Wonder
Woman Breaks Through
Dec.
26, 2016 |Jan. 2, 2017@
She's been
a suffragist, a soldier and a sex symbol. But it took 75 years to bring the
world's most famous female superhero to the big screen. Why we need Wonder
Woman now.
By Eliana Dockterman
It was supposed to be a photo-op.
Earlier this
year, the United Nations decided to name Wonder Woman an honorary
ambassador ahead of the 75-year-old comic-book characterfs first-ever feature film. The title had
previously been bestowed on Winnie the Pooh and the red Angry Bird without much
commotion. But this time, the U.N. named the bustiered
bombshell Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls. The
U.N.fs press officers set up a ceremony in October at the organizationfs New
York City headquarters to honor the comic-book character as well as Gal Gadot, the Israeli actor who played her in 2016fsBatman
v Superman and will reprise the role this summer.
Things quickly
went sideways. As Gadot greeted dozens of cheering
elementary-school-age girls, the adults sitting behind them raised their fists and turned their
backs. Outside, some 100 U.N. staffers gathered in protest. More than 600 of
them had signed a petition objecting
to ga large-breasted white woman of impossible proportionsh and gthe epitome of
a epinupf girlh becoming an official symbol of female power. Two months later,
Wonder Womanfs ambassadorial privileges were unceremoniouslywithdrawn—setting
off another round of cheers and jeers.
Wonder Woman
has seen it all before. Since her inception, the worldfs most recognizable
female superhero has been a source of controversy, her values and significance
changing with the times. She has been a suffragist, a sex symbol, a soldier—and
President of the United States. Along the way, Wonder Woman changed costumes
dozens of times, her hemline migrating up, down and back up again.
But the woman
who now plays her hasnft gotten used to the vitriol. gThere are so many
horrible things that are going on in the world, and this is what youfre
protesting, seriously?h Gadot asks, reflecting on the
U.N. blowback. Warner Bros. cast perhaps the only actor in the world who, like
Wonder Woman, is both a model and a soldier: Gadot
won the title of Miss Israel in 2004 and served in the Israel Defense Forces.
But that doesnft mean the 31-year-old hasnft been baffled by persistent debates
about Wonder Womanfs looks—and the sexual and anti-Semitic harassment Gadot has received online over the past two years. gWhen
people argue that Wonder Woman should ecover up,f I donft quite get it,h she
says. gThey say, eIf shefs smart and strong, she canft also be sexy.f Thatfs
not fair. Why canft she be all of the above?h
That question
is on the minds of studio executives who are hoping that, after a decade of
white men dominating the comic-book-movie boom, audiences are ready for
something new. Female superheroes donft have much of a track record at the box
office, partly because of movie studiosfreluctance to bring female leads to the
screen. Their logic has been that their target demographic—teenage
boys—wouldnft want to see a woman fight. A string of early-2000s bombs
like Elektra and Catwoman didnft
help. While Batman has had nine live-action feature films and Superman seven,
Wonder Woman has had none.
Some of
Hollywoodfs most powerful directors have tried.Joss
Whedon (The Avengers),George Miller (Mad
Max) andPaul
Feig (Ghostbusters) all failed to bring the
Amazonian princess to the big screen. Come June it will be a woman, Patty
Jenkins—one of the first female directors to command a budget of over $100
million—who finally releases a Wonder Woman film. Much more than money is at
stake: if Wonder Woman works, it could change the kinds of
role models we find at the movies.
To follow Wonder
Womanfsevolution
is to trace the trajectory of the womenfs movement in America. The man who
created her in 1941, William Moulton Marston, was a feminist, a psychologist
and the inventor of the lie-detector test. Marston conceived Wonder Woman as a
parent-friendly comic-book alternative to bellicose male heroes. Batman carried
a gun, and Superman was a shade too close to the German Übermensch,
the concept that Adolf Hitler used to describe his fantasy of a gbiologically
superiorh Aryan race. What comic books needed, Marston thought, was a hero who
would represent Americafs position in the war: a patriot motivated to shield
the innocent.
