Some quick notes re: Wonder Woman (2017)

500 character mini-reviews cramping your style? Share your thoughts in full in this forum!
Mentaculus
Posts: 215
3438 Ratings
Your TCI: na
Joined: Sat Jun 30, 2007 2:17 am

Some quick notes re: Wonder Woman (2017)

Post by Mentaculus »

Trying my best to avoid the subject, after viewing last night, a discussion on the apparent feminism of Wonder Woman (2017) seems somehow appropriate, since the film seems to call attention to a desire to be so. While the film’s box office success is undeniable and popular acclaim is granted, I don’t know if I necessarily agree with all points being made about it.

The start of the film – a woman-governed, self-sustained utopia populated only with physically fit, talented, gorgeous, and scantily clad female warriors – is not a great start: it's a male paradise already mined for B-movie bliss, mostly because T&A is built into the narrative [aka Horrors of Spider Island, Queen of the Amazons, Island of Lost Women, blah], and female desire is, paradoxically, untapped. But to my surprise the film plays against the trope: it is only by being immersed in this matriarchal fantasy landscape that we – and eventually, Chris Pine’s character, Steve – respect Diana’s magical reality and optimism, and treat her as, at the very least, an equal once she reaches European shores. Essentially, this environment has its own internal logic and heightened reality, so we as an audience accept the worldview (that Diana represents) when she's forced into our own, now more alien, environment.

The film’s best moments, I would argue, happen when Diana is introduced to English propriety, and struggles to understand this patriarchal society (subverting a well-worn character trope, her wearing glasses brings Steve's secretary to sarcastically reply, “Oh, she’s not still the most gorgeous woman you’ve ever seen”; or when Diana stumbles into a men's-only government meeting, and the men in charge are both uncomfortable and appalled by her presence, and/or their own actions). We feel palpably embarrassed. My wife was keen to note that Pine’s entrance into the narrative – his lone ship busting through the idyll of the Amazons’ bubble-like female nirvana – was kinda like a sperm entering an egg. I’ll leave the consequences of this observation to others to figure out.

But the film’s advertised feminism (admittedly, the trailer itself passes the rather superficial Bechdel test on its own) is for me at best schizophrenic: because while we have Jenkins’ adept direction and Gal Gadot’s luminous star turn, we have at least three male writers (including Hollywood’s go-to ‘Adult with Action Figures’ Snyder) and a bevy of male producers exchanging notes under the table. Any fight scene seems to exert this covert male (fanboy) influence: hits of slow motion, tank throwing, and the now-indicative DC films dark-night-of-the-soul ending set against flames of hell and 20 slogging, overlong minutes of fantasy war. I’m sure there’s a conversation regarding an appropriation of the male gaze to discuss but it’s an argument outside this small scope.

This stinks, since somewhere in the depths of the narrative are hints of something greater: the Amazons’ island of Themyscira acts as the last vestige of humanity’s past, preternatural matriarchy: represented here are flexible notions of time and eternity, ritual, art-centered culture, and fantastic idealism. When Diana leaves on her Hero’s Quest, she enters Ares’ world of patriarchy: rigid societal dogmas, science and technology, and contracts and war. The film’s overall language plays into the latter. When Diana and Steve dance in the snow, they don’t make out (great!); wait, too soon, they go upstairs to make love instead. (Damn.) In the film Diana asserts her dominance over men only by show of force (what we men, apparently, are capable of understanding best), from the costume-revealing trench fight to the showdown with spies on London’s streets. She carries a phallic sword, and adopts the surname “Prince”. And this is the main problem: only by assuming masculine emblems does Diana “assert” herself. This is often confused with – but should not be affirmed as – feminism. [spoiler]**The trailer for Atomic Blonde (2017), which I saw before this film, appears to fall way deep into this rabbit hole: John Wick as a girl is, apparently, still exactly the same as John Wick.[/spoiler] We should not be surprised, given the character’s equally schizophrenic (BDSM?) origins – this dance of gender superiority appears to be a play for dominance, a fantasy, where we get to have our feminism only until the Safe Word is uttered, and we revert back to male-dominant paradigms. Wonder Woman’s recent rise and fall as UN Ambassador is fascinating for just these reasons. All of this probably seems harsher than I mean it to be; Wonder Woman is a fine entertainment. Derivative at times, but an epic tale that hits all the right beats when the camera focuses on Gadot’s dedicated and memorable performance. Her personification of the character, and the film's technique, almost distracts from these nasty archetypes beneath the surface.

But where the film also succeeds, I think, is how it lightly subverts this year’s viral “Born Sexy Yesterday” test. The film gets dangerously close to falling into this trope, especially when Steven and Diana first interact (“Are you a Man?”). But, in the whole of the film, it could be said that Steve is actually the male equivalent of this female archetype: Diana retains the emotional and spiritual advantage. She is ultimately right in these observations, while Steve is naïve along these lines. And her arc is supported by the revelations on human character that Steve provides. In regards to sex, yes this happens, but Diana admits men are needed for procreation – and not necessarily for pleasure – reducing the sting of the male anxiety aim of the trope, thereby elevating the equality of sexual experience between the gendered characters. (Essentially, she's not clamoring to bang him. Steve is not the most fantastic man in Diana’s life, necessarily, by being the first to find her, and fawning the whole film. If anything, Steve fawns after her.) Steve and Diana, through the adventure, teach each other something about heroism and humanism, respectively, allowing each other’s characters to mature equally. Plus, the fact that no, “It’s a bird! A plane! No, it’s Wonder Woman!” bit isn’t shoehorned anywhere in here is all bonus points.

So, trying to say this is finally a watershed blockbuster film about finally overcoming male-oriented rules and [film theory] propriety, Wonder Woman ain’t it. I’m not even sure Beau Travail did it. But, while it uses historically-masculine beats, symbols, and characterizations, Wonder Woman finds subtle and clever ways to play with a key few.

Post Reply