Wonder Woman

[beccaelizabeth]

I watched an animated Wonder Woman from I think 2009? In a two disc set. On the other disc were two episodes of Justice League Unlimited.
I want to watch more of JLU, even though it was not entirely satisfying.
I did not like the movie Wonder Woman.
Even the live action movie that upset me had good points this one did not.
Wonder Woman as I know her makes friends with women and helps and is helped by them.
In this animated movie she just mocks and insults them, except for one child, who she teaches to stab.
I feel this doesn't capture any of the good points of Wonder Woman as are specific to her.
She fights real good, but so does anyone in the genre. There's supposed to be more to her than anger?
And she slaps Steve Trevor in the face a lot! And then lets him kiss her? And I can't see what his merits are supposed to be on this one. Sure he fights real good to protect her, but the problem is meant to be Ares stirring up men to fight, so unless they're making a more subtle point about attack vs defence than I really got out of it, he's just a rude man who gets away with it because he's good at his job. He tries to get Diana drunk? He's a pig and calls himself a pig? Why that man out of billions??

I like the movie much better when it has this to improve upon.
And I didn't like how she was here for men there at all.



Sometimes I wonder if I made up the good bits of the comics in my head.

If I did I should write them down, because they were very good.

*sigh*



It's also frustrating when the supervillain team up is better at team than the league, but I imagine other episodes improve on that.

Diana having to learn from Dove to be less aggressive, or at least with his help learning it, that was not my favourite bit either.

But I did like better that they had to stop fighting to defeat the god of war. That one moment in JL Unlimited made more sense than the whole moviemit was packqged with.

*double sigh*




I should stop complaining about story and write some if I think I know what is good.


... aaaaaany day now...

Comments

[beccaelizabeth]

the women in this movie all spend the entire movie being mean to each other and it is still bothering me. They push each other into harm's way, they hurt each other, they mock each other. And it's such a fundamental failure of imagination.

the lady who let Ares out of his cell... the story is presented as warrior vs woman, but as if the Amazons retreat from the world to be warriors, and that is in tension with being women. the traitor 'falls in love' and Diana goes back to man's world because of 'love' for a guy. And both guys are jerks! And that's not the strongest story they could be telling.

Because if they retreated from the world to be women together but they have spent centuries developing as warriors, that makes sense of letting Ares out. Because they're warriors without a war, absolutely convinced they could do better in man's world. The traitor would be the one who failed to adapt to the new way of life they built on Paradise Island, they wanted to go out there and be fierce and return hurt for hurt, not try this new way. And then instead of both bad and good acting for the same limiting 'romantic' reason, Diana would be the one who sees Man's World and thinks that Themyscira doesn't need to be cut off to live their truth. Opposite reason instead of matching.

Whoever wrote this made it sound like women can't be women without men around. Thinks that being a warrior is what defines Amazons, rather than what protects the full and rich lives they lead.

Amazons here present no alternative, and the whole narrative is about them being wrong.

And it's a weaker story!

[philippos42]

Oh, yeah, the one Keri Russell did Diana's voice for. I own a copy of this movie. As a Wonder Woman fan, I remember finding it annoying. It changes some character relationships a lot from the comics, and it's not all that well written. I think the writers were a little unclear on how to write feminism.