We track the history of Wonder Woman and her enduring impact. Since she was created 76 years ago, Wonder Woman has been rewritten and reimagined, mirroring the history of feminism in the US.
Works Cited & Consulted:
* “Patty Jenkin – WonderCon Interview.” Youtube, uploaded by Comicbook.com, Apr 5, 2017.
* Anderton, Ethan. “‘Wonder Woman’ Interview: Patty Jenkins Aims for Richard Donner’s ‘Superman’ Meets ‘Casablanca’.” Slashfilm. Mar 7, 2017 .
* “Wonder Woman Publication History.” DC on Wikia. Accessed Oct 2, 2017.
* Diaz, Eric. “The 5 Best WONDER WOMAN Comic Book Story Arcs.” Nerdist. Feb 11, 2017.
* Paxton, Rachel. “10 Facts You Need to Know About Wonder Woman.” ScreenRant. Aug 23, 2015.
* Groetzinger. Kate. “Wonder Woman Endorses Marriage Equality.” The Atlantic. Sep 1, 2015.
* Jusino, Teresa. “Wonder Woman and Feminism: Gender Balance as the Key to Gender Equality.” The Mary Sue. Jun 24, 2016.
* Kane, Vivian. “Are You Wondering Where the Wonder Woman Marketing Is? Yeah, Us Too.” The Mary Sue. Apr 28, 2017.
* Davis, Lauren. “Why Early Wonder Woman Was A Champion Of Feminism… And Bondage.” Gizmodo. Jan 23, 2015.
* Sava, Oliver. “Wonder Woman: Earth One returns the heroine to her radical feminist roots.” The A.V. Club. Apr 8, 2016.
* Sava, Oliver. “Breaking the chains of misogyny with Wonder Woman and Sensation Comics.” The A.V. Club. Oct 31, 2014.
* Mozzocco, J. Caleb. “The Many Loves of Wonder Woman: A Brief History Of The Amazing Amazon’s Love Life.” Comics Alliance. Aug 28, 2012.
* “”Superman and Wonder Woman: Are They A (Super) Power Couple?” By Dr. Helen Fisher.” Match.com. Aug 24, 2012.
* Mello, Carolina. “The New Wonder Woman and Greek Mythology.” Women Write About Comics. May 7, 2014.
* Lepore, Jill. “The Last Amazon.” The New Yorker. Sep 22, 2014.
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Transcript provided by Youtube:
00:04
Wonder Woman has been in print almost
00:07
continuously for 76 years but despite an
00:10
array of TV shows TV movies directed DVD
00:14
animations and merchandise the character
00:16
has never starred in her own movie in
00:18
cinemas and that makes 2017 Wonder Woman
00:22
a milestone tracking Wonder Woman
00:24
through the years is like tracking the
00:25
history of feminism now go unleash hell
00:28
but while Wonder Woman has been
00:30
dismissed or overlooked by studios and
00:32
dissenters she’s meant a lot to women
00:35
over the years
00:35
Wonder Woman really is my hero I mean
00:40
she’s smart and beautiful Laurel and
00:43
totally independent she’s a demigod
00:45
an Amazonian warrior princess and a
00:48
founding member of the Justice League a
00:50
strong fighter who’s also a pacifist
00:52
she’s also inspired by early
00:54
suffragettes she sends for justice and
00:57
peace and wisdom and love and acceptance
01:01
and compassion all of these things are
01:05
rare they’re becoming rare in our world
01:09
so let’s take a look at who Wonder Woman
01:13
really is and how she’s evolved over the
01:15
years
01:17
Wonder Woman is also known as Diana
01:20
Prince
01:21
or the goddess of truth herself she was
01:23
created in 1941 by psychologist William
01:25
Marston Marston wanted to make a female
01:28
role model or quote the new type of
01:30
woman who should rule the world
01:32
cue the birth of Wonder Woman Diana was
01:35
raised by her mother Hippolyta the
01:37
Amazonian Queen from Greek mythology on
01:39
Paradise Island which in the 1987
01:42
relaunch following crisis on Infinite
01:44
Earths was renamed famous Kira according
01:47
to the relaunch Greek goddesses made
01:49
this home for the reincarnated souls of
01:52
Amazon women murdered by men no men are
01:54
allowed on the island but Diana nurses a
01:57
US Air Force pilot Steve Trevor back to
01:59
health after his plane crashes there so
02:02
begins Diana’s life in America and her
02:04
identity as the superhero called Wonder
02:06
Woman the 2017 film directed by Patti
02:09
Jenkins and starring gal gadot Moves
02:12
Diana’s story to World War 1 instead of
02:14
the original World War two witnessing
02:17
war Diana feels shock and disgust that
02:19
parallels Steve Trevor’s and others
02:21
horror at the new kind of brutal warfare
02:23
introduced at that time compared to the
02:26
Nazis the enemy in the sprawling complex
02:29
world war 1 is also less clear-cut so we
02:32
could interpret that in keeping with
02:33
Diana’s peace-loving nature the enemy
02:36
here is war itself is a war well
02:39
technically the wars that way but we got
02:41
to go this way first I can barely
02:42
remember what first attracted me to
