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  • DC Gives Wonder Woman A Father And Misses The Point

    14 Comments »Art & Comics, General GeekeryOct 10, 2011

    By

    In a perfect world men and women get equal pay for equal work. They’re treated the same in politics. Women appear as frequently and in as interesting roles as men in films, television and in novels. In a perfect world men and women are equal.

    This isn’t a perfect world and those who say it is are either ignorant, naive or assholes.

    I won’t go into all the various ways the world isn’t perfect because after a while it just gets depressing.

    Geeks, both female and male, have a tendency to operate under the assumption that men and women are equal in all things. Yes, en and women are equal by the most basic definition of the term. However society doesn’t treat them that way. Socially and politically inequality very much exists. So when women say “I just want to be one of the guys” they’re not saying “we’re equal” they’re saying “men are average and women are inferior. I want to be average.”

    And I get it. I do. I’ve been in that boat. As a woman in many a male dominated industry and hobbies I’ve always strived to be “one of the guys.” When I was an active debater I had as filthy a mouth as the fellows so I could be “one of the guys.” When I was active in MMORPGs I often tried to be quiet so I was “just one of the guys.” Even how I spell my name, Alex instead of Alexandra, was at one point a conscious decision to remove myself from my gender in order to approve my hireability and people’s perception of my writing. “One of the guys” was a status quo I desperately desired.

    At some point I realized what I was doing. I was trying to operate in a post-feminist world when that world didn’t yet exist. I realized just how harmful it was to behave that way. I was ignoring the very real problems of the world in an attempt to be accepted by my male peers.

    Wonder Woman has never had that problem. She’s never been “one of the guys” and she never sought to be one. She’s was created out of clay by a woman and given life by women and is herself, the embodiment of womanhood. When William Marston created her in 1941 he didn’t “forget” about including a father. He made a conscious decision to make her exclusively the product of women. Even Marston could recognize that sometimes women needed a leg up. Sometimes they need a hero untouched by the patriarchy that pervades society. They needed an example of woman who wasn’t just a woman superhero, or the equal of male superheroes, but a woman who was better than the guys.

    Now, almost 70 years after being a matriarchal touchstone Wonder Woman is getting a dad* and losing a bragging right at Justice League brunch. And it’s not just any dad. Zeus, the original Western philanderer, is her dad. The guy who regularly raped his way across the globe now plays a significant role in the birth of pop culture’s symbol for womanhood.

    You can see why it’s a problem.

    From a storytelling perspective making Zeus her father can be interesting. Sure we’ve had over two millenia of stories about demigods hating Zeus for bringing them into the world, but now Wonder Woman can count Hercules (guess he didn’t rape her mom in this new continuity? Otherwise family reunions will be HELLA awkward), Perseus, Castor, Pollux, Helen, Dionysus and Corinthus among her many half-god siblings–also more than half of the Dodekatheon, the Muses, Persephone and the Nemean Lion.

    Don’t worry guys, her relationship with her father will be rare and unique and a way for the layman to better perceive the Greco-Roman pantheon.

    Up until this point I’ve really liked Brian Azzarello’s take on Greek Mythology. He wants to modernize them and properly illustrate their sheer insanity and awesomeness. As a Greco-phile I’m excited.

    “They’re pretty nasty people,” but “they can also do a lot of good. They’re like a mirror of human beings, turned up to 11.”

    That’s the absolute right direction to take the gods–I’m just not crazy about him dragging Wonder Woman along with them. She was something special precisely because her origin was so unique. Something special and something empowering.

    In that aforementioned perfect world giving Wonder Woman a father–even Zeus–is a logical next step, but as it is it’s just another example of how very deaf DC is when it comes to women. They honestly don’t get it.

    “In this case, making her a god actually makes her more human, more relatable,” DC co-publisher Jim Lee said.

    “Everybody’s got a father,” Azzarello said. “Even if he’s not the nicest guy in the world.”

    That was the point Azzarello. Batman saw his parents murdered and it impacted his life. Superman was the product of two sets of parents showering him with near infinite love. Wonder Woman was the product of women. Now she’s just another demigod in tights.

    Another gorgeous piece of Cliff Chiang artwork from Azzarello's reboot. We may have problems with the direction of the character, but at least the artwork is fantastic.

    *Should you follow the source remove all babies from your proximity. The way the article is written will give you a very strong desire to punch said babies.

