Patty Jenkins says Wonder Woman not a Feminist Superhero

[Geraldofrivia]

WW not being bulletproof is DC's fault. In one of rebirth comics they almost killed her with one. And i don't know how much control Patty had over the script of the first movie. As far as i know she had nothing to do with that. So we need to see her in WW84 and the sequele to know how powerful she will portray WW.

She don't have to be bulletproof but she is a God and can not be killed by bullets. She can tank it just like wolverine and Deadpool.

Feminism in Wonder Woman have always been equality for everyone

[Geraldofrivia]

We know too little about the WW84 to speculate, but it seems like it is set to at least acknowledge the AIDS crisis, which would mean bringing LGBTQ questions into the fore. So I'm hopeful that Jenkins will approach or use some feminist themes or analysis in the movie, which I agree with Pinsir is something that is needful.

On the other hand, few of the writers after Marston has chosen to engage with feminist themes. Marston at least picked up the ways that women are made invisible within the patriarchy on numerous occasions. The writer who has engaged most directly with Marston's feminism is sadly Morrison, and he made a strawman out of it to knock down—more a parody of feminism than anything else.

WW84 seems to be anti-communist or Soviet than anything about Feminism or LGBT. I hope I am wrong.

[starlight25]

She don't have to be bulletproof but she is a God and can not be killed by bullets. She can tank it just like wolverine and Deadpool.

Feminism in Wonder Woman have always been equality for everyone

Yet more than once they have shown a bullet as a threat to her life in the comics. Things like that need to stop and respect the material that shows that her healing is good enough to deal with bullets. And her being very durable to everything else

Feminism is and will always be part of Wonder Woman.

[brettc1]

Jenkins, 45, bristles at this last idea, however. “[Wonder Woman] doesn’t have a chip on her shoulder. That was something I felt … that I really brought in. We had a lot of conversations about feminism and her point of view. She’s not a feminist. It never occurred to her that she would treat somebody differently to somebody else, which is the stronger statement.”

What do you guys think?

https://www.scmp.com/culture/film-tv...-movies-female

Sounds like a trigger for some rage.

Sorry Patty. All they ever need is an excuse to turn on you... 😞

[kjn]

Feminism in Wonder Woman have always been equality for everyone

Has it? Under Marston, it most definitely wasn't. He picked up some core feminist themes (like the way women were largely invisible to men), but his "feminism" was more patriarchy with women at the top rather than anything else. But at least it worked to make women's labour visible, consistently showed women as capable, and touched on workplace issues.

And even a totally watered-down and simplistic take on feminism as "equality for everyone" has seldom been at the forefront of later runs. In a way, Wonder Woman is in a strange place: she is a feminist icon without ever really having engaged with feminism or said anything about it. Which in a way is fine, but it gets a bit empty.

The Hiketeia is instructive here. It is a philosophical take on questions on justice: who justice protects, who is allowed justice, and who is allowed to decide. And it has a murdered sexually abused woman at its core. But the way it was written I read it more as a touching on class (granted, this might be my own biases at work) than on gender and patriarchy, and it didn't say that much about either, except for shining a bright light on some very ugly aspects of the way Batman—especially the modern one—is constructed and raising some very hard questions. This is not a flaw of the story, it poses excellent questions. The issue is that it is so alone in asking those questions and trying to navigate Wonder Woman among them.

[Konja7]

There is one piece of feminist critique of our culture that I believe could have improved the film, and better yet it would only have amounted to cutting two short scenes: Diana inviting Steve into her hotel room in Veld, and the picture of their window from outside. That is, the movie would have skipped from Diana and Steve talking and dancing in the square directly to the morning after. The reason for that is that Wonder Woman, at core, is a coming-of-age story. And one of the things that is ingrained in that coming-of-age stories for women are tied to them getting together with a man. Boys can become men in many different ways; girls become women by discovering boys (or men). In fact, I believe a huge reason why Frozen was such a big hit was because it rejected that idea and pattern. Instead of following through on the message that men are necessary for procreation but unnecessary for pleasure, Wonder Woman chose to buy into the established pattern that men are necessary to make girls into women.

I do not think it is necessary to have such a "cynical" view of that scene.

For starters, Diana is not a girl who becomes a woman in the movie. Diana was a woman when she meets Steve.

The fact that Diana chooses to be with Steve is her choice, which is still a theme in feminism.

Not to mention that many coming-of-age stories for boys include romance


PS: I suspect Frozen was a hit due to the song "Let it go".

[kjn]

I do not think it is necessary to have such a "cynical" view of that scene.

For starters, Diana is not a girl who becomes a woman in the movie. Diana was a woman when she meets Steve.

The fact that Diana chooses to be with Steve is her choice, which is still a theme in feminism.

Not to mention that many coming-of-age stories for boys include romance

PS: I suspect Frozen was a hit due to the song "Let it go".