Marstonfs
Wonder Woman was born Princess Diana on the fictitious all-female island of Themyscira and trained as an Amazon warrior. Her first
exposure to men came when an American soldier, Steve Trevor, washed ashore
after a plane crash. Diana traveled to the U.S. with him and fought in World
War II. Her weapons were defensive—bracelets capable of deflecting bullets and
the Lasso of Truth, which allowed her to acquire intelligence. (She didnft get
her sword until the 1980s.) She and the shield-wielding Captain America
premiered within months of each other.
Marston also
wanted to create an icon for little girls. gNot even girls want to be girls so
long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, power,h he wrote in a
1943 magazine article. gWomenfs strong qualities have become despised because
of their weak ones. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with
all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful
woman.h The result was a woman who fought alongside male soldiers and, in 1943,
ran for President of the United States—against her love interest Steve and the
Manfs World Party—and won.
Her looks were
a matter of debate from the start. Marston was inspired by the pinups that
adorned soldiersf barracks. In almost every comic, Wonder Woman found herself,
at some point, bound up in chains—an image Marston argued was essential to the
larger narrative of breaking free from the patriarchy. (His editors worried it
was too kinky, but let it slide.)
To that end,
Wonder Woman illustrator Harry G. Peter mimicked the statuesque Amazonian women
drawn during the 1910s by artist Annie Lucasta
Rogers. gAmazonian women breaking chains and wearing tiaras, that was the
visual vocabulary of feminism and suffrage,h says historian Jill Lepore, who wrote The Secret History of Wonder Woman. Marston believed that
Wonder Womanfs attractiveness was part of her power, presaging the sex-positive
feminism of future icons like Lady Gaga and Beyoncé.
After
Marstonfs death in 1947, Wonder Woman evolved—or devolved—depending on her
editor. When the war ended and men returned from the front lines, many women
who had been filling in on the factory lines were sent home. Accordingly,
Wonder Woman was demoted from superhero to babysitter and fashion model. A
cover from 1949 shows Steve carrying Wonder Woman, now wearing dainty ballet
slippers instead of combat-ready boots, across a pond. Sidebars in the comics
that had previously highlighted historical feminist figures were replaced by
wedding-advice columns.
In 1972,
Wonder Woman experienced a resurgence when Gloria Steinem put her on the first cover of the
feminist magazine Ms. The headline,
gWonder Woman for President,h was partly a throwback to Marstonfs original. A
few years later, she got a TV series starring Lynda Carter. gThey didnft think
a woman could hold her own show, so they had an awfully difficult time with the
networks,h says Carter. The show ran on ABC for one season and on CBS for
another two. It was enough of a ratings success that Carter credits it with
paving the way for subsequent female-led action shows like Charliefs
Angels.
The messages
were mixed. The first shot of Carter as Wonder Woman, for example, shows her
skipping along a beach in a short purple nightgown, the kind a Bond girl might
wear. Yet when she finds Steve unconscious, she lifts him up and carries him to
safety.
Nevertheless,
the series made an impression on a generation of girls, including on future
director Jenkins, who totted a Wonder Woman notebook around with her in grade
school. gWe all fought at recess about who was going to be Wonder Woman,
because she was the only female superhero we could even think of,h Jenkins
says. gSo it was play Wonder Woman or be out of the game.h
In the 1980s,
the hero disappeared from television, but the comic-book version got a modern
setting and a more muscular frame. In the 1990s, she was outfitted in a
skintight black leather outfit in a bid for more readers. By the 2000s, her
plotlines confronted issues like rape. Throughout, a handful of Wonder Woman
projects kicked around Hollywood, with names like Jennifer Aniston and Sandra
Bullock reportedly attached. They all failed to materialize—until now.
