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beccatoriaThis is some long, hopefully not entirely incoherent meta about Wonder Woman and feminism and how I fell head over heels in love with her.
I want to talk a bit about Wonder Woman. I have a confession to make. A lot of why I used to like her was...out of a sense of duty. I wanted to like her. I like the notion of her being one third of the DCU Trinity, I like the fact she's Superman's equal, I like that she is frequently in positions of political and diplomatic power. Despite disliking the fact that DC can't seem to make her as popular as Superman or Batman (for reasons that are directly relevant to the rest of the this post), I like that they at least keep trying.
But honestly, she also made me uncomfortable. There's a perception of aggressive second wave feminism about her, and combined with her costume, I don't know, it's easy to reach to cartoonish and embarrassing images of, bluntly, the way second wave feminism is often neutered. By mischaracterisation as two-dimensional man-hating woman from a bunch of irrational women, good thing this one's cute (and wearing next to nothing) and not one of those ugly lesbians! You know, Taming of the Shrew bullshit.
And I admit, there has always been a part of me that wanted to, I don't know, run up to her and yell, "Don't you understand?! You're making it easy for the misogynists to laugh at us! Please tone it down!" Which is, of course, spectacularly depressing. But, I gotta be honest, part of me felt like that. About the character, and about people who saw her like that, and about the times she was written like that - by people who didn't get it, who thought having her insult guys who pluckily refused to stop hitting on her was the way to go. (I'm looking at you, Wonder Woman Animated Movie of 2009, even though most of you was fun enough).
So like, basically, I wanted to like her but wasn't sure what to do with her. I kind of wished she had softer edges because I wanted her to stop being so aggressively associated with "man-hating", because at times I thought she ended up representing parodies of feminist concerns (due to poor writing) and at times I thought she was too brave in announcing them and might get further with a softly, softly approach - which yes is a horrible attitude born out of exhaustion and I ain't proud of it. Anyway, that's how I felt.
Then I read some fucking Wonder Woman.
Or, more correctly, I read some really, really good Wonder Woman.
I read the runs by Greg Rucka and by Gail Simone. (I also read the 14 issues between the two runs, which I had vastly more mixed feelings about).
Is Wonder Woman a feminist? Well sure. She's also a pacifist, a diplomat, a warrior, willing to kill when neither Batman nor Superman are and for (for my money) better ethically justified reasons, a vegetarian, a humanitarian, an ally against racism and homophobia, an anti-imperialist, a princess, a demi-goddess and a daughter.
That's slightly facetious in that anyone from an exclusively female society who were shut off from the world on a magical island by Greek Goddesses as, basically, recompense for having been fucked over by blokes, is never going to be void of gender politics. But...neither should she be.
Feminism is among the issues raised by implication in Rucka and Simone's work. But Wonder Woman's mission, to act as ambassador for her people in Man's World, so...inelegantly named, perhaps, so easy to hamfistedly write as an angry woman raging against men with her invulnerable skin and her most iconic weapon, a tool that forces out hidden desires and then judges you for them - that's never written as a feminist crusade.
It's a humanist crusade. A pacifist crusade.
Wonder Woman's feminism works best through her existence as someone who does not consider her own equality anything other than self-evident. It's in the reactions, both fictional and realworld that the truth of it comes out.
Rucka and Simone's runs are different in quite a few ways - Rucka focuses more on the political and perceptual because throughout his run, Diana is an actual figure of political importance and an Ambassador to the UN. Simone's is more personal; this is Diana after Rucka slowly took everything from her (spectacularly, I might add). It's a Diana who has been through more, but interestingly, in some ways, I feel a Diana who seems younger, with the return of her mother to the tale - she becomes once again the collective daughter, rather than leader, of her people. In any event, if Rucka gives us Diana as a world leader, Simone gives us Diana as a guerilla hero (with gorilla best friends!) rebuilding her life and reputation. But both women are recognisably the same person.
They are both shockingly well-adjusted, profoundly caring, deeply competent, fiercely loyal, utterly unmovable in the face of the Gods when she does not agree with them, and willing to live with the consequences of every one of her actions.
