The new Wonder Woman trailer: Peak 'nasty woman'
I'm not a comic book geek. I don't really know Wonder Woman's story. But when I watched the trailer for Wonder Woman, I felt a surge of giddy pride and bittersweet emotion.
For one of the first times in my life, a female superhero is the star of her own blockbuster film. She's not a sidekick, love interest or arm candy. She's fierce, brave and physical. And she considers it her "sacred duty to defend the world."
A lot of women feel that way, actually, but we've almost always been relegated to the margins of the hero's journey. We become the mother, the mistress, the witch, the hypersexual nemesis. Never are we on the front lines battling evil.
You May Also Like
Like the best trailers, Wonder Woman is a two-minute escape from reality. Diana of Themyscira — Wonder Woman's given name — flies through the air, wields a sword against her enemies and is formidable in hand-to-hand combat. She is set on preventing armageddon even as she must hide in plain sight as a secretary.
We're deep into fantasy here, but there are echoes of real life, particularly as we inch closer to Election Day and the prospect that the United States will elect its first female president — a so-called "nasty woman."
And it's telling that many women have embraced that moniker, reclaiming it as a badge of honor. They're finished with silence and politeness and deference. They know those standards, when applied to women, do almost nothing but repress their potential and desire. Wonder Woman has no time for these head games; she may look gentle, but nearly every move of hers against the bad guys is vicious.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
It's hard to believe that we had to wait until 2016 for this vision. While The Hunger Games and Divergent series made heroes out of women, only a few of the dozens of DC and Marvel films produced in the last three decades featured a female lead.
Elektra (2005), Catwoman (2004) and Supergirl (1984) were tiny islands in a cinematic sea of movies dedicated to male bravery and valor. Those films weren't particularly good or well made. In that respect, DC Entertainment's Wonder Woman, with its $100 million-plus budget and a female director, is a huge milestone. The forthcoming Captain Marvel, starring Oscar winner Brie Larson, has the same potential.
Thankfully, the shortage of supernatural or physically gifted women on the small screen has not been as severe. Jessica Jones and Stranger Things, both on Netflix, offer complex portrayals of a woman and girl who live with the burden of an otherworldly identity — and the skill to prevent death and destruction.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
When it aired nearly two decades ago, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Joss Whedon-helmed TV series that ran for seven seasons, radically transformed my view of gender and heroism.
Watching that show as a teenager and young adult, particularly in the year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, gave me a visual and emotional vocabulary for what it looks like when a woman saves the world. When Buffy slayed demons with purpose and a sense of humor, the metaphor translated easily to my every day life. In a moment of doubt or crisis, I could watch an episode of Buffy, see a woman demonstrate physical strength and mental resilience in literally incredible scenarios and feel capable of pushing myself to the limit.
This might all seem hyperbolic, but there's a reason why some men revere the superhero genre — and protest when women become the protagonists (see: Ghostbusters). These two-hour long epics, complete with awesome special effects, feed the imagination. They serve up vivid images and memorable one-liners and even spiritual references that speak to a hero's identity. That women haven't really been spoken to by Hollywood until now is frankly sad.
If you watched the viral video of the woman who voted for Clinton and then sat in her car crying, shaking and laughing, remarking, "I got to vote for a woman for president," you know that the sadness of not seeing yourself reflected in pop culture and politics is something serious. It's a psychic longing to feel that society recognizes your worth and value combined with the pain of realizing they don't or haven't simply because of your gender.
When I clicked play on the Wonder Woman trailer, I was still tethered to reality. I knew I was consuming a marketing campaign. I knew that not every woman could or should feel seen thanks to a film about a white, straight female superhero. I personally didn't like that a romantic moment had to break up the action. I understood the seductive power of pop culture feminism, which leads us not to real political change, but to a pleasant feeling of so-called empowerment.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
But for two minutes, I felt myself drifting into Wonder Woman's skin, imagining myself fending off evil-doers with might and wit, feeling high on the conviction of acting for a greater good. The movie itself might be terrible, but I'll bask in those two minutes because they're rare and precious. My bet is that countless nasty women are doing exactly the same thing.
Topics Trailers Wonder Woman Elections
Rebecca Ruiz is a Senior Reporter at Mashable. She frequently covers mental health, digital culture, and technology. Her areas of expertise include suicide prevention, screen use and mental health, parenting, youth well-being, and meditation and mindfulness. Rebecca's experience prior to Mashable includes working as a staff writer, reporter, and editor at NBC News Digital and as a staff writer at Forbes. Rebecca has a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and a masters degree from U.C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.
