Wonder Woman: Amazing because she makes everyone uncomfortable

[beccatoria]

This is some long, hopefully not entirely incoherent meta about Wonder Woman and feminism and how I fell head over heels in love with her.

Comments

[beccatoria]

I MAY FORCE YOU TO READ SOME COMICS, YES. WE WILL TALK MORE LATER, OKAY? Cus honestly, I'm not sure how you'll react to comics as a format, but as a character, I really do think Diana of Themiscyra is exactly the kind of person you would love. She's like...what would happen if CJ Cregg was the daughter of Olivia Dunham and Laura Roslin, if Olivia Dunham was Queen of the Amazons and Laura Roslin was the Goddess Athena, and CJ Cregg was an Ambassador to the UN.

UM. But I think that like, I should talk with you about where it'd be best for you to start if you wanted to read it, and more about like, whether or not you'll hack the comic-factor when I'm not constrained to OMGS A SINGLE COMMENT.

So in the meantime I will talk to you about the SWIMSUIT!

Because, yes, the swimsuit. And apparently authors have wanted to change it for ages but DC wouldn't sign off on it because of its recognisability, even though it's been changed before (albeit long ago), until very recently (when they gave her pants) right in time to reboot the run (this is right after Gail Simone's run finished) into something weeeeird and sorta sucky. She also has pants in the reboot in September.

BUT! Despite all that, I gotta say, I'm...sort of a convert to the swimsuit. For the sole reason that having gotten used to it, and having seen her team up with Beowolf, I realised I'd stopped thinking of it as a swimsuit and had started thinking of it more in terms of like, she's dressed as a barbarian, or an ancient greek warrior, i.e. in a loincloth with lots of skin on show. She's dressed for wrestling.

That said, that's a way it can work but it's not really the way most people will see it. But I'm not, now, that happy with the addition of pants either, mainly because they are, like, fine and all, but they don't address when I feel to be the primary failure of her costume - it doesn't accurately represent who she is. And not enough people know that to be able to infer it. The red-white-and-blue, it makes one think of Superman, of truth, justice and the American way, when in fact, she's a foreign national attempting to introduce an alien culture. She's freaking Greek more than anything else and she's heavily tied to greek myth, and I honestly think that you learn more about her character by calling her a warrior than a superhero. As such, if I were redesigning her costume to something less (by superheroine standards at least) insane and also more indicative of her character, I would mimic the costume Donna Troy wore during the period when she temporarily assumed the Wonder Woman mantle. (Who Donna Troy is is...stupidly complicated, but she's more-or-less Wonder Woman's younger sister). Anyway, this is her:

http://magyk.feelyx.com/public/DONNA/Donna_Troy_is_Wonder_Woman_by_minarho1.jpg

It's like...so much cooler and clearer who she is in that picture.

Especially since Diana DOES get dressed up in that type of stuff at times anyway. And when she needs to pull out the REALLY big guns she dresses up in a kick ass eagle-inspired set of full plate armor.

OH DIANA. ♥

So yeah, that's where my issue with the pants comes in. I like that it gets away from the swimsuit issue, so on balance it's better than nothing, but I also feel it fails to capitalise on her rich Grecian Warrior thing and that's a real shame.

[teenygozer]

Huh. Your thinky entry will be re-read a lot, I find what you have to say really fascinating. I love WW a lot, too, but I have to admit that I haven't been diligent about reading her comic. At one point I decided, as a fan, to (very innocently) read her actual first comics and was set back by the racism and fetishy-male-gazey-bondage that went on. I would definitely NOT suggest anyone read the original stuff. She's grown a lot over the years, but she's always been uncomfortable. We own a comic book store, so it would be easy for me to grab some comics out of the back-issue bins.

FYI, we have a couple of new statues of WW at our store that are kind of awesome: I just put up pictures of both on our website (see http://www.legendsofsuperheros.com ). The top image on the right is a kick-ass WW in her amazing armor, and if you scroll down eight pictures, you'll see a lovely statue where she's wearing the new and much less bathing-suity costume (as seen in Wonder Woman #600, they didn't wait for the reboot.) My husband says it reminds him of Donna Troy's outfit, but I don't care, I really like her new look (I haven't read the comic, I'll take your word for it that it's not been good.) I just think she looks like a real superhero now. PANTS! YAY! Maybe she'll get a little respect now, and we'll get a movie someday.

[beccatoria]

YOU OWN A COMIC STORE?! THAT'S FUCKING AWESOME. No, seriously, that's awesome.

Yeah, I haven't tried to read her original stuff beyond a few random stories I read...I can't even remember when by this point, and I think it was later stuff than that anyway, but it's, um, weird. Mind you, most of comics was weird and racist and sexist and odd back then. And on top of that Wonder Woman was created by a pretty weird bloke. He had some good intentions, but you know, so did Freud.

But yeah, I HIGHLY recommend both the Rucka and Simone runs (in case you didn't already guess that).

And that is a fucking awesome statue.

I don't hate the new #600 costume or anything. Like I think for any other superheroine I'd be really a fan of it, and I'm being a bit more negative than I need to be just because of the bad associations I have with the run? (They rebooted everything for J Michael Straczynski, then he TOOK OFF and quit after like five issues and they hadda get a new writer in to tell the rest of his seven issues based on his plot). But yeah, it's actually a pretty nice design, I just suddenly got high standards and started wanting it to be more appropriate to her background since I think that might help with her image in the public consciousness? Though probably pants are actually a more sensible way to do that than gladiatorial attire, I am forced to admit. ;)

You know who I wish would get a makeover like this though? Black Canary. She's already got the jacket (which looks badass on her), she just needs some pants. Plus when she and Zatanna are in the JLA together, they look like a magic act with only one hat between them. :/

Um, back to Wonder Woman! I really would love to see a movie too, though after the animated one (which really was pretty good in a lot of places, but, kind of cringey in others) and the fiasco of the TV pilot (I've seen it; however bad you think it is, it's woooooorse), I'm also kind of terrified of the prospect...