I saw Lindy Hemming’s work in Wonder Woman and I almost
cried. Scratch that, I did cry. Lindy Hemming didn’t use fetish lingerie
as her starting point, she used armor. Actual armor. Roman armor, to be
specific. Romans made armor out of overlapping bands of very heavy
leather. Because it was organic material, very little of it survived,
but here’s a fragment:
You can see this same technique clearly on Antiope in Wonder Woman:
And you can see it here on Diana:
It’s been highly stylized on Diana, but the inspiration, the intent, is there:
Remember when I said sometimes I can tell exactly what a designer was
looking at when they designed something? This is a piece of Roman
leather armor made out of a crocodile hide:
This is one of Hippolyta’s costumes. I almost squealed out loud in the theater when I saw it!
All the Amazons had fantastic, warrior-based details. The folklore
about Amazons cutting off a breast so they were better able to fight?
(which has no historical basis, btw) Lindy Hemming gave them a metal
breast plate on one side:
And, as a side note, can we talk about the casting of the Amazons?
All those gorgeous, strong, athletic women of all ages… swoon!
Yes, Diana’s costume has been stylized and they made her attractive,
but that costume first and foremost is armor. It’s functional:
That skirt? The shape is Roman, cut high over the thighs so it doesn’t impede movement:
Those aren’t sexy thigh-high boots:
They’re Roman greaves, meant to protect, and they buckle on. Again, ARMOR!
With Wonder Woman, the starting point, the INTENT, is
everything. The reason I literally cried watching the Amazons fight is
that FINALLY, somebody started at the right place. That design showed
respect. The intent, right from the start, was to portray those women as
warriors, and that, at least for me, made all the difference.
WAIT, THIS DOESN’T SHOW JUST HOW AWESOME DIANA IS.
This is from ruckawriter’s run on WW (the best ever, imho). Medusa turns one of Diana’s employees into stone (Diana is a full-on ambassador as well as superhero) and then challenges Diana to a fight. Diana is skeptical, but Aphrodite pretty much says, “Listen, we’re not gonna take this shit from Medusa, you gotta fight her.” So Diana shows up pretty ready, blindfold, armor, all that. But it turns out Medusa has manipulated the event to be televised, so that after she defeats Diana, she can look into the screen and turn all the people watching into stone.
Just TAKE THIS SHIT IN FOR A HOT SECOND (all images courtesy of scans_daily)
Then the stuff above happens. YES, BITCHES, DIANA—WHO HAS RECENTLY HAD A SWORD RUN THROUGH ONE OF HER KIDNEYS— TAKES ONE OF THE SNAKES SHE CUT OFF MEDUSA’S HEAD WHILE BLINDFOLDED AND SQUIRTS THE POISON IN HER EYES SO SHE IS BLIND SO MEDUSA CAN’T FUCK WITH HER.
Why? BECAUSE SAVING AND AVENGING EVEN ONE MORTAL LIFE IS WORTH HER OWN GODDAMN VISION THAT’S WHY.
But after that badass “Never?” THIS PHOTO SET LEAVES OUT THE BEST PART. WONDER WOMAN IMMEDIATELY CHOPS OFF MEDUSA’S HEAD. NO HESITATION. NO NEGOTIATION. NO DESTROYING A WHOLE CITY JUST TO BEAT HER UP A LITTLE MORE. CHOP AND DONE.
And then?
DROP THAT MIC, DI.
DROP IT LIKE THE MAGMA-HOT SHIT THAT IT IS.
To Rucka’s credit, this wasn’t no false-ass sacrifice, either. She stays blind AND STILL SAVES EVERYONE’S ASSES.
How does she get her sight back? She does something for Athena and Athena grants her one boon. So what does our Diana do? Ask for her sight back?
NOPE. SHE ASKS FOR LIFE TO BE RETURNED TO A CHILD KILLED BY MEDUSA.
And Athena was like, “Shit, Wonder Woman, you’re better than all of us, I guess you can have your sight back, too.” And Diana’s pretty much like, “Fine, that’s cool I guess, I was still getting shit done without it.”
THIS IS WHY I HAVE A LOT OF GODDAMN FEELINGS ABOUT WONDER WOMAN.