In a way similar to Fringe where the writers - at least at points - write Olivia as an overworked cop, basically with a lot of the bloke traits and behaviours and storylines, except she happens to be a woman, but without deliberately drawing attention to this decision either, both Rucka and Simone write Diana as herself. As a superhero. As a leader. The references to gender politics are present, because it would be disingenuous to ignore them. Despite my first paragraphs; despite the fact I once wanted that - I wanted Wonder Woman to maintain the fiction that we are in a gender neutral world, and to stop embarrassing us all by making Comic Book Readers admit otherwise, because they'd just start laughing, fuck that, it's not right.
But the references to gender politics are not the story. It's not the tale of how Wonder Woman has to overcome everyone's prejudice because she's a woman, or how she has to find true love with a man, or how she inspires housewives, because she couldn't possibly inspire businessmen.
There's always going to be the fact that her Rogue's Gallery skews heavily female, the way Batman or Superman's skews male, except suddenly it's obvious because women are the exception. There'll always be the fact that Circe has an at-times explicitly gender-political agenda. Or that Simone's creation in Alkyone is a giant, epic clusterfuck of gender issues that I'll get to in a minute.
And sometimes this works well and sometimes it's an unfortunate link to past eras, and really who cares, because alongside all this, Diana is the ambassador to the UN or teaming up with Beowolf. She's defying the gods to save her mother, or she's acting as Athena's champion and destroying the Medousa to save millions of people from getting turned to stone.
She's just this giant fucking hero, except she makes it a point to pass the Bechdel test six times before breakfast, and that's her unapologetic act of aggressive feminism.
The reason Wonder Woman is amazing, is the same reason she doesn't sell as well as Batman or Superman, and why, while she sells better due to her legacy and yes, due to DC actively attempting to maintain her status as one of the DC Trinity (for which I thank them, even as I know that their constant interference in trying to make her more popular is probably not always helpful or about making her into the kind of character written by Simone or Rucka), despite that, she's probably less universally loved or liked than characters like Batgirl or Supergirl.
She's amazing (and fails to sell) because she makes everyone uncomfortable by existing without apology.
Everyone. On all sides.
And I do mean that in terms of, "she makes guys nervous because she's unattainable, she makes misogynists nervous because she's a strong woman, she makes girls nervous because they don't want her to be a laughing stock, she makes feminists nervous because she runs around in a swim suit..."
But I also mean that in terms of her stories. That the breadth and style of topics that are covered at least results in the potential to make the readership themselves uncomfortable. And again, I include myself, and again, let's talk specifics.
Gail Simone's opening story - "The Circle" - retells Wonder Woman's origin in flashback as we see where she is now. And it's a great book. And no lie, bits of it made me hella uncomfortable. I mean, if I wanted to tear it down, the whittle-baby thing is pretty creepy; it's basically a tale of women going babycrazy in all kinds of different ways, even if the fairly awesome idea of Diana as everyone's daughter is worth more mileage. No matter the narrative logic of any childless culture eventually yearning for a legacy, it's uncomfortable. And then there's the weird plot with the Sons of Aries. And then there's the fact that, not just in Simone's run, but generally, the Amazons are kind of manhaters, and for all the narrative reasons behind that, is it a supergreat idea to tell tales about an isolationist colony of extremist rape victims who trained themselves to be fighting machines? Is there a way any possible direction away from that starting point won't make someone go, "wait, ick"?
But equally, let me take my snark-hat off, and say, Gail Simone's story was some well-written stuff. And if we step back and don't ignore narrative logic for a second, Diana's story is steeped in Greek myth, which is internecine, bloody, disturbing, incestuous stuff.
But perhaps most importantly, what this is really doing, is getting wrapped up in later waves of feminism. Women have babies. It's a thing they sometimes do. It's actually a kind of important thing they sometimes do, individually and societally. And we absolutely suck at telling good stories about that in our media.
And women also get raped and abused disproportionately. And we absolutely suck at telling good stories about that in our media.
Maybe a Rucka/Simone parallel is in order. Rucka largely avoids these issues and instead insists on simply telling us the tale of the Athena's Champion. Simone confronts them more directly; never in terms of direct commentary (as I said, I think for both writers Wonder Woman's feminism becomes an aspect of her existence, of the nature of her story, rather than preaching from a speech bubble), but she throws all this stuff, all this uncomfortable, awkward stuff right there onto the page.