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  • Lilly Phillips

    I disagree with your thesis here, but even if I were to list my reasons, it would be mostly a nature vs. nurture argument. I’m not reading WW with a feminist agenda and I hate how Diana is so often viewed as a feminist icon. Sure, she leads herself well to feminism, but I don’t agree that is the be-all-end-all point to WW. I hear this a lot since the announcement of the new 52 — that DC is missing the point. Well, what -is- the point? And why does the point have to be personal fan dislikes shrouded in pro-feminist arguments? The Diana I choose to love is more of an equalist, such a bizarre concept that the word doesn’t even actually exist yet. She’s not an icon for feminism. She’s an icon for sheer humanity and all the things that add together to make a human a human. But that’s my personal opinion and I recognize it as that. Opinion. If I don’t agree with something DC is doing, I know it’s not because they “missed the point.” I know it’s because we have different points in mind.

    • http://fempop.com Alex Cranz

      Feminism is all about equality so why would you call yourself an equalist and divorce yourself from furthering the movement for equality?

      • Lilly Phillips

        Ideally, feminism is about equality. In action, in many cases, it’s not at all. I don’t feel like saying giving Zeus a handle in her origin removes her as a feminist icon really is contributing much to the idea of equality because that can just as easily be interpreted as a man has ruined her, which is sexist against the man, even if he is a rotten god who reeks of all kinds of privilege. Where she comes from, however, has no bearing on what she can be now, however. She’s still an amazon. There’s still a Paradise Island. There’s still Hippolyta. There’s still so much of her that can promote women’s strenght (too early too really say whether or not this is properly used though). Yes, I understand the importance of promoting feminism, in saying that women are not inferior in any way and should not be objectified or subjectified, but we have to be careful about playing the particular “woman ruined by man” card you’re trying to play here. It’s a slippery slope, my friend.

  • Anonymous

    I would argue that her ‘made of clay’ origins is a misogynistic legacy of her feminist clumsy creator. It, in atypical style of the times, eliminates all of the uncomfortableness and ‘messiness’ of pregnancy and childbirth, clinically attempting to exalt a woman’s involvement out of the process. That it’s still being trumpeted by fem fans of such an iconic character only furthers the absurdity from generation to generation.

    There’s nothing feminist at all about excluding the male component in the creation of a child. 

    • http://fempop.com Alex Cranz

      It’s like you either ignored or missed all the arguments in the article. Eh.

      • Anonymous

        Quite the contrary.. I read it in full. Your lionizing of a man who felt that the character should be “tender, submissive….as good women are”. And your false assertion that Wonder Woman’s clay origins exemplify “the embodiment of womanhood”. Trust me, none of it was missed. 

        A woman made solely by women is precisely the reason why Wonder Woman has suffered narratively and pop culturally for decades now. Because it’s silly. 

        I have two nieces who can’t for the life of them understand why Wonder Woman wasn’t born from two parents like they were. And they’re absolutely right. God forbid a paragon of all that is strong, honorable and courageous about women be similar in any way to actual women. God forbid Hippolyta be shown pregnant. 

        I adore Wonder Woman. I think her potential to teach my nieces core strengths of their gender is extremely empowering. But she’s hampered drastically by her disconnectedness from the world (an isolated island, stuck in the past, is not the best way to tell little girls that they can bravely be themselves in the world). And simply put, there’s nothing misogynistic or anti-feminist about having a father. If you feel that it does, that it somehow betrays the iconography… well that honestly says more about you than it does about the character’s symbolic power. 

        I personally think she’s more relatable this way. 

        • http://fempop.com Alex Cranz

          Wonder Woman is not the first character “conceived” in an odd manner (though she may be the first one concieved in such a manner in comic books) and other oddly conceived characters have gone on to be major players pop culture wise..

          But I get what you mean about the disconnect. I even agree to an extent with you. Her being born as perfection and from clay does make her difficult to relate to, but not impossible and giving her Zeus as a father just feels so…trite.

          Her status as uniquely female was rather remarkable in ’41 and to put an end to it so succinctly and with so little fanfare is a little astonishing. It’s was a defining characteristic of Wonder Woman that worked repeatedly over the last 70 years.

          When you radically change a character this important to pop culture myth it’s alarming. Like saying Athena didn’t spring from Zeus’s head fully formed or Superman’s parents sent him from Krypton as an invader. It alters something rather fundamental about the character.

          And I’m not arguing that dads are bad or having a father is misogynistic, I’m arguing that in the case of Wonder Woman the absence of a father was a fundamental component of her character and a potentially engaging one.

          • Anonymous

            The problem I have with her origins is that, unlike Supe’s or Bat’s, they don’t really contribute to her purpose. They just seem kind of tacked on.

