Egalitarianism in Action

Posted on June 7, 2017 by Clint

So, Wonder Woman premiered in the U.S. and many other countries last week and it’s naturally generating a lot of thinkpieces, particularly after defying both the low expectations plaguing the idea of a woman-led action movie (much less a superhero movie) and the bad-to-lukewarm critical response to the DC Cinematic Universe so far.

I know I was one of those with those low expectations, having been thoroughly unimpressed by Man of Steel, Batman V Superman, and most especially Suicide Squad, where my viscerally negative reaction surprised even myself since I went into it not really caring about any of the characters involved, and didn’t watch it until weeks after its release so thought I was prepared to be underwhelmed. But enough about me nearly breaking my television… the track record contributed to a degree of skepticism where despite my support for the idea of female-led superhero films, I just couldn’t bring myself to commit to making the theatrical exception.

But then the early reviews and word of mouth started coming in, from people who could hardly be described as shills or even just overly enthusiastic fans, and so in the end I counted myself among those contributing to WW’s historic 100+ million opening weekend.

Did it deserve it? I believe yes. Far worse movies have pulled in far more dollars, after all, and Wonder Woman is a genuinely well put together movie with a talented director at the helm who had a vision and something to say. Now, what message you took away from Patty Jenkins’ opus will vary from person to person. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I was not reduced to tears of joy like many of the grown, professional women who watched. Perhaps more surprisingly, Dawn did not tear up even though she sure as heck did when Rey caught the lightsaber or when Holtzmann two-gunned her way through a horde of ghosts.

But despite this both of us agree there is a sincerity of emotion and effort permeating the movie. And, I believe, an amazingly healthy take on men and women in the form of the lead characters Diana Prince and Steve Trevor. I mean, I was never a big fan of Wonder Woman, and Steve Trevor was just an absolute cipher to me until Chris Pine brought him to life on the big screen. There is a rare alchemy here. An equality of, if not power level, of spiritual importance. Some have compared the relationship to that of Superman and Lois Lane in the first 1978 film, and that seems to be a fairly interesting nexus because it’s part of the period that gave us the two other comparisons rattling around in my brain: Han Solo/Luke Skywalker & Princess Leia, and Indiana Jones/Marion Ravenwood. I always enjoyed those ladies because even if the movie wasn’t theirs, they acted like they didn’t know that, and their own demonstrations of verve, morals and resourcefulness elevated the film. There was an egalitarian flair to the proceedings. Not always, of course, but hell, I was pretty goddamned freaked out just watching the Well of Souls sequence on a movie screen so I didn’t much hold it against Marion that she, too, became a shrieky mess for its duration. Other than them, what have we seen since? I think we’d have to go further back instead to the era of Katharine Hepburn and such. Maybe this phenomenon has to go in 30-40 year cycles? I hope not.

But I’ve always wondered how it would feel being a woman and watching Leia or Marion onscreen, very plucky and capable sidekicks but sidekicks nonetheless. I think in Wonder Woman‘s Steve Trevor, I might at last have my answer, and it was quite satisfying. Mind you, I’m a white dude and so have gotten to see my identifier in the lead plenty of times, which might make this easier. I’ve seen some grumbling that Steve might be *too* developed, enough that he unjustly overshadows the rare leading lady in her own film. But it’s not just me taking the other perspective. To really go into it more would be to delve into spoiler territory which I want to avoid this early on, as I hope some of you who haven’t seen it yet will be moved to give it a go. I believe Patty Jenkins truly did achieve a balance whereby she elevated womankind without having to tear down mankind to do it, and that alone is worth tossing some hard-earned cash at. And Diana Prince throws tanks. Let’s not forget the tank throwing. Superheroes done right are awesome, no matter what’s under the hood.

3 thoughts on “Egalitarianism in Action”

  1. Verz

    I agree with a lot of this, especially the lack of enthusiasm for pretty much any DC movie released in my lifetime.
    The movie felt a bit more of a spectacle that was a bit light on story and quality dialogue, much like Michael Bay films but actually competent.
    I don’t think Wonder Woman has redeemed DC’s cinematic universe just yet, but it is definitely a step in the right direction; Let’s hope Harley Quin gets at least a release this good.

