It's official, ladies: 2017 is OUR YEAR. And if anyone tells you otherwise, feel free to tell them, in as much detail as you'd like, why they need to shut up and get out of your way.
First of all, we've already had multiple films come out directed by women and starring some really cool women this year. Kristen Stewart debuted her first short film at Cannes. Niki Caro, Stella Meghie, and Amma Asante all had movies in wide release before we were even six months into 2017. That's pretty freaking cool, considering that most female contributions come from festivals and not that many people get to see them. And then capping it all off with the first female-directed blockbuster superhero film? Great move, Hollywood!
But as anyone who's ever talked to me knows, I personally hate the idea of supporting a film JUST because it's progressive or somehow "groundbreaking." It's one of the many reasons that people's explosive reactions to Moonlight generally irked me. Had the film starred two lanky hipster white boys (which that type of movie usually does), no one would have said beans about it, because aesthetically it looks exactly like every other indie gay movie to ever exist. Mahersala Ali may have won best supporting actor, but he sure as hell deserved a better script to work with. (See him in Luke Cage if you need evidence of that.) So disappointed was I with Moonlight that I had to be persuaded to see Get Out, another film that was hailed as progressive, another film in a genre I don't generally like (we all know how I feel about horror, right guys?), but I'm glad I gave it a shot because it was seriously amazing. My point is, if a film is good, it will be good regardless of its message. If it's bad, you can put all the progressive social movements in it at once, but it won't improve the quality. It's just the way it is.
SO. With all that in mind, how does Wonder Woman stack up against its brethren? Can a superhero film that was--gasp!--directed by a real woman with actual ladyparts stand among the finer films in the hero genre? I'm gonna go ahead and say no.
Because it doesn't just measure up against previously released superhero films. Wonder Woman, as far as I'm concerned, surpasses even the best of them.
First of all, let's get the obvious out of the way: DC has been so off their game lately. Off their game is perhaps even too kind a way of putting it. In their rush to compete with the MCU, DC did what a franchise should never, ever do: frantically hauled off and made a handful of films, supported by only one basic tentpole movie, and tried to make us care about a bunch of characters that were so badly built you'd literally have to read all the comics to know what the hell was going on. Man of Steel was an inelegant rehash; Dawn of Justice a character-screwing trainwreck, and Suicide Squad was...well, you already know how I felt about that. So DC has a bit to make up for. And I think that with Wonder Woman they thought, "well, we certainly can't do any worse. C'mon, Patty Jenkins, make us a hero!" And damn, she did.
There are three major reasons why Wonder Woman rocks. The first is Gal Gadot, who is absolutely the perfect Wonder Woman. She's a trained fighter, as is her stunt double, and it shows. Never do we question whether or not Diana "deserves" to be as hyped by her peers as she is, because we can all see that she is exactly as awesome as everyone says (and they do, repeatedly, to her face, say how awesome she is). But the fighting is only one element, the rest of it is in what Diana does when she isn't kicking ass. Since a significant part of the film revolves around her first entry into the "world of men," it would have been so very, very easy to make her a weird hybrid of Gamora and Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy: she may not know jack about things we find normal, she might not understand normal human customs or figures of speech, but dammit she'll do you some damage if you try to take her to bed. Instead, Gadot plays Diana with just the right mix of innocence and wisdom. She may not understand the causes of World War I outside of Ares' involvement, but she knows that her job is to prevent people from hurting, and moreover she knows she's really, really good at that job. No one is ever going to tell Diana what to do, and no one is ever going to regret letting her make her own decisions, because hey, maybe she's never had ice cream before, but she's smart enough to analyze a tough situation and figure out what needs to be done. Gadot plays Diana as having confidence beyond just about any DC heroine to date, save maybe Catwoman in Dark Knight Rises (and, hey, are we even gonna talk about how much damage those two could do if they felt like working together?), and it works because we know that if nothing else, Wonder Woman will not take crap from anyone.
