Wonder Women
This past weekend, I ordered the entire first season of Wonder Woman for my six-year-old to watch. I was SO excited to get this DVD, you have no idea. I used to run home when I was a kid, to catch Wonder Woman on TV every week. Me and my best friend, Cutey, we were all over the Wonder Woman series. Night Rider and the Dukes of Hazard were close behind, but Wonder Woman? Maaaan, that we would NOT miss.
My girls hunkered down to watch this total childhood fave, and I was futzing about when the theme music hit. Let me tell you. That theme music to WW is enough to heave you back into third grade like nobody's business. I zipped over to the screen and there was Ms. Woman in all her glory. Lynda Carter was my extreme heart throb when I was in third grade. I thought she was stunning. I thought she was a drop of liquid gold from the Sun. It could be because of her "half-Mexican roots," but she was the only woman on TV who looked a little Indian to me. In fact, she totally looked like my cousin, Amarpreet. GOR-JUSS. And I totally, totally fell in love with her. I was always her when we were playing Rescue Someone, or Superheroes, or Catch the Bad Guys (yes, we were wildly imaginative with the names).
At the time, of course, I had no clue about the parallels between Diana the Goddess and Diana Prince (WW's alter ego), the allusions to Greek mythology, and the whole Amazon/Lesbos Island mirroring Paradise Island, the island of women that WW hailed from, etc. Nor, frankly, did I care. All I knew was that Ms. Woman was a kickass mama-jama. She busted some bad guy butt and I was inspired watching her toss those meanies around like throw cushions.
Okay, so fast forward thirty-ish years later, Bronx, NY, living room. Once I get past Ms. Woman's brilliant smile and her still-striking resemblance to my cousin, I hear the distinct hiss of deflation. I sat there, watching this awesome, spell-binding ass-kicker run daintily in heels and bat her eyelashes at Steve Trevor with the coy "Oh, Steve" after every rescue. I slumped down next to my girls, who were completely as spellbound as I was at that age.
I began to wonder if shows like Wonder Woman, The Bionic Woman (the original one with Lindsay Wagner as Jamie Sommers, not the recent remake), and Charlie's Angels (again, the original, not the remake), which all aired around the same time period, were the mainstream, major networks' answer to the rising Women's movement of that time. Like Blacksploitation movies popped up all over the place just as the Black Power movement gained momentum, and MASH and other war shows came on just as anti-war protests against the happenings in Vietnam gathered massive support.
And on the heels of that thought came, who are the women superheroes of today? Who can I point to for my girls to counter all the rescue-me princesses from the world of Disney? Sorry, folks, Disney princesses can be great and all, but I need some balance here! Who are the badasses who take care of business and rescue themselves? We tried to rent Aeon Flux and I could barely get through it. I did love V for Vendetta, but would Natalie Portman's character really be considered a superhero? -- I mean to people who are not me, of course. Storm from X-Men? I think not. Maybe Mystique...now there's a kickass superhero, if she wasn't one of the bad guys.
So, my peeps. If you know of some kickass women superheroes on TV or in the movies, please send links!