Wonder Woman And The Power Of Watching A Woman Save The World

Wide eyed, heart pounding, glued to their chairs while the credits roll after an exhilarating and masterful movie adaptation, one name and one certainty remains distinctly clear: millions of people worldwide just found their new favorite superhero. Wonder Woman, Amazonian Princess of Themyscira, daughter of Zeus, arguably one of the most contemporary and progressive heroes of our time. In her remarkable quest to save the world in the midst of World War I along with her partner Steve Trevor, Diana Prince becomes an unyielding symbol of the feminist movement and an advocate for love and hope. She is both vulnerably human and astonishingly superhuman.

American Publications, which was one of the three companies that merged to form DC Comics.

Wonder Woman is a figure that is considerable recognizable. She was created in 1941 by a psychologist named William Moulton Marston or Charles Moulton as his pen name (who studied the psychological effects of mass media and the developer of the lie-detector test) . Wonder Woman is known as Princess Diana, the Amazonian warrior from Themyscira . She acquired her powers

Her mission is to bring love, peace, and sexual equality to a world torn by the hatred of men. The heroine Princess Diana of Themyscira, more famously known as Wonder Woman, has gone through various reimagining and different retellings in both media and comic books. But all of these have the same basic origin. She was born and lived the majority of her life on the isolated paradise island of Themyscira, an island inhabited entirely of Amazonian women. Everything changed one day when pilot, Captain Steve Trevor crashed on the mysterious island. Soon after he crashed, as he was being held and treated on the island, Queen Hippilyta held a tournament to decide who would have the honor of escorting Captain Trevor back to the

Toni the Superhero by R.D. Base is about a young boy that lives his life as a superhero. Toni the Superhero is not your typical comic book style children’s book. Each page has only one short sentence that describes what Toni is doing at the time. Toni doesn’t fight villains. Instead he shows his super hero powers by caring, helping, and sharing.

However, Gal Gadot as Diana Prince broke all previously conceived stigma and uneasiness around the subject by successfully portraying a naïve but courageous superhero. The breakthrough role evoked praises from all corners of the world, from people thanking Gadot for empowering women in the media to people advocating for similar movies with females and minorities in the cast. The movement this movie has sparked is relevant for two reasons: one, the role proves that women in superhero movies do not need to be over sexualized or objectified to sell tickets (as evident in previous Marvel/DC movies), and two, representation in cinema proves to successful and prolific. As some sources say, Diana Prince has “revolutionized” the cinematic world towards a more diverse and representative era.

Both image one and two portray females in a heroic role. They are both made out to look very attractive by society’s definition which includes curves, long lush hair and smooth silky skin. But, both images although very similar will be more attractive for different audiences.

Moulton created Wonder Woman to fight the ideals of hypermasculinity in the comic book industry by introducing a character who would fight with compassion and grace rather than brute force. At the same time, DC was trying to expand their audience to a female-centric readership. So just 2 years after Batman's introduction Wonder Woman made her first appearance in All-Star comics (1941), she got her solo series in June 1942, in the post first wave feminist era. Wonder Woman #1 (1942) mainly focuses on Diana’s origin story and the history of Amazonia, familiarizing the reader with her character and setting out a franchise that would be revered for its strong feminist views, but is wonder woman really the feminist icon we make her out to be? Is

I personally never had an interest in Wonder Woman. I do not think I had definite reasons to support my deficiency in curiosity, but I conclude that she never grabbed my attention in the ways that she mesmerized others. As I was introduced and exposed to feminist concerns, I began questioning why Wonder Woman was significant and why she was such a popular figure. To understand all aspects of this character, I investigated myself to documentaries, articles, graphic novels, movies, and stories involving Wonder Woman. After research and further investigation, I learned that Wonder Woman was supposedly created as a feminist symbol.

“Wonder Woman’s like one of the greatest superheroes out there, but people don’t know her origins like they know Superman’s origin or Batman’s origin,” according to DC Comics Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns. “So what we want to do in the film is really tell people who she is, where she comes from and why she does what she does.”

Children always looking for a positive role model to have, and many end up choosing superheroes they see in their favorite comic books or ones they have seen in the media. Since children are so easily affected by things they see in their childhood, having discriminatory elements in these influential characters may be problematic. “The Wonder Woman Precedent: Female (Super) Heroism on Trial” written by Julie D. O’Reilly, was published in the Journal of American Culture in 2005. O’Reilly is a professor of communication and women and gender at Heidelberg University. In “The Wonder Woman Precedent”, she writes about the hardships that female superheroes in the media must face that male superheroes do not go

In the last few years, recent box office hit films such as The Hunger Games and Brave have had strong female characters as their heroes, which seems to go against the tried and true male action hero theme of most films (IMDB, n.d., “Most Popular Feature Films Released in 2012”). After analyzing these two films and their heroes, one can see that females as a heroes is now becoming a popular trend. However, throughout history many women had to grow up idolizing and adapting male action and adventure stars to fit their personal needs for a role model. The heroes we are now being given such as Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games and Merida from Brave have been given attributes of stereotypical male action heroes to make them fit better into

Frequently, most superheroes in cinema are portrayed by male characters rather than women, creating a distinction between gender roles. Indeed, through the passage, “These results may suggest to viewers that women are less important, knowledgeable, and capable than men – and less likely to be a hero” (Miller et. al) women are much less likely to be featured as the hero within the film, and more likely to be featured as the “damsel in distress” of the story. Furthermore, women are much more likely to be depicted in a sexualized fashion, even when displayed in the role of hero. This feature of women with a lack of dominance defies feminism, as they lack roles in superhero films and they are portrayed with the sole purpose of boasting

Filmmakers use traditional gender stereotypes to produce characters audiences can easily identify with by portraying conventional images of a person with identifiable characteristics. In previous years, the dominant representation of a women in film has been the passive, subjugated protagonist. However, through the development of female empowerment and added feminist representations of film, the female heroine transformed to become strong and independent women in her own right, as an individual character.

Diana first appears in the film as a young girl who roamed around the paradise of Themyscira. Inspired by her mother and aunt, she would stand above the towering hills and image their fighting techniques. Desperate, to be just like them Diana insisted to learn the ways of a warrior. Her mother, Hippolyta, began to be concerned of Diana’s demands and does not want her only daughter to learn these techniques. The queen feared that if Diana gained strength, she would be