Wonder Woman – More of the Same Manly Stuff
19 Monday Jun 2017
Let me introduce myself as one of the only moviegoers in the western world to see Wonder Woman— on the big screen, in 3-D — and not come away thinking she was wonderful. Fun! Fantastic! At last!
No. I came away sad and sorrowful. Men have won. The push for women’s equality, empowerment, since my grandmother marched with the suffragettes, to consciousness-raising groups in my tender manhood to second wave feminism of recent years has brought us to this: women can be murderous at the same level as men.
I get that physical prowess and competition is exciting, that women’s tennis is equally exciting as men’s, that individual excellence and team work is necessary to the development of all humans and should not be suppressed by child rearing practices, cultural shibboleths or whippings in the public square. Neither should it be warped to conform to overwhelmingly masculine values, built over millennia. The peak measure of courage, valor, endurance should not always reside in war, in the willingness to kill others, on a massive scale, and if possible with as many explosions as possible.
I’ll admit that I was never a fan of the cartoon genre, and never became one. The world itself, as it is, has always been magic enough — in its good and its bad– for me. Continue reading »
