Vidding & Wonder Woman (Alas, unrelated)
I need to make an effort to post here more. Also to actually do more vidding. And tell you more about what I think of stuff. SO, to aid that, firstly I would like to point out -
vidrecs.dreamwidth.org/14836.html
This is a great place to link your vidding catalogue, no matter how large or small, for future use in a "new to me!" reccing project. I haven't had a chance to poke around there that much yet, but DUDE, that's one impressive, exciting list of vids. You should all join in and/or keep an eye on the comm for future recs!
Secondly, Wonder Woman #12 came out the other day, and holy fuckballs it was kind of awesome. I continue to be deeply concerned and ambivalent about the treatment of the Amazons, in no small part because I have read interviews where the author addresses (inasmuch as he ever addresses) his reasons for the choice, and I actually understand them. If the Amazons weren't a culture that had spent most of its publication history battling against the sterotype of being misandristic bigots every time a writer ran out of ideas, and if we didn't live in a world where that was the direct result of the notion of an island of independent women, then I might think this was a fine way of rooting the Amazons more fully into the primal, bloody, terrifying world of the Greek Gods that he has been constructing, of turning them, too, into creatures of terror and legend. But they are, and we do, so...my reaction continues to be, what the fuck was that, dude? What the fuck.
But then, there's like...all this other fantastic stuff. Including a lot of reclaimation of really oldskool Marstonian shit (and I'm on the record as being uncomfortable with the way his era is held up on some kind of pedestal) in ways I...kind of like? Or even love? Like the way the Hades arc involves a restatement of her mission and power basically being rooted universal love; the way he brought back the "refusal to be bound" aspect of her character without the misogynistic overtones of that being "by a man [specifically because we must define her in relation to men as well as implying a default hostility towards them]".
Hell, even a lot of the stuff I don't like, or even outright hate, has Marstonian overtones - her conception being the moment of "absolute power, surrendered", even the Amazons' male children being an exploration of loving submission to Hephaestus and Wonder Woman's inability to understand their choice of enslavement. It's not really a defence of those things, because, as linked above, I don't hold any special reverence for Marston's vision, although obviously I respect and am thankful for his accomplishments. I just...think it's worth noting that I'm not sure this version of Wonder Woman is so "unlike anything before" as some people, including Azzarello, might like to claim. It seems pretty deeply rooted in a lot of Wonder Woman lore, albeit reinvented, and older than we're used to seeing).
And now, another Marston reinvention, in #12. Damn but that moment with the gauntlets, that was some incredible shit there. In an interview over at Newsarama, Azzarello said, metaphorically, that was about giving Wonder Woman "the choice to do whatever the hell she wants" which he said was something he felt she'd lost. And I think he was talking about something wider, even, than who she wants to be, or how she wants to conduct herself. I think he was talking about surprising us within the narrative. I have (peripherally, so I apologise if I mischaracterise due to limited perspective) watched fandom explode around this comic in both positive and negative ways. For 11 issues she was powerful, direct, heroic, but ultimately fighting things much larger and more powerful than herself. Wonder Woman is so restricted by expectation, both within and without the fictional construct of the DCU. We need her to be powerful, but she's always the third wheel of the trinity. Honestly I don't expect this to change that; that's a change that will take a long time and I can only hope this is the start of it.
But here, in #12, we defy those expectations. The whole setup of Wonder Woman, outclassed, confined, told she's too good, too moral, too human for victory. She chooses otherwise. She drops her cuffs, and shatters the ground, and our expectations, as they fall. She unleashes a tidal wave of power and ends up pounding Artemis' skull into the concrete in about five seconds flat. It reminded me of Wonder Woman breaking Max Lord's neck. Not so much because of the actions she was taking but because of the quality of the choice within the narrative; startling to the reader, but not, in any way, to Diana herself. She simply chose, and acted.
I loved it. It wouldn't have worked in the first issue; first issues are all about establishing your "take". It would have felt like an aggressive, macho piece of posturing; I'm going to compensate for Diana's image problem with showy displays of raw power. It would have felt like an insult - like that was going to define her now, this new type of power, that clearly comes from Zeus - in itself a controversial decision. But now, after 12 issues, it does the opposite. It establishes a phenomenal amount about Diana's character, about her restraint, control, lack of entitlement, determination and sense of ethics. It shows that in every prior encounter, when she won by insisting on talking (Strife), or through trickery (Poseidon) or through force of personality and refusal to be bowed (Hades), it was never because she didn't have the capacity to punch her way out of the situation, it was because she was choosing not to.
As a moment, both within the story, and as a reinvention (well, really a total inversion) of that weird, weird historical "I need to be restrained because I cannot restrain myself" trope about her going into a beserk rage without the cuffs, I just thought it was really, really excellent.
