For the next few weeks, we will be counting down our 25 favorite blockbusters! Read all of the entries here.

22. Wonder Woman (dir. Patty Jenkins, 2017)

by Liz Wiest, Conributor

Picture it, June 2 2017. The hugely anticipated DCU summer blockbuster Wonder Woman has just premiered in theatres to a whopping $38.7 million on its opening day- the largest single-day gross for a female-directed film. Fans of the superhero franchise had been teased with her much-awaited cameo in the 2016 Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and for once the DCU did not disappoint. 

The film opened to an overwhelmingly positive response and maintained a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. Many considered it to be the turning of a new leaf for the DCU, as there was finally a film (with a female lead, no less) on par with Avengers-level quality. But flash forward to the present and the landscape has changed quite a bit. Wonder Woman 1984 opened to stark mixed reviews, intense backlash from DC die-hards and failed to break even during the COVID-19 pandemic (though it was the highest viewed straight-to-streaming title of 2020).  The plot was dreadfully on the nose, relied heavily on clichés, and felt completely at odds with the beloved protagonist of the 2017 film. Many wondered why the sudden change in tone, and most quickly attributed it the studio’s intent to walk back on Zack Snyder’s creative contributions to the fictional universe. 

The heavily flawed recent depiction of Diana Prince feels off for a number of reasons. Firstly, WW84 added DC Comic Book writer Geoff Johns to the mix, whose vision for the character felt at odds with the warrior princess so effortlessly presented by director Patty Jenkins in the first film. (Snyder also seemingly stepped back into a strictly producing role for the sequel). Without intense final battle sequences and the ironic reliance on “peace” and “love” as her primary powers, Wonder Woman 1984 seemed strangely intent on making her less fierce and strong, while going back to the questionable roots of the character. As the 2017 Toronto Film Festival hit Professor Marston and the Wonder Woman drew attention to, the character of Wonder Woman was derived from the mind of William Moulton Marston, the psychologist behind the DISC assessment and polygraph. The female Amazonian princess was based off of the two women in his life- his wife Elizabeth and their life partner Olive Byrne and strived to be an encapsulation of Marston’s bold theories on gender at the time.

Despite branding himself as a feminist, Marston’s reasoning behind his creation was deeply entrenched in gender stereotypes and personal fetishes. When asked his inspiration behind Wonder Woman, his response was: “Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don’t want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women’s strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman, plus the allure of a good and beautiful woman.” Luckily, Wonder Woman’s reclamation in 1972 by Gloria Steinem opened up the pathway for the number of offshoots and variety of stories that currently exist in the canon, nonetheless, her origins are still of note, especially in the cultural climate of 2021, and even more so when Gal Godot’s 2020 depiction seemed only to uphold the outdated stereotypes initially intended by the man who conceived the character. This sidelining of female voices and studio pushback of Snyder’s overall vision leads not only to a disjointed mess of a franchise, but also to antiquated misogyny. 

It will be fascinating to see how Patty Jenkins plans to handle the quickly derailing trajectory of the iconic character, particularly with the recent Joss Whedon storm clouding the news, as well as Gal Godot herself becoming a pinnacle of political controversy.  Amidst the failure of the sequel, Jenkins was quick to insist she would be the lone creative mind behind the upcoming third film.  Hopefully she is able to restore some of the 2017 glory fans came to love, as DC is simply missing an opportunity to do something more profound with their films while continuing to play it safe and catering to the male gaze with a character who is so profoundly important to the part of their fan base they are currently ostracizing.  Wonder Woman came to save the DCU, now, who will save her?