Comic book depictions of superheroines as politicians illustrate how sexism weakens democracy and why comics history is relevant to contemporary politics.
Some movie fans who await Christmas Day movie openings will be stuck in the middle of cinema closures due to COVID-19 and streaming restrictions. Here, a still from ‘Wonder Woman 1984.’
(Warner Bros.)
Canadians won’t be able to stream ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ when it launches Christmas Day. Surfing streaming menus and reviews for what to watch and where may become a new Christmas movie tradition.
The makers of Justice League embed the film in a post-9/11, post-global warming, post-Brexit, post-Trump context. But it is loud and disappointing with some genuinely unimaginative action sequences.
Images from Plastic Surgery of the Face by Sir Harold Gillies, 1920.
Gil Birmingham (Cory) and Jeremy Renner (Martin) in Wind River: grieving fathers who come together in the realm of the dead.
Production Co: Acacia Filmed Entertainment, Film 44, Ingenious Media
American cinema mines Greek myth most strongly at times of profound social anxiety. In the age of Trump, we are already seeing key political battlegrounds framed as underworld quests in film.
Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde.
87Eleven, Closed on Mondays Entertainment, Denver and Delilah Productions.
From Kill Bill to The Hunger Games, women have been kicking butt in films (and in real life) forever. But we still act surprised when they do, because deep down we still see women as the passive sex.
The Lebanese government banned Wonder Woman just hours before its scheduled domestic release.
Why haven’t feminists noted that the film is too Western and too white?
Ishtar (on right) comes to Sargon, who would later become one of the great kings of Mesopotamia.
Edwin J. Prittie, The story of the greatest nations, 1913
Love, it is said, is a battlefield, and it was no more so than for the first goddess of love and war, Ishtar. Her legend has influenced cultural archetypes from Aphrodite to Wonder Woman.
Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman: she fights better than a man, but prioritises peace.
Atlas Entertainment, Cruel & Unusual Films, DC Entertainment
In a world where public avenues for violence are increasingly open to women, Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman presents us with an ethical and feminist model of fighting femininity.
Wonder Woman comes from a long line of strong mythical feminists.
Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman: she eschews corsets, barges into men-only meetings, and compares secretarial work to slavery.
Atlas Entertainment, Cruel & Unusual Films, DC Entertainment
As a comic hero, Wonder Woman’s antecedents reach back to the suffragettes. And a long awaited feature film offers us a fittingly feminist story.
Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman: a true Amazonian, she is trained in a range of skills in both combat and hunting.
Atlas Entertainment, Cruel & Unusual Films, DC Entertainment
Since the epics of the Homeric poets, there have been tales of the mysterious, war-like Amazon women. The myth is likely based on the ‘strong, free’ women of the nomadic Scythian tribe.
Wonder Woman embodies the male fantasy of warrior women.
Variety.com
Pop culture has always found something sexy about female fighters, who feature in everything from Sumerian hymns and Greek mythology to the new Wonder Woman film.
Superheroes – and villains – are more popular than they’ve ever been.
From Wonder Woman to Doctor Strange, superheroes are at peak popularity. As political orthodoxies across the world fall away, these flawed, but good-hearted characters speak to modern anxieties.