i love the storytelling possibilities in comic books, but truthfully, i'm not much of a collector.
my adoration and dollars have been spent on one, wonderful heroine: Wonder Woman! who else?
a child of the very late seventies, i grew up watching the lovely Linda Carter fulfill all our voluptuous, feminist fantasies on tv. and, of course, i loved the Bionic Woman (talk about making lemonade!) and She-Ra. and Facts of Life, and Three's Company, and Who's The Boss, and Charlie's Angels. and the Smurfs, because really Smurfette was the only one with an identity. and my mom made me wear overalls no matter how hard i yearned for pink frillyness, and i had a ridiculously awesome metal dumptruck and backhoe. even i'm shocked that i'm not a lesbian.
more to the point, though, is that Linda Carter actually lived in my neighborhood. i went trick or treating at her house once, and i don't even remember whether or not she came to the door! my anxiety/fantasy about meeting her in person so totally overshadowed the physical reality that it didn't even matter. just goes to show that dreams are just as real as reality.
this month is the release of the "New 52" Wonder Woman, and i went to the local "nerd hut" (thank you, MJ!) to pick one up. well, they were sold out or something and i didn't get it, but i did get the recent storyline of back issues, a summary of which i have attached below:
i sure would like to write these books. it's not that i don't like what's there...i do! usually more than i think i'm going to. but there must be more to WW than the usual 1) battle with herself, 2) confrontation (good or bad) with her mother, 3) reminder from the gods that she's the chosen one, and 4) the part where she gets believably beaten up, but still wins. it's a great formula!
but that struggle is the past. it's time for WW, as our role-model/sister/leader to find herself. to make peace with her oedipal urges. to embrace her divine origins, and accept her humanity as the strength it is. to kick the life out of all comers, and know she's not going to get a scratch on her! not because she's perfect or invincible or anything, but because she knows she's that good.
what we need from her is a strong, coherent reminder of what it means to be an American in a global society, with competing needs and shared resources, and many many gods and goddesses, some of whom do not happily coexist. i'd like to see her resolve some problems that are not superhuman, and to do that in a superhuman way. not because she's better than us, but because she has a longer timeframe on which to see our behaviors. because she's just enough removed to see us clearly, and to expect better from us as a nation and species.
i will say one thing about the costume: you will never get it better than the original, so just stop remodeling. or, since she's such a cult of personality, why not have a closet full of designer gear in WW themes that she rotates like a real life celebrity? i mean, a uniform is so old fashioned, and if it's not a fixed part of her identity, then let go of it entirely. we women like to change clothes, it's true, but changes in clothes only reflect what changes for us internally. if we want to be representational, let's go with that. and if not that, then let's give her a more dynamic externalized personality.
xop
No comments:
Post a Comment