Wonder Woman for Women

In reference to a theatre in Austin, Texas advertising "women only" showings of the movie Wonder Woman.

Quoting from http://www.mayoradler.com/letter-wonder-woman/

On May 26, 2017, the Mayor of Austin received this email:

I hope every man will boycott Austin and do what he can to diminish Austin and to cause damage to the city’s image. The theater that pandered to the sexism typical of women will, I hope, regret it’s decision. The notion of a woman hero is a fine example of women’s eagerness to accept the appearance of achievement without actual achievement. Women learn from an early age to value make-up, that it’s OK to pretend that you are greater than you actually are. Women pretend they do not know that only men serve in combat because they are content to have an easier ride. Women gladly accept gold medals at the Olympics for coming in 10th and competing only against the second class of athletes. Name something invented by a woman! Achievements by the second rate gender pale in comparison to virtually everything great in human history was accomplished by men, not women. If Austin does not host a men only counter event, I will never visit Austin and will welcome it’s deteriorati on. And I will not forget that Austin is best known for Charles Whitman. Does Austin stand for gender equality or for kissing up to women? Don’t bother to respond. I already know the answer. I do not hate women. I hate their rampant hypocrisy and the hypocrisy of the “women’s movement.” Women do not want gender equality; they want more for women. Don’t bother to respond because I am sure your cowardice will generate nothing worth reading.

Richard A. Ameduri

He responded:

Dear Mr. Ameduri,

I am writing to alert you that your email account has been hacked by an unfortunate and unusually hostile individual. Please remedy your account’s security right away, lest this person’s uninformed and sexist rantings give you a bad name. After all, we men have to look out for each other!

Can you imagine if someone thought that you didn’t know women could serve in our combat units now without exclusion? What if someone thought you didn’t know that women invented medical syringes, life rafts, fire escapes, central and solar heating, a war-time communications system for radio-controlling torpedoes that laid the technological foundations for everything from Wi-Fi to GPS, and beer? And I hesitate to imagine how embarrassed you’d be if someone thought you were upset that a private business was realizing a business opportunity by reserving one screening this weekend for women to see a superhero movie.

You and I are serious men of substance with little time for the delicate sensitivities displayed by the pitiful creature who maligned your good name and sterling character by writing that abysmal email. I trust the news that your email account has been hacked does not cause you undue alarm and wish you well in securing your account. And in the future, should your travels take you to Austin, please know that everyone is welcome here, even people like those who wrote that email whose views are an embarrassment to modernity, decency, and common sense.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Adler

Lynda Carter is the true Wonder Woman, and she has no problem with playing that part years ago.

It's a superhero movie. Don't take it so seriously.

>2 barney67: I felt the same until ran across this below - check it out, mind blowing stuff!

The story of the origin of Wonder Woman is stranger and more exciting than the comic in many ways. I just caught part of a NPR radio interview with the author Jill Lepore of the book The Secret History of Wonder Woman.

In the discussion with the author released today Jill Lepore explains "What 'Wonder Woman' Means To Modern-Day Feminism". Very entertaining she explains Mr. Marston was raised by feminists and abolitionists and that was how he came up with the character. It is acknowledged he kind of delved into the bondage of Wonder Woman pretty deeply but even that was based on feminism history. She concludes that Wonder Woman is actually Margaret Sanger, who started Planned Parenthood. You will be glad to know the Catholic church also banned Wonder Woman. ;-)

Described in greater detail in a 2014 transcript of another interview with Jill Lepore ;

"The man behind the most popular female comic book hero of all time, Wonder Woman, had a secret past: Creator William Moulton Marston had a wife — and a mistress. He fathered children with both of them, and they all secretly lived together in Rye, N.Y. And the best part? Marston was also the creator of the lie detector."

Another very short poignant article on how a kid relates to WW http://www.npr.org/2017/06/03/531397415/wonder-woman-shows-girls-that-men-arent-...

>3 DugsBooks: She concludes that Wonder Woman is actually Margaret Sanger

Sanger would have liked that.

This just makes me think maybe men and women need their separate spaces sometimes. I think it would be cool to join an old Victorian-style 'Smoking Club' (although I don't smoke) where men can discuss politics and other topics. Or the Lions/Kiwanis/Rotary clubs of my grandfather's generation. And I guess women need their clubs, too. Don't we all miss that?

>5 madpoet: Except that becomes the place where real business gets done and women get shut out.

>6 jjwilson61: So you make a rule: no business at the club. Problem solved.