02:44
Wonder Woman because it was so natural
02:46
it happened when I was such a young
02:48
child and every child wants to be
02:52
powerful and good and beautiful and
02:55
effective I was around in this wonderful
02:57
Renaissance of Wonder Woman because of
02:59
the show so what a woman was like the
03:02
thing to be your fantasy of everything
03:07
great you could ever aspire to be
03:12
Wonder Woman offers a useful mirror for
03:15
the feminist movement in America in 1972
03:18
Gloria Steinem put the character with
03:20
the caption Wonder Woman for president
03:22
on the first ever issue of MS magazine
03:25
the 2017 movies choice to move Wonder
03:28
Woman to the 1910 also evokes the era of
03:31
the suffragettes a key period in the
03:33
history of feminism which inspired
03:35
Marsden in creating Diana he had a
03:37
personal connection to the birth control
03:39
icon Margaret Sanger who was the aunt of
03:42
Marsten’s lover Olive Byrne Marsden
03:45
lived in a polyamorous relationship with
03:47
olives and his wife and fellow
03:48
psychologist Elizabeth Holloway Marston
03:51
Elizabeth reportedly had the idea to
03:53
make Diana a woman in the first place
03:55
while olives wore bracelets that
03:57
inspired Wonder Woman’s their
03:59
non-traditional ideas an influence on
04:01
the character shed light on how much
04:03
progressive subtext we can confidently
04:05
read into the original Wonder Woman but
04:07
Marsten’s image of the strong role model
04:10
began to fade in 1947 when he died and
04:13
Robert Kennedy took over starting in the
04:15
1950s a psychiatrist named Frederic
04:17
wertham and various parent groups
04:19
objected that the superhero was
04:21
encouraging lesbianism in America’s
04:23
youth Wonder Woman’s powers were
04:25
stripped away and her stories began to
04:27
center more around her love life not as
04:30
much around her using her superpowers to
04:32
save others the character of wonder
04:34
woman suffered commercially for decades
04:36
as a result by the end of the 60s Diana
04:38
gives up her powers to stay on earth
04:40
with Steve Trevor and runs a boutique
04:42
using martial arts instead of her powers
04:45
to fight crime this version led to the
04:47
1974 made-for-tv movie starring Kathie
04:50
Lee Crossy which featured a flirtatious
04:53
blonde secretary Wonder Woman it was
04:55
intended as a TV pilot but not
04:57
surprisingly this Wonder Woman without
04:59
powers and made to be Steve Trevor’s
05:01
assistant was pretty unpopular a year
05:04
later Diana got her powers back for the
05:06
iconic 1975 279 show starring Lynda
05:09
Carter
05:10
Carter’s version focused on saving
05:12
people and fighting the Nazis showing
05:14
the caring humanitarian superhero of
05:17
Marsten’s original vision in recent
05:19
years Wonder Woman has taken on a
05:20
positive relationship to LGBT rights and
05:23
in 2050
05:24
issue she officiates the marriage of two
05:26
women and one of the comic writers Greg
05:28
Rucka has explicitly identified her as
05:31
quote obviously bisexual while there
05:33
have been several female writers the
05:35
majority of the comics over the years
05:37
have been written by men the 2017 film
05:40
also had no female writers but
05:42
significantly is directed by a woman
05:44
patty Jenkins me
05:45
so the fact that I’m a woman or she’s a
05:47
woman or were all women or whatever was
05:50
a wonderful deep part of it but it also
05:52
has you just tuned it out completely
05:53
because I’m just a filmmaker trying to
05:55
make a film that I care about that much
05:57
anyway
05:58
Wonder Woman superhuman abilities have
06:00
shifted in nature over the years Marsten
06:03
first gave her super-strength and
06:04
hand-to-hand combat skills making her
06:07
something of a female equivalent to
06:08
Superman
06:09
she is the archetypal ideal of the
06:14
greatest woman of all time she is the
06:18
idealized universal woman not unlike
06:21
what Superman is to men creator Marsden
06:24
also invented a key component of the
06:26
polygraph machine which may have
06:28
inspired Wonder Woman’s weapon of choice
06:30
the lasso of truth crafted by Hephaestus
06:33
the Greek god of Smith’s and
06:35
metalworking the lasso of truth forces
06:37
anyone who comes in contact with it to
06:39
obey all of Diana’s commands and to tell
06:42
the truth macho bravado which all of a
06:44
Sode
06:45
wait why am I telling you this
06:50
god I hope you Amazon’s can’t
06:52
mass-produced this thing she also uses
06:54
the indestructible bracelets given to
06:56
all Amazon women as her defense her
06:59
