Okay, so I was a little bit late in going to see "Wonder Woman." I just went a few days ago to see it, and I was pretty excited. I’d heard a lot of good things about it, especially with respect to feminism and inclusivity.

And it had a good start, but it missed the mark in many aspects.

It starts with the island of self-sufficient Amazons. There are many scenes depicting strong women warriors, and they’re not all white, though most are thin (though I suppose that could be attributed to their warrior-type exercises/lifestyles, and perhaps not wholly to Hollywood standards of beauty). Young Wonder Woman is fierce and bold and courageous. Another positive depiction.

And then the guy comes into the picture and complicates everything, though not immediately. He is the one who needs help from Wonder Woman, instead of it being the other way around. He offers a means by which Wonder Woman may be defiant, such as when he says that he cannot let her do something and she replies by saying that he doesn’t get to decide what she does (which may have been the most feminist part of the movie).

However, he also ends up as the reason, in a sense, as to why I most think that this movie isn’t a feminist one. We are finally presented with a strong woman character, who, instead of being a strong supporting character, is actually the leader. The scenes where she is leading the men into battle were, I admit, inspiring. However, this is all undermined by the end. In a frustrating turn of events, Wonder Woman is only able to fully recognize and discover her powers through her love for Steve. So, ultimately, she is still dependent on the guy. Had she been able to defeat Aries without her infatuation, I would’ve been more impressed.

The film promotes equality when it comes to fighting, perhaps, but not in general. There is the part where Wonder Woman’s mother tells her that the world of men does not deserve her, which I think serves to place women on some type of pedestal above men, which has its own dangers. People placed on pedestals fall off them.

Additionally, Wonder Woman is portrayed as brave, but also as foolish and naïve. She wants to go courageously into battle against Aries, but she is too clueless to realize that killing Aries won’t solve the problem.

It’s also annoying to me that her nurturing traits, so to speak, are emphasized. There’s the moment when she is walking through London that she exclaims and runs over to the baby–almost a subtle reminder of her duties as a perhaps one-day mother. It definitely calls attention to her femininity, and I think it was unnecessary. It made me think of the moment in "Suicide Squad" where Harley Quinn was envisioning her ideal future, which was essential to be a homemaker (it depicted her literally in the kitchen cooking and tending her children). I get that her character is a little mentally off, and I was hoping that that was the explanation for what I took to be such a jarring scene, but it’s as if we can’t have any popular female characters in movies without them being crazy or dumb or without having some annoying reminder of a woman’s place or duty or stereotypical traits.

While it is unfair to expect one movie to be perfectly feminist, I think it is also not okay to be complacent when it comes to these films, because any kind of progress will slow or stop or be reversed. I feel like I’m being forced to settle for the scraps that Hollywood feels like throwing out–i.e., the few scenes where Wonder Woman is leading the men or where she doesn’t do what the men tell her to do. And it feels like they’re willing to throw those scraps out only because they undermine any kind of progress by the numerous anti-feminist moments.