The second reason is Patty Jenkins' directorial choice to play to the females in her audience. Everything about this film screams feminist, and yet does it in a way that doesn't feel like we're being preached to or scolded for not being feminist enough. Too many "feminist" movies made by male directors take the approach of basically slamming the message down the throats of the men in the audience. The characters in these movies tend to be cardboard cutouts, saying to a female hero's face what most men would relegate to a chatroom or meninist support meeting. But Jenkins doesn't take that route. Instead, she basically gives Diana every attribute that Superman is credited with having--she's tough and compassionate in equal measure, she's analytical enough to slay on the battlefield but she's emotional enough to fall in love with one of the people she saves, she's innocent, she's charming, she's beautiful--but also goes to great lengths to make her human. She tells the story through Diana's eyes, so that when it finally comes down to the final fight, we aren't just rooting for her to destroy Ares. We're rooting for her to learn the truth about herself. We care about her because we got to know her, not because we're technically obligated to cheer on the hero.
The third is the action scenes, because oh my God when is the last time you went to an action movie and could actually see all of the action? Just about every thriller, action, or superhero movie I've seen in the last two years has a problem called Why The Hell Are You Using Handheld Camera For This Damn Scene. From Hardcore Henry to the latest Marvel flick, there is at least one if not more instances where the fight scenes are filmed in close-up with a handheld camera, and I can't figure out for the life of me why. For a film like Hardcore Henry it makes sense; it's supposed to be a first-person perspective and that's not always reliable. But for Civil War, really? It's fiction, not a mockumentary. Use your damn steadicam or get out. Wonder Woman, however, does not do this. Again, I feel like this is likely one of Jenkins' feminist choices: she wants us to see, in full detail, just how badass our heroine is, and you can't get that impression if the camera is focused on her leg, fist, or face while she's fighting. Moreover a lot of the fights set on the island are shot through Diana's eyes as well, visually telling us that these ladies deserve all the respect and then some. I won't spoil the best fight of the film, but suffice it to say that whether she's fighting a god or tearing up the trenches of WWI, Diana's fighting is in the spotlight.
And all this isn't even touching on the way sexuality is portrayed in the movie. Now, when I say sexuality, I don't mean of the Deadpool variety. This is a rare example of a superhero movie I wouldn't mind if parents brought their kids to see it. But Diana is canonically bisexual, and the movie damn well knows it, even going so far as to have her all but explicitly state to her male companion that she knows exactly what sex is despite growing up in a world of women. When he asks how she knows, she holds up her hand. Wow. Let's just acknowledge that in a world where we are supposed to be demure, it's amazing to see a casual reference to female masturbation in a mainstream superhero movie. Especially one that's coming from the female equivalent to the holier-than-thou Superman. Later on, Diana lets Steve, her spy love interest, follow her into an inn room and shut the door. We don't know exactly what goes down in there--presumably they weren't playing a friendly game of chess--but Diana, at this point in the film, has taken out perhaps the equivalent of an entire German battalion. Whatever happens after their first kiss, it's not going to be without her consent. It's a sex-positive message without actually showing sex, something of a miracle in a day and age where we seem to enjoy sexualizing the hell out of tough females. (See: The Fate of the Furious, wherein Charlize Theron is at her most villainous, but damn right she's going to use her sexuality to get what she wants because according to male directors that's just what female villains do.)
When it comes down to it, could someone like Chris Nolan or Joss Whedon made Wonder Woman? Probably, yeah, but let's face it, it wouldn't have been as good. Just like Jordan Peele had to be the one to make Get Out, because--real talk--a white director couldn't have understood the nuances or implications in the script, Wonder Woman wouldn't be half as powerful without the influence of a female director. And if you watch the movie and still think Patty Jenkins wasn't the right person for the job, I have no idea what to tell you, because after seeing this movie, I'm ready to take Justice League out of Joss Whedon's hands and put it into hers. Maybe, after all the complaining and viciously poking holes in every major or minor female character in every Marvel movie over the years, Wonder Woman isn't the female hero movie we deserve...but it's sure as hell the one we ladies need right now.
