I'm linking here to Pink Raygun.com, entry from January 11th.
I could have happily lived out the rest of my days without knowing about this. And I am quite literally forcing myself from breaking into a vicious and invective-filled rant about the sheer, grotesque double-standard that's being applied, here.
There are so many things I could say on this subject. So many things. And perhaps I will at a later date.
But I'll leave it with this. I'd much rather my daughter see this...

I could have happily lived out the rest of my days without knowing about this. And I am quite literally forcing myself from breaking into a vicious and invective-filled rant about the sheer, grotesque double-standard that's being applied, here.
There are so many things I could say on this subject. So many things. And perhaps I will at a later date.
But I'll leave it with this. I'd much rather my daughter see this...
...than ever see that.
And, for those of you who consider such things, take a look at the banner on the Ms. cover. "Wonder Woman for President."
Do you really think it's a coincidence that Playboy chose this year, the issue for the month containing "Tsunami Tuesday," to run this particular pictorial? Do you really?
I can hear the WB wanks right now. "As long as it's tasteful...."
Bastards all. You've no idea the damage you've done. No idea at all.
- Mood:
very, very tired


Comments
I hope DC sues them.
That's really about it.
But I get the impression you're coming at this from another angle, one I'm missing- what exactly is "Tsunami Tuesday"? I've never heard of such a thing. Is it something US specific (I'm in the UK)?
I might be stepping over the line asking you this (and, fair warning, I'd take your answer to other blogs), but you've written this character so I have to ask. Does DC have any idea how much stuff like that hurts her credibility in her true target audience? That whole idea that she's a plaything for male readers and was created that way just makes it so hard to get women interested in her.
And do they realize that if her originally intended target audience took her seriously, she'd sell a lot better?
I honestly think DC/WB has no idea who her target audience is. I suspect, more often than not, they think she has none.
And as for those who say that Diana is a fetish character, 1) find me a superhero who isn't ("Spandex," says Mark Waid, "is a privilege, not a right.") and 2) how many of those people would burst a vessel, if not a vital organ, if Playgirl ran a similar cover/pictorial with a male, semi-erect model painted up as Batman?
I call bullshit.
Edited at 2008-01-15 04:32 am (UTC)
Hardcore DC fanboys. Oh, they're well aware.
Honestly, I can understand the outrage to a point but we rocketed past that point a while back. We have easily reached fanwank at this stage.
As a woman raised by a mother who owned tons of Wonder Woman comics, and kept Diana posters all over the house, I beg to differ. That awareness of Diana as being considered a "fetish" character did not enter my awareness until into adhulthood when I started reading research and meta on her character.
I know I'm not alone in this. She might have been considered a fetish icon early in the Golden Age, but to diminish her character with such a cavalier dismisssal and petty miscategorization is laughable. If I want to look at the core of the DC universe, the fundamental character that embodies heroism in the DC verse, I look at Diana. I don't look at Clark or Bruce. I look at Diana.
I saw that and...I got that aching, hollow sense of futility you feel when you realize that no matter how far women have come, no matter how hard you work to communicate effectively with the males of the species, no matter how much effort you put into written and spoken words trying to explain how something like this is really, really indicative of so much that's wrong with modern American society...
...it's pointless. Because it happened.
I'm a pro-porn feminist. I don't mind sexualization up to a point in comics. I never complained about Moondragon's costume back in the day when Jim Starlin was drawing her as wearing nothing but green dental floss.
But to take a feminist icon like Diana in an election year and sex her up?
FUCK YOU, PLAYBOY.
Yes.
Hey, you asked.
Yes, I did.
It's a fair cop.
(And don't talk to the audience.)
More and more, I wonder if they're right. Goddamnit.
Arrgh. I don't have time to properly think about this right now, which means I don't have time for a rant (or I'd be rabbiting on in my own LJ.)
I swear there are active elements in this country that want to put us back to the Dark Ages or worse, though. Another rant for another time, gotta get back to Shakespeare....
Oh Christ, I KNEW this was going to come up.
Yes, some idiot Warner Bros. executive said they weren't making movies starring women. But I sincerely doubt the moron who said that, who's an executive in an entirely different branch of an absolutely enormous media conglomerate, even knew this was happening. This request probably went to and came back from DC; if you want to curse the name of anyone, try the licensing director of DC.
I understand being pissed off about this, I really do, but I beg, for the love of God, for some reason, or the fanwank is going to get ridiculous
On one hand, you have a comic and character whose natural, inbuilt fanbase are women and men who like to see strong, intelligent women - who happen to be beautiful - kicking ass and taking names. On the other, you have all the marketing of the comic and character, which focuses on the fact that she's gorgeous. Advertise a sexpot and you attract people who want to see a sex-pot. The words' self-fulfilling prophecy' spring to mind.
Wonder Woman has the potential to be one of DC's biggest advantages when competing with Marvel for market share. Ask any layman on the street to name a male superhero and they'll list ones from both stables - Batman, Spiderman, Superman, Wolverine, maybe the Flash and the Hulk. But ask for a female superhero and what you get is Wonder Woman. There is no Marvel equivilant, no hero as deeply embedded in the public conciousness. The closest they have is Jean Grey, and she's not even the most famous of the X-Men.
Wonder Woman is a touchstone and a gateway for getting more people - more women - into comics. DC comics. She's a way to enlarge the pie, but that will only work if they stop trying to persuade the public at large that the title and character are all about catering to horny fanboys.
*sighs* I'm mortally afraid of what Warner Brothers will do to Wonder Woman in any big-screen appearances. Mortally. I keep having visions of 'Catwoman'.
Chris Y
Wait... those were the Schumacher movies, right?
And I think I'm still attempting to recover the braincells that ran away when I watched that. To this day the words "Suit me up Uncle Alfred" can send me into a twitching fit.
This by the way is in know reflection of Greg, who in my opinion "gets" Diana and showed her brilliantly as multi-dimensional. (Can't wait for your return sometime in the future!)
If WB/DC did say o.k. to this, very sad. By saying yes, some knuckle-head got his jones off by seeing his "fantasy". Which shows how one-dimentional he is.
Ahhh, I'll just reflect back onto Hiketeia.
Vic
http://www.pinkraygun.com/2008/01/15/yo
And I guess I've got to learn to stop banging my head against them.
You really think it's about her..and not perhaps all the casting rumors about Wonder Woman or if the "actress" has actually been compared to Linda Carter.
Aren't there a few dots you're missing in your connections there?
To be totally frank, the only thing that I am truly certain of in all this kerfuffle, in all honesty, is that, if DC had known this was coming, they never in a million years would have allowed it.
Anything else I offer is solely speculation and connections drawn by my own hyper-active brain.
Edited at 2008-01-16 09:51 pm (UTC)
Nadia Bjorlin, perhaps? I've no idea if she has the required outrageous charisma and dazzling intelligence that Diana has, but Nadia's spoken freely about how much she loves Diana as a character. I think that's the most important thing in casting her.
Wonder Woman as signifier can signify nearly anything: sexual fantasy, feminism, patriotism, a way to make a quick buck, etc. Read Robert Rodi's novel "What they did to Princess Paragon" and see how a group of men struggle for control of an image of perfect woman.
So, I can't get terribly worked up about this. The fact that Wonder Woman does not mean any one thing, that she is not uniformly a feminist icon or modern day Spirit of Liberty or a sex object or what have you, speaks to the power of the archetype of the "unruly woman", who is greater than the sum of all her depictions and parodies and defies reductionism.