Yesterday, "Wonder Woman 1984" was released. I didn't like this movie very much, but it didn't prevent many audiences from raving about it.
In the article I wrote before, I received a lot of responses from fans, maybe I didn't watch the movie carefully, maybe you were defending your favorite movie, these are not important.
I personally have no feelings for the DC version of "Wonder Woman", after learning about the legendary story of Wonder Woman author William Moulton Marston, and watching his biopic "Professor Marston and Wonder Woman" After that, it is even more difficult to say love to DCEU's "Wonder Woman".
It turns out that Wonder Woman is the most complicated character in the comics world
1. Wonder Woman and Feminism
Many viewers have the illusion that Wonder Woman's role as a representative of feminism is given by today's creators.
actually not.
The author of Wonder Woman is Professor William Moulton Marston, a feminist in his own right.
Marston believes at work that in certain situations, women are more honest than men and can get work done faster and more accurately.
So, in a sense, Marston maintained the potential and career of women at that time.
But what is interesting is that Professor Marston has two partners in his life, and they have them at the same time.
One is his wife, Elizabeth Holloway, and the other is his student and lover, Oliver Byrne.
Oliver Byrne, the daughter of feminist activist Ethel Byrne, opened the first birth control clinic in the United States with her sister Margaret Sanger.
Insert a sentence, in that era, women did not have the right to contraception, in other words, women's uterus did not belong to themselves.
Margaret Sanger has fought for women's rights throughout her life since the 1910s.
2. Wonder Woman and the Lie Detector
To comic book fans, William M. Marston is the creator of Wonder Woman, but to psychology researchers, he is a well-known PhD in psychology.
Marston pioneered the DISC behavioral model theory. This is one of the few attempts to apply psychology to the mental health of ordinary people so far.
The four letters of DISC are Dominance, Influence, Steady, and Compliance.
Marston was also the inventor of the lie detector.
In their experiments, Marston and his wife found that "when a person is angry or excited, his blood pressure seems to go up."
The lie detector invented by him needs to tie people's bodies and arms tightly with ropes, and test people's responses when they speak through the beating of the heart and the rise and fall of blood.
Later, US Ph.D. police officer John Osgood Larsen combined the blood pressure test developed by Marston with measurements of pulse, respiration, and skin conductance to develop a comprehensive polygraph tool.
The prototype of the Lasso of Truth in Wonder Woman's hands is the lie detector invented by Marston.
When Wonder Woman uses a lasso of truth to trap someone, no matter who the person is, she will get the truth out of it.
3. Wonder Woman and Chains
In the early "Wonder Woman" comics, there were often scenes where women were tied up.
Regarding the scenes of women being tied up in comics, there have always been two voices. One is to reflect the abduction and bondage of women by society.
Marston put it this way in the interview: When a lovely heroine is tied up, comic book readers are sure that rescue will arrive in no time. Their wish was to save the girl, not make her suffer.
Again, this tied-up scene is reminiscent of an act of the feminist movement at the time.
During the women's movement for political rights, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, women tied themselves to the gate outside the White House in protest.
Chains appear frequently in modern social affirmative action. We have heard such a famous saying since childhood - "What the proletariat loses in this revolution is only the chain, and what they gain will be the whole world."
This intention was of course projected on the feminist movement.
4. Wonder Woman and BDSM
On the other hand, Wonder Woman's "five flowers tied" also has a certain BDSM tendency.
BDSM refers to bondage & discipline (B/D), dominance & submission (D/S), sadism & masochism (S/M).
As a psychologist, Marston is well aware that some people's feelings and sexuality are different from ordinary people.
In the movie "Professor Marston and Wonder Woman", there is a clip in which Oliver Byrne asked Ying to tie Marston up, and the passionate battle between the three of them in the room was indeed BDSM.
As for whether Marston himself has SM tendencies, it is unknown.
For the film, the descendants of Professor Marston also have a different opinion.
In the movie, Marston's two partners are in love with each other, but Marston and Elizabeth's granddaughter categorically said that the two women are not lovers, they should be sisters.
Maybe in the era when Wonder Woman was first created, the BDSM group would be regarded as a neurotic by the world, but today, BDSM is no longer a topic of shame, especially in Western countries, performance art and exhibitions about BDSM are not uncommon , has become an integral part of the sexual liberation movement.
5. Wonder Woman and Sex
The road to the advent of Wonder Woman can be described as bumpy.
At that time, there was a customs committee in the United States, and the opinion given to the more revealing dress of Wonder Woman was to modify it.
Professor Marston persisted.
This involves some issues between Wonder Woman and "sex".
Mr. Lu Xun said, "When I see short sleeves, I immediately think of white arms, immediately think of full nudity, immediately think of genitals, immediately think of sexual intercourse, immediately think of interbreeding, and immediately think of illegitimate children. The Chinese imagination can only make such a leap at this level. "
At about the same time on the other side of the ocean, there was also such a controversy.
Because in those days, women were in a dominant position, Mr. Lu Xun's words, and the American Customs Committee's recommendations obviously looked at women from the perspective of men.
Naturally, this situation needs to be changed.
Why should women care what men think? This was a powerful counterattack from feminism at the time.
One of the natural aspects of the women's liberation movement is sexual liberation.
This is beyond doubt.
Not only the United States, you can probably know by looking at the talented women during the Republic of China.
6. Professor Marston and his two wives
Some people may have doubts, isn't there a contradiction between feminism and two wives?
Isn't "three wives and four concubines" an oppression of women?
This has to be looked at in two ways.
The first is the issue of rules. In the ancient feudal system, women were in a weak position, and this kind of three wives and four concubines was naturally oppressive;
But Professor Marston and his two wives, both feminists, are working hard to break this rule, and of course it's a different story.
The second is the difference between coercion and voluntary.
Most of the ancient three wives and four concubines were involuntary, but Marston and his wives reached a relationship contract after equal negotiation between the three parties. Naturally, it cannot be compared with the ancient three wives and four concubines.
In today's modern society, monogamy is of course the mainstream, but there are still many non-monogamous marriages in real society, such as open marriages, group marriages, and so on.
Although they are not legally recognized, it does not prevent their existence.
Marston's relationship with his two partners is a typical collective marital state.
Maybe in the eyes of many of us, these relationships are absurd, but what about a hundred years from now? I'm afraid no one can tell.
Before I watched Wonder Woman 1984, I re-watched the first and several of the original DC Universe animated films, including the two Wonder Woman, and they were all unsatisfactory.
In fact, the DCEU's two "Wonder Woman" are far from the complex female images written by Professor Marston, and they have become a puppet shouting slogans, which is really regrettable.
View more about Professor Marston & the Wonder Women reviews
