Reply With QuoteThat was mostly on the Dick Van Dyke show.Originally Posted by brettc1
I don't disagree. What's at issue is if he's just shit-stirring by saying it was the key to the character's success.
To me, as is often true with shit stirrers, he's wrapped a truth in an exaggeration. What he's dead right about is the boring, Mary Tyler Moore/Virgin Mary bullshit status of most of the recent interpretations, and that yes, even an expected core demographic of female readers are largely (of course not universally--that's impossible) uninterested in it.
Where he goes wrong, as he often does, is thinking that S&M might be the key to the character's potential success. He's right AGAIN, talking about how she should be the most interesting woman in any room (my nice rephrasing of some of his thoughts). He's wrong if he thinks a bullwhip in her hand, or being tied up, should be how that's expressed. It worked with Martson, in those times, because it was titillating and different, to the FEW readers who noticed the subtext (many didn't--as overt as it seems to us now many readers STILL probably didn't even notice back then).
The key I think is trying to look at what WW REPRESENTED back then that she stopped representing since. I think, somewhere in there, and lost, was the idea that she was an object of desire. As Diana Prince she was kind of mopey and "Oh Steve!" all of the time. So we can't really look to Diana Prince for the answer. But as Wonder Woman? Steve became the doe-eyed one. There was some symbolism there, I think, and its gotten lost in the years since with Wondy becoming a bland projection of a million different things OTHER than being Aphrodite's agent on Earth. That original pre-Crisis choice of Aphrodite means something (independent from any rope-tying up--although yes it was called "Aphrodite's Law" that her being tied up meant her powers disappeared when a man tied her up). Explore that to get her back to her roots, that's all I'm saying. Great as they are, having Athena or Artemis be Diana's sponsors? Maybe that changed her message too much (mostly because the contributions from Aphrodite got forgotten and not written into the character anymore).
That was mostly on the Dick Van Dyke show.
The reason I cant get on board with this Batman analysis, more than anything esle, is that Batman is the ultimate heterosexual fanboy wet dream
The hot guy who is a genius, has all the best toys, can kick the living crap out of anybody and has the hottest women wanting to have sex with him while he personally doesn't give a shit.
It's James Bond blasted with gamma rays, when you think about it.
The next time a goddess asks you if you want to have a shower...you say YES!!!!
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