I'm not saying that the romance between Steve and Diana was handled badly in any way; it's probably the best managed love story in any superhero movie to date. The problem with this scene mostly lies outside the movie itself. You have to look at how coming of age stories are presented for men and for women, and then at the pieces that are part of them. And there is a clear difference there: women's coming of age stories are far more likely to have a relation with a man as a core element. Marriage might not be the explicit end goal anymore, but the tendency is there. For men's coming of age stories, the reverse is not true: you can find plenty of them with no or little relation to a woman.

Wonder Woman the movie only partially conforms to that pattern, in that Diana's coming of age story is much more about her relation to humanity as a whole, but it still includes a consummation of Diana's and Steve's relationship, which is a part of the pattern. Removing those two scenes might not have improved the movie as a movie, but it would IMO have made it a more feminist one.

[Kurisu]

Misandrist Wondie ftw.

[Mel Dyer]

She’s wise to distance herself from feminism which, contrary to popular belief, is not just anathema to “straight white misogynist dudes”, a crushing majority of women reject feminism as well

Furthermore, I picture Wonder Woman as a free, independent thinker, as opposed to someone who adheres to an ideology. To be loyal to an ideology is to abandon the pursuit of truth and Wonder Woman is all about Truth

Well said!

I would humbly add that Diana's fealty to an ideology would also require her to abandon the pursuit of universal freedom - freedom to think, to love, to express your culture, to learn, to grow strong and to inspire others. I think Wonder Woman, as a self-liberated Amazon - we often forget this - is all about championing and living in freedom. As in the real world, ours, ..TRUTH, and not force or stabbing people, is her most powerful weapon against conquest, tyranny and oppression.

An isolated civilization, who has convinced itself that nothing beyond its borders is relevant or worth learning about is living a fable ..and begging to be brought low by something - people, nature, disease, its own destructive ideological vacuums ..or something outside itself. Like Rome [Check all of the above! ], when it finally falls, however brutally, truth has been met, ..and the folly of self-deception is laid bare for all to see. Truth is very powerful; it is attendant to living in freedom, and I think Diana, with her Golden Lasso, has always been, first and foremost, ..a champion of freedom.

I can't honestly see Wonder Woman being a slave or prisoner to ideology, even feminism, of any kind. I think it would be a betrayal of her Amazonian ideals. Yet, the refusal to indulge ideology...isn't that, in itself, ..an ideology? [Oh no!] Kinda'. She'd figure it out, though.

[Jim Kelly]

Feminism is a term that first arose in the early part of the 19th century. Women who were described as feminists were socially active in a lot of different reforms. Granting property rights to women, abolition of slavery, suffrage for women and the other disenfranchised, workers' rights, the temperance movement, child health and nutrition, access to medical support for women including abortion. Not every woman who was a feminist was on the same page--some feminists were Quakers, for instance, and believed in temperance and the abolition of slavery, but would have been against abortion.

The Joan Collins character in STAR TREK'S "The City on the Edge of Forever" could be described as feminist. She was a pacifist. A lot of the issues of feminism are described as mother issues. Women are thought to be the more caring sex. They want things for their children like peace and health. That's why William Moulton Marston was so much in favour of female values over male values. He saw women as being better than men, because women wanted what he thought were the best things. That's what he created Wonder Woman to promote.

A lot of men looked down on women for having those values, because they saw them as weak. But Marston saw women as strong.

The current generation forgets all the sacrifices that previous generations endured to gain those rights we take for granted. We forget how many people were imprisoned and died in the fight for civil rights, labour rights and equal rights. Those hard fought for values haven't come without a lot of blood being spilled. It's easy to turn feminists into a meme and malign them through demogoguery, but the rights they won for all of us could go away tomorrow. Those who want to overturn those rights have already won by turning us against the people who fought and died for us.

[Castling]

I believe she feels this way because she doesn't want to compete with Captain Marvel or have Wonder Woman 1984 face a similar backlash from the unenlightened.

To be honest, the Wonder Woman film played with feminist tropes much better than the heavy-handed Captain Marvel.

[Castling]

Why, because all the controversy helped the film find the audience it was trying to reach? I'd agree with that. I've also gone on record stating I feel Captain Marvel sold it's feminist message in a real world way that was far more effective than anything in Wonder Woman.

I don't think CM sold anything more effectively than WW, other than it's Marvel brand labeling between two event movies. Even after two films, Carol's only real characteristic is that of deus ex machina punching machine.

[LordUltimus]

She don't have to be bulletproof but she is a God and can not be killed by bullets. She can tank it just like wolverine and Deadpool.

So does that mean Kryptonians are more powerful than gods? Are the New Gods not bulletproof? Can Darkseid be harmed by a bullet?

[lotchj]

WW84 seems to be anti-communist or Soviet than anything about Feminism or LGBT. I hope I am wrong.

I hope the WW84 is about anti-communist or Soviet!! I hope the WW84 movie stay away from making any statement about Feminism or the LGBT!!

[SiegePerilous02]

WW84 needs to first and foremost be a well crafted movie with two female leads with a complicated relationship between them.

If the characters and their story are strong, it will speak for itself. It shouldn't have to get heavy handed with things the way Captain Marvel sort of did.