Jenkins had a lot of
time to think about how shefd make a Wonder Woman movie: she began to pitch the
idea after her film Monster won Charlize Theron an Academy
Award in 2004 and established Jenkins as one of Hollywoodfs best-known female
directors. Jenkins was hired in 2011 to direct the sequel to Thor.
She would have been the first woman to helm a Marvel movie—or any major
superhero film—but she and the studio parted ways over gcreative differencesh
later that year. Jenkins declines to discuss the experience, save to express
appreciation for Marvelfs initial hiring of a female director—even if a man
ended up making the film.
Since Iron
Man premiered in 2008, Marvel and its parent company,Disney, have
produced about two superhero films a year, grossing upwards of $8.3 billion
globally. In a bid to catch up, Warner Bros., which owns rival DC
Entertainment, has launched an ambitious effort to make at least 10 new movies
based on Batman, Superman and the rest of the Justice League heroes and
villains over the next five years.
But both
studios have lately realized that to continue fueling the superhero boom, they
will need to come up with more diverse protagonists. Fans have been asking for characters who look
more like them both on social media and during question-and-answer sessions at
San Diego Comic-Con, the annual pop-culture convention that draws more than
130,000 fans. Marvel will premiere its first superhero movie with a black lead
under Disney,Black Panther,
in 2018. But Warner will beat its rivalfs first female superhero film, Captain Marvel,
by two years.
Wonder Woman will
certainly be different from any previous comic-book film. It takes place during
World War I, at the same time as the American and British suffrage movements.
Robin Wright plays an Amazonian mentor, and Connie Nielsen is Wonder Womanfs
mother. When their paradise is attacked by men with guns, the women warriors
fight back with arrows. Later, Wonder Woman travels with Steve, masquerading as
his secretary, to join the Allies. Her lariat shines against the gray backdrop
of the warfs trenches.
gIf shefs smart and strong, she
canft also be sexy. Why canft she be all of the above?hTo re-create the
all-female paradise of Themyscira, Jenkins and her
producers flew dozens of female actors and stunt doubles to a town in Italy
called Happy Village. gIt was like a kibbutz, all of us living in little
bungalows, beautiful and green with no cars,h says Gadot.
gWe had all these women in armor fighting on the beach, and meanwhile all the
men—husbands and boyfriends—are walking around with strollers and taking care
of the kids.h Jenkins says it set the tone for the filmmaking. gIt wasnft just
a gathering of beautiful women,h she adds. gIt was exclusively badass,
interesting women.h
The unique
history of Wonder Woman, and the pressure from fans to get it right, meant the
filmmakers had to tread carefully. Steve, played by Star Trek star
Chris Pine, needed to be supportive but not emasculated. gAfter all, none of us
wants to be in love with someone who isnft grand in their own right,h says
Jenkins. And they had to find pathos in a goddess and a compelling narrative
for a character who is more interested in peace than conflict. Batman, with his
constant moral anxiety, has always been more interesting than, say, the purely
good Captain America.
Jenkins drew
inspiration from the 1978 Superman film starring Christopher
Reeve. Like Marston, she wanted to make Wonder Woman a character to look up to.
The heroes that studios put onscreen can determine whether a child sees herself
as a protagonist or a sidekick—and there has not yet been a Superman-like
figure for young girls. The fact that a woman could utter the same stoic
dialogue Superman has for years, Jenkins believed, would make the character
stand out. gWefve spent years treating male heroes in certain ways,h she says.