            70 something years… and no one’s really engaged with it. Or at least it hasn’t made her narrative any stronger. And in the end, that’s the most important piece. Closing a WW trade and mumbling to yourself “That was pretty damn good”. 

            While I hate the various revamps they’ve done to Wonder Woman, my fear is that if something isn’t done about her bankruptcy of a family (and by this I mean a cadre of characters that help define her humanity and purpose…a Lois Lane, a Ma & Pa Kent/Wayne, a Joker or a Lex Luthor) or she isn’t given more characterization than to ‘teach Men how to be civilized’, she’s going to be pushed off into the dustbin of history. She’s been sorely limited, for various reasons, by her iconic status. Deep, emotionally resonant (and hell even memorably fun) stories just haven’t been told with her in them. 

            And I will agree, the characteristics of her from the 40s remain useful. She deserves to be maintained as a feminist symbol and not lost to the past. But something has to be built upon them to maintain her relevancy. As it stands, she’s a pretty sterile and unentertaining icon. And I like her potential far too much to see that continue.

            (That Perez and Rucka’s runs were really the only memorable and humanizing takes on Diana in recent memory says volumes about how tough that character has it)

            I personally think Azzarello has made the right choice by delving into Greco-myth and really diving deep into the familial pettiness therein. That’s where the really fertile drama is born. A family of powerful beings being absolute assholes to one another. And that’s something that her character has lacked for decades now. Real, personable drama.

          • http://fempop.com Alex Cranz

            The problem is she does have a collection of friends and family that give her purpose. She’s got a sister, a mother, a ward (or whatever Cassie is) and friends like Steve Trevor and Etta Candy. When Simone handled the book she started laying a groundwork for great strong emotional ties that are absolutely vital (you and I agree there). But DC has a habit of running creators through Wonder Woman and never letting anyone stick around long enough to flesh out her cast. So she seems like this lone ball busting figure of perfection with no humanity.

            And I’m with you on liking the direction of Azzarello’s book. I loved the first issue and I love pulling the gods into things, but I’m not crazy about making Wonder Woman ONE of the gods.

          • Anonymous

            No I’m aware of her cast of support (though most of them are at the edge of her storyline. Hippolyta on the island, Cassie and Donna Troy off in their own stories…. They’re not active participants in her world). 

            But as you’ve said, nothing’s been done with them as to make them memorable. Compounding that though is that her enemies aren’t very memorable either (Cheetah, Silver Swan… hell most of Villainy, Inc is kind of sub-par). Nor is, ultimately, her purpose. 

            I think what I enjoy most about this change is that making her a demi-god puts her on equal footing against dramatic foes. And doesn’t in any way lessen her Amazonian upbringing. 

            Consider it….how fascinating would it be that making a character the child of a god might actually make her LESS of a wish-fulfilling Mary Sue than she was before and possibly lead to—gasp—stories with real tension and substance to them?

  • Anonymous

    this is very disappointing.

  • MichaelR970

    another bastard child of Zeus
    This is sadNow Diana is not only Zeus’s daughter but his great granddaughter considering that Hippolyta is the daughter of the war god Ares who is the son of Zeus.To me this an example of extreme perversionNow Hippolyta was raped by her half uncle Hercules, than her grand fathers brother Hades (Justice League unlimited), then raped by her father Ares (CD Disk movie), now she is being raped by her grandfather Zeus producing a child named Diana alias Wonder Woman the bastard child of Zeus.Why the people at DC like to pass Hippolyta around like a piece of meat is beyond me.

  • Anonymous

    Double post, please delete.

  • Anonymous

    I know that debating this before we get to actually see the issue is a moot point, but I would like to respectfully disagree. Depending on how Azarello writes this, it may become even more empowering for WW (and women in general). I’m just speculating, but let’s look at it this way — WW now learns that she was conceived by a union of Hippolyta and Zeus. Hed father is a phipanderer, a sometimes rapist, and all around asshole. Pretty much THE symbol of males oppressing females.

    And knowing WW, would she care? Probably not. She would reject that origin, she would reject her father. Despite the revelation, she would continue doing what she does. Should the details of her birth change who she is? No, that’s her decision. And that rejection of Zeus as male oppression of females would be a triumph of female empowerment, as well as a lesson of nurture over nature. So what if she isn’t who she thought she was? So what if she was conceived by rape? She became Wonder Woman of her own volition, and that’s what makes her truly a heroine, and a role model — for both women AND men.

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