Wonder Woman – I can’t write a proper review of this because I’m too emotionally entangled in it. Even with all the hype and my high expectations, I’m *still* unexpectedly emotional about this film. Love for Diana. Fervent, fierce pride in the film.
“What I do is not up to you.” Yes. A thousand yes’s.
And the battlefield scene. And the commentary from Etta, the secretary who didn’t grow up on an Amazonian island free of gender role expectations.
Is this what boys/men grow up with? A heroic embodiment on a forty-foot screen of what they would be if they were a god(dess)? This is how it feels to me – something I never had until it arrived in my 52nd year on the planet, like a delayed birthday present that should have been given at birth. A birth right. That’s what this feels like – like every child should have this aspirational story, but only half of them have. Until now.
I have three boys who watched this with me. They’ve had these super heroes that look like them – a dizzying array of them – all their lives. And yet, this film is wonderfully liberating for them as well. It doesn’t shy away from the other half of the gender role limitation equation – the one that says men should primarily be interested in violence and sex. Steve is dazzled by Diana, but not threatened by her. He embraces the fact that she’s the hero and still finds his own heroism. They fight side by side, each doing what they’re best at, equals in respect, if not raw physical powers. As it should be.
The power of that image – that story – for my sons as well as myself left me with that raw emotional state, walking out of the theater. And a need to see it again, almost immediately.
All of which makes me deliriously happy that Wonder Woman is looking to clear $420M this weekend, making it the 8th largest grossing film for 2017, with predictions of reaching $700M as the momentum for it keeps picking UP, not slowing down. *fist pump*
Go get ’em, Diana.