Warning: I just got home from seeing Wonder Woman, and I have a lot to say.
I love good stories and good characters, those tend to illicit more passion in me than just about anything else. On top of that, I love a bombastic, action-packed story... the kind with lots of explosions and punching. Thus, when I was about eleven, I fell in love with super heroes.
Being a super hero and sci-fi fan as a young girl left me without too many peers to share those loves with. It was that way too as a young(er) woman, though the internet sure helped. (Though that has changed massively in the past 10 years. As noted Wonder Woman writer Gail Simone once mentioned, you can tell something's changed. There's a line for the women's restroom at comic conventions now.) As I grew older myself and was able to look at things critically, the intersection of feminism and super heroes became an oddly-specific passion topic of mine.
I've always been more of a Marvel fangirl over DC, likely due to my early indoctrination being with the X-Men. That ludicrous universe gave me no shortage of heroines to look up to, and that I still admire today. Captain Marvel, Rogue, Mockingbird, etc. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate Wonder Woman, though. She is THE one, the only one who I would call a true cultural icon. What she stands for matters to me. She matters to me.
Thus, I've been excited and worried about this movie ever since it was announced. There's been a long lasting resistance from the Hollywood suits when it came to making a superhero movie starring a woman. And, I haven't had a lot of faith in WB's handling of the DCU. I knew that this movie both needed to be GOOD and also perform well for there to be a real future for more of these stories to be told on this big of a stage. If Wonder Woman, THE most iconic woman to ever take up the spandex can't sell it, who can?
And yet they did it. She did it. We probably won't see weekend box office numbers for another two days... but the critics have loved it, and so have I. For that, I am so heartened and happy. The movie wasn't perfect, but it was very good. Dare I say... wonderful? I adored it. They showed us a Wonder Woman that was exactly what she's supposed to be. She is strong, powerful, and truly truly good amongst a sea of brooding anti-heroes... and on top of that, they told her story well.
Maybe it's a little odd for an adult woman like myself to still be starry-eyed over a superhero. But Diana of Themyscira (and yes, I can spell that without looking it up) brings with her this message of hope and love being the true great power that I think the whole world needs to hear right now. I hope everybody gives it a chance. Even if they don't, I'm still feeling good things tonight.
I just hope that the next big one, Captain Marvel (my all-time favorite) in 2019 can do the same.
Yeah... feeling all the feels tonight. Thanks for reading.
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