Madeline Hull 1 Film Paper Wonder Woman
If you’ve ever wanted to feel more empowered as a woman, there’s no better film to see than Wonder Woman. Released in 2017, this box office smash raked in $821.8 million worldwide! While technically an action, superhero movie, “ Wonder Woman is leavened by touches of screwball comedy, espionage caper and romantic adventure” says The New York Times. It’s been a while since we have had a female superhero, feel-good movie, and this movie was released only months before the #MeToo movement started. Tensions were high, and the female public needed a win.
The audience loved it. It had its fair share of critiques, like any movie, but women especially really took to it. Amanda Mendonca, a writer for The Fresno Bee, said “ Wonder Woman is a movie that connects the realism of our views, translated on screen to the masses. It is a refreshing, impactful and much needed portrayal of a strong woman in our time.” Even more, a movie critic for The Washington
Post said, “[Wonder Woman] is soulful and utterly credible, even when she comes out bracelets blazing, effortlessly scaling a tower that might have imprisoned a princess like her in another story, at least until the right hero came along.” The movie cuts stereotypical female conventions in half and shows the public that women are heroes too, or should I say, heroines?
Wonder Woman defies female stereotypes by showing that women can be emotional and strong at the same time, women can be warriors, and that women can save men.
The movie opens with Diana Prince (played by Gal Gadot), Wonder Woman’s alter ego, working at the Louvre in the archives department, set in the modern-day. She gets a mysterious package from
Bruce Wayne, Batman’s alter ego, and it’s a picture from WWI of her and four men posing, and she’s in her “Wonder Woman” outfit. This prompts a flashback and that’s where the movie truly begins.
Diana is raised on a mystical, hidden island called Themyscira, home to the strong and fierce
Amazon warriors created by Zeus himself to protect mankind. Daughter of Queen Hippolyta and Zeus,
Diana is the only child of this all-female island. Queen Hippolyta tells Diana stories of the Great War of the Gods and how Ares, the God of War, became jealous of humanity and wanted to destroy it. The other Madeline Hull 2 Film Paper gods tried to stop him and in retaliation, he killed all of them but Zeus. Using his last bit of power, Zeus wounded Ares forcing him to leave. Before his death, Zeus created the Amazons and one weapon, the
“Godkiller,” to protect humankind from Ares’ inevitable return.
Although hesitant, Queen Hippolyta eventually lets Diana start training, under the guidance of the
Queen’s sister, and the island’s fiercest warrior, General Antiope. The only condition is, she has to train
Diana harder than any other warrior. The audience watches Diana grow up on the island and become the fiercest of them all. Being half- God, she is powerful beyond her recognition.
Next thing you know, a plane crashes into the piercing blue waters of this island. Having never seen the outside world, and not knowing what a plane is, she sees this man (the first man ever to be exact since this island is only women), US pilot, Captain Steve Trevor (played by Chris Pine), struggling to get out of the wreckage. Disregarding everyone’s pleas to let him go, Diana jumps into the water and saves him. Soon, that brings the German soldiers onto the beach of this hidden island, as they were tracking
Steve, who was a spy for the US and stole some important information from the Germans. After the
Amazons fight off the Germans, they interrogate Steve and he tells them that there is a great war going on in the outside world and innocent people are dying.
Diana thinks Ares is the one behind this and simply cannot stay put while innocents are dying so in the middle of the night she takes the “Godkiller” sword, the “Lasso of Truth” and her armor before leaving with Steve for her first time in the outside world. Her fellow Amazonians and her mother plead her to stay, but in an emotional scene, she says, “I’m going, mother. I cannot stand by while innocent lives are lost. If no one else will defend the world from Ares, then I must. I have to go.” Her mother says,
“I know, or at least I know I cannot stop you.” Tearing up, her mother says, “You know that if you leave, you may never return” and Diana replies, “but who will I be if I stay.” And with that, she and Steve set sail for 1918, World War 1-era London.
Diana and Steve arrive in London and she’s only wearing her tight, short, superhero uniform from the island while every other woman dares not show her ankles. The town is foggy and gross and crowded Madeline Hull 3 Film Paper and Diana sticks out like a sore thumb. She doesn’t understand the rules of this society and why women have such little rights.
Steve leads Diana to the Supreme War Council to meet with Steve’s superiors where he is returning the notebook that he stole from the Germans, barely escaping with his life. Diana translates the notebook and discovers that Germans plan to release a deadly gas on the Western front. Sir Patrick
Morgan is trying to negotiate an armistice with Germany and forbids Steve to act. Secretly funded, by
Morgan, Steve recruits three men and Diana (who was going to go along either way) to stop this plot.
Once reaching the border of Belgium, Diana heroically blazes alone through “No Man’s Land” with bullets flying at her from every direction, being deflected by her armor and she captures the enemies' trench, allowing the Allied troops to free a small village nearby. The celebration was brief but allowed them to take a second to appreciate their work.
