Wonder Women

For every male superhero or comic book hero, there was always some love interest just waiting to be kidnapped. Early comic heroes such as Dick Tracy and Prince Valiant, were often times tasked with saving the woman they loved from the clutches of evil men. Not only does this idea of the damsel-in-distress once again establish the masculine/feminine roles between the two characters (the one being rescued is the female; the one doing the rescuing is the male), but it also shows that the female in some way now owes the man, or at least belongs to him. For the male, the female is stolen property and must be taken back.

But for women, there would soon be hope in the form of Wonder Woman. Shortly after Superman made his appearance in 1939, a noted psychologist by the name of William Moulton Marston wrote an article in Family Circle magazine, praising comic books, but critical of the lack of female role models. He later claimed in The American Scholar (1943) "...not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength.... Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weak ones." His article caught the eye of M.C. Gains of DC Comics. Gains was so impressed by the article, he hired Marston into a new position at DC Comics. Within a year, at the urging of his wife, Marston set out to create a female superhero. Marston created a unique heroine; Wonder Woman, based loosely on Greek Mythology (see earlier page The Superhero for more on Greek Gods). His goal was to create a strong, sexy female hero, in hopes of showing men that strong women were more beautiful than passive women. Diana was the Princess of Paradise Island, a mystical place inhabited by Amazons. Her mother, Hippolyte, Queen of the Amazons, wanted a child and petitioned the Goddesses of Olympus to give her one. She was instructed to sculpt a child from clay (See previous page on Golems). When she was done, the goddesses imbued the statue with life. Diana was raised as the princess of her nation, until one day, an aircraft carrying one Steve Trevor crashed off the shores of the island. The Goddesses decreed a contest should be held to find an Amazon champion to return Trevor to the United States and also help with the war effort. Diana became the victor, and Hippolyte awarded Diana the costume of the champion and sent her on her way, and a legend was born. Though it sounds interesting, and Wonder Woman does carry the distinction of being the first female superhero, her powers and costume lend to far more sexist undertones. Look at her costume for example.

This plays directly into the male gaze and scopophilia. As a feminist film theorist, Lara Mulvey is well known for her nearly infamous essay entitled "Visual Pleasure in the Narrative Cinema." The essay outlines an idea about the "male gaze" in which men have the power to actively look upon passive female bodies. Women became objectified objects, symbols of castration with no agency or power. The exact thing can be said of Wonder Woman. Her costume, or what little of a costume she wears, is skintight. And the male viewer finds himself able to endlessly stare at the comic, seeing Wonder Woman not as an Amazonian Princess, but as an object. And remember, this was before Playboy, so for young boys, Wonder Woman was as close to pornography as some could get. We are seeing much of the male gaze here, and in regard to fetishistic scopophilia "when the female figure is represented simply as a beautiful object of display" - "her beauty is so overwhelming, often pictured in huge close-ups, so perfect, that the threat of castration is assuaged as she is turned into a reassuring object in an intimate relation to the spectator" (Rose 118).

But even worse than how she is drawn, is how she is characterized. For example, when Wonder Woman first joins the Justice League of America, she is only a secretary. Mulvey also says that "the representation of the female form speaks castration and nothing else... women cannot be represented in (film) on their own terms, but only in patriarchal terms, as castrated non-men" (Rose 115). This idea leads to phallocentrism, which basically describes the way in which masculinity dominates society. This all leads perfectly into the world of Wonder Woman, a strong warrior, forced into secretarial duties. But worse, are her original weaknesses.

According to "Aphrodite's Law" her powers would be if she allowed herself to be bound or chained by a male. So essentially, if Wonder Woman were bound or chained by a female, she could obviously break free, but if a man did it, she could not. This also is tied into phallocentrism. Upon further research, Wonder Woman is also shown in more vain ways. For example, at one point, she has her eyes taped shut, but cannot open them, as she does not want to rip out her eyelashes. And at one point she claims being a female slave isn't so bad, as long as it's for a good master.

Other female superheroes and empowered women in comics showed up, but they had many of the same problems. Lois Lane for example, the love interest of Superman, was deemed smart and independent by some, but rude and callous to others, specifically, for her rebukes of nerdy Clark Kent's attempts to woo her, and instead her infatuation with Superman. However, on occasion, she has saved the day, by figuring out a villain's scheme and having Superman help her stop the bad guys. As DiPaulo claims, "In this borderline, psychoanalytic construction, Lois and Superman are two halves of the same single superhero character, with Lois acting as the brain and Superman the brawn (DiPaulo 157)."

Eventually, with the Silver Age, and the rise of female empowerment, Wonder Woman lost her powers, and became a female trying to make it in the male driven world, and for awhile, she was doing well. But then Gloria Steinem, a feminist activist, declared "Wonder Woman for President" in her first issue of Ms. magazine (December 1971) and later went on to claim the character needed her powers back, and if written better, could be a great role model for young girls. As she went on to claim in a 1995 essay she wrote, "...Marston's message wasn't as feminist as it might have been. Instead of portraying the goal of full humanity for men and women... he often got stuck in the subject/object, winner/loser paradigm of "masculine" versus "feminine", and came up with female superiority instead (Steinem 276-277)." In her eyes, if Wonder Woman were to be taken seriously, she would have to be considered equal, not better than other heroes. As time went on, the character finally became the symbol of female power, thanks in part to an increase in female comic book writers. Gail Simone, a writer for the Wonder Woman comic, claims "...having Wonder Woman as a role model helped them get out of an abusive relationship... stand up to bullies… stop them from committing suicide.... People relate to her in a really emotionally deep way that I had no idea about before I started writing comics about her (Simone Comic Con Q&A)." As time has gone on, women writers and artists have worked to create realistic depictions of women within the graphic novel form (Read Hillary J. Chutes Graphic Women for more information), but despite this, women are still treated from am phallocentric, male gaze view in regards to widely read comics. And it will be a long time before that changes within the comic book world.

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