The LA Times has an article up describing how the cast of Wonder Woman downplayed the feminist aspect of the movie at a recent premier:
Despite the obvious girl power on display, many of the film’s stars and creators shied away from identifying it as a feminist film, hoping not to isolate the male fans in attendance.
This is very wise, but not just to make sure the movie appeals to men. Modern audiences love feminist heroines, but both men and women want their feminist heroine to be hot. This was the real problem with Ghostbusters. No one, neither men nor women, wanted to go watch four butch women in dumpy jumpsuits and combat boots save the world.
The makers of the upcoming Wonder Woman movie seem to understand this, and have so far avoided running into the ditch ugly feminists keep demanding they aim for.
Predictably, there were calls to make Wonder Woman an in your face lesbian:
“The character has to stand up and say, “I’M GAY!” in all bold caps for it to be evident,” he said. “For my purposes, that’s bad writing. That’s a character stating something that’s not impacting the story.”
When that failed, the call was to ensure that Wonder Woman had (you can’t make this stuff up) hairy feminist armpits.
Through careful analysis, the internet has exposed a perhaps, not-so wonderful aspect of DC Comics’ newest incarnation of the classic, girl-power superheroine: She has no armpit hair.
But the studio responded to the controversy by digitally evening out the skin tone on Wonder Woman’s armpits-of-girlpower, instead of giving her pits a set of CGI dreadlocks.
Lastly, instead of a dumpy feminist jumpsuit and combat boots, the movie’s creators wisely gave her a sexy costume, including high heeled fashion boots women are bound to envy.
All of this will give Wonder Woman a chance at success that Ghostbusters never had.
