Last Monday Warner Brothers dropped its Wonder Woman 1984 trailer. The highly anticipated sequel to the 2017 origin film that looks at a Themysciran princess traveling to a man’s world to end the mother of all wars.
In the last decade or so superhero movies have garnered a massive and very loyal and at times divided fan base. The DC vs Marvel debate raged on with the latter churning out one successful movie after another. The former which has been in the movie-making business since the late 1970s saw a spurt of success with Christopher Reeve starrer Superman and Tim Burton’s Batman. Probably the jewel in its crown was Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins and the subsequent movies that he directed.
But if we look at all the collective films that have come out of these two behemoth movie houses, female superheroes lack representation. If we Google female superhero movies, only 8 make an appearance, this includes Lucy, the Fantastic Four, and Zoom.
Why do we not have more female superhero movies amidst the likes of a Captain America or an Iron Man? The answer is a well-fleshed out character. Long since the advent of comic books, female characters have been created to play a subsidiary role. Be the damsel in distress that the hero saves or the mother that he adores.
Wonder Woman has been a permanent part of the DC canon for more than 80 years. She also comes with a long history that has been modified with each passing decade. If we compare the origin stories of Superman/Clark Kent/ Kal El and Diana of Themyscira, her story is one that has been written and rewritten time over and over again.
Even though she has been part of the DC ‘Trinity’ she started out as a secretary to the Justice Society of America. While the big boys went out to fight crime she stayed back to take notes. It might be noted that it was a different time but we can’t overlook how blatantly sexist the outcome was.
Women in comic books have had a rough time cementing their position. With a largely male reader base, the creators had to draw in the crowds by presenting women as alluring and comely. As time progressed more and more of these characters got hyper-sexualized. If we take a closer look, a large number of these characters have either been stripped of their powers, killed in gruesome ways, raped, and yes raped and killed (a classic example being Sue Dibny, the beloved wife of the Elongated Man, Ralph Dibny).
Hemlines also went up or in some cases almost disappeared (Yes, I am referring to Starfire from Teen Titans) to Powergirl, Zatanna, Psylocke, Wanda Maximoff aka The Scarlet Witch and the list goes on.
Movies like Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, and the upcoming Black Widow might be a breather but we have a long way to go when it comes to female superheroes carving a niche for themselves albeit at a slow progression on the story arc graph.
Here’s hoping that we see a time when Thor and I am not speaking about the God of Thunder but Jane Foster’s Thor gets her own movie and puts the hammer down (Oh! Did I mention that she dies too and is resurrected soon after, thank god for that!)
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