In Light Of Yesterday’s GIF Pronunciation Controversy, Here’s My Favourite Wonder Woman GIF

Yesterday, Steve Wilhite, the creator of GIFs or “graphics interchange format”, announced that the term was pronounced “JIF” like the peanut butter instead of with a hard G like pretty much everyone else in the world has been pronouncing it.  The internets went bonkers about it, because there are no other issues worth discussing in the world.  For what’s it worth, I always read it with a soft G, because I think it sounds more pleasant, but ultimately I don’t really care one way or the other.

Nonetheless, this gives me a fun opportunity to share my favourite Wonder Woman GIF!  There’s lots of great ones out there, especially from the TV show.  Like the classic spin change:

But this one is my very favourite, from an episode of Super Friends I’m assuming.  It cracks me up every time:

So yeah, regardless of pronunciation, Wonder Woman hilarity is always a good time.

Wonder Woman TV Show “Amazon” Still Alive At The CW

TV executives have been unveiling their new fall lineups this week, and absent from The CW’s schedule was Amazon, a Wonder Woman series in the vein of Smallville and Arrow.  However, The CW’s president Mark Pedowitz confirmed that the series is still in development but is being retooled.  He said that:

It is being redeveloped. We’re waiting for a script to come in. We have not seen it yet.

This new script is not being penned by the writer of the original pilot, Allan Heinberg.  Heinberg, a former writer on the Wonder Woman comic and a veteran of several TV show, has been replaced by Aron Eli Coleite, who wrote Ultimate X-Men a few years back and has worked on shows like Heroes.  That Heroes connection is a little bit ominous, but Pedowitz seems keen on the project still.  He even said:

We are preparing to pilot it off-cycle should the script be what we want it to be.

Which is an encouraging sign.  Usually pilots all shoot in the early spring and then the networks decide which shows to run in the fall, but Pedowitz is ready to shoot Amazon as soon as it meets their liking.  He said that Wonder Woman is the “trickiest DC character to get right”, which historically has proven to be the case I suppose, but the concept seems solid and easy enough to me.  I’d be curious to see the Heinberg script and what exactly they thought he didn’t get right, because Heinberg is pretty good.  But regardless, it’s good to see that the network is still behind the show and working to get it up and running as soon as they can.  Hopefully we’ll hear about some progress soon!

Geoff Johns Discusses A Live Action Wonder Woman And Gina Carano

Usually I don’t post much about Wonder Woman movie and TV news because most of it is unsubstantiated rumours, and even when the projects are real and have a shot to happen we still get burned.  The David E. Kelley pilot, the Amazon series, the Justice League movie… it’s been a bad run.  But yesterday in an interview with Collider, DC Comics’ Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns briefly talked about possible Wonder Woman projects.  Johns is pretty much DC’s official liaison to the film/TV departments of Warner Bros., so when he talks we should listen.  Here’s what he had to say:

Wonder Woman.  What is the possibility of something with that ending on TV, the big screen?

JOHNS: Very, very good.

So it’s still something that’s a priority?

JOHNS: Absolutely.

What are your thoughts on Gina Carano?  She’s in Fast & Furious 6, she was in Haywire.

JOHNS: Let’s move on…

So we know that they’re working on something, possibly someTHINGS for Wonder Woman, and that it’s a priority.  That’s rather vague and useless.  That’s true of any time in the past decade or so.  The interesting bit is Johns not answering the Gina Carano question.

Carano, a mixed martial artist and the star of the very underrated Haywire, is a fan favourite to take on the role of Wonder Woman.  Recently she caused a stir when she visited the Man of Steel set, fueling rumours that she was going to appear as Wonder Woman in the movie, but it turns out she was probably just there to visit her boyfriend, Henry Cavill.  Nonetheless, her name is regularly linked with Wonder Woman and Johns’ coyness here is intriguing.

