The Wonder Woman Controversy: Is Not One

I really don't have time for this right now, but the latest internet controversy is in effect, and it's pissing me off enough that I'm bringing my Comic Foundry work-a-thon to a screeching halt just for you.

At this point, I don't even think I need to say anything. I'm just going to show you a picture.

Knowing what you know about the comics blogosphere, I'm sure you'll be able to fill in the rest of the story.

But really. From whence comes your indignation, internet? Have you never read a Wonder Woman comic? Ever?



Women in superhero comics are, by default, highly sexualized physical ideals. You have eyes. You know this. And we can have many discussions about the reasons for and implications of that fact, but it's a fact. So if you're going to read superhero comics--and if you give a shit about this controversy, I assume that you do--you have to get to a point where you're accustomed to the way these fantasies function, for better or worse.

Which is is all very much a Comics 101 discussion, to the point that I can't believe we're even having it, except that half the interweb has suddenly spun around from tacit acceptance of a particular superheroine prancing around in a costume that amounts to a painted-on bathing suit, to hysterical, frothing outrage when that very same situation is presented in a more realistic context. Behold, your fantasy made flesh! Time to freak the fuck out!

My suggestion is to dial down the hypocrisy for about five seconds, get over the fact that S-E-X is involved, and realize that comics traffic largely in a world of fantasy whose Venn diagram overlaps hugely with T&A. Which, conversely, overlaps with Playboy in some pretty obvious ways.

"But Wonder Woman stands for all these things that are good and noble," you say, "and this degrades her!" Well, if being represented in a sexual context is all it takes to rob our comic book heroines of their heroism, then there's no way Wonder Woman was ever your hero--or pretty much any other woman in comics, for that matter--not least of all because Wonder Woman was created with a specifically sexual and fetishistic subtext by William Moulton Marston, who declared openly that "Wonder Woman satisfies the subconscious, elaborately disguised desire of males to be mastered by a woman who loves them."

Behold your virginal princess in all her glory!