Are people talking about Wonder Woman for the wrong reasons?

The best version of Wonder Woman?

If you follow my blog hopefully you read my Woman Woman review.  It was an honest review of a movie nothing more...at least I hope.  I didn't plan to put in a bunch of other junk about sex or politics and whatnot.  Hopefully I wrote my thoughts on the movie, the actors, the writing, the directing, the editing...the things within the movie.

I didn't want to bring in that Wonder Woman was the first flick to have a female superhero in its lead since what...Catwoman?  (Maybe Elektra...but I feel like Catwoman was after that).  I want to say that was back in 2002 (Just looked it up Catwoman was 2004 and Elektra was 2005).  And lets be honest while Catwoman was fighting evil she is not a superhero, she is one of those characters that fight for her own reasons much like Punisher...but I am getting off course.

I am embarrassed to have found this picture

A lot of the buzz I'm seeing about Wonder Woman is because it stars and was directed by a woman. At first I was confused by this.  I mean of course Wonder Woman has a female lead, can't have Wonder Woman played by a dude....that would just be weird....and he would have to have some amazing legs to pull off that outfit!

And personally I rarely pay attention to the director of anything.  I might be swayed by Kevin Smith or Joss Weddon....and then it hit me.  The few directors I know are men aren't they.  It is a big deal that this is the major action movie to be directed by a female director.  No it a HUGE deal!

But then I thought of something else, if I saw that Patty Jenkins was directing, lets say a movie about a woman who fights to get her children back from a kidnapper, would I go see it ONLY because she directed it?  No.  Why?  Because she doesn't have a track record yet.  That isn't sexist it is the truth. However if I see a flick that I'm on the fence about seeing and see that Kathryn Bigelow is directing it that might push me over the edge to see it.

The other thing I see almost everywhere is this division of men and women talking about....not the film but what it means to women.  First off I can't say what it means to women.  Just like I couldn't say how it would have felt (and will feel) when the first African American superhero flick is shown (I think that is going to be Black Panther) although one could argue Storm if you really wanted to.  The point is I am a white guy so I can say how important it is to see someone who represents you on the screen makes you feel.  I will never (hopefully) say some is wrong for feeling that way.

And she is right, we are

Here is what makes me more upset than anything though...that this HAS to be a topic!  This was a wonderful thing for people who are fans of Wonder Woman, men and women.  Why isn't that enough?  Why does it HAVE to be about men vs. women?

Instead of shouting from the roof tops that this is a victory for women, shouldn't we be shouting it is a victory for everyone!  That perhaps we took a tiny step forward and proved that it isn't about sex but it is about good film making and story telling.

We should celebrate that one of the most iconic superheroes was given the treatment she deserved. The key now isn't to make sure we have more female directors (although perhaps more female directors/writers could write better stories for women, I don't know that....I can't write for male characters even) but to make sure we have better female characterizations.  If you make a good movie with good female characters people will watch it, male or female.  If you make crappy one dimensional characters, male or female, people will not.

It should be true though damn it!

However that isn't to take away the historical nature of this flick.  Patty Jenkins did something that NO woman has done before and that should be applauded.  She broke a barrier and no man or women can take that away from her.

My review of the flick might not have been 100% positive but the flick was good enough that I will be going to see the next Wonder Woman flick whenever it comes out.  I hope she can correct the mistakes made in the first one (and again, I don't blame her for everything, a director doesn't have full control) and make an even better film.  We have Captain Marvel coming out in 2019 (I think) and I will see that and I know nothing about the character.

So I ask you, my dozens of readers, are you talking about Wonder Woman for the right...or in my opinion wrong reasons?  Or is there a wrong reason?  Is any talk about this flick and what it has done a good reason to talk about it?  Perhaps this whole blog goes on to show I am nothing but a sexist pig after all!