Lawrence KilliumWonder Woman is being called the greatest super hero movie this year, and some are saying it could be the best that’s come out in quite a few years. Its quality has been reflected in the box office, as well, when it racked up $200 million worldwide on its first weekend.
It’s also seen as a success in other ways: it’s the first super hero movie that stars a woman and was also directed by a woman.
To us, of course, we don’t really care all too much about that. If it’s entertaining, we like it, we don’t have to have gender politics infused with our entertainment.
But, since it is a first of its kind, you’d think feminists would be celebrating this great film with us, right?
Well, not exactly. It’s not quite SJW enough for them.
According to Bustle, this film is “just a white feminist victory — barely. For black feminists, it’s exactly like every other superhero movie, just with a white female lead.”
Are you kidding me?
She went on:
By my count, there were four lines spoken by black women in the entire two-and-a-half-hour runtime of Wonder Woman — and one of those lines was just the repetition of “Diana!” by her black caretaker. In fact, all of those lines were spoken by black Amazons who were, of course, subservient to Diana and her all-white ruling family. (And of course Diana’s black sister Nubia, who in the comics was kidnapped and raised by Ares to later oppose her, was not put in the movie.) Once Diana leaves Themyscira, the very appearance of black women drops down to none. It was such a radical change that I found myself combing through the background of scenes as she walked through the streets of London with Steve Trevor, desperate to catch sight of even one black face, if not at least one black woman’s face.
Ok, ok, first off, have you been to London. The UK is not as populated with blacks as the US is, so that’s just ridiculous.
Thus, the film quietly played into the same misconception that black people didn’t exist in history; you know, that old excuse that the casts of period dramas are all-white because people of color apparently only existed in times of slavery or civil rights movements, and to have them anywhere else would be unrealistic. (For the record, not only were port cities like London filled with black immigrants during World War I, but black soldiers fought in the war — for Britain and Germany. Wonder Woman included some soldiers of color, which made the overwhelming whiteness of the civilian crowd scenes that much more unforgivable.)
You know what’s going to happen if they make film with a strong black female character and more black people in a crowd, right? We’ll hear from another more specific group demanding answers to why they aren’t being represented. For example, they may ask why there aren’t black trans women being represented, and they’ll keep going and going until everything is so caught up in PC that movies fail to be good.
H/T: Bustle