>6 jjwilson61: A friend of mind recently spent some time in the NC mountains with a group of NC business women who had been meeting together socially for years -- thirty, forty years. They are all executives and high powered in various industries, and the get-togethers, while ostensibly social gatherings, was also where they met to discuss strategies to leverage their own influence to put more women into positions of power in industry and government, and to change policies to promote the advancement of women. (Of particular women, it must be said although none of them would ever think like that, since the group was/is of the white, country club variety and thus tended to wield their influence on behalf of women like them). In other words, it was a version of the same kind of meeting that happened every morning between our county commissioners, city council members, and more prominent local businessmen -- not during sessions or public hearings, but more genially over breakfast at Whitey's Restaurant before the day got going.

Wonder woman ignores black women, its hero is an oppressor and something about how Donna Brazile was treated unfairly.
http://www.essence.com/culture/wonder-woman-black-feminism-palestine-israel-view...

So woke, I may never get a good night's rest again.

>9 timspalding: "misogynoiristic stereotypes"

Is that even a word? So, apparently any movie with a white superhero is racist. Only black superheroes are acceptable. Preferably, black, female, and lesbian, just like the woman who made up this word, Moya Bailey. You can never be liberal enough, apparently. You know, at some point, the wiser people just stop trying.

>9 timspalding: At their core, don't all superheroes comics basically glorify objectification and stereotypes?

>11 southernbooklady:, I think they've historically done a lot of that, but are beginning to make some strides in the right directions with more focus on strong female characters and fair minority representations.

I'm not a big fan of the genre and can't see much of the appeal myself. It looks to me like some kind of inverse approach to internal vs external perception. In the sense that we are all the protaganists of our own life stories, a super-hero is the externalization of our internal perception, placing ourselves at the centre of the world around us. All the more reason then why more people from more backgrounds wish to see themselves represented in these comics.

If you're having any fun at all, you must be doing it wrong. Wonder Woman is a highly enjoyable movie, for me a standout in a sea of endless blockbuster pablum.

And while there are black women in the movie, it's difficult to imagine too many black women running around Europe during World War I. I confess I didn't read the article referenced in >9 timspalding:

And while there are black women in the movie, it's difficult to imagine too many black women running around Europe during World War I.

Hundreds of thousands of troops from the colonial holdings of the combatants fought in Europe. You think none of those soldiers had women come to join them?

>12 Cecrow: It looks to me like some kind of inverse approach to internal vs external perception. In the sense that we are all the protaganists of our own life stories, a super-hero is the externalization of our internal perception, placing ourselves at the centre of the world around us.

Well, that's a generous take on it, I think, with more depth than I would have credited. The whole idea of superheroes, though, seems...pantheistic, or something. So instead of Vulcan, you have Iron Man. Instead of Neptune, you get "Aquaman." It's more about what they are than who they are. And in the end, it all does seem to center around a fantasy where the good guys deliver an epic beat down on the bad guys. You ever notice how no matter how "super" these people are, it always comes down to some kind of massive fist fight? I think these things are fantasies where we imagine getting to beat up everyone who makes us feel angry.

But I'm more familiar with the cinematic versions than the comics, thanks to the enthusiasm of a couple of nephews. So far of the superhero things I've seen, complexity and nuance are not common goals, unless the production has really good writers or a really good actor who can make the most out of the little material they are given.

I confess I'm not at all interested in seeing Wonder Woman. But since the nephews will want to see it, I'll probably get around to it at some point.

>14 StormRaven: What is your point, that they should have worked that into the plot somehow? This is a superhero movie! Even so, Diana has conversations about oppression and racial discrimination with two minority characters. Even the drunk Scotsman is drunk because he has PTSD, which I thought was an interesting subversion of the trope. Meanwhile, there are plenty of black Amazons, who are teachers, senators, and warriors. I have to wonder what people want, exactly.

It's a movie about an intelligent, powerful, independent, bisexual woman, directed by a woman, getting near universal acclaim and making big box office. Not good enough!

What is your point, that they should have worked that into the plot somehow?

The point is that the notion that there might be non-white people in Europe during World War I isn't far-fetched at all. There were millions of non-whites in Europe during that time period, so it shouldn't be "difficult" to imagine them being there.

>17 StormRaven: But that still has nothing to do with the discussion of a superhero movie set in wwi Europe, which is the context in which I made my comment and which I thought was pretty clear. If it were a more realistic movie, it would be a different conversation. My point is that for a superhero movie, Wonder Woman handled issues of diversity and representation well. In fact, one thing I appreciated about the movie was how it took stock characters and transformed them into real people.