One thing that makes Steve Trevor work in Wonder Woman is that they manage to hit the “Tries and fails to be protective” angle, but without any of the normal sexism you see in that trope.
It’s not “No honey, this is a job for a MAN, You can’t do that!” it’s “Diana! Stop! No! PEOPLE DIE WHEN THEY DO THAT! You can’t do that! I CAN’T DO THAT! NOBODY CAN DO THAT…Except You, apparently”
Yes! Exactly! And not only that but there’s no wounded pride scene where he goes like “How could she do that?”, “Why didn’t you tell me you could do that?” blah blah blah. Instead, he’s more like “Woah, can you show me more?” and “Hey guys, you know that thing we haven’t been able to do? SHE’S DOING THE THING! LET’S GO!”
I feel all of this exceptionally strongly for having Whedon’a script floating around out there, showing so starkly how to do all of this only wrong, only awful.
I hate most hetero relationships in films but honestly Steve’s romance with Diana was not only bearable but enjoyable to me in those moments.
After the first few times she shows him her abilities, he totally rolls with it and just lets her charge on ahead. He wants to protect her, but he trusts her skills and he’s practically giddy when she succeeds.
Steve never assumes Diana she can’t do things ‘because she’s a woman.’ He assumes, rather, that Diana has the same vulnerabilities as her fellow Amazons, a number of whom he personally watched get felled by bullets whilst battling gun-weilding fascists on a beach.
This is an entirely fair assumption to make considering even Diana, at the beginning of the film, does not realize that she is a god among mortals. Her mother raised her to think of herself as human.
Steve starts off assuming Diana is a highly competent, albeit human warrior, because she introduces herself to him as an Amazon, and he’s seen the Amazons in action. He knows what the Amazons are capable of. He’s seen them die from bullet wounds. He’s also seen them win a battle against technologically advanced fascists using only bows and arrows and parkour.
As soon as Steve realizes that Diana has godlike powers, he adjusts his expectations accordingly. He no longer expects her to have the vulnerabilities of a human warrior once she’s proven otherwise.
.
The thing about Steve is, he’s not consciously trying to be a feminist ally. He’s just reasonable.
He makes logical conclusions based on his observations. He draws new conclusions when he observes new phenomena that contradict his previous assumptions.
He uses basic common sense.
And that’s the beautiful thing about this screenplay. It does a great job of illustrating how illogical sexism is, and how diametrically opposed sexism is to common sense.
If you discover someone you were flirting with yesterday can repel bullets, the logical reaction is awe. A reasonable human being would be awestruck. It would be absurd to get defensive. Yet we, the audience, expect the male protagonist to get defensive because that’s what we’re used to seeing from male protagonists.
We are so used to male protagonists with comically inflated egos, that it’s shocking to see a male protagonist put common sense ahead of his ego. We are so used to seeing male protagonists make sexist assumptions that we are surprised when they instead draw logical conclusions.
The opposite of a sexist is a reasonable human being.
The moment when he yelled “DIANA, SHIELD” in order to help HER save the day actually made me cry in the theater
“We had 80 incredible women, all living in one Italian summer camp, from supermodels to the best female boxer in the world. It was rangy women just stalking around with their badass moves in droves, all becoming best friends and all super-intrigued by one another.” – Patty Jenkins
okay, so. the thing that kills me about Wonder Woman is that it’s so, so absurdist, and in the best way. all of the characters except diana go into the entire thing knowing that the war might never end, that the people in charge of their armies don’t give a flying fuck about what happens to the people on the ground, that everything they do might not even matter in the long run. steve even says when he’s on themyscira that it seems like the world’s going to end.
one of the most famous lines by camus (who was an absurdist) is “in the middle of winter i at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.” the entire point of absurdism is staring into the void and saying, “no, i refuse.” the world is empty and bleak and meaningless, and you could choose to be nihilist about that, or you could pick yourself up and create the meaning you want to see. and that’s what all of the characters in wonder woman do.
when he gets in that plane steve knows, he knows, that they still might not win the war. he knows diana might not be able to kill ares. he knows dr. poison might still escape. he knows that people are still going to die. and you know what? he gets in the plane anyway. he stares into the face of a war that might never end and says, well, i can save today. and that is what matters.
