With "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" closely approaching, the heroes of the Justice League and their cameos in the film are being hyped up. Outside of Batman and Superman, the most excitement seems to be for Wonder Woman- the Amazon Warrior Princess (now a Goddess in the New 52 Universe). I for one, am not excited for Wonder Woman. Quite the contrary, I'm extremely disappointed. Take a look below and tell me what you see.
Note how the male superheroes have developed into muscular forces to be reckoned with, while the only difference between Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman and Gal Gadot's is the costume. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure that a woman who's spent her entire life combat training is going to be a lot larger and a lot more muscular than that. Given that she practices sword combat, her shoulders would be wide and sharp. Given that she's expertly trained in hand to hand combat and spends her days running around an island, her legs would be hulking.
Recently I got into a debate about Wonder Woman's appearance and how she should look next to the male superheroes. My opponent stated that Wonder Woman has historically never been large, and I will concede this is true.
However, given that the DC Universe was recently revamped and the movies strive to be more in line with recent comic books, Wonder Woman should therefore look not like the images above but like the below images.
I want a muscular female superhero. I want a woman who looks like she can kick some major ass, not a woman that looks like a stick figure with a sword.
To me, Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman represents a society that still treats women as nothing more than pretty faces. We never allow for anything other than the prototypical thin pretty faced woman to be shown, and that's more than just a shame. When are we going to progress to be a society that promotes more than just one type of body? One type of woman? Why can't we have a female superhero that's both muscular and beautiful, a woman who puts down all the naysayers who believe muscular women look masculine or "ugly".
I want a Wonder Woman who actually looks like an Amazon Warrior Goddess who has spent every day of her life since she was born combat training. If Batman looks like a man who has spent his entire adult life combat training and beating up bad guys, and if Superman looks like a person from a planet much tougher than ours, then it's completely possible for Wonder Woman to look her part too.
Unfortunately for those of us who want to see more than a pretty face, we're stuck with this version of Wonder Woman until the movie universe gets revamped again sometime decades from now.