a positive thing.

You certainly *can* treat the Amazons like a perfect society, who've sent their favored daughter to teach us barbarians how to live right. We've seen that approach before too. But I find that kind of narrative painfully one-sided and I think it limits a lot of options. I much prefer the idea that this cultural exchange goes both ways. There's just more you can do with it that way, than if it's one side constantly educating the other. Hell, even teachers say that they learn from their students! I'd like to see the Amazons handled in a way where they're ethically, technologically, and spiritually more advanced than the rest of us, but there's still things where they have to go "Oh, damn, that's a good idea! Why didn't we think of that?"

[AmiMizuno]

Now if we had to put Azz's amazons in they should be the extremist amazons who are locked away. They went outside because they were still pain but then enjoyed killing men. All the amazons are sad and hoffiy.

[Ascended]

Now if we had to put Azz's amazons in they should be the extremist amazons who are locked away. They went outside because they were still pain but then enjoyed killing men. All the amazons are sad and hoffiy.

Isn't that kinda-sorta just a much, much more extreme version of the Bana?

Seriously asking, I don't know a whole ton about them.

[AmiMizuno]

The Banas are more aggressive but they aren't too extreme to kill innocent men. They are more aggressive due to the fact they are willing to interact with violent groups to get weapons. And worked as mercenaries. There is no mention of them killing the men they sleep with.

[kjn]

For me, the question about having the Amazons be xenophobic is just absurd. Because they are not, and should not be. They just want to live without men. That to some degree makes them isolationist, but they're not in any way eliminationist. Not in Marston, not in Pérez, not in Rucka. The pattern of thought that a community without men must in some way be flawed or inferior is based on the patriarchal idea that men must be at the center of everything.

Another way to view this question is to look at Diana's relation to Amazon society. Is she a hero because of the Amazons, or despite of them? In the movie, she was special because she was their only child and (possibly Zeus's daughter, if Ares told the truth). But all her choices and values came from the Amazons, and her victory was dependant on understanding and integrating the values Hippolyta and Antiope taught her.

With Rucka's Rebirth run, Diana is depected with wanderlust, but again Themyscira is shown as a place of love and understanding, which shaped Diana's values. Their reaction to Steve is to help him get back home, not to reject him.

That's the fundamental trouble with Morrison's and Azzarello's runs, because they make Diana a hero in spite of the Amazons, not because of the Amazons. She is apart and different from them, not the first among equals.