But that still has nothing to do with the discussion of a superhero movie set in wwi Europe

"It is just a super-hero" movie is a pretty weak tea response. You literally said it was "difficult" to imagine black women running around Europe - with no qualifiers. It isn't difficult at all. They were there. If you are going to set your movie in World War I, then deal with the world of World War I - and that world included black men and women. Otherwise, just make the movie about a fantasy war and be done with it.

At their core, don't all superheroes comics basically glorify objectification and stereotypes?

All art, you mean.

>19 StormRaven: I am reminded of Colin Farrell in In Bruges when the hefty US American man is trying to swat him and he says 'Leave it, fatty.' Do you really need to be right on this one SR? Well, you are. You are correct. A lot of non-white people fought in the war. As for their spouses joining them...well, leave it, Stormy.

>20 timspalding: Cryptic for fear of what?

>19 StormRaven: I have a feeling you're more interested in playing "gotcha" with me than in actually discussing the actual movie, which I suspect I may be the only person on this thread to have actually seen. You want to deliberately misread my posts so you can score points off me, some stranger you don't even know--fine, but I'm not going to participate in that.

I have a feeling you're more interested in playing "gotcha" with me than in actually discussing the actual movie, which I suspect I may be the only person on this thread to have actually seen.

You are incorrect and also incorrect. I have seen the movie. The fact that you think you are the only person who has seen one of the most popular movies released this year is a pretty egotistical statement for you to make. You may want to reconsider this sort of line of argument in the future, as it does make you look a bit silly.

On the original point, your blithe dismissal of the possibility of including more parts for actors of color with the line that "it is difficult to imagine too many black women running around Europe during World War I" is just historically illiterate. It would have been almost trivially easy to include black women in more substantive roles in the movie.

The only person here playing "gotcha" is you, since you have happily tried to move the goalposts a couple of times already in this conversation, running from "I can't imagine black women in Europe in World War I" to "it is just a super-hero movie" to "I'm the only one who has actually seen it". You said something stupid. Stop playing the game of dodge, weave, evade, and dissemble and deal with it.

>22 sturlington: He's absolutely right, you know: just imagine Josephine Baker arriving in Paris a mere decade earlier and you even have a FAMOUS black women there for the war. You can imagine her doing shows for the troops!

>23 StormRaven: Whatever.

You got me. I thought you were trying to have an actual conversation with me. Ha ha, boy do I look foolish.

>24 RickHarsch: I think that would have added a lot to the plot of the movie.

You knew exactly what I was getting at in my first post (assuming you are a reasonably intelligent human being), but you choose instead to berate me for not framing things in a way that you find absolutely appropriate.

Yes. I knew exactly what you were getting at. In fact, I directly quoted you. You said "it's difficult to imagine too many black women running around Europe during World War I". What you said was stupid. You were called out on it. You then tried to claim that you meant that black women in a movie set during World War I "still has nothing to do with the discussion of a superhero movie set in wwi Europe", which is just a nonsensical statement. Everything you've said since then has been half-assed evasions and goalpost shifting.

"I can't imagine a (black)(Asian)(non-white) (woman)(man) in this setting" is used all the time to dismiss the notion that films, television, and books could have inclusive stories, and it is nothing but a bullshit argument. Non-white men and women have been part of history all along, they've just been erased from our collective cultural memory by the pervasive practice of artwork excluding them. So when you say "I can't imagine black women in World War I Europe", you're participating in that erasure. When you respond to it being pointed out that black men and women were in fact in Europe in World War I with "its just a super-hero movie" you are engaging in that erasure.

Now, the fact that an actual discussion on this topic upsets you isn't my problem. If you can't handle even this much pushback on your commentary, then maybe the internet isn't a good place for you, since this was pretty mild to be perfectly blunt.

He's absolutely right, you know: just imagine Josephine Baker arriving in Paris a mere decade earlier and you even have a FAMOUS black women there for the war. You can imagine her doing shows for the troops!

I can think of multiple ways off the top of my head to include a black female character with a substantive role in the movie without even working hard. Here are some black women in World War I:



Introduce some Red Cross workers as part of the run-up to the no-man's land scene. Make them black women, who were often given the roughest assignments. Their leader can explain to Wonder Woman that they were expelled from the village across no-man's land by the Germans, who were taking the villagers and forcing them to work as slave labor. Have her make the moral argument against Trevor's indifference.

