What We Need Now is Wonder Woman

In her preview piece for the New York Times a couple Sundays ago, Manohla Dargis bemoaned the absence of a female-driven potential blockbuster this summer. (Her explanation for why Sex and the City doesn't count is one of the best lines ever printed in the paper of record.) Good on her. But what Ms. Dargas doesn't do is offer a solution. And here in America, we're all about solutions. (Gas-tax holiday, anyone?) So allow us to do what the chief film critic for the New York Times cannot. Allow us to give CPR to Wonder Woman.

Once upon a time, a Wonder Woman big-screen adventure looked like a lock. Geek king Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) had written a script. Potential stars' names were being tossed around on blogs. But last year Whedon was dropped from the project, and producer Joel Silver recently told one fan Web site that he's "not sure if it will happen." The wailing and gnashing of teeth over how badly the Silver-produced Speed Racer underperformed at the box office probably isn't going to help matters.

But for all the reasons Dargas would have pointed out if she were as forward thinking as we are, Wonder Woman would be a sure thing. In the empowerment department, the role fits perfectly into the women-kicking-ass tradition Dargas identifies Sigourney Weaver in Alien and Rosario Dawson in Deathproof with. After all, Wonder Woman isn't some long-lost cousin of an established male hero (see: Supergirl) or a world-beater reduced to love-interest status (see: X-Men, Jean Grey). She's an emissary from an island ruled by aggro female warrior types (you know, the same place Jezebel writers come from). And in her current comics incarnation, she's portrayed as having more testicular fortitude than Superman and Batman -- James Carville's version of Hillary Clinton with the strength of Zeus added.

Empowerment, of course, does not greenlight movies. Cocaine-addled film executives greenlight movies, and they must be spoken to in a language they understand. Here's how to sell it to them: "Hey, that Iron Man movie made an assload of money. Wonder Woman will, too."
This logic, though simple, is not false. Iron Man proved that movie-goers will movie-go see characters who aren't Superman, Batman or Spider-Man -- so long as those movies are well-cast, tightly directed and epic in tone (but not length). In the comics-hero pantheon, Wonder Woman lives on the same plane as Iron Man: She's not quite A-list, but she is big enough to get the nerd army that makes or breaks these films excited if you give them something to get excited about, as Marvel did with its genius casting of Robert Downey Jr.

Dargis is right. We live in troubled times. And troubled times call for heroes. What we need now is a woman who can single-handedly shake Hollywood from its chronic macho-think, a woman who wears a red-white-and-blue halter top and knee-high boots. What we need now is Wonder Woman.

Comments

[loril]

I have one for the new generation of WW fans. My preschooler...

I end up showing her a few clips of oldies but goodies on YouTube occasionally. And I was just the right age for Wonder Woman back in the 70s with Lynda Carter. I used to love the show. I remember running around my front yard and on the playground with my jump rope wrapped around my waist, pretending it was my "lasso of truth". Wonder memories of that show...

My daughter saw a few clips, thought Lynda Carter was way cool and immediately took to the character (and she is hard to please.) In my 3 year old's words: "Oh, I love her! If I was Wonder Woman I could jump over buildings!" We pretend to be Wonder Woman and "Wonder Girl" sometimes and have a blast. If they did this movie right, I would go see it and take my daughter (who has only been to one movie in a theater in her life so far.)

[MrVinegar]

By the wisdom of Athena, we sure do need Wonder Woman right now!

Oh, she is definitely A-list.

[PJ813]

Oh, yeah -- and you need an actress as committed as Lynda Carter -- the reason this character is iconic has far more to do with Lynda Carter's portrayal of her (check out the Season One DVD for the best WW ever) than the ups and downs she's had over the years in publishing.

I sure hope they figure this one out -- and do super-hero films, and the character I've loved since I was three, justice.

[PJ813]

But I think Wonder Woman is also a hard sell for a very basic reason --

-- plenty of gender politics here, but certainly very few boys fantasize about being a lasso-toting peace-preaching Amazon princess (I mean, except for me and a few others like me) in the way they do a wall-crawling Spider-Man, a brooding Batman, or a machine building Iron Man --

-- boys are notorious for rarely invest in female lead characters, particularly in fantasy fiction - while girls are much more likely to invest in leads of both genders.

Conquer that, and I think you've conquered your biggest challenge in getting a viable WW character to the screen.

I'd like to proffer that the best possible Wonder Woman will have a lot of layers -- just like Tony Stark did in the Iron Man movie, and not just focus on one aspect of her (warrior/sex kitten/naive schoolgirl). And I'd vote that a really great Wonder Woman movie will have the epic scope of Lord of the Rings -- a story to match her mythological origins, her world-transforming point of view, and one that showcases her greatest enemy, Ares, the Olympian God of War --- a guy that could crush the Joker or Doctor Octopus with his little finger (quite literally!). I mean, if a hero is defined by her villain, it doesn't get much bigger than that....

[PJ813]

Wonder Woman, at her best, stands for something. What makes her unique and exciting, beyond her Greek mythology roots, is that she's not simply a carbon copy of Superman. She's not simply a kick-ass Amazon -- that ground has been covered by Xena already -- and she's not the quippy young ingenue Buffy is/was. She's not the sex kitten that Lara Croft is, or even the gun-toting space mother that Ellen Ripley is. If anything, she's ALL of these things roled into one -- a super-powered Amazon whose combines the best aspects of all these amazing female characters into one, well, wonderful woman.

To many creators, this is still a shocking idea -- to suggest that women can have so many facets, especially when characters are often boiled down to a single line or idea. I think creators often find those facets confusing -- is she peacemaker or diplomat? Warrior or teacher? Royal princess or woman of the people? and try to focus one one aspect of her instead of all the amazing pieces of her that have made her an icon over the years. Invariably, in comics at least, you end up with a harsh, humorless woman that people fear instead of one that has fun doing what she's doing, is intellectually insatiable, compassionate, and inspires by example (although the current WW scribe is finally bringing the character back round to her inspiring roots, thank Hera).

[LadyCat]

Can we find a female to produce this? Then we wouldn't have to worry about losing any of her facets! Any guy who produces this is gonna mess it up big time! They'll find one thing they really liked about WW and stick to it, ignoring everything else that makes her wonderful!

[WordPusher]

I think indie producer Christine Vachon (Velvet Goldmine, Kids, Happiness) could make a Wonder Woman feature with intelligence and integrity that would also kick ass and retain the female protagonist's complexity.

[PJ813]

Hey, I couldn't agree more!

But, having worked on the character for more than two years, I do know that you stumble on to a particularly difficult sell with her -- despite recent years of "aggressive," hyper-masculine behavior, Wonder Woman has, historically, been a character who embodies a whole range of ideas, most nobly teaching youngsters how to fight the forces of tyranny, stand up against oppression, and how, through the power of loving reformation, to transform criminals and the weak willed into better human beings. Her mission was to prevent mankind from destroying itself with war, and to teach them a better way, one of peaceful coexistence.

Certainly, a tough sell in the early years of the Iraq war. Probably a bit easier now, but still politically touchy -- and, stripped of her purpose and point of view, I'm forced to ask -- why bother?