One of my favorite parts of DC’s Wonder Woman film was when Diana was walking the streets of London with Steve Trevor. Out of the blue, she sees a woman holding an infant, and has a very female reaction to it:
A baby!
She goes over to it and wants to hold it and has to be almost physically dragged away. It was humorous, and was DC showing that, though Wonder Woman was a heroine, she was still feminine, and still a woman.
In a Hollywood culture where almost all “strong” female characters are either overly-sexualized or overly-masculine, Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman is neither. She’s not trying to be a female version of Batman, Superman, or Flash. She’s Wonder Woman, and she never tries to be anything else. And maybe the best thing about DC and Gal Gadot’s portrayal of the character is that Diana is a feminine woman, and a likeable one.
That’s right feminist-Hollywood lefties, you can have a strong female character who is actually feminine – and even likeable!
She has a sense of self, purpose, and values. She’s never trying to one-up, or measure up, to Batman, Superman, or any of her other allies at any time during the three films she’s appeared in. There are no off-color jokes or one-liners about sex from her, trying to be one of the guys. There are no attempts from the writers to sexualize her character, or have her use her sexuality as a weapon.
Diana is a girl any guy would be proud to take to meet mom and dad.
What is commendable about it is that DC easily could’ve gone there. Wonder Woman is easily the powerful heroine ever seen in a superhero/superheroine movie, and Gal Gadot is definitely easy on the eyes. There was significant opportunity for DC to sexualize her character, or turn the films she’s appeared in into a feminist soapbox. Watching Wonder Woman and Justice League, I kept waiting for it, but it never happened.
In essence, she’s the first truly strong role model I’ve seen in a heroine-based film or TV show in quite a long time: strong, likeable, vulnerable at times, and unabashedly feminine. Princess Leia from Star Wars, Ripley from the Alien films, and Dana Scully from The X-Files would be other examples of this. I can put Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman with these great sci-fi characters.
A big reason I held off to see Wonder Woman was because I didn’t want to be deluged with a parade of how “strong” Wonder Woman is – with constant reminders that she’s a female superhero – at the expense of story. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case at all. After the Ghostbusters reboot, and the Admiral Holdo debacle from Star Wars: The Last Jedi, seeing a stalwart, likeable heroine was refreshing and unexpected.
DC doesn’t seem interested in pounding the social justice gavel the way Disney and Marvel is, and God bless them for it. It endears me to the DCEU all the more. Avengers 3 isn’t even on my radar right now. I would rather watch Wonder Woman and Justice League again.
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