Thursday, June 08, 2017

Wonder Woman the movie

Back in the old days when I was young, kids played outdoors and used their imagination. We still acted out fantasies seen in movies and television, but we didn't have store bought items to assist us in getting into character. One of the games we played was Super Friends which we learned about from cartoons as comics weren't as prevalent in my neighborhood. All of the kids played and some were villains and some were super heroes and most of the time we fought to be our favorite character. Mine was Wonder Woman. I'd like to be able to say my obsession with her was due to her strength, but the outfit and her dark haired beauty probably ran equal to her power in my eyes. I was always drawn to the non-blonde characters.

We used all sorts of items to become our character. I had a Wonder Woman on a shirt that I had made so I wore that with shorts and attached a handmade W sign to a hair band that I wore around my forehead. For my arm bands, those that stopped bullets, I used empty toilet paper rolls, and I'm fairly certain I unwound a few rolls of the stuff to get to the cardboard holders. I had a rope that I wore dangling around my waist, and when I wanted to be in my invisible airplane I would yell that I was invisible. We had our Justice League headquarters, and we all contributed to the story lines that usually ended with someone tied with my rope around one of the oak trees in our front yard. It was great fun, and I'd give anything to have had pictures of us in character, but back then our parents, in my family my dad, took pictures, and he was at work in the days of our summer fun (although I did keep the shirt and do have a picture of that).


Wonder Woman was a television show in the 70's starring Lynda Carter, and I faithfully watched it along with other shows like the Bionic Woman, Charles Angels, and Laverne and Shirley all with women as the main characters. It was probably also the beginning of my obsession with reading mystery novels with women detectives, and deep down the beginning of thinking that women were able to do way more than clean house and take care of kids.

When I saw that a remake of Wonder Woman was coming, I was all about seeing it. I haven't really seen many of the super hero movies, although I've seen enough, but once they start changing actors and introducing more sequels I lose interest. Plus, it's always about the men. But now Wonder Woman. My favorite super hero, along side Aqua Man, and an entire movie with a woman as the badass savior. Yes, please.

It was great. Gal Gadot was superb, beautiful, and oh, so cool. By the end of the movie when she jumps into the air and the camera angle cuts to show her flying toward us face first, I wanted to whoop and shout, "GIRL POWER!" I wanted to clap and cheer. YES! YES! A women can fight her own battles, and others' battles, and do it against men. YES! YES! Love is one of the answer to this wretched country and messed up world and societies evils. Spread it. Embrace it. Love everyone instead of judging. It was a wonderful movie with a strong message, and most importantly during this week of violence and a court case of a popular entertainer for rape, it shows young girls like my own that women do have the power. To stand on their own. To be somebody. To make changes.

It made me wish I could go back to the neighborhood and suit up as Wonder Woman again, but instead I left the theater in my own skin imagining using my arm bracelets to deflect those who get in my way. GIRL POWER.

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