After the village is recaptured, the leader of the Red Cross group can continue, using her local contacts to help Diana figure out where Ludendorff went (which means you can excise the cringe-worthy smoke signals scene) and then help the group infiltrate the castle (which means you can excise the also cringe-worthy Sameer groveling scene). When Ludendorff fires poison gas at the village, the Red Cross leader can try to organize an evacuation, possibly saving some people and possibly dying in the process, either way inspiring Diana (disillusioned by Trevor stopping her from killing Ludendorff) to side with humanity and go ahead and try to stop Ares.

There. A black woman in World War I Europe. Not hard at all.

You got me. I thought you were trying to have an actual conversation with me.

Get over your whiny self. Not every conversation is going to have everyone agreeing with you.

>28 StormRaven:

I'm sure you could find a black American woman in Europe during World War I, but I don't think you've found one here, and I think they are less numerous than you suppose. The Red Cross--these are apparently from the Red Cross' Motor Corps—recruited some 18 African American women during World War I, and attempted to send them abroad, but, for racist reasons, they did not succeed in doing so until after Armistice—a fact which would logically preclude them having "the roughest assignments." I have been unable to discover whether this photo was taken in the US or in Europe after the War, but I don't think it shows what you think it shows.

Note that the caption here is "Motor Corps Women did much for the comfort of sick and wounded during the war and after. Two are here shown doing their bit in helping a wounded hero from ambulance into a theatre where a show was given for wounded Colored soldiers."

Introduce some Red Cross workers as part of the run-up to the no-man's land scene. Make them black women, who were often given the roughest assignments. Their leader can explain to Wonder Woman that they were expelled from the village across no-man's land by the Germans, who were taking the villagers and forcing them to work as slave labor. Have her make the moral argument against Trevor's indifference.

Wait, so these are:

1. "Villagers," presumably French or Belgian?
2. Evicted from their village
3. Black women
4. Now employed by the Red Cross
5. A large group, apparently

Are they also heterochromic, left-handed and all named Gertrude?

>30 timspalding: Logic and context are irrelevant. What matters is how much outrage is being manufactured. This is the central preoccupation of our times. Whether the outrage is over women-only showings of Wonder Woman or whether that same movie represented black women sufficiently doesn't really matter, as long as there's cause to spew copious amounts of self-righteous indignation on the internet.

I see two major problems with the culture of endless outrage (other than that it's freaking exhausting).

The first is that it gives the outraged permission to treat the other side with disrespect, to forego conversation or trying to find commonalities in favor of yelling and insults. This is always problematic, but especially so when the person's politics or personal views supposedly advocates for the exact opposite.

The second, and I think more troubling issue, is that when everything is outrageous, then nothing is. True outrages become lost in a sea of invective. And we sit at our computers, venting our rage and thinking we're *doing* something, when we're actually doing nothing at all.

(Sorry for the double post; I had to switch from my tablet to my laptop to type effectively.)

>32 sturlington: Ah, but what about all the professionally outraged? The people on Fox News, talk radio, or academia who make a living off the culture of outrage (on both the right and the left). A society where everyone discussed problems calmly and rationally with the intention of actually finding solutions would put those people out of work.

>33 madpoet: This would be a bad thing?

It is all connected, isn't it? The professionally outraged have a vested interest in manufacturing more outrage so as to keep themselves relevant and in a job. And then they spawn the legions of aspirationally outraged. It all feeds on itself.

If outrage is a bad thing, then this forum should close down, right?

I'm sure you could find a black American woman in Europe during World War I

Who said they were American? You do realize that the Red Cross is an international organization, right? It predates World War I by quite a bit. There were a few dozen other nations participating in the conflict, remember?

1. "Villagers," presumably French or Belgian?
2. Evicted from their village
3. Black women
4. Now employed by the Red Cross
5. A large group, apparently

No. The Red Cross workers would be the ones evicted- the idea is that they had been acting as relief for the village prior to be expelled the Germans. The villagers would be the ones the Germans were using as laborers. In the actual movie, the villagers are somehow refugees, having apparently crossed no-man's land successfully (and quite recently) despite the fact that the British troops in the trenches "haven't been able to move an inch in a year". Almost nothing about the set-up that is actually in the movie makes sense.

Website features little-known women in history: https://timeline.com/women-history/home
Some women are filed under black history: https://timeline.com/black-history/home

This one on clothing speaks to the special hell that enslaved women endured from lusty masters and jealous mistresses:

Female slaves were forced to wear headwraps because white women were jealous
Khanya Khondlo Mtshali | May 10, 2018
https://timeline.com/headwraps-were-born-out-of-slavery-before-being-reclaimed-2...