Ok, so the Wonder Woman film based on the DC comics character is still nowhere to be found. However, I did get to see a little film yesterday called "Wonder Women! the Untold Story of American Superheroines." It's a documentary by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, and I found it delightful in many ways.
It covers the history of Wonder Woman, from her creation, through some of the changes she's undergone over the years. This info is fairly basic, and doesn't include anything people mildly familiar with the DC character wouldn't already know. But, the film also brings up what Wonder Woman, as the sometimes ONLY female superhero people can think of, means to different people. Children, the elderly, artists, writers, women, gay men, straight dudes (in Stormtrooper costumes, perhaps), people from various cultures and backgrounds all had something interesting to say about the symbol of Wonder Woman and other strong female characters that can inspire women.
The film also managed to bring up, albeit in limited form, other issues in comics today, such as the oversexualization in depiction of female characters that many men in comics today still won't admit is different from the overmasculinization of male characters. The specter of "women in refrigerators" appeared too.
I was especially delighted to see Gail Simone, one of my favorite comics writers, was interviewed in the film. I was reminded that I've never gotten around to reading her treatment of Wonder Woman from 2007-2010. What's my problem? I need to get on it.
There is a pretty funny part (to me) where people are talking about the dearth of "good" female heroes in the '80s. She-Ra and Jem get dissed TO THE MAX. There were definitely some Jem and She-Ra fans with squiggly anger lines coming off of their heads after the movie. I didn't watch those shows as a kid - I don't think we had those channels or something. Anyway, I had a super hard time relating to what few female characters existed in cartoons because they were generally dumb and/or overly interested in boys. There were no (uh, and there still aren't?) butch girls for me to relate to, big surprise. Maybe Wonder Woman, who in the Justice League cartoon, at least, is a total ice queen, comes closest.
Anyway, great film, I recommend it. Here's the film's homepage.