Personally, I’m not sold on her for the role.  The fights would be amazing, but I think she’d need to work on her acting to take on a role like this.  If DC’s learned anything from Marvel, and I sincerely hope they have, it’s that the actors they choose and the personality and charm they bring to the characters are far more important than how they look in the suit and how well they can fight.

Anyway, we didn’t get a lot of information from Johns, but at least we know that it’s from a reliable source and, at the very least, that DC hasn’t forgotten they have this great character called Wonder Woman that they should really do something with.  Johns’ Carano sidestep probably doesn’t mean anything, though he did say to expect some announcements more generally at San Diego Comic Con this summer, so we’ll keep our eyes peeled for that.  It’ll be lots of fun to have some news to excite us and then inevitably disappoint us when it doesn’t pan out.

Starfire Gets A Ramona Flowers Haircut In New Teen Titans Go! Premiere

The new Teen Titans Go! series premiered this week on the Cartoon Network, and it was a pretty enjoyable show.  It definitely skews younger than Young Justice, and I would much rather have the New Gods-centric season that the Young Justice series finale hinted at, but I still enjoyed the new show.  It’s cute and amusing.

Plus, it reminded me of Scott Pilgrim, which is always a fun thing, even if it was most likely inadvertent.  In the first part of the episode, “Legendary Sandwiches”, Starfire heads out into space to retrieve the Stellar Tomato, a key component in making the greatest sandwich of all time.  Like I said, this show skews young.  When she reaches the distant planet, she engages in battle with a Sandwich Guardian who burns off part of her hair with a laser blast.  This is the resulting look:

Which struck me as very similar to Ramona Flower’s hairstyle from Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, shown here from the awesome new colour edition:

Short bangs, weird hangy bits on the side, short in the back?  They’ve definitely got the same haircut.  Look for Starfire to meet a slacker who then has to battle her seven evil exes in future episodes of Teen Titans Go!

You can check out future episodes of Teen Titans Go! on the Cartoon Network on Tuesday nights.  It’s nice to have a fully clothed Starfire back to counter her generally terrible depiction in the New 52.  Plus Robin and Beast Boy and Cyborg!  It’s lots of fun.

Wonder Women! The Untold Story Of American Superheroines Review OR An Excellent, Inspiring Documentary

Last night, PBS’ “Independent Lens” documentary series aired Wonder Women! The Untold Story Of American Superheroines, a film by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan.  I’ve been looking forward to the films since it premiered last year to rave reviews at the SXSW film festival, and after more than a year of waiting to check it out I’m very glad to say that it didn’t disappoint.  I was really impressed with it.

The history of Wonder Woman is often told in reductive and somewhat inaccurate ways.  Particularly with the original Golden Age Wonder Woman, people tend to see the character through their own modern lens, and her message of superiority is swapped for equality while the more problematic aspects of the character, like her pervasive bondage imagery, are simply brushed aside.  Wonder Women! does an excellent job of portraying every side of each incarnation of Wonder Woman, avoiding the idealization that so often simplifies the character.  For a brief rundown of a lengthy career, it touches on all of the major facets of Wonder Woman over the decades and presents a very accurate and engaging version of her history.

There are a few bits where Wonder Woman! could have delved a little deeper, but this was essentially Wonder Woman 101.  More on Marston’s psychological theories would have been interesting, and they missed an excellent opportunity to dig into the lesbian subtext of the Golden AND Silver Age Wonder Woman (“Suffering Sappho!”), but that level of detail wasn’t the purpose of the documentary.  It’s a well rounded introduction to Wonder Woman’s history that serves as a launching pad into a discussion of female heroes generally.