Do I think that she wrote without flaws on these topics? No. I'm genuinely uncertain and undecided what I think of a lot of it. But my reaction isn't revulsion, it's a burning desire to read about a billion academic papers by people smarter than me on what she might be doing, on what it says, on how it works, or doesn't.
In that, does it play back to the start of Rucka's run, when Diana releases a book of answers that she only ever intended to start debate?
Whether or not Simone did it well, the point I feel it's important to make, is that there are tropes about women that are awful primarily because they've been co-opted, and maybe losing them from a toolbox isn't the answer.
Is it reclaimation? Is it stereotype? I don't know. It makes me uncomfortable. But my considered opinion is that it was gutsy of Simone to try.
Oppression is a scar on all of us. We don't think clearly around it. Any of us. Any time a whisper of it is in the air. Even with the best and kindest intentions. Even when we know we have to have these conversations and fight for them to take place, even when we are firm in our beliefs that we are on the right side of the issue, they're not comfortable.
And that's why Wonder Woman is fucking amazing and yes, a feminist icon.
She makes me uncomfortable. I love her.
Like I said, the character doesn't come out and start punching a supervillain named Misogynist Man. She doesn't spout feminist theory. She just exists in this nexus of gender politics both textual and metatextual and is at complete ease with herself, even when we're not, even when we wonder if she should be.
And that's why she'll never sell as many comics as Superman, Batman, or even Green Lantern. And I don't see how it can change. I don't think you can write her ironically. I don't think it works. She has the problem Superman does - which is why Batman is currently more popular - he's a sincere guy, a Big, Blue Boy Scout in an age of cynicism. Wonder Woman has that problem backwards, and in high heels.
Somewhere in here there's a metaphor about truth versus perception that's worthy of the wonderful work Rucka did with those concepts across his run, but I can't find it.
Somewhere in here I should have mentioned how much I love Gail Simone for, when faced with a situation where a Superman villain would kidnap Lois Lane, specifically not having her villain kidnap Wonder Woman's love interest, but rather kidnapping her tough-as-nails, slightly-overweight, slightly-older, best friend in the world, Etta Candy, because Etta is far more important to Diana.
Somewhere in here, I should mention how much I enjoy both authors' portrayal of Diana as incredibly free with her affection and expressive of her love and appreciation for friends and family.
Somewhere in here should be a closing paragraph. ;)
I want to talk a bit about Wonder Woman. I have a confession to make. A lot of why I used to like her was...out of a sense of duty. I wanted to like her. I like the notion of her being one third of the DCU Trinity, I like the fact she's Superman's equal, I like that she is frequently in positions of political and diplomatic power. Despite disliking the fact that DC can't seem to make her as popular as Superman or Batman (for reasons that are directly relevant to the rest of the this post), I like that they at least keep trying.
But honestly, she also made me uncomfortable. There's a perception of aggressive second wave feminism about her, and combined with her costume, I don't know, it's easy to reach to cartoonish and embarrassing images of, bluntly, the way second wave feminism is often neutered. By mischaracterisation as two-dimensional man-hating woman from a bunch of irrational women, good thing this one's cute (and wearing next to nothing) and not one of those ugly lesbians! You know, Taming of the Shrew bullshit.
And I admit, there has always been a part of me that wanted to, I don't know, run up to her and yell, "Don't you understand?! You're making it easy for the misogynists to laugh at us! Please tone it down!" Which is, of course, spectacularly depressing. But, I gotta be honest, part of me felt like that. About the character, and about people who saw her like that, and about the times she was written like that - by people who didn't get it, who thought having her insult guys who pluckily refused to stop hitting on her was the way to go. (I'm looking at you, Wonder Woman Animated Movie of 2009, even though most of you was fun enough).
So like, basically, I wanted to like her but wasn't sure what to do with her. I kind of wished she had softer edges because I wanted her to stop being so aggressively associated with "man-hating", because at times I thought she ended up representing parodies of feminist concerns (due to poor writing) and at times I thought she was too brave in announcing them and might get further with a softly, softly approach - which yes is a horrible attitude born out of exhaustion and I ain't proud of it. Anyway, that's how I felt.
Then I read some fucking Wonder Woman.
Or, more correctly, I read some really, really good Wonder Woman.
I read the runs by Greg Rucka and by Gail Simone. (I also read the 14 issues between the two runs, which I had vastly more mixed feelings about).
