Two steps forward, three steps back.
Jun. 30th, 2010 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
artifactrixSo Wonder Woman is getting an overhaul/reboot/makeover/franchise-revitalizing-buzzword. And I, alas, am ambivalent about it.
I want to like this. I really do. For one thing, her new uniform? Fantastic. She gets a leather jacket. And pants. All superheroines should be so fortunate, to get to fight crime in actual clothes instead of dental floss and/or body paint. Diana's been fighting the good fight in swimwear and heels for seventy years now, and it's about damn time someone did something about it.
No, see, my problem starts here:
"The origins of the Amazon princess are also reinvented: Instead of being raised on Paradise Island, the young Diana is smuggled out as a child while her Amazon sisters remain behind and are murdered."
What.
Excuse me, D.C.? Did you seriously just fridge an entire culture?
You did.
You just fridged a sovereign nation of women warriors to create drama.
Look. I don't purport to be an expert, but according to the almighty Wikipedia, Wonder Woman was created by William Moulton Marston to be a "distinctly feminist role model whose mission was to bring the Amazon ideals of love, peace, and sexual equality to a world torn by the hatred of men." It even cites its source.
Okay, weird gender-essentialism and obligatory implicit misandry aside (love, peace, "LOL men ruin everything and cause nothing but problems"), that's great. With a mission statement like that, surely D.C. has some inclination to keep at least just this one title relativelyfree of light on the usual overwhelming sexism of the medium in general.
You know, I'm not 100% convinced the writers even notice that they're doing it. To read them blogging about it, they seem genuinely and unironically convinced that they're doing great work, revitalizing a classic and bringing her story into the modern age.
Oh, comics. I want to love you, I really do, but you're full of assholes and dinosaurs and unexamined privilege. And I really want to congratulate you when you try to be better, but you're doing it wrong.
I want to like this. I really do. For one thing, her new uniform? Fantastic. She gets a leather jacket. And pants. All superheroines should be so fortunate, to get to fight crime in actual clothes instead of dental floss and/or body paint. Diana's been fighting the good fight in swimwear and heels for seventy years now, and it's about damn time someone did something about it.
No, see, my problem starts here:
"The origins of the Amazon princess are also reinvented: Instead of being raised on Paradise Island, the young Diana is smuggled out as a child while her Amazon sisters remain behind and are murdered."
What.
Excuse me, D.C.? Did you seriously just fridge an entire culture?
You did.
You just fridged a sovereign nation of women warriors to create drama.
Look. I don't purport to be an expert, but according to the almighty Wikipedia, Wonder Woman was created by William Moulton Marston to be a "distinctly feminist role model whose mission was to bring the Amazon ideals of love, peace, and sexual equality to a world torn by the hatred of men." It even cites its source.
Okay, weird gender-essentialism and obligatory implicit misandry aside (love, peace, "LOL men ruin everything and cause nothing but problems"), that's great. With a mission statement like that, surely D.C. has some inclination to keep at least just this one title relatively
You know, I'm not 100% convinced the writers even notice that they're doing it. To read them blogging about it, they seem genuinely and unironically convinced that they're doing great work, revitalizing a classic and bringing her story into the modern age.
Oh, comics. I want to love you, I really do, but you're full of assholes and dinosaurs and unexamined privilege. And I really want to congratulate you when you try to be better, but you're doing it wrong.
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no subject
Date: 2010-07-01 10:56 am (UTC)