This was an interesting transition, because after the heavy focus on Wonder Woman in the first half of the film, she disappears almost entirely after the TV show is examined.  The focus turns to Ripley, riot grrrls, and Buffy as we move toward the modern day.  It’s a somewhat jarring change, and the viewer is left to wonder “Hey, where did Wonder Woman go?” but I think that might’ve been the point.  After the TV show in the 1970s, Wonder Woman disappeared as anything other than an iconic figure.  She had her monthly comic book, a perennial poor seller, but didn’t do much else while other heroes like Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man had multiple film franchises and TV shows.  Wonder Woman was a forerunner who paved the way for modern female heroes like Charlie’s Angels and Xena, but Wonder Woman herself has fallen by the wayside.  Wonder Women! later addresses this, taking the entertainment industry to task for its lack of strong heroines in movies and TV, particularly its lack of Wonder Woman.

The film is well put together from a technical standpoint, with lots of great visuals, a good score, and a very clear style and tone.  While I’m sure it was edited down to fit the one-hour time slot, it moved along smoothly, with one topic naturally leading into the next.  There were some great interviews, including big names like Lynda Carter, Gloria Steinem, and Lindsay Wagner.  Comic creators Trina Robbins and Gail Simone also appeared, as well as noted Wonder Woman fan Andy Mangels and writers like Mike Madrid.  To me, the star of the interviews was Jennifer K. Stuller, the author of Ink-Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors: Superwomen in Modern Mythology, who went through many of the more complex components of Wonder Woman’s history with ease and clarity. 

All together, I really enjoyed it.  It was a great runthrough of the history of Wonder Woman, and also a very inspiring and impactful story of the importance of female characters and role models generally.  I think the most affecting part of the film was when the many accomplished women interviewed for the movie talked about their own heroines, in that it really hammered home how valuable strong women, real and fictional, are for young girls as they grow up.  Wonder Women! is a blatantly feminist film without ever having to say it’s a blatantly feminist film.  There are no discussions of the patriarchy and the need for equality and the like; that’s all just assumed.  It’s a movie about strong women inspiring future generations of strong women, and how that is an incredibly good and important thing.  I thought it was great, and I hope that even more people are able to see it soon on DVD and other platforms.

Wonder Women! The Untold Story Of American Superheroines Documentary Airs TONIGHT On PBS

Everyone be sure to tune into PBS tonight because Wonder Women! The Untold Story Of American Superheroines is being shown as part of the “Independent Lens” documentary series.  Directed by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, this documentary has been getting tons of press since it debuted, and it features interviews with big names like Gloria Steinem and Lynda Carter.  Here’s a preview from PBS:

I’m very excited to check it out!  So far, it’s been shown only at screenings at conventions and festivals, so it’s great that it’s making it to a wider audience.  You should check your local listings to make sure you don’t miss it.  My closest PBS station (I’m in Nova Scotia, but I get a feed from New England) has it on at 10pm EST, and it’s titled “Independent Lens” on my telecaster.  Your local PBS station may be different, but you can stick in your zip code here and find out when the documentary is airing near you.

So check out Wonder Women! The Untold Story Of American Superheroines tonight on PBS, and come back here tomorrow, where I’ll have a full review of the film.  It should be a very fun show!  And possibly the only Wonder Woman we’ll see on TV for a while.

The “Wonder Woman Was Created For Girls” Myth OR Beyonce’s Super Bowl Halftime Show As An Example Of William Moulton Marston’s Approach To Feminism

Last week, PBS aired their latest installment of Pioneers of Television and the focus of the show was superheroes.  It was an entertaining program, with lots of fun, behind the scenes information, and Wonder Woman got an entire section centered around an interview with Lynda Carter.  Near the top of the show, Carter said:

The creator of Wonder Woman really felt that girls needed a hero too, and developed Wonder Woman.

Which is what’s generally believed.  These days, Wonder Woman is an iconic symbol of female strength, embraced by women of all sorts.  Wonder Woman is THEIR hero, created for them.  However, Carter is wrong.

Wonder Woman became a hero for girls, largely because she was the only real female superhero for decades, but that wasn’t her creator’s original intent.  William Moulton Marston was a unique feminist who thought that women were superior to men.  Men were aggressive and cruel, while women were peaceful and kind, and so he thought that women should be in charge.  In fact, he thought that women WOULD be in charge.  To Marston, female rule was inevitable.  Girls didn’t need a hero, because they were well on their way to becoming heroes themselves.  Boys needed a female hero to prepare them for the coming rise of women.

