I think I can sort of see this as kind of an ultra-extreme version of the situation which come soldiers can have when demobilised; They have spent years being trained to fight and are expected to fit back into a society they haven't been a part of without any real acclimatisation.
As noted, this is not "our" Diana, this is a different Wonder Woman, with a different history and worldview. From what I can gather she's been raised entirely in a primarily militaristic society. She has been taught to fight her enemies, and that's about it. She has no society to even fit back into because she's never had a context.
Here she's seeing that there can be other uses for the training she has received, a different one.
I don't think it's particularly well handled, and please god it had been anyone but Superman used as the inspiration, make it a female firefighter, a kid helping their neighbour from a flooded basement (Heck, go back to the classic Wonder Girl option and have it be someone saving a little girl from a burning building), or something which might have more of an echo to it, but I think that might have been what they were aiming for.
Oh, I don't think when people write things that are problematic like this, their intentions are specifically to make a statement about women or to be misogynist. I see what they were aiming for. They're usually trying to make a statement about what it means to be a hero, but heroism is defined (and reinforced in many ways) by a traditionally masculine framework when it comes to who we're often shown as being noble and having that sort of protective, guardian integrity that isn't maternal.
Diana, in this exchange, brings up her sisters. Now, let's give this the benefit of the doubt and look at it in an isolated context and take away DC's utter contempt for the Amazons (and massive confusion around the idea of them) and the concept of a society of women who are not just warriors, but are also scholars, artists, philosophers, poets, artisans and whatnot. Language matters, of course. Diana, bringing up what they have taught her, is ...it's for the spectators more than Superman. It's for the readers, it's presented right there in a bubble where we can see that "but" disclaimer added right after, where there is a juxtaposition between what she's learned from them and what she's just learned from him. Where people protecting her and having to practically scramble for their lives and hold on to their culture, their anger, and what little hope they have of maintaining their traditions is being reduced more to a revenge thing, and the inspiration she gets is from someone who, yeah, had his people killed off, but he's not being hunted down in this odd cultural way, and Superman comes with a lot of connotations (imperialistic, masculine, and some good ideals and good immigrant stuff too so I'm not purely knocking his character it is just his writing that's used him in ways I take issue with, a la GROUNDED and his "thoughts" on contemporary working class USofAmerican issues) and just as a concept, associations. Diana being inspired by him is not only completely unoriginal and contrived (and has been done better in the past anyway), but it's basically showing a deterministic rewriting.
Yeah, it's not our Diana. But it is a Diana, and THE only Diana we're focusing on right now. And her turning point, her epiphany, one of her true heroic realizations isn't something from within, but it's about shaping what she knows and has learned into something more useful and noble.
But the thing is, the situation she's in isn't the same as Kal's ever was. To have this starry gaze at him and cite that he's basically shaping her ideals and notions, is something I still take issue with even when we take away that this happened recently to Oracle and that Diana has been treated like crap lately and blah blah.
It feels like: Yeah, you may have talent and great skills, but you don't know how to use them in ways we deem fit and approved of. Now you have the Superman Seal of Approval. See, Reader Gaze? Diana being a warrior is okay now because she's inspired by superman and isn't some scary wild card.
Her heroism is not validated until it gets to be shaped by him. This isn't the fault of Superman, I'm not blaming him, she's the one saying all of this. It's just gross writing. The options you offered in your final paragraph are just...much, much better, and more fitting.
Right on, C.F.!! Women are always measured by the masculinity of their "heroic" efforts; the female soldier/firefighter/etc. is lauded for "doing a man's job". I'm no hero, but I've noticed that I get a 180-degree difference in people's reaction when I'm described as a "fire department chaplain" -- a traditionally male position -- than as a "nursing home chaplain". Talked an Alzheimer's patient out of committing suicide today -- not heroic, cuz it was in a nursing home. If I talk someone down off the local bridge, that's different because it's Fire Department work.
You're an awesome person for that and I applaud you for that. It takes a lot of courage and a sort of investment that most people can't handle. It's very courageous and, as you stated, devalued because it doesn't fit the framework of heroism that we're often shown through images (of men) and language (words such as noble, fighting, justice, all of that...what we associate it with, and when we get it in a word bubble coming out of Wonder Woman's mouth that his brand of heroism is better than what her hunted down, brave, surviving sisters have taught her).
Yeah, I don't get why or how that confuses people. And it's such a neat note that Diana, of all people, looks up to one of us. That the ordinary small-scale heroism of saving a single life is so inspiring to someone who regularly saves billions.