gI just applied those same tropes to her, and all these incredible radical
moments suddenly appear to an audience.h
Gadot thinks the bigger challenge was proving the character
could exude both force and compassion, characteristics often held in
opposition. gWe knew it was tricky. We wanted to find the balance between
portraying her as confident and strong and feminine and warm,h she says. gI
didnft want her to be a ball buster. I didnft want her to be bossy. You can be
powerful and also loving.h
Then there was
the issue of the costume. The movie version looks far more war-ready than the
one Carter wore in the television series. Still, critics were quick to note
that Wonder Woman fights in a bustier and skirt, while her ally Batmanfs body
is fully covered, save his mouth and eyes. Gadot
admits that she nearly froze in the getup while filming during winter in
London. Greg Rucka, who currently writes one of the
Wonder Woman comics, says the characterfs outfit has been hotly debated during
his tenure at DC. gI get frustrated when Ifm given [an illustration of] Diana
in three-inch heels, because she canft fight like that. I have an easier time
with her flying than fighting in three-inch heels or dental-floss bottoms,h he
says. gI like the costume for the movie because Gal can actually run and jump
and kick in that.h
•
Gal Gadot is as close to embodying an Amazonian idol
in real life as you can get. She competed in a Miss Universe pageant (owned and
produced by Donald Trump) and—like her Holocaust-survivor grandfather and
parents before her—served in the Israeli military as part of the countryfs
mandatory conscription. Like Wonder Woman, she considers herself a pacifist: gI
know it sounds cheesy, but I wish we didnft have to have an army at all,h she
says. If the original incarnation of Wonder Woman greeted everyone she met with
love, Gadot rattles off compliments to waiters that
make them blush and leans in to tell jokes to strangers.
She sees her
job, partly, as clarifying Wonder Womanfs message of empowerment. gI think
people take it the wrong way when I say Ifm a feminist,h she says. gFeminism is
not about burning bras and hating men. Itfs about gender equality. Whoever is
not a feminist is a chauvinist.h
Gadot has spent the last two years at Comic-Con emphasizing
the importance of strong female figures in boysf lives too—including an
off-script moment in 2015 when she told a young boy who said he was bullied for
wearing Wonder Woman gear that he was gmore of a manh for loving and supporting
women. gWe need to educate boys, show boys strong women in powerful positions,h
she says. gItfs all about expanding the possibilities of what women can be. I
know I couldnft do this without my husband,h Israeli real estate developer Yaron Varsano.
The backlash
against Gadot mirrors much of the abuse endured by
other women in the spotlight—from Susan B. Anthony to Hillary Clinton. gDid you
see the feedback I got from the fans after they cast me for this role?h Gadot asks. gIt was all about my breasts and bottom
literally being too small.h She has typically responded with wit, at one
point shooting backthat true
Amazons cut off one of their breasts in order to better shoot arrows.
Marston
biographer Lepore draws a comparison to the comments
about Gadotfs body to resistance against strong women
throughout history. gI do not envy Gal Gadot in her
position. I donft think it was some accident, for instance, that it was
Jennifer Lawrencefs nude photographs that werehacked after
she starred in The Hunger Games,h she says. gThatfs the age-old
move to demean a powerful woman and put her back in her proper position: reduce
her to her appearance.h
Thatfs the
paradox of Wonder Woman: Itfs not only run-of-the-millInternet trolls and zealous comic-book
fans who take issue with her (or the actor who plays her). Some of Wonder
Womanfs most ardent critics are the very people who desperately want to see
more popular feminist icons but canft ignore the ways in which the character
falls short as an ambassador for women. To be sure, if you were to ask a contemporary
feminist to write a new female superhero, shefd probably be nothing like Wonder
Woman. And yet, this summer itfll be up to a flawed figure to try to break
whatever the superhero equivalent of a glass ceiling is.
When Warner
Bros. premiered the first Wonder Woman trailer last July at Comic-Con, much of
what flashed onscreen followed familiar beats: A bad guy arises with a terrible
new weapon. The fate of humanity is threatened. A new hero suits up for battle.
But then, something unexpected: Steve turns to Wonder Woman and says, gI canft
let you do this.h She pauses and then calmly replies, gWhat I do is not up to
you.h The rest of the trailer was completely drowned out by the sound of
thousands of fans whooping for joy.
This appears in the December 26, 2016 issue of
TIME.