In the early 1940s, superhero comics were full of men fighting and threatening and generally being dominant jerks, reinforcing exactly what Marston hated about men in power.  So he came up with Wonder Woman as an antidote for this “blood-curdling masculinity.”  Wonder Woman had all the power of her male counterparts, but was loving and kind.  He wanted boys to see how much better things were when women had power, but he needed something else to keep them interested.

For Marston, sexuality was a key component women’s power.  He thought that there was a thrill inherent in submitting to a woman and having her control you, which is why women would eventually take over.  Men would actually like life better with powerful women in charge.  This may speak more to his own sexual tastes than anything else, but it’s what he thought nonetheless.  So he filled Wonder Woman with bondage imagery, showing the Amazons tying each other up, Wonder Woman tying up people with her lasso, and Wonder Woman getting tied up herself.  This was a pretty common scene:

The bondage imagery was a metaphor for women being in control, and it was also intentionally sexual.  It was meant to excite male readers, to give them a small taste of how much fun it would be if women were in charge all the time.

Obviously, this is kind of a screwed up theory, and contradictory.  It’s feminism and fetishism all rolled into one, and it’s all sorts of bizarre.  However, at the core there was a feminist message.  It was just packaged in a manner that was overtly sexual and aimed at boys, and that in many ways objectified the character.

Which brings us to Beyoncé.

While watching the Super Bowl halftime show, I was struck by the similarities between Beyoncé’s persona and Marston’s approach to Wonder Woman.  Because this is the sort of thing I think about when I watch a football game, because I’m a nerd.  There were some surface similarities, what with her outfit and boots roughly resembling Wonder Woman’s usual garb, but there were was more to it than that.

The show had a definite feminist vibe, or at the very least an incredibly strong message of girl power.  EVERYONE on that stage was a woman: the band, the dancers, everybody.  Beyoncé moved around the stage with the utmost confidence, singing songs like “Independent Woman” and others that embodied her perennial theme of what Nathan Rabin has labeled “Fuck you, I’m awesome.”  Beyoncé’s songs are very assertive in terms of her own power and desires, particularly as they pertain to her womanhood, and by surrounding herself onstage with an all-female team that message was thus extended to them as well.  All in all, it was a very empowering show.

At the same time, this was a show for boys.  Much like Wonder Woman was a lone woman in a sea of male superheroes, so too was Beyoncé a rare female presence smack in the middle of a testosterone-fueled, all-male event.  The sexy outfit, the shaking of her assets, the rolling around on stage, and the regular suggestive glances at the camera were, much like Wonder Woman’s bondage, intentionally sexual and aimed squarely at men.

(Or ladies who enjoy other ladies.  I’ve got some lesbian/bisexual women in my Twitter feed and the show went over huge with them too).

So what we’ve got is a message of female empowerment presented in a sexualized manner for male entertainment, which is basically what we had way back in the 1940s with Marston’s Wonder Woman comics.  Girls love Beyoncé too, just like girls loved Wonder Woman in the 1940s, but in both cases the presentation is aimed much more at a male audience.

Some would say that one side trumps the other: The message of female empowerment rises above the objectification of the heroine OR the blatant sexualization of the heroine contaminates any message of female empowerment.  I think we should just let the contradiction stand.  The world is complicated, things are bizarre.  Wonder Woman represents female superiority AND her creator’s fetishes.  Beyoncé is all about the power of women AND her show was meant to turn on a male audience.  It doesn’t have to be either.  Wonder Woman and Beyoncé encapsulate both sides, for numerous and complicated reasons.

So whenever someone says that Wonder Woman was created for girls, just think of Beyoncé.  It shouldn’t be too hard, really.  If you’re anything like me, you’ve had “Crazy in Love” stuck in your head off and on for the last decade.