Wonder Woman: Women Only Please
- By: Samantha Adler
- Jun 14, 2017
- 4 min read
Last Saturday I decided to take myself to see Wonder Woman. I heard so many rave reviews about the movie and I wanted to see the film first hand to gain my own opinion and reaction. The Wonder Woman film features a heavily influenced majority of an all female cast, not to mention the main character, Diana aka Wonder Woman, is badass Gal Gadot, who served in the Israeli Army and is a real life wonder woman herself. To top this film sundae off, the film is directed by Patty Jenkins, the first female director to ever direct a comic book film franchise. In short, "this is the first general audience superhero blockbuster that’s been directed by a woman, which is something to celebrate all on its own" (Gizmodo).
There have been countless amounts of superhero films and TV shows within the last 100 years that have starred male protagonists or have a heavily male influenced cast. "Since 1920, there have been about 130 superhero and comic book films with solo protagonists in the United States, both on the big and small screens . . . out of those 130 films [there have only been eight] female leads" (Gizmodo). Since Wonder Woman features a strong female role model for all women to look up to, theatre Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas, wanted to embrace all females by giving them the opportunity to celebrate women by having a female only screening of the film, showcasing that women's rights and values is extremely empowering for women everywhere, which upset a very large male audience population.
Within the year, our Country has shifted greatly by reverting back to the days where women should be seen and not heard. Our President is trying to take women’s rights away and he wants to strip away even more. " [The President and his] administration continue [to] cut funding for [women's] reproductive services, proposing to slash Planned Parenthood federal funds entirely, rolling back protections for women in the workplace, and counting c-sections, rape, and domestic violence as preexisting conditions in Trumpcare, [and] some men are losing their minds over a women-only screening of Wonder Woman at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin" (Advocate). To be blunt and perfectly honest, men have had the upper hand in life forever, especially rich white men. For men to be upset that they aren't included in a female only screening that celebrates empowering females everywhere, seems extremely ludicrous.
Women have been waiting for a superhero character to look up to for decades now. In retrospect, we do have real life superheroes like Oprah, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Michelle Obama, Hilary Clinton and more, but women don't have any films that represent the strong females that we are. Men have had countless amounts of films to represent their strength, endurance, sexuality, intelligence, and dominance. However, women have only had a few that represent all sides of the spectrum, and usually there are male protagonists that don't let the women in the film shine in all of their glory. Take The Hunger Games for instance. Yes, the leading role is a female protagonist who showcases her intelligence, endurance, strength, sexuality and dominance but she has men behind her to ultimately help her through her journey. Wonder Woman has the influences from her all female Amazonian tribe to train her to be strong, powerful and great. She is theperfect representation of how all women should empower one another by helping each other out by bringing out their strengths not their weaknesses.
One of the best scenes in the film is when Wonder Woman defies all rules of war by going out of the comfort zone of the trenches and stepping onto the grounds of No Mans Land. It's there, that she showcases her strength, endurance, intelligence, power, dominance and badassery by proving to not only the men of the war but to herself that she can do anything she puts her mind to. Diana "pull[s] off her disguise to reveal her true Wonder Woman self, she climbs a ladder and walks solemnly into No Man’s Land. Deflecting bullets with her bracelets, leaning into machine gun fire with her shield, she marches forward spurring the men to follow her. Wonder Woman takes the town" (LA Times). It's at that scene where tears began to stream down my face. I was seeing a woman fight. Fighting for what she believed in, fighting for women's rights, fighting for her life and fighting for the men who couldn't fight for themselves. It was such a beautiful scene and a big moment for women history. Men can't appreciate that scene in its entirety like women can, and that's exactly what the Alamo Drafthouse theatre was standing up for, women's rights.
Since Wonder Woman features a strong female role model for all women to look up to, theatre Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas, wanted to embrace all females by giving them the opportunity to celebrate women by having a female only screening of the film, showcasing that women's rights and values is extremely empowering for women everywhere, which upset a very large male audience population." . . . A women-only screening of Wonder Woman is an excellent idea, and any man who thinks it discriminates against them needs to spend the rest of the day staring in the mirror while a single tear flows down their collective cheeks" (Gizmodo). Women have been oppressed since the times of Adam & Eve, and Wonder Woman is the perfect opportunity for women all over the globe to embrace themselves to believe there is a broader horizon for women's rights.
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