  2. Deoxy

    “But I’ve always wondered how it would feel being a woman and watching Leia or Marion onscreen, very plucky and capable sidekicks but sidekicks nonetheless.”

    That’s because, in terms of action, women ARE the sidekicks, at best. On the flip side, they are not generally part of the massive body count, either.

    That’s the part that gets glossed over so so SO often. “Oh, oh, it’s all about LEADING MEN, sexism, sexism, sexism….” Well, excuse me, but by the numbers, it’s all about DYING MEN. No matter who the hero is, male or female, it’s going to be men that do the vast majority of the dying (both “good guys” and “bad guys”).

    You never hear women clamoring to be part of the body count.

    Real life is horrendously sexist, whether we agree with it or not, whether we go along with it or buck it with all we have. Every human being on the planet could be completely and honestly against sexism, and life would continue to be massively sexist – our opinions on the matter are almost entirely irrelevant. Short of massive pharmacological tinkering that might well cause the extinction of humanity, we can’t change it.

    Men, as a group, risk a LOT more. As such, they have many more and larger successes… and many more and larger failures. (But hey, those don’t matter, right?) And this is not something that is imposed on us – it’s freedom of choice in action.

    I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I plan to, and I expect that I’ll enjoy it. I have nothing AGAINST a female lead in the slightest, especially one with actual super powers that explain why she can hold her own against professional male soldiers (unlike so many others in movies). I just find all the fawning and cheering about this stuff to be ridiculous.

    In the real world, women who can physically hold their own against an average man are exceedingly rare (or the problem of rape would be almost non-existent, instead of a serious issue… that is still not even 10% of the claims in the national media, and yes I mean that literally because their claims are unbelievable, “actual war zones in the real world are literally not this bad” crazy). I don’t say that because I dislike women or WANT it to be this way – it’s just the way this world is.

    Did you see that crazy girl from the video of the riots a few week back? She went toe-to-toe with a fairly average-looking guy, hit him first with a weighted glove (that would be a WEAPON, actually, both by law and in fact), and he shrugged it off and put her down with one blow… exactly as expected.

    Forget any claim of who was in the right (politically or legally), that’s not the point – why did she think she physically had a chance there? That’s like a man thinking he can have a baby – life is not fair, it doesn’t work that way, no matter how hard we wish upon a star. But only one of those things gets portrayed seriously by Hollywood (the other is a comedy movie).

    There are PLENTY of female leads in movies! Just not many in action movies (especially GOOD ones), and that makes sense – movies should spend their “suspension of disbelief” carefully, and only a few have enough to spare to spend it on “non-super-powered woman beats up multiple average men by herself”, much less changing “average men” to “professional fighting men”. Heck, multiple-on-one odds stretches suspension of disbelief too far a lot of the time even when the hero IS a well-trained male! There’s a reason Rambo-style action heroes, while enjoyable, are also laughed at for being so ridiculous.

    Again, none of this has anything to do with the way I WANT things, it has only to do with the way things are.

    Later: Bloody crap – I read that link you had, and it’s every bit as bad as I expected. All the positives, none of the negatives.

    “…I’ll be happy when the reaction we all have is just pure enjoyment. It’d be nice to eventually get to the point where female representation in the action blockbuster genre is a given, and we can enjoy these (hopefully) copious scenes without the weight of their significance on our shoulders”

    I’m already there, I’ve already been there forever. Write good characters and good plot, with believable action, and I don’t care whether the lead is male or female. (And don’t get me started on the DIRECTOR – seriously, no one sees or hears that person! It doesn’t MATTER if they are male or female!)

    In my experience, the main reason female-led stuff fails is that it doesn’t get TREATED as normal – everything has to be punctuated with extra political crap, and if we’ve lucky, it’s only heavily implied.

    To point out how ridiculous this kind of thing is, a common response to a post like this is to call me sexist. Yes, yes, “I don’t care whether the lead is male or female” is SO sexist.

  3. SteelRaven

    Think DC movies have been trying to hard to distance themselves from Marvel movies while at the same time gunning to cash in on the ‘shared universe’ idea (Universal is making the same missteps with their universal monsters reboots) As a fan of the movie Aliens, I never saw the idea of a strong female protagonist as some sort of magical unicorn and always though it was backwards we are still talking about in a social/political context. A good character is a good character and a good story is a good story. No need to post manifesto.

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