Steve and Diana then infiltrate a gala at the nearby German High Command. Steve wants to locate the gas and destroy it and Diana wants to kill the German General, Ludendorff, who she believes is
Ares. Steve stops her from killing him, as to not jeopardize the mission, but that allows Ludendorff to test the gas on the nearby village they had just freed. Diana blames Steve for this and single-handedly follows
Ludendorff back to a base where the gas is being held. Diana ends up fighting and killing Ludendorff but is confused when the war doesn’t immediately stop.
Sir Patrick Morgan, mentor to Steve up until now, reveals that he is Ares and has used
Ludendorff as a pawn to create war and kill the human race. She tries to use the Godkiller sword, but he easily destroys it, revealing that Diana herself is the “Godkiller” weapon. While they’re fighting, Steve hijacks a plane with all the gas in it and flies to a high altitude and explodes the plane, sacrificing himself and saving thousands of lives. Ares is trying to corrupt her and use her anger towards him to turn against the humans, but instead, she thinks back to Steve and realizes humans are good too, and that only love will save the world. The movie ends with thousands of Londoners at a parade celebrating the end of
WWI, while Diana is stoically somber, looking at a picture of Steve. The movie cuts back to the present day where she is still in the Louvre archives, looking at the picture that Bruce sent her in the beginning. Madeline Hull 4 Film Paper Then she leaps off the top of a building in her Wonder Woman uniform off to save someone else as it fades to black.
Women can be strong and emotional at the same time.
A familiar narrative we see a lot in media today is that a woman is either the nurturing, caring one, who’s emotions cloud her judgment, or the villainous, malicious one, who is unsympathetic and is used as the antagonist. Rarely do you see women being both emotional and the hero. Well, actually, we don’t see women being the hero that much in the first place.
Cut to Diana Prince, who is not only sympathetic, kind and incredibly smart but also the most bad- ass, powerful, life-saving superhero. In the climactic scene where she storms No Man’s Land (disputed ground between two enemy trenches) alone and unafraid, it is her that inspires the other soldiers to run out too. Kicking butt and taking names, she goes directly to a small village where she sees people starving and dying and she fights for their freedom. She explains that she can’t sit idly by while she sees men, women, and children suffering. Her compassion is what freed them.
In an article from The Observer, author Heather Robinson wrote, “Attractive and loving are apt descriptors for Jenkins’s incarnation of Wonder Woman, who comes across in the film as deeply compassionate, at times emotional, argumentative, and sensitive. She delights over babies. She comforts shell-shocked men. She is ambitious, but she is more than just her ambitions. She can fight when necessary, but she is not afraid to be vulnerable, and to show love.” Wonder Woman is a rebellious fighter who will never give up for those she feels needs saving while at the same time, maintaining all of her femininity, which includes being emotional.
Robinson continues, “It’s a message that resonates with women filmgoers. Hollywood appears to be catching on to what real people have known for a long time: powerful women don’t need to lose their nurturing, compassionate hearts to command respect, and to inspire.” This film shattered preconceived notions that usually trap female actresses. Women are usually the emotional girlfriend, trying to reign in these crazy, tough, men from fighting. The women never get physical, instead, they use their womanly Madeline Hull 5 Film Paper charms to get what they want. Diana Prince is the opposite. She uses her feelings to inspire, to charge onto a battlefield where no men have dared to cross, to save people. She’s both sides of the coin.
Women can be warriors, too.
From early scenes, you see Diana being a headstrong, rebellious, and rambunctious child who never takes no for an answer. She’s fierce and capable of anything. To be fair, she was raised by the strongest warriors on this Earth. Made by Zeus himself, it’s interesting how he chose women to be the warriors. Zeus created all of mankind and he knew the distinct power of women to be the most formidable. She only grows up knowing strong women who can defend themselves and others, so when she encounters men for the first time in London who put rules on her, she defies them without thinking twice.
Besides the scene where she’s blazing through an open field while bullets are raining down on her, there are many others where she fights just as fiercely. With Steve by her side and the help of a few other men that Steve rallied, they take on the whole of the German side of WWI. Talk about a daunting task. However, since it is Wonder Woman and not “Wonder Woman and Steve,” Diana takes the reigns in this movie while Steve is a supporting character helping the heroine accomplish her task. This is unlike any other movie, where the girl is supporting the main macho hero to fulfill his destiny. An article from Vox, written by Alex Abad-Santos, puts it perfectly when the author wrote, “He’s [Captain Steve
Trevor] her guide to the modern world, as well as her sidekick and romantic interest. Physically, she’s his protector, though he wants to shield her from the rot of Earth.” Finally, the woman is the hero saving the man, not just emotionally, but physically too.
Another article from HuffPost taps into this idea too. Emma Gray, a contributor to the news site, wrote, “Movies and TV shows help expand (and reinforce) what we see as “normal” and what we believe to be possible. It should feel both normal and possible to see a woman help save the world, even if she’s not an immortal Amazonian daughter of Zeus.” She fights with vigor and tenacity that no other man can compare to. She fights for the innocent, for the defenseless. She fights for the good in humanity, even if she can’t always see it. Madeline Hull 6 Film Paper Gray interviewed women who saw the movie and one said, “ ‘I blacked out with joy,’ Meredith
Fineman, CEO of FinePoint told HuffPost about watching the film’s opening scenes. ‘It was only women
― fighting, being strong, putting themselves in danger, with muscles and beauty.’” Diana was raised among powerful, strong, female role models who not only got through life but thrived on an island without the help of men. They have a council on the island, as well as civil society, food, resources, hunters, gatherers, fighters, teachers. Woman are warriors in this movie not just on physical strength alone, but in everyday life.
