A woman testifies, and the man admits that he gave her knock-out pills and then digitally penetrated her. The defence argues, based on gifts he has given her, that it’s a ‘romantic’ sexual act, and 12 rational adults actually find it hard to doubt that. A mistrial is declared.
Bill Cosby, accused of date-raping dozens of young women, could walk free.
That’s real life in a country that flaunts ideals of justice and equality. Has it left a bad taste in your mouth? Well, I suggest you rinse it out with another offering from the US, a film called Wonder Woman .
What a pleasant surprise this turned out to be, especially since I went with zilch expectations. How can you have any when Hollywood usually deals in the sexy-underwear-no-role line of superwomen?
Wonder Woman works beautifully, not because it is a hard-nosed feminist film or because it is brilliantly crafted — it is neither — but because it matter-of-factly and rather stylishly allows a woman to rule a fantasy world where good ultimately defeats evil. In a genre that’s usually reserved for men, this comes as fabulous relief.
No lengthy explanations or tiresome justifications are offered. It just is. Diana, the daughter of Zeus, is raised by the Amazons on the forgotten island of Themyscira. Taking tips from Greek myth and classical art, these fierce warrior women are shown as expert archers, swordswomen and equestrians (Amazons are believed to have invented cavalry). The early sequence where they fight the Germans is among the most superbly picturised and choreographed fight scenes I’ve seen in a while and I am not even a fan of fights.
Amazons famously left the world of men to set up life on their own and mythology variously refers to them as slayers, destroyers or loathers of men. So Themyscira has no blokes. A bit of a pity because one doesn’t really dislike men so long as they don’t behave like idiots, which, of course, they seem pathologically inclined to do. Greek philosopher Strabo wrote that Amazons begat children by meeting the Gargareans once a year on a nearby mountain where they had intercourse — in darkness and at random. Another brilliant idea. Remember Perumal Murugan’s Mathorubagan ?
In the film, an American soldier accidentally lands on Themyscira and Diana accompanies him back to a land where the Second World War is raging. Her mission is to find and destroy Ares, the god of war, a metaphor for the feminine view of the world as essentially a peaceful proposition marred by the hyper-masculine ego. There, of course, she becomes Wonder Woman, a warrior in the eternal battle between good and evil.
The film’s triumph is in how it is directed — by Patty Jenkins, a woman. The hits are subtle, but significant. When Steve assumes that Diana doesn’t understand man-woman sex, she tells him gently that Amazons discovered long ago that they needed men only for children, not for pleasure. When Diana sees wounded soldiers, despairing women and children, she is moved to tears — without this encroaching on her superpower capability to dish out violent death.
Wonder Woman is all woman — in her tears, her empathy, her dislike of war, her belief in peace and goodness. But she is all this without being annoyingly virtuous or haloed. The 5’10” Gal Gadot plays her to perfection — an impish, funny misfit in the world who laughs at the world in turn. When Steve says she doesn’t know how to dance, she says she could say the same of the swaying couples around her, and one imagines Amazons doing some sort of fabulous, super-acrobatic two-step in their world.
Steve loves her in a slightly disbelieving, adoring way, seldom given to leading women. And Diana is allowed to be ingenuous without being foolish.
But above everything, Gadot plays Wonder Woman with an aloof, charming dignity that stands out. She is beautiful and sexy, and yet in the way she walks or fights, she doesn’t allow herself to be objectified. She carries her body, her power, her sexuality with an easy, happy confidence that’s almost a feminist statement in the way it is complete in itself — without needing a masculine foil. Mostly, Diana is allowed a purity that one had despaired of seeing again. In a world where rapists and paedophiles and gropers still get away scot-free, it feels good to get vicarious gratification from a Wonder Woman bashing up the baddies.
Where the writer tries to make sense of society with seven hundred words and a bit of snark
