Superhero movies rarely drum up as much interest outside of their respective fan bases quite as much as Wonder Woman has. Many reviews raved about it’s quality, and I must agree it was quite good (more than can be said for most recent DC comics based films). If you haven’t seen it already, I guarantee you’ve heard someone talk about it or read an article talking it into a feminist context. After having watched it just a few days ago, I must confess that I believe so much attention from this angle is actually taking away from the potential message of the film. Before you turn away, I’ll do my best to keep spoilers to a minimum.
Wonder Woman begins by giving the origin story of the Amazons, their purpose, and how they train. Gal Gadot’s Diana is shown as a young girl, growing up to the adult that saves spy and pilot Steve Thomas. Upon the contact, the Amazons learn of the War to End All Wars raging just beyond their paradise, which prompts Diana to go out and seek and destroy Ares, the greek god of war behind such a terrible war.
The incessant talk about the movie was how great a feminist triumph the film was. I can totally see why, because Wonder Woman is unbelievably badass and carries herself and the men around her with great ability. It takes something like 25 minutes for the first male to appear on the screen, and there are interesting pokes at female fashion, male leadership and sexual approaches. The film very obviously helms this purpose, and given all the hype and the film’s execution, I’d say it did a fairly good job.
But while watching it, I found there was a very interesting moment that I was surprised I didn’t hear more about prior to viewing. There was a moment after an epic battle where Dianna is speaking to one of her fellow fighters about his life. He mentions that he didn’t want to be a soldier, and grew up hoping to be an actor. Puzzled by this, Wonder Woman asks why he didn’t end up an actor, to which he responds that his skin was the wrong color. Being that the movie is set in World War I era, isn’t as much a commentary on race discrimination of nowadays. In context, the moment serves the purpose more to relate the women’s plight of the age, and some would argue today in the modern era, to that of the problems minorities faced and sometimes continue to. Suddenly both plights didn’t seem their respective arguments against the world, but two equal pushes for equality alongside other demographics. Such a link isn’t something I actively gave much thought to, and to see it done so simply yet poignant was quite nice to see both in the moment and in retrospect.
But have you heard anything about that? I didn’t at least. I’m not trying to demean the Feminist cause in the movie. While I’m not very well informed, if the claims of discrimination in things such as wage gaps are, in fact, legitimate and real problems, I’m all for the push for equal opportunity. Finally seeing a tastefully done female main protagonist superhero movie is quite refreshing as a casual superhero movie enthusiast and I presume must be even more so to feminists of all kinds. But lost in the whirlwind of this feminist-centric wave is a message that in my eyes carries greater novelty and importance, that of a unified front against potential faults in opportunities for all.
