I Am The Master Commander: aka Wonder Woman post

Before watching the film, I thought of Wonder Woman with a negative connotation. She’s just the silly sexy female, Superman-like superhero who was made so that there were girl super people too. I thought there was no way to make a film about her without being sexist because sexism was in the very seems of her costume. In many ways, I was very wrong. I saw Wonder Woman after she was “tamed, regulated and instrumentalized by the culture industry” as Zipes would say. Over the years, she has been manipulated so much that at times you can hardly recognize her (but I bet she was a really great fashion designer). It was nice to hear about the original 40’s Wonder Woman. She was strong and kicked butt, but she also had a woman’s heart and compassion (not for the bad guys of course). I felt empowered watching this film; yes I am a woman and yes I am awesome. I adored the little girl who dressed up as Wonder Woman and discussed how she had been affected and inspired. I don’t think there could be anything as noble or more noble than that girl. The film also made me sad. I have been missing out on this super hero and her awesome possibilities because of my pre-conceived notions. The culture industry was successful at making her seem “immoral, trivial, useless, and harmful”. It’s a downright shame really.

The last quote I will take from the text is this: “the ultimate cultural value of fairy[/superhero] tales today depends on how we convert technology…to create more just and equitable social orders.”  I whole-heartedly agree with this, and I am excited to attempt it in this class. I believe the little girl in the film could do wonderful things with the character Wonder Woman if she chose to. Marvel may think that they own her, but in reality, we the audience own her. We can continue to let others write her story, or we can make some of our own. I thought Jonathan McIntosh’s work was so artistic and profound. He cut right to the heart of his complaints and displayed them to the world in a professional aesthetic way. He uses technology to heighten and expand his critiques in a way that Zipes would be proud of. It’s exactly the stuff Zipes was talking about in the quote used earlier in this paragraph.

Hans Christian Anderson made up most of his fairy tales, but he utilized the things he knew, the common motifs of the time. His stories have become so classic that many assume they were oral stories and folktales long before Anderson’s wrote them down. We can make a difference because we can make stories too. There is no barrier to entry in this endeavor, and with a bit of technology anyone can spread their stories to millions across the world via the Internet. Now we might not all get notoriety, especially not to the degree that Anderson has, but we should as filmmakers and citizens, strive to make our world better, leave our mark no matter how big or small. I may not be Wonder Woman, but I am Abby Grout, and that’s good enough for me.