If I put rapey Amazon sex pirates on one side of the scales and Wonder Woman, dropping her cuffs on the other...I don't know how that levels out. CURSE YOU AZZARELLO FOR MAKING THIS SO HARD.
vidrecs.dreamwidth.org/14836.html
This is a great place to link your vidding catalogue, no matter how large or small, for future use in a "new to me!" reccing project. I haven't had a chance to poke around there that much yet, but DUDE, that's one impressive, exciting list of vids. You should all join in and/or keep an eye on the comm for future recs!
Secondly, Wonder Woman #12 came out the other day, and holy fuckballs it was kind of awesome. I continue to be deeply concerned and ambivalent about the treatment of the Amazons, in no small part because I have read interviews where the author addresses (inasmuch as he ever addresses) his reasons for the choice, and I actually understand them. If the Amazons weren't a culture that had spent most of its publication history battling against the sterotype of being misandristic bigots every time a writer ran out of ideas, and if we didn't live in a world where that was the direct result of the notion of an island of independent women, then I might think this was a fine way of rooting the Amazons more fully into the primal, bloody, terrifying world of the Greek Gods that he has been constructing, of turning them, too, into creatures of terror and legend. But they are, and we do, so...my reaction continues to be, what the fuck was that, dude? What the fuck.
But then, there's like...all this other fantastic stuff. Including a lot of reclaimation of really oldskool Marstonian shit (and I'm on the record as being uncomfortable with the way his era is held up on some kind of pedestal) in ways I...kind of like? Or even love? Like the way the Hades arc involves a restatement of her mission and power basically being rooted universal love; the way he brought back the "refusal to be bound" aspect of her character without the misogynistic overtones of that being "by a man [specifically because we must define her in relation to men as well as implying a default hostility towards them]".
Hell, even a lot of the stuff I don't like, or even outright hate, has Marstonian overtones - her conception being the moment of "absolute power, surrendered", even the Amazons' male children being an exploration of loving submission to Hephaestus and Wonder Woman's inability to understand their choice of enslavement. It's not really a defence of those things, because, as linked above, I don't hold any special reverence for Marston's vision, although obviously I respect and am thankful for his accomplishments. I just...think it's worth noting that I'm not sure this version of Wonder Woman is so "unlike anything before" as some people, including Azzarello, might like to claim. It seems pretty deeply rooted in a lot of Wonder Woman lore, albeit reinvented, and older than we're used to seeing).
And now, another Marston reinvention, in #12. Damn but that moment with the gauntlets, that was some incredible shit there. In an interview over at Newsarama, Azzarello said, metaphorically, that was about giving Wonder Woman "the choice to do whatever the hell she wants" which he said was something he felt she'd lost. And I think he was talking about something wider, even, than who she wants to be, or how she wants to conduct herself. I think he was talking about surprising us within the narrative. I have (peripherally, so I apologise if I mischaracterise due to limited perspective) watched fandom explode around this comic in both positive and negative ways. For 11 issues she was powerful, direct, heroic, but ultimately fighting things much larger and more powerful than herself. Wonder Woman is so restricted by expectation, both within and without the fictional construct of the DCU. We need her to be powerful, but she's always the third wheel of the trinity. Honestly I don't expect this to change that; that's a change that will take a long time and I can only hope this is the start of it.
But here, in #12, we defy those expectations. The whole setup of Wonder Woman, outclassed, confined, told she's too good, too moral, too human for victory. She chooses otherwise. She drops her cuffs, and shatters the ground, and our expectations, as they fall. She unleashes a tidal wave of power and ends up pounding Artemis' skull into the concrete in about five seconds flat. It reminded me of Wonder Woman breaking Max Lord's neck. Not so much because of the actions she was taking but because of the quality of the choice within the narrative; startling to the reader, but not, in any way, to Diana herself. She simply chose, and acted.
I loved it. It wouldn't have worked in the first issue; first issues are all about establishing your "take". It would have felt like an aggressive, macho piece of posturing; I'm going to compensate for Diana's image problem with showy displays of raw power. It would have felt like an insult - like that was going to define her now, this new type of power, that clearly comes from Zeus - in itself a controversial decision. But now, after 12 issues, it does the opposite. It establishes a phenomenal amount about Diana's character, about her restraint, control, lack of entitlement, determination and sense of ethics. It shows that in every prior encounter, when she won by insisting on talking (Strife), or through trickery (Poseidon) or through force of personality and refusal to be bowed (Hades), it was never because she didn't have the capacity to punch her way out of the situation, it was because she was choosing not to.
As a moment, both within the story, and as a reinvention (well, really a total inversion) of that weird, weird historical "I need to be restrained because I cannot restrain myself" trope about her going into a beserk rage without the cuffs, I just thought it was really, really excellent.
If I put rapey Amazon sex pirates on one side of the scales and Wonder Woman, dropping her cuffs on the other...I don't know how that levels out. CURSE YOU AZZARELLO FOR MAKING THIS SO HARD.