If I should die in a wombat zone

So…Wonder Woman, 2017. I am impressed. Let’s get the obvious out of the way first, Gal Gadot is unspeakably gorgeous, yet plays Diana with such confidence and poise that indeed, as Sammy says, “you don’t know whether to be terrified or aroused.”   (And doesn’t that summarize the Israeli female soldier stereotype? Could a non-Israeli actress have pulled this off?) Yet at no time does Diana fall into the trap Heather MacDougal describes in her famous essay, “  I hate strong female characters ” – in other words, a woman who is ass-kicking but that’s all she is, the one-dimensional figure epitomized by Scarlet Johannsen’s Black Widow. Instead we see Diana through a wide range of states of being – confident, confused, curious, despairing – we see how her naïve honesty is precious, but also fuels a certain hubris, and isn’t that the quintessential Greek mythic flaw? Her romance with Steve begins as curiosity, cracks when she realizes that, gasp, he has flaws (as first lov...