The ending of Wonder Woman
Thinking outside the fridge-box…
Thankfully for Batman, The Dark Knight had little in common with The Amazing Spider-Man 2. But both took variable kickings from critics for killing their female leads so the hero could have some glum time, before banking his showy comeback.
Wonder Woman gender-flips what comic-book critics dubbed the ‘women in refrigerators’ meme, only to then do something richer. As Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor blitzes himself for the greater wartime good by blowing up his plane full of Dr. Poison’s gas, his sacrifice ignites something in Gal Gadot’s Diana Prince. Reaching an understanding of humanity’s complexities, she decides we’re all right after all, and powers up to send shockwaves to God of War Ares’ solar plexus. For ‘women in fridges’, read ‘men in gas-plosions’.
Wonder Woman has certainly sent much-needed shockwaves through comic-book movies. In the ridiculous absence of other female-directed, female-led, feminist superhero movies, Patty Jenkins’ film stands in a field of one for now: where, crucially, it ably shoulders the (unreasonably) heightened expectations piled on it.
Trevor fits in like a sword in a ball-gown, helping to anchor Wonder’s re-aligned gender emphases. He’s a dude in distress, saved by Diana from drowning and dust-ups. He’s the object of her gaze at bathtime; no more eyeballing Alice Eve (see Star Trek Into Darkness) for Pine.
Sure, there’s an argument against Trevor’s self-sacrifice: if this is a female-driven film, why the manhero? It’s a persuasive pitch, but Diana doesn’t need her crew to be underwritten or merely plot-functional to inflate her own strengths. Trevor echoes Jane Foster or Pepper Potts, but he’s more fleshed out because Diana is a sufficiently rich, flawed and strong character to take any competition.
In this context, his death is less a knowing flip of fridge-y clichés than a fully integrated lead-in to a sincere embrace of belief in compassion and humanity. As Diana lets Dr. Poison go and shuts up shouty Ares, Wonder Woman nukes the fridge memes altogether in favour of something less cynical. In the empathetic spirit of its headliner, it brings muchneeded human warmth to superhero movies.
‘trevor echoes pepper potts, but he’s more fleshed out’