Our Wonder Woman years
For those of us who spent our childhoods in the Seventies, she was a familiar figure we watched twice a week. On Saturday mornings, she was, for a long time, the only female in a group of crime-fighting and disaster-averting superheroes. But on one night each week, she became a “real” person, or at least as real as a character in a TV show can get.
It seems silly for a middle-aged woman to get so excited about a superhero movie, but some of us have waited for Wonder Woman for more than 30 years. She was the form our earliest escape fantasies took, with her invisible jet and a magic lasso that drew the truth out of anyone it was tied around. Two powers most children would love: the ability to move around unnoticed and to figure everything out without having to depend on adult intervention.
In the TV version, played by Lynda Carter, she had a few weaknesses; she could, for example, be overpowered by a few whiffs of chloroform or poison gas, or a blow to the head. For a superhuman, she passed out a lot. (She also had to wear short blue shorts—a high-waisted girdle, really—decorated with white star patches.) But she always recovered in time to save the day, and she never hit her head on a wall or fell dizzy when she had to spin (like a disco ball) to transform from Diana Prince into Wonder Woman.
The spinning was one of the parts I enjoyed most in the new movie. But it’s no longer the delicate pirouettes (and gratuitous display of Carter’s gorgeous figure) that the TV show made so famous. In the movie, directed by Patty Jenkins, the Amazons who have raised and taught Diana like to spin mid-air to get into the best position for thrusting a spear or firing arrows three at a time. This latter move, performed by Robin Wright in a powerful star turn, actually made some in the audience clap in delight. Seeing Wright and Connie Nielsen, who plays Diana’s mother Queen Hippolyta, pull off some action-star moves in their fifties was delightful, too.
But the movie belongs to the Israeli actor Gal Gadot, who plays Diana Prince with a mix of physicality, humor, and earnestness. She even manages to make a few potentially cringe-worthy lines work. (“I believe in love!” Ka-pow.) She plays Wonder Woman as someone who is determined, erudite, and confident. It has been a long wait, but worth it, and I would love it if today’s teenaged girls (and boys) see this female character who is unapologetic about wanting to use her talents to help a flawed and fragile world.
We watched Wonder Woman in a more innocent time, before cable TV bombarded us with a confusing array of choices and the internet made us think about young girls calling each other skanks and motherf*ckers on social media. She was sexy, but classy. She showed us it was fine to want to be girly and strong at the same time, and that made it OK to carry a slingshot in the pockets of our skirts. She made female curiosity fun—she was always going into unfamiliar and unknown territory, and surviving them—when so many of our earliest stories made it frightening. (Curiosity cost Pandora her peace of mind, separated Psyche from her beloved, and lost Eve her place in Paradise itself.)
In the paradise that this new Wonder Woman comes from, the women possess brains and brawn in equal measure. Unlike her TV incarnation in the Seventies, this Diana Prince looks less like Barbie and more like the Amazon she’s supposed to be. No more star-strewn shorts for her. The only stars are in the eyes of her patient fans, who have waited for years to escape with her again, if only for a little while, into a world where strong and strong-willed women are celebrated.