You probably have noticed that 2 to 3 superhero movies come out each summer. I would be lying if I said I didn't see and enjoy most of them. I mean, who can resist watching a chiseled man in spandex beat the crap out of bad guys? That common thread among these films, however, the chiseled hero, is what I find problematic.
As a woman, I love finding female characters to relate and look up to on the big screen and tv. But the 2 to 3 superhero movies per year absolutely lack any opportunity for me (and by extension, women in general) to do that. Not a single graphic novel-film translation in recent years has named the woman as the hero, or dismissed the cliched "damsel in distress" prototype (I think we can all agree it's best to ignore that Halle Berry's Catwoman ever existed). There are brief moments of exposure for women in some of these films, but no one sees the Avengers for the Black Widow. Wolverine gets his own movie, not Jean Grey.
Of course, the film industry cannot hold sole responsibility for this. The vast majority of superheroes have traditionally been male, and it makes sense that they would capitalize on the most famous of them for their summer blockbusters. Conceding this fact, we can still legitimately ask the question - where is Wonder Woman? Wonder Woman is well known, probably more so than the Green Arrow, who now has his own tv show, or the Fantastic Four, who have had 2 movies. Why have there been 8 Batman, 6 Superman, and 4 (soon to be 5) Spiderman movies?
Male heroes receive an exorbitant amount of attention in comparison to their female counterparts, and this inequality is pervasive among various forms of media. One journalist noted a complete lack of female protagonists in the video game industry as well. When she took to Twitter to expose the discrepancy, she received responses such as "Hey there! Can you just stop. Stop being retarded and bitchy. No?"
Wonder Woman is simply a symbol for this disparity. Despite the popularity of Lynda Carter's portrayal or the outcry from her dedicated fans, we are still nowhere near a deal on a Wonder Woman movie. It is no harder to make a compelling film or video game about a woman than it is to make one about a man. It has certainly been done before. Look at the success of the Hunger Games or the Underworld series, both of which depict women trying to survive in harsh circumstances and succeeding. I hope that the girls growing up today would see Katniss Everdeen, and not Lois Lane or Mary Jane Watson as their heroine. Yes - a woman can do the saving. She doesn't always need to be saved.
It's time that the comic book/movie industry catch up and finally give Wonder Woman and hopefully more heroines a shot. It's time for women to show they can do some serious ass kicking on par with the some of the "greatest heroes" of all time. Let's hope Wonder Woman isn't thrown into some Justice League movie as an afterthought, and is given the independent film she deserves.
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