tiara as a razor-sharp boomerang and the
07:02
sandals of Hermes the Greek messenger
07:03
god which allow her to travel at
07:05
lightning speeds by turning her
07:07
accessories into powerful weapons the
07:09
comics found a fun way to invert the
07:11
assumption that a female character might
07:13
care about her clothes weaponizing
07:15
Diana’s femininity in a positive way as
07:17
she becomes the strong Saviour of the
07:19
occasional gentlemen in jeopardy Steve
07:21
Trevor she also uses traditionally male
07:24
weapons like her sword and her shield
07:26
the combination creating a balance of
07:28
masculine and feminine in her fighting
07:30
how can a woman’s fighting this woo from
07:34
the very beginning some readers objected
07:36
to the bondage subtext of Wonder Woman’s
07:39
chains and her fondness for tying up her
07:41
enemies but Marston liked the feminist
07:43
imagery of a woman breaking out of her
07:45
chain that’s not to say it wasn’t also a
07:48
little kinky Marsten saw bondage as a
07:50
positive sex practice Diana’s bracelets
07:53
of Submission are both a sign of loving
07:56
submission to the goddesses and a
07:57
reminder of her people’s past
07:59
enslavement
08:02
Dianna’s world is full of nods to Greek
08:04
and Roman mythology the name Diana is
08:07
the Roman equivalent to Artemis the
08:09
virginal goddess of the hunt like her
08:11
namesake diana is pure close to nature
08:13
and fiercely independent one of her
08:15
recurring supervillains is Ares the
08:18
Greek god of war her fight against Ares
08:20
underlines again that Diana’s true enemy
08:22
is war itself and her life mission is to
08:25
establish peace beautiful as Aphrodite
08:28
wisest of inna stronger than Hercules
08:30
and swifter than Hermes she’s also known
08:33
for invoking goddesses through
08:34
catchphrases like great Aphrodite great
08:37
Hera
08:37
and merciful Minerva and to the Greek
08:39
love poet suffering Sappho the DC
08:42
universes 2011 revamp the new 52 changed
08:46
the origin story that she was born from
08:48
clay and this was now said to be a
08:50
cover-up for the truth that diana is
08:52
actually the daughter of Zeus born as
08:58
Princess Diana
08:59
Wonder Woman uses the alias Diana Prince
09:01
to disguise her true self Diana Princess
09:04
of Simmons Prince Diana Prince but the
09:07
name switch from princess to Prince also
09:10
plays on her combination of
09:12
traditionally male and female qualities
09:14
she’s as powerful as any male superhero
09:16
but she’s also loving and caring and a
09:19
key part of Diana is that she’s kind
09:21
being a hero is often not a proactive
09:25
state of being of going and punching
09:27
somebody out it ends up being so much
09:29
more on an everyday scale about
09:31
understanding and love and forgiveness
09:33
and the complexity of life and how one
09:36
uses your power as an adult wisely and
09:39
kindly Marsten’s concept before he
09:42
thought about gender was a superhero who
09:44
would rule not through force but through
09:46
love she can easily dominate in a fight
09:49
but she’s opposed to fighting at all
09:50
Marsten wanted to correct the problem
09:53
that quote our feminine archetype lacks
09:55
force strength and power I list cars
09:58
I can list car door handles and he
10:00
wanted to show that qualities
10:02
traditionally seen as feminine and
10:04
therefore written off like being quote
10:06
tender submissive peace-loving unquote
10:09
are also strength not weaknesses she’s
10:12
everything she she can be vulnerable
10:15
and sensitive and the greatest warrior
10:19
ever and strong and confident and
10:24
confused like she can be all of the
10:26
above let me try them out you sure her
10:37
feminine qualities also included her sex
10:40
appeal and beauty to this day dissenters
10:43
criticized her to perfect proportion
10:45
protesters even pushed the UN to revoke
10:48
her honorary ambassador ship while
10:50
others gave actress gal gadot a hard
10:52
time for not in their opinion having the
10:54
right measurements Marsten saw Wonder
10:56
Woman as a sex positive woman who
10:59
represented myriad forms of strength
11:01
which didn’t mean separating herself
11:03
from her sexuality
11:05
while there’s much debate to be had over
11:07
the finer points it’s important to
11:09
remember the bold and influential nature
11:11
of Diana’s feminist roots today she
11:14
continues her legacy as a strong role
11:16
model for girls around the world
11:20
and you
11:26
all the world’s waiting for you
11:29
[Music]
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