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Gal Gadot in her 2017 film role as Wonder Woman. |
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- Melissa Anderson from her Newsday book review of The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore. Inset left is a Wonder Woman comic book panel (possibly from the 1970s) featuring an explosive rant which begins: "Men! It was you who did this, with your weapons and your war, and your mad need for confrontation..."
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The debate continued with the release of Jenkins' 2017 film, Wonder Woman, which according to the BBC had "some thinking it's too feminist and others thinking it's not feminist enough". Kyle Killian found an inherent contradiction in the construction of Wonder Woman as "a warrior" whom, she states, is also highly sexualized. Killian thus suggests that these elements "should not be the focus of a kickass heroine—her beauty, bone structure, and sexiness—if she is to be a feminist icon..."
- Excerpt from the Wiki entry for Wonder Woman, the 2017 film directed by Patty Jenkins. Inset right, Wonder Woman and her controversial costume.
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- Excerpt from the Wiki entry for the ancient Greek city of Sparta. Note that, in the ancient world, the life span of a woman was shorter than that of her male counterpart. Inset left is a bust of Helen (Helénē) of Troy (or Sparta) by the artist Antonio Canova. She was that famous swan daughter of (Spartan) Leda and the god, Zeus.
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So, you go Kate, and Charlize, and Carrie-Anne... and you go Milla, and Sigourney, and anybody I may have left out. There are no underdogs quite so "under" as women, so, when you shine, all of our repressed warrior instincts finally get to kick some ass!"
- Excerpt from my (2011) PMB post "The New Superheroines - Girls With Guns." Inset right is
Kate Beckinsale as the Vampire (and Death Dealer), Selene.
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From 1987. |
But, as it happens, the official world transforms very, very slowly... and, in certain areas of the globe, almost not at all; and in regards to the subordination of the female gender, well, despite several "waves" of feminists - and thousands upon thousands of years spent pushing the world's population out of their (collective) wombs - women are still essentially the underdogs. The odd thing is, even when a woman is the boldest, most attractive, most ingenious person she can be, chances are she still fears she is never quite good enough and her accomplishments are trivial, often driving her to overcompensate for a deficiency she never really had. Inwardly, regardless of her accomplishments, she still feels as if she's treading water, or as if some undefinable force continues to hold her back or drag her down. This is not a delusion. Metaphorically, society - under the spell of a pervasive patriarchal zeitgeist - clipped her wings many ages ago. And this legacy - this insidious mutation - was genetically* passed down to her in such a way, that she needs no outside force to enslave her - the trappings of her prison exist at all times embedded within her own psychology.
So, the question becomes: how can a maimed bird fly?