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 loves tend to do), and only
manifests as love when she realizes he’s gone and it’s too late to explore it
further.
The movie challenges the square-jawed male hero roles as well – nearly all
the male characters suffer from some sort of trauma. Our male heroes are
soldiers using “good guy violence” to beat “bad guy violence,” but they really
just want to sing, or to be an actor. Characters who would normally be comic relief are still so, but are also the heroes (as opposed to just sidekicks for the heroes). They struggle with racism, and the conflicts
inherent in fighting alongside, and for, the very people who deem them less than
human (if anything I wish the movie had explored this a bit more). In all, it was very nice
to see WW return to her antiwar roots.
What I loved the most was how the plot was a refreshingly more sophisticated departure
from the classic action hero movie structure of, “hero has origin, hero wins
some battles, hero suffers big defeat, hero makes kickass comeback.” From start
to finish, Diana is an unstoppable force of nature. Even Ares doesn’t give her
much of a challenge. Physically. No, Diana’s hero’s journey is mental, her
conflict internal and coming-of-age-like: how can she retain the power of her
idealism once her innocence is lost? Steve Trevor and his gaggle of friends are
off having a more traditional male adventure, but that’s all in the background,
happening while Diana’s center stage, having an adventure that is in a way a
running meta-commentary on the action hero tropes.
Because of this, Ares is the perfect villain. At first I
thought casting effete old “Lupin” as Ares was ridiculous, but then I came to
realize that his physicality wasn’t the point. He is intensely threatening, NOT
because he can throw lightning bolts – remember, Diana kicks his ass without
too much trouble. No, he is dangerous because he positions himself as the god
of truth. He offers to unmask humanity for what it is (as he literally does with
“Doctor Poison”), revealing the ugliness and rot inside. In his explanation of the
world – backed up, you have to admit, by very persuasive evidence – all struggle is pointless. Humans are irredeemable, so why waste time trying to redeem them? He
threatens to dematerialize the whole concept of heroism.
It’s an incredibly postmodern challenge for Diana, and it’s
a challenge the film forces us as viewers to face as well. Those of us who grew up as naive kids loving superheroes, until those dreams were chewed up by reality. There are times when
the movie has her strike a cheesy “superhero” freeze frame pose, or make some
statement like “love is what will save mankind.” If you, like many of us, are
tempted to snicker and dismiss it as kitsch, then that positions you squarely
on Ares’ side: the side that says everything is shit, humans are shit, that all
endeavor is pointless and the world would be better off if it were empty of us.
Diana’s triumph is that she chooses to believe, chooses to
hold on to heroism, not out of naiveté like she did at first --- but that, even
after she’s seen the rot behind the mask, she still chooses to believe she can
make a difference, that the struggle is worth it. Similarly, the movie offers *us* that choice – we can dismiss it as cheeseball, or we can choose to let
ourselves believe, even for just a few minutes in a dark movie theater, that
goodness can triumph and love can conquer all. The choice is ours, and THAT is
the freedom that Wonder Woman fights for. She fights to bring us, not the
overthrow of some tyrant and then, yay, everything’s awesome (Steve even says, “it’s
not like there’s this one bad guy you beat and then it’s all over"), but rather,
the freedom to choose hope over cynical despair.
That’s the hero we need for today's world. That's a hero I’ll applaud any
day.
Grade: A
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