Is Wonder Woman a feminist? Well sure. She's also a pacifist, a diplomat, a warrior, willing to kill when neither Batman nor Superman are and for (for my money) better ethically justified reasons, a vegetarian, a humanitarian, an ally against racism and homophobia, an anti-imperialist, a princess, a demi-goddess and a daughter.
That's slightly facetious in that anyone from an exclusively female society who were shut off from the world on a magical island by Greek Goddesses as, basically, recompense for having been fucked over by blokes, is never going to be void of gender politics. But...neither should she be.
Feminism is among the issues raised by implication in Rucka and Simone's work. But Wonder Woman's mission, to act as ambassador for her people in Man's World, so...inelegantly named, perhaps, so easy to hamfistedly write as an angry woman raging against men with her invulnerable skin and her most iconic weapon, a tool that forces out hidden desires and then judges you for them - that's never written as a feminist crusade.
It's a humanist crusade. A pacifist crusade.
Wonder Woman's feminism works best through her existence as someone who does not consider her own equality anything other than self-evident. It's in the reactions, both fictional and realworld that the truth of it comes out.
Rucka and Simone's runs are different in quite a few ways - Rucka focuses more on the political and perceptual because throughout his run, Diana is an actual figure of political importance and an Ambassador to the UN. Simone's is more personal; this is Diana after Rucka slowly took everything from her (spectacularly, I might add). It's a Diana who has been through more, but interestingly, in some ways, I feel a Diana who seems younger, with the return of her mother to the tale - she becomes once again the collective daughter, rather than leader, of her people. In any event, if Rucka gives us Diana as a world leader, Simone gives us Diana as a guerilla hero (with gorilla best friends!) rebuilding her life and reputation. But both women are recognisably the same person.
They are both shockingly well-adjusted, profoundly caring, deeply competent, fiercely loyal, utterly unmovable in the face of the Gods when she does not agree with them, and willing to live with the consequences of every one of her actions.
In a way similar to Fringe where the writers - at least at points - write Olivia as an overworked cop, basically with a lot of the bloke traits and behaviours and storylines, except she happens to be a woman, but without deliberately drawing attention to this decision either, both Rucka and Simone write Diana as herself. As a superhero. As a leader. The references to gender politics are present, because it would be disingenuous to ignore them. Despite my first paragraphs; despite the fact I once wanted that - I wanted Wonder Woman to maintain the fiction that we are in a gender neutral world, and to stop embarrassing us all by making Comic Book Readers admit otherwise, because they'd just start laughing, fuck that, it's not right.
But the references to gender politics are not the story. It's not the tale of how Wonder Woman has to overcome everyone's prejudice because she's a woman, or how she has to find true love with a man, or how she inspires housewives, because she couldn't possibly inspire businessmen.
There's always going to be the fact that her Rogue's Gallery skews heavily female, the way Batman or Superman's skews male, except suddenly it's obvious because women are the exception. There'll always be the fact that Circe has an at-times explicitly gender-political agenda. Or that Simone's creation in Alkyone is a giant, epic clusterfuck of gender issues that I'll get to in a minute.
And sometimes this works well and sometimes it's an unfortunate link to past eras, and really who cares, because alongside all this, Diana is the ambassador to the UN or teaming up with Beowolf. She's defying the gods to save her mother, or she's acting as Athena's champion and destroying the Medousa to save millions of people from getting turned to stone.
She's just this giant fucking hero, except she makes it a point to pass the Bechdel test six times before breakfast, and that's her unapologetic act of aggressive feminism.
The reason Wonder Woman is amazing, is the same reason she doesn't sell as well as Batman or Superman, and why, while she sells better due to her legacy and yes, due to DC actively attempting to maintain her status as one of the DC Trinity (for which I thank them, even as I know that their constant interference in trying to make her more popular is probably not always helpful or about making her into the kind of character written by Simone or Rucka), despite that, she's probably less universally loved or liked than characters like Batgirl or Supergirl.
She's amazing (and fails to sell) because she makes everyone uncomfortable by existing without apology.
Everyone. On all sides.
And I do mean that in terms of, "she makes guys nervous because she's unattainable, she makes misogynists nervous because she's a strong woman, she makes girls nervous because they don't want her to be a laughing stock, she makes feminists nervous because she runs around in a swim suit..."
