Okay, I'm tired of hearing the praises of the new wonder woman movie sung. I haven't watched it, but it's clear from the pictures and previews that she is very, very objectified and presented as sexual attractiveness being her main important visual aspect. This could have been a great, wonderful, empowering movie, if they hadn't kept that part so emphasized. I'm tired of shows that ultimately are built on a lie-- speaking and telling one thing-- empowerment for women, strong women, but showing another-- scantily clad, objectified women whose main purpose is sexual attractiveness and titillation, while pretending to be powerful. They made her look just like the sexualized comics. Overtly sexualized is not a good role model for girls-- it teaches them that that is their main value. It's a message they internalize from the images no matter what is spoken or what action there is. This is not a matter of being prudish or not. It's about being used!
Wonder Woman's breasts are carefully molded and perked by her wonder woman uniform, in a very unrealistic and unnatural way. Who originally came up with the overtly sexual images of comic book heroines? Men--they were male sexual fantasies. Some women (more and more lately) have bought into them over time and internalized them, but they are buying into a patriarchal lie.
The Casualties of Women's War on Body Hair
I changed "hair removal" in the following quote to "being sexy," something people use to justify Wonder Woman's outfit, and it applies equally well.
"[Being sexy], at its core, is a form of gendered social control. It’s not a coincidence that the pressure for women to modify their body [] has risen in tandem with their liberties, Herzig argues. She writes that the effect of this [being sexy] norm is to “produce feelings of inadequacy and vulnerability, the sense that women’s bodies are problematic the way they naturally are.”
And yet, if you ask many women why they voluntarily shave or wax, they might say that it’s a method of self-enhancement. That they want to, it’s a personal choice, and they just feel better when everything is smooth. [Being sexy] as self-care might be one of the biggest lies women have bought into. It keeps us in an impossible loop, one in which we are constantly in pursuit of velvety limbs and the moral virtue of [sexiness]."
excerpt: "We've already been over this, but it bears repeating. Tube tops are not practical battle gear. They just aren't. Wonder Woman, warrior princess of the Amazons, deserves to save the world in pants and a cute supportive top, not a metal-emblazoned '50s swimsuit."
excerpt: "I remember the first time my daughter came home from dance class talking about the fact that some of the girls in class "had abs" and some of them didn't.
She was 10.
And while it may sound young to be worried about scoring a six-pack, my daughter is far from an anomoly. According to a new Yahoo Health survey of 1,993 teens and adults ages 13-64, while the average age Americans first remember feeling ashamed of their bodies fell between 13 and 14 years old, teens ages 13-17 reported that their first bout of body shame occurred as young as 9 or 10.
According to Robyn Silverman, . . . much of the blame falls on the media. "Younger kids are getting messages earlier about how they should appear," she told Yahoo Parenting. "We've also got sexualization happening earlier on. Kids feel more hurried to behave [older] and wear adult fashions, and feel that their body needs to look a certain way. All those things taken together are creating a more self-conscious society."
Make sure your kids are media-literate. "That means not just sitting with them and talking with them about what they're seeing, but really being able to dissect it," Silverman said. "It's explaining to them that the girl on the cover of the magazine doesn't even look like the girl on the cover of the magazine. It's puling back the curtain.""
P.S. This this doesn't mean i couldn't potentially enjoy the good things about the wonder woman movie.
If you like Return Of The Jedi but hate the Ewoks, you understand feminist criticism
excerpt: "“Return Of The Jedi is great, but the Ewoks are so annoying.” That’s a pretty common refrain from Star Wars fans. In fact there are whole fan edits dedicated to removing the little fuzzy bears from the film’s climax; I can only assume they’re made by the most hardcore of Star Wars lovers. The idea that a movie can be good despite its weaker elements is one of the most basic tenets of film criticism. Yet when it comes to dissecting films from a feminist viewpoint, we seem to have trouble keeping that in mind.
When I tweeted about my frustration with the female characters in Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes (one human, one primate, both of whom contribute very little to the plot), a friend replied, “Sorry to hear it’s a bad movie.” But it isn’t a bad movie. In fact, it was one of my favorite action blockbusters of last summer. Yet my specific feminist frustrations were extrapolated into a larger condemnation of the film. No one assumes that critiquing the Ewoks means you dislike Star Wars. So why did my complaints imply I hated Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes?
We’ve fallen into an all-or-nothing rut with feminist criticism lately. Battle lines are immediately drawn between movies that are “feminist” (i.e. “good”) and “sexist” (i.e. “bad”). And that simplistic breakdown is hurting our ability to actually talk about this stuff."
