Thread by @hughhowey

I used to wear Wonder Woman Underoos as a kid. My mother would make me behave by telling me I wouldn't be able to watch the original Lynda Carter show. I was OBSESSED.

Which makes the current DCEU version of WW downright depressing for me.

/THREAD

The problem with Wonder Woman in the live action DCEU has similar roots to the problems with ALL the live action DCEU. There isn't a single person in charge who understands and LOVES these characters. So no singular vision. To whit:

indiewire.com/2020/12/patty-…

Jenkins was correct to toss out Whedon's version of Diana. No way she sits on the sidelines while people suffer. That's not my Diana. My Diana would also not be an idiot over Chris Pine, but that's a different rant. This rant is about TERRIBLE WRITING.

Good writing has LAYERS. Go watch just about any Pixar film to learn about layering. Layers means that the action and dialog have one meaning for the characters and another meaning for the audience. An example from CAPTAIN MARVEL...

In CAPTAIN MARVEL, we have a badass woman who is kept under control by an evil dude who gaslights her about her power and potential. She is held back by a misogynist patriarchy that is downright terrified of what she'd be capable of if she was allowed to believe in herself.

The final fight in CAPTAIN MARVEL is cinematic genius. We are going to get the cliched ending where a badguy mouths off about his plans and motivations, and Marvel just decks the dude. It is commentary about mansplaining while satirizing cinema. Brilliant.

So the DCEU had a problem with Wonder Woman. She's been around a long time, but we haven't seen her yet. What to do? Lazy writer: SHE'S BEEN IN HIDING ON AN ISLAND. SHE'S EMO. SHE IS REALLY GOOD AT BEING STEALTHY.

Zero social commentary. Zero layers. Boring and dumb.

What they should have done is so damn obvious that it makes a writer cry. They should have shown that Diana was there all along in PLAIN SIGHT, saving the world's bacon over and over again, but we refused to see her contributions. You know, like history.

Like Rosalind Franklin, Ada Lovelace, Judith Rich Harris, Grace Hopper, Chien-Shiung Wu, and a thousand others.

Imagine the wow-factor of seeing classic DCEU shots, but this time we see that Diana was there the entire time, fighting alongside Batman and Superman.

She's standing there with Bruce outside the Joker's interrogation room. She's there with Superman fighting Lex.

We just didn't see her. We didn't give her any credit. But she was there all along.

At some point, a character asks her how she's stayed invisible so long. Is it her magic lasso? "No." Is it her invisible plane? She points to the plane, painted red, blue, and gold. "I made it as bright as I could, a symbol of hope."

Then how?

"You tell me," she says.

The reason she's been invisible is because she never asked for praise. She never stuck around for the press conference. There was ALWAYS SOMEONE ELSE TO SAVE.

I was raised by a single mom who worked three jobs to keep the lights on. She had no time for taking credit. #badass

So why is she suddenly visible in the 21st century? It's not anything magical she did. It's what women of our time started doing. They started seeing and BELIEVING. Pushing back. Told through vignettes like this:

A man boasting about how Superman saved the day. His little daughter corrects him. "Wonder Woman did that," she says. He hushes her, and we see a little scowl on her face.

A dinner date. Obvious first date. Man is bragging about being at a bank when Batman stopped a robbery. We see his bored date on her phone, liking a story shared by a friend on how Wonder Woman stopped the robbery. Batman showed up late. "Traffic," he said.

So when Wonder Woman is asked why she's been invisible, the answer is that it's taken us this long to see her. She's always been here, always kicking ass, never looking for credit. Like many of our moms. Like many women throughout history.

/END