But I also mean that in terms of her stories. That the breadth and style of topics that are covered at least results in the potential to make the readership themselves uncomfortable. And again, I include myself, and again, let's talk specifics.
Gail Simone's opening story - "The Circle" - retells Wonder Woman's origin in flashback as we see where she is now. And it's a great book. And no lie, bits of it made me hella uncomfortable. I mean, if I wanted to tear it down, the whittle-baby thing is pretty creepy; it's basically a tale of women going babycrazy in all kinds of different ways, even if the fairly awesome idea of Diana as everyone's daughter is worth more mileage. No matter the narrative logic of any childless culture eventually yearning for a legacy, it's uncomfortable. And then there's the weird plot with the Sons of Aries. And then there's the fact that, not just in Simone's run, but generally, the Amazons are kind of manhaters, and for all the narrative reasons behind that, is it a supergreat idea to tell tales about an isolationist colony of extremist rape victims who trained themselves to be fighting machines? Is there a way any possible direction away from that starting point won't make someone go, "wait, ick"?
But equally, let me take my snark-hat off, and say, Gail Simone's story was some well-written stuff. And if we step back and don't ignore narrative logic for a second, Diana's story is steeped in Greek myth, which is internecine, bloody, disturbing, incestuous stuff.
But perhaps most importantly, what this is really doing, is getting wrapped up in later waves of feminism. Women have babies. It's a thing they sometimes do. It's actually a kind of important thing they sometimes do, individually and societally. And we absolutely suck at telling good stories about that in our media.
And women also get raped and abused disproportionately. And we absolutely suck at telling good stories about that in our media.
Maybe a Rucka/Simone parallel is in order. Rucka largely avoids these issues and instead insists on simply telling us the tale of the Athena's Champion. Simone confronts them more directly; never in terms of direct commentary (as I said, I think for both writers Wonder Woman's feminism becomes an aspect of her existence, of the nature of her story, rather than preaching from a speech bubble), but she throws all this stuff, all this uncomfortable, awkward stuff right there onto the page.
Do I think that she wrote without flaws on these topics? No. I'm genuinely uncertain and undecided what I think of a lot of it. But my reaction isn't revulsion, it's a burning desire to read about a billion academic papers by people smarter than me on what she might be doing, on what it says, on how it works, or doesn't.
In that, does it play back to the start of Rucka's run, when Diana releases a book of answers that she only ever intended to start debate?
Whether or not Simone did it well, the point I feel it's important to make, is that there are tropes about women that are awful primarily because they've been co-opted, and maybe losing them from a toolbox isn't the answer.
Is it reclaimation? Is it stereotype? I don't know. It makes me uncomfortable. But my considered opinion is that it was gutsy of Simone to try.
Oppression is a scar on all of us. We don't think clearly around it. Any of us. Any time a whisper of it is in the air. Even with the best and kindest intentions. Even when we know we have to have these conversations and fight for them to take place, even when we are firm in our beliefs that we are on the right side of the issue, they're not comfortable.
And that's why Wonder Woman is fucking amazing and yes, a feminist icon.
She makes me uncomfortable. I love her.
Like I said, the character doesn't come out and start punching a supervillain named Misogynist Man. She doesn't spout feminist theory. She just exists in this nexus of gender politics both textual and metatextual and is at complete ease with herself, even when we're not, even when we wonder if she should be.
And that's why she'll never sell as many comics as Superman, Batman, or even Green Lantern. And I don't see how it can change. I don't think you can write her ironically. I don't think it works. She has the problem Superman does - which is why Batman is currently more popular - he's a sincere guy, a Big, Blue Boy Scout in an age of cynicism. Wonder Woman has that problem backwards, and in high heels.
Somewhere in here there's a metaphor about truth versus perception that's worthy of the wonderful work Rucka did with those concepts across his run, but I can't find it.
Somewhere in here I should have mentioned how much I love Gail Simone for, when faced with a situation where a Superman villain would kidnap Lois Lane, specifically not having her villain kidnap Wonder Woman's love interest, but rather kidnapping her tough-as-nails, slightly-overweight, slightly-older, best friend in the world, Etta Candy, because Etta is far more important to Diana.
Somewhere in here, I should mention how much I enjoy both authors' portrayal of Diana as incredibly free with her affection and expressive of her love and appreciation for friends and family.
Somewhere in here should be a closing paragraph. ;)