Women can save men
Do you ever wonder why Rapunzel was locked in a tower until a man came to save her? Or why
Cinderella never recognized her true worth until a man came and gave her a glass slipper? Me too.
Women have always been portrayed as needing saving. Even in action movies, women don’t do anything alone. A man has to come to her aid and rescue her. This is just another way that Wonder Woman crushes female stereotypes in real life and film.
In the movie, you will never once see Diana whine. She is vulnerable and emotional at times, getting heated one moment and cooing over a baby another, but she never complains. When the men on the Supreme War Council forbid Steve Trevor from fighting, he agrees, but secretly plans on doing it anyway. Knowing that this is too big a task to do on his own, he recruits three men who he’s served with previously to help him out. He assumes Diana would stay back in London, but she doesn’t. She assumes she’s coming with them, they’ll need protection after all.
The climax of the movie is her marching through the battlefield and then there’s a very action- packed, bullet-ridden scene where she’s fighting the German soldiers in the village she’s aiming to free.
She jumps from building to building using her super strength and she deflects bullets with her armor.
After she single-handedly kills the German soldiers who are ruling the village, she looks back to the men who were with her and their faces are so baffled and awe-ridden that they can’t say anything.
But perhaps it’s one of the first scenes that shows this concept best. Ann Hornaday from The
Washington Post recaps it well when she says: “When a handsome World War I pilot crash-lands Madeline Hull 7 Film Paper offshore, Diana rescues him, which leads to a battle with German forces who are ultimately felled by the
women’s acrobatic swordplay, superb equestrian skills, uncanny aim with flaming arrows and all-around
badassery.” Don’t forget it was Diana who jumped into the water to save Steve. It was the Amazon
warriors who killed the Germans on their shore. It was Diana who took No Man’s Land and it was Diana
who killed not only General Ludendorff but Ares too.
Lata Murugan, a writer for The News Minute, described Diana’s role perfectly. She wrote that “She
plays the just voice of reason and never the stereotypical damsel in distress. Instead, she rescues the male
lead from certain death twice and fights where he and other men dare not venture.” Diana uses both her
physical prowess and her intelligence and reasoning to save men. It shows a two-dimensional figure. This
isn’t just a woman who is physically endowed and can kick butt and has nothing more to her. Her
personality, her compassion, and benevolence inspire the men to fight. She proves she doesn’t need
saving. She’s perfectly capable of saving herself, thank you very much.
Wonder Woman vanquishes the false and overdone tropes of today’s society and film industry. She
proves she’s an unbreakable warrior who can save the world while still being feminine and showing
emotion. She never chooses between the two. Instead of portraying “both sides of the coin” she shatters
the coin itself proving that there are no two sides to a woman, it’s all in one. Women are both fervent
warriors and caring human beings. Thanks to this film, they’re superheroes too, or should I say
superheroines?
Works Cited
Abad-Santos, A. (2017, June 2). Wonder Woman is a gorgeous, joyful triumph of a superhero film. Retrieved
from https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/5/30/15709572/wonder-woman-review-gadot. Madeline Hull 8 Film Paper Gray, E. (2017, August 14). 'Wonder Woman' And The Power Of Watching A Woman Save The World.
Retrieved from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wonder-woman-and-the-power-of-watching-a-woman-
save-the-world_n_59355949e4b075bff0f51205.
Hornaday, A. (2017, May 31). 'Wonder Woman' saves the day, in more ways than one. Retrieved from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/movies/wonder-woman-saves-the-day-in-more-ways-
than-one/2017/05/31/c20193c6-45ea-11e7-98cd-af64b4fe2dfc_story.html.
Hornaday, A. (2017, May 31). 'Wonder Woman' saves the day, in more ways than one. Retrieved from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/movies/wonder-woman-saves-the-day-in-more-ways-
than-one/2017/05/31/c20193c6-45ea-11e7-98cd-af64b4fe2dfc_story.html.
Mendonca, A. (n.d.). 'Wonder Woman' provides impactful portrayal of strength. Retrieved from
https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article164580042.html.
Murugan, L. (2017, July 6). How 'Wonder Woman' saved the world and empowered me: A screen writer's
view. Retrieved from https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/how-wonder-woman-saved-world-and-
empowered-me-screen-writers-view-64771.
Robinson, H. (2017, September 11). Wonder Woman Box Office Take Proves Audiences Get Strong,
Nurturing Female Heroes. Retrieved from https://observer.com/2017/09/wonder-woman-box-office-
proves-female-protagonists-can-be-strong-and-nurturing/.
Scott, A. O. (2017, May 31). Review: 'Wonder Woman' Is a Blockbuster That Lets Itself Have Fun. Retrieved
from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/movies/wonder-woman-review-gal-gadot.html.