"Creating a heroic ideal"? That sounds so limiting. Not even "Wonder Woman" was like that. Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman was not that ideal in the film. She had her virtues and flaws. Why is that so hard for people to see, let alone accept in all comic book hero movies? Why can't these characters have both virtues and flaws? Fans didn't mind . . . in the past. Yet, for the past year or two, many fans have been demanding for all of these comic book hero characters mainly be "heroic", "ideal" and possess very little or no flaws. What on earth is behind this sudden intolerance for more complicated protagonists?
There are two basic types of superheroes: Archetypical superheroes, and morally complicated superheroes who are essentially reworkings of the first made with greater complexity.
Superman and Captain America are examples of the former. The fundamental basis of their characters is that they
really are living embodiments of Truth, Justice, and the American Way. They are characters who would in real life be too good to be true -- they are not psychologically realistic characters and are not meant to be.
They are, it must be emphasized, characters who are made primarily for children and secondarily for adults; they represent primal children's fantasies of morally uncompromised power. This is the key to understanding these types of characters: they are fantasies of unlimited or nearly-unlimited Might for Right.
There are other types of superheroes for whom complexity is a good thing, creatively. Batman, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Hulk, etc. -- these are characters for whom being flawed but decent is a good creative choice. These characters aren't archetypes of morality; they are intended to be more complex re-workings of archetypes. Spider-Man owes a lot to Superman, but Superman would never work if his driving motivation were guilt for having let someone he loved die unintentionally.
These types of characters are still power fantasies, but they're for adolescents and adults primarily and secondarily for children.
Wonder Woman is part of the former, not the latter. She represents an archetype of just power, and that speaks deeply to women in a way that men have always been spoken to via moral power fantasy figures like Superman.
Except, of course, that Superman in the Snyderverse has been transformed from the former type of character into the latter; he is no longer the embodiment of morally upright simplicity, the living incarnation of Truth, Justice, and the American Way; he's a guy who resents being asked to be "a god" and really just wants to hang out with his girlfriend and doesn't bother trying to save every single person he can when someone bombs the U.S. Capitol or destroys Metropolis, and who thinks he doesn't really owe the world anything because that's what his parents taught him, even though he feels guilty a lot. He's mopey and listless, reactive rather than proactive. An individualist instead of a communalist. He's not the sort of guy who would offer random people a hug.
So Wonder Woman has stepped into that role for the Snyderverse. Jenkins, as others have noted, looked to the 1978 Richard Donner
Superman for inspiration and influence, to create Wonder Woman as a character who is much more of a heroic ideal than Superman had become.
(Side-note: I think a relatively small detail is pretty revelatory about Snyder's relationship with the character of Superman. He keeps having characters refer to him as "the Superman," as though it were a title rather than a name. Except the phrase "the Superman" is usually associated with Friedrich Nietzsche, the Übermensch, Hitlerian fantasies of racial power and racial purity, with the idea of Might Makes Right. It is a really disturbing phrase that has very different connotations than "Superman" as a name.)
I really like this movie. But sometimes, I get the feeling that the media and a good number of fans have been subjecting the world to this propaganda campaign over this film.
Or, y'know, they just really liked seeing a DC superhero as a heroic ideal for the first time since Christopher Reeve, and really liked seeing that archetype embodied by a woman for the first time on the big screen in... well,
ever. (And during an era in U.S. culture where misogyny is ascendant.)
Maybe people are getting tired of all these angsty, touchy-feely, Emo, moody, conflicted "heroes," especially when such aspects are projected onto characters that shouldn't have been that way in the first place.
Sure, it works for some characters. But Superman is supposed to be an idealistic boy scout with a simplistic moral compass.
Kor
This. And so is Wonder Woman!
But I'm getting sick and tired of being told that I should prefer more heroic and ideal protagonists.
I don't think you should
prefer heroic and idealized protagonists. But I think our culture
needs them, and that having them builds a solid foundation for newer, more complicated characters to be built upon them. And I think that some particular superheroes -- Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, Captain Marvel all come to mind -- ought to be these kinds of morally simplistic archetypes rather than morally complex characters.
And I'm getting sick and tired of being told that Wonder Woman is more heroic and ideal than her male counterparts, when it's obvious that she isn't.
She gets told she can't save everyone; she says, "Fuck that," and saves everyone, because she is the sort of person who wants to go out and hug the world and kiss babies. Show me a scene where Snyder!Superman is compelled to save everyone out of pure altruism and love of humanity rather than just out of guilt or shame or feeling obligated. Snyder!Superman doesn't feel like the kind of guy to me who would take on a corrupt slum lord, or hug someone about to commit suicide. He doesn't feel like the kind of person who sees the good in everyone, who cares about everyone. Jenkins!Wonder Woman does.
And I honestly don't care if the movie becomes the most profitable film in the DCEU. So what? Profit is not a sure sign of a film's quality.
You are the one who brought it up.
Why is it that many people still fail to grasp this? And I'm getting sick and tired of people using every little excuse to shove down my throat that "Wonder Woman" is the best film in the DCEU. There IS NO "best film in the DCEU".
No. No, there's definitely a best film in the DCEU and
Wonder Woman is it. Even just from a technical story construction perspective: It has a clear three-act structure with an introduction, rising action, a climax, and a resolution. It wasn't hacked to death in the editing room like
Suicide Squad; it didn't have the third act of an entirely different movie glued onto its back end after its third act had reached its natural catharsis like
Batman v. Superman; and it didn't essentially allow a supporting character (Jor-El) to usurp its alleged protagonist as narrative focus like
Man of Steel. Though in fairness,
Man of Steel is much more narratively coherent than either
BvS or
SuS.
This whole thing is about personal preference. Many people keep claiming that they understand this, then they turn around and use box office returns or other reasons to claim that their personal preference for a certain movie is a fact. Over and over again.
No,
Wonder Woman is an objectively superior film, same way, say,
Atonement is an objectively superior film to
The Room.
Since when? Superman hasn't been like that in years. What is this stupid determination that the Superman character be limited in such a narrative straitjacket?
Because that "narrative straightjacket" is the foundation of the character and is what sets him apart from every superhero to follow.
Why are so many fans afraid of allowing Clark Kent aka Superman be a rounded and complex individual, instead of one-note boy scout, for the sake of sentimentality?
This isn't "fear." It's that I think our culture
needs morally righteous archetypes to inspire us and to help us learn and grow, just like we need rounded and complex characters. We need both. Superman was designed as the former, and it's what makes him unique and interesting; turn him into a morally compromised character and all you have is a generic conflicted dude who can fly and punch. What sets that version of Superman apart from the hundreds of morally compromised guys with superpowers that have followed? How is that version of Superman meaningfully different from, say, Doctor Manhattan?
Once again, I'm receiving hints that pop culture today is slowly devolving into entertainment for 5-9 year-olds.
No, but
Superman is most definitely for 5-to-9-year-olds. And that's a good thing! Our culture needs heroes for children too. We adults have plenty of morally complex superheroes. We have our Wolverines and our Batmen and our Spider-Men and our Iron Men and our Luke Cages and Jessica Joneses and Daredevils and whatnot. We have
Logan and
The Dark Knight and
The Dark Knight Returns and
Watchmen. Like the kids have their inspirational hero figures like Captain America and Superman and Wonder Woman. Stop trying to take everything away from the kids! Let Superman be Superman; stop trying to turn him into a character for adults.
ETA:
To make a comparison -- I can't help but think that trying to turn Superman into a complex, morally compromised character for adults is a little bit like trying to turn
The Lord of the Rings into
Game of Thrones.