sam and chief and charlie watch their friend run toward a plane and know he’s on a suicide mission (that might not even save the war!) and they yell to stop him at first and then they cover him like he asked them to because even when they hate it, they respect his ability to make his own decisions and they hold up their end of the deal. they risk their lives helping him risk his because it’s what they signed up to. it’s what they should do.
when diana leaves themyscira, she knows she might not live to come back. sure, her character is driven by a kind of relentless optimism, but it’s a chosen optimism, not a naive one. she might die, but she’ll be damned if she dies doing anything other than what is just, what is her duty as an amazon. her mother says, “what if you never come back?” and diana’s reply is, “who will i be if i stay?”
when steve’s on the plane and it looks like they’re all about to die, all sam and chief and charlie do is they lean in to each other. yeah, the world’s ending, so what are we gonna do? we’re gonna spend those last moments with each other. we’re gonna close our eyes and know that we did all that we could and even if it ends up doing nothing to affect the war as a whole, well, at least we did something.
there’s a story from the holocaust about a group of jews reciting prayers when one stops and says “why are we doing this? we’re about to die. only a madman would say these prayers now.” and the rabbi looks at him and quietly says, “our enemies have taken everything from us, but they cannot take our freedom to say these prayers. we must live as free men temporarily in captivity. that, if necessary, is how we will die.”
the characters in wonder woman push on even when they think it might be pointless, because that is the point. absurdism is about accepting that maybe you’ll never be able to make everything right, you might not even be able to make everything okay, but you can always do something. you can walk into the unending darkness, hold up a lighter, flick it on and say, “i win.” and in doing so, you will have won.
Let’s talk about
Themyscira and just how different their society would be when it comes to sex and love
First of all as we saw there is no taboo on nudity. The naked body is not considered a big thing. Things like scars and skills in battle are quite considered a far sexier thing then nudity could ever be
Second it’s very likely that due to their immortality and isolation from the rest of the world long term romantic relationships live side with with polyamourous ones as well as casual sex
Which brings me to Diana….the only child on the entire island. Literally every single Amazon on the island would have known her since she was a tiny baby,.
Her fighting skills would be decades if not centuries behind the other Amazons, her skin would be flawless and barely have any scars on it and her muscles while adequate were nothing to really write home about. By the standards of Amazonian society she would probably be the least sexually attractive Amazon on the island. So imagine teenage Diana with her hormones raging, reading all night about the pleasure of the flesh and trying cringe worthy attempts to flirt with the other Amazonian warriors. And nothing works so frustrated she puts all her energy into her training until one day years later…she beats Antiope in a training match. The very same night she gets asked out by three Amazonians and suddenly Diana is finally the new hot thing in town and she is loving it
TL;DR: To the outside world Diana is the most attractive woman in the universe in Themyscira she was an awkward skinny nerd who couldn’t get laid for decades
And another thing I love about Wonder Woman is that it gently introdces some familiar tropes and the quickly shuts them dowm in favor of sincere and meaningful characterisation.
The four male supports are the prime examples:
1. First, you have Steve, the Het White Male and you’re thinking oh I bet he’s a dick, lets get ready for some mild seualisation if not actual sexism. But?? Steve Trevor is a Pure and Good Man who supports and respects Diana and is actualy relationship goals????
2. Then, you have Sameer, and at first you think, oh hell the North African Con Man trope, but it turns out he’s a talented linguist who dreams of being an actor. Beautiful
3. Next you have Charlie, the Alcoholic Scotsman. But it turns out he drinks because he is facing some pretty serious mental health issues, and all his friends support his recovery and care for his emotional wellbeing !!!
4. And then you have Chief, and you’re surprised becasue first of all this is a Native American Character played by a Native American. And then!! He isn’t the Medicine Man, or the Spiritual Guide but a man who had everything taken from him by white people and is just trying to make something for himself. Fucking pUre.
I thought I was going to be fired because I just kept laughing. I also thought it would be funny to say lines that weren’t in the script just to make others laugh and ruin their take. – Lucy Davis
Life and death and love and birth And peace and war on the planet Earth
Wonder Woman kind of made me want to draw the Temple Fusion on a battlefield … even if that might not be realistic since I think Amethyst came a bit later on but let’s just pretend ok
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