Oh, I didn't mind it either and applaud how he pulled it off. There just seemed a certain...inelegance...about it, like someone being tasked to arrange an elephant, a teacup, and a bag of cement in some sort of logical fashion.
Lay the cement bag across the back of the elephant, cut the bag open slightly and place the teacup inside the bag, upside down, in such a way that it is wedges in the cement powder...
I don't think it's particularly well handled, and please god it had been anyone but Superman used as the inspiration, make it a female firefighter, a kid helping their neighbour from a flooded basement (Heck, go back to the classic Wonder Girl option and have it be someone saving a little girl from a burning building), or something which might have more of an echo to it, but I think that might have been what they were aiming for.
You know what's a perfectly great origin for Wonder Woman? She's been raised in this militaristic society etc etc etc, and then... sees someone in trouble... and says "man you know what, I am gonna fuckin' HELP THEM." And then - she does! BOOM, origin told.
The other amazons can go "whoa wait what you mean like... helping people?" And she can go like "Yup and I'm gonna KEEP DOIN IT, cause helping people is RAD AS HELL"
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scans_daily2011-02-09 05:19 pm
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I think I can sort of see this as kind of an ultra-extreme version of the situation which come soldiers can have when demobilised; They have spent years being trained to fight and are expected to fit back into a society they haven't been a part of without any real acclimatisation.
As noted, this is not "our" Diana, this is a different Wonder Woman, with a different history and worldview. From what I can gather she's been raised entirely in a primarily militaristic society. She has been taught to fight her enemies, and that's about it. She has no society to even fit back into because she's never had a context.
Here she's seeing that there can be other uses for the training she has received, a different one.
I don't think it's particularly well handled, and please god it had been anyone but Superman used as the inspiration, make it a female firefighter, a kid helping their neighbour from a flooded basement (Heck, go back to the classic Wonder Girl option and have it be someone saving a little girl from a burning building), or something which might have more of an echo to it, but I think that might have been what they were aiming for.
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Diana, in this exchange, brings up her sisters. Now, let's give this the benefit of the doubt and look at it in an isolated context and take away DC's utter contempt for the Amazons (and massive confusion around the idea of them) and the concept of a society of women who are not just warriors, but are also scholars, artists, philosophers, poets, artisans and whatnot. Language matters, of course. Diana, bringing up what they have taught her, is ...it's for the spectators more than Superman. It's for the readers, it's presented right there in a bubble where we can see that "but" disclaimer added right after, where there is a juxtaposition between what she's learned from them and what she's just learned from him. Where people protecting her and having to practically scramble for their lives and hold on to their culture, their anger, and what little hope they have of maintaining their traditions is being reduced more to a revenge thing, and the inspiration she gets is from someone who, yeah, had his people killed off, but he's not being hunted down in this odd cultural way, and Superman comes with a lot of connotations (imperialistic, masculine, and some good ideals and good immigrant stuff too so I'm not purely knocking his character it is just his writing that's used him in ways I take issue with, a la GROUNDED and his "thoughts" on contemporary working class USofAmerican issues) and just as a concept, associations. Diana being inspired by him is not only completely unoriginal and contrived (and has been done better in the past anyway), but it's basically showing a deterministic rewriting.
Yeah, it's not our Diana. But it is a Diana, and THE only Diana we're focusing on right now. And her turning point, her epiphany, one of her true heroic realizations isn't something from within, but it's about shaping what she knows and has learned into something more useful and noble.
But the thing is, the situation she's in isn't the same as Kal's ever was. To have this starry gaze at him and cite that he's basically shaping her ideals and notions, is something I still take issue with even when we take away that this happened recently to Oracle and that Diana has been treated like crap lately and blah blah.
It feels like: Yeah, you may have talent and great skills, but you don't know how to use them in ways we deem fit and approved of. Now you have the Superman Seal of Approval. See, Reader Gaze? Diana being a warrior is okay now because she's inspired by superman and isn't some scary wild card.
Her heroism is not validated until it gets to be shaped by him. This isn't the fault of Superman, I'm not blaming him, she's the one saying all of this. It's just gross writing. The options you offered in your final paragraph are just...much, much better, and more fitting.
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I think you may enjoy it.
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I would like to hug you for this comment.
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Re: Mod Note
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~~~ANALOGY POLICE WHOOP WHOOP~~~
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My solution was clearly more elegant. :p
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Sorry, was that rhetorical?
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I love those options.
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You know what's a perfectly great origin for Wonder Woman? She's been raised in this militaristic society etc etc etc, and then... sees someone in trouble... and says "man you know what, I am gonna fuckin' HELP THEM." And then - she does! BOOM, origin told.
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And they can be like,
whoa.
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