an open letter to diana prince
Dear Wonder Woman,
I have loved you since I was too little to even comprehend what Feminism was beyond knowing that if something was cool, a girl doing it was twice as cool. Sure, Batman and Superman and Spiderman and all those guys were okay; but it was you and Batgirl that got me jumping up and down on the couch and making capes out of beach towels. Whenever we'd play "Superheroes" in my 'hood, the boys always argued I had to go lie down in the Bad Guy's Secret Hide Out and wait to get rescued by them because "that's what girls do" in comic books. Yep; we get knocked out and kidnapped every episode and never get any smarter about how these things work. Only in your comic books did any females flip the script. I remember being mystified that my guy friends didn't get it about why you were awesome beyond your Amazon beauty and being an Almost Naked Lady.
I was pretty lucky because I grew up in the 1970's, during what was then called 'Women's Lib". Even in a medium that caters overwhelmingly to the Male Gaze the way superhero comic books do, the Wonder Woman I read about was finally doing much more exciting stuff than getting knocked unconscious and tied up with her own Magic Lasso. You and your homegirl Barbara Gordon and the Bionic Woman and The Mighty Isis and Lois Lane were secret agents, journalists, librarians, big sisters, teachers and archaeologists. You flew invisible jets and rode purple motorcycles, made friends with aliens and Bigfoot, comprehended the Dewey Decimal System, travelled the world, brought criminals to justice and got your stories in on deadline. You showed up when Superman was all Kryptonited and Batman was up to his pointy ears in some new Joker invention. You battled forest fires and robots and Nazis and plucked guys from the clutches of doom, even rescued the Bad Guys and made them be your pal.
And even though those were the stories I re-enacted in our backyard, you also did something else for me back then, something I didn't notice until long after I decided I was too Grown Up to scoot around in my bathing suit and towel cape anymore. You created a space in my brain for the absolute certainty that Females Could Be The Hero. And that meant I Could Be The Hero. Even if that meant I had to first go up against the boys I played alongside as well as the Bad Guys. Even though that made it twice the amount of crap Iron Man goes through in a typical crime-fighting day. That only showed that when I kicked butt, it counted double.
Recently, DC Comics suddenly decided that after 60 or so years, that they couldn't have you running around half naked any more. They declared that this new look will be "a Wonder Woman look designed for the 21st century" that will allow Diana "to be taken seriously as a warrior, in partial answer to the many female fans over the years who've asked, 'how does she fight in that thing without all her parts falling out?'"
I must admit that my thoughts were not exactly the peace-loving ideals you have so often tried to instill in me.
Basically things like, "So will people take Superman more seriously if he gets a make-over? Because that red speedo and tights combo? Just draws my eye to his Kryptonian Junk, yo." Or trying to think of an issue of Wonder Woman where she showed up and the bad guys or Batman were like, "I'm sorry, Diana, but I just can't take you seriously as a warrior in that outfit. Have you ever considered some tights and maybe a mask? Batgirl wears a mask and people totally defer to her ass-kicking skills."
Wonder Woman, I am a Feminst. And I get it that when DC put you in your regalia back in the day, they were most likely day-dreaming about Bettie Grable and Vargas Girls, not creating a subversive icon for little girls to identify with. I totally understand how perfectly bad-ass, sensible and enlightened people could look at you and get upset that The Wonder Twins are out there in plain view while artists continue to draw your star-spangled bikini bottom with increasingly less bikini and more bottom. So I'm not gonna argue about whether it'll be easier for everyone to give you props based not on who you are or the good you do but on what you wear to work. I'm just gonna tell you that before I knew about what a hero my mom was (even though she wore that sexy nurse's outfit for 40 years) and before I knew what a hero Gloria Steinem was (even though she wore mini-skirts as part of subverting the dominant paradigm) or before I knew what a hero Angela Davis was (even though she had the hottest afro and sweetest dreads and has often spoken about the sanctity of their beauty), when I was a very small girl, you were the one who first radicalized me. You were the one who stuck out in a sea of boys fighting evil. Whatever drooling geeks at DC were thinking when they decided to combine Rosie the Riveter with a pin-up girl, you took that wish-fulfillment bullshit and turned it inside-out. You made that fantasy go all backlash on them for me. You taught me to look for the female heroes, to expect them, to demand them.
This whole wardrobe malfunctioning probably seems ridiculous to you as an Amazon, since back in your neighborhood, girls came out topless and swinging an axe.
So I just wanted to give you props and let you know. I wasn't tied up or knocked out or anything. But when I was a very small child, you rescued me, just the same. And if you did it in your underwear? Well, hell, Princess. You coulda done it wearing a wool ballgown with Wellingtons and I would still consider you a down sister.
Thank you.
Your friend,
Nrrrdy Grrrl
