Skip to main content

Feminist Wonder Woman View

It is evident through the article on Gail Simone and the introduction by Gloria Steinem that it is possible to put a different interpretation on things than were originally intended. Feminists Gail Simone and Gloria Steinem both see Wonder Women as a female role model, appealing to a female audience. Gloria Steinem indicates that the creator William Marston “had seen straight into [her] heart and understood the fears of violence and humiliation hidden there.” This is interesting because they don’t seem to realize that William Marston was actually trying to appeal to a young male audience. Gloria Steinem also suggests William Marston “tried to get an egalitarian world view into comic book form” contradicting what was written the Wonder Woman book which indicates Marston was trying to promote a future where women dominated. Gail Simone also gives a view of Wonder Woman as very strong and powerful, as a "princess who didn't need someone to rescue her". Obviously she is discounting the period when Wonder Woman was depowered and remade into a sort of damsel in distress, depending on the support of males.


Gloria Steinem used Queen Hippolyte as an example of a strong female character, “a rare example of a mother who is good, powerful, and a mentor to her daughter.” However, this character could be seen as strong because she takes on traditionally male roles- like founding a nation, fighting to protect said nation, and as a supporting role to the heir.


I also found it interesting when Gloria Steinem pointed out that “some of her adversaries were suspiciously short, ugly, fat, or ethnic as a symbol of “un-American” status”. It seems rather ironic that the foreign adversaries were depicted ethnically as America is considered a “melting pot”, embracing foreign peoples. Also, currently, Americans are typically associated as being over weight, so the weight of the fat adversaries could be seen as an American characteristic.


Something else Gloria Steinem mentioned was that villains are marked “by their prejudice and lust for money”. She then goes on to describe the example of when Thomas Tighe refused Wonder Woman the promised reward for his rescue. Looking at this situation from a somewhat different angle, I wonder if this makes Wonder Woman less of a heroine because she is doing her heroics for a million dollar reward. Wouldn’t this make her more of a mercenary? Assuming this situation was written by William Marston and knowing he liked to incorporate mythology into his comics, I wonder if he knew the Greek myth of Aeschylus and how he was punished for asking payment for saving lives.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why blame comics for societal failure?

Why blame comics for societal failure? Society blamed comics for the societal failures because it was a fairly new industry, and as things seemed to go “wrong” they figured it must be comic books. When a child grew up during the war, his father was probably killing people and the military and his mother was probably making things in factories to help kill the opposition. The only things kids had to “babysit” them was comic books, and they read many different kinds. So when kids starting acting differently in this new generation the figured it must be the comic books. Society didn’t want to believe it may have been the internal and external scars war causes on the soldiers and their families. Also the fact that young unattended children are reading these comics may not be able to differentiate between fantasy and reality. When society fails it always needs a scapegoat then it was comic books next it was rock and roll. Society naturally resist change.
2 comments
Read more

Mythology and Superheroes in Comics

Ohhh my goodness... When I decided on trying to analyze the mythological origins and references in superhero comics, I had no idea the can of worms I was opening up... On the one hand, it was awesome to see just how many connections there were between superheroes and psychology/mythology/philosophy, but all the information also made it terribly difficult to distinguish what I should be using and how to tie it all together. When I was talking to one of my sorority sisters about it she said, "Oh yeah, well, research essays are kind of like putting together puzzles..." and I think that really sums up what writing this paper was like for me. Fortunately, I was really interested throughout the whole process and I very much enjoyed writing the paper. Being a psychology major, I was especially interested in reading about the Jungian archetypes that had a lot of parallels with major modern comic books superheroes. I was also able to incorporate Joseph Campbell's "hero cycle...
2 comments
Read more

The 1950s are often portrayed as a period of social cohesion. Why is this misleading?

When we think of the 1950's, most people think of similar things such as "Leave it to Beaver", very conservative and cliched pop music, and high patriotism. Our view of that time is one of social conformity to conservative values, with a traditional nuclear family where the father worked and the mother stayed home, where a majority of people attended church, where crime was relatively low, where a majority of American citizens were extremely patriotic, and where entertainment media emphasized these same conservative values and were subjected to censorship if they did not conform. This is misleading because while these things were all true to a certain extent, the world was obviously not perfect and not everyone was conforming or upholding traditional values, even if it seemed like they were. The 1950's were actually a very tumultuous time period, with the end of World War II leaving Europe war torn and in debt, the outbreak of the Korean War and the clashes of opinion...
1 comment
Read more