GOORAMA!

6. Holy Sh*t Batman, you and Superman sure have a ton of movies!

Mr. McBroody Wayne is great, Superman kicks ass, but come on, there are only so many reboots, collaborations, and continuations we can take. To date, we’ve already had over 15 Batman and Superman films (not counting animated features) and WB has just announced, drum roll please, ANOTHER movie featuring the two.

Meanwhile, I’m weeping in a corner, because as cool as a combo movie sounds, we’re missing out on a bunch of really cool characters from the DC canon, including Wonder Woman, who has yet to make a single big screen appearance.

I mean, studios have spent $994,000,000 producing 3 Batman and 2 Superman movies in the last 8 years. Give a fraction of that to a director who knows what they’re doing, make a great film, and people will go and see it and ENJOY it.

Beloved character + good director/writers/budget + common sense (do the character justice) = HIT.

5. People are aware and tired of the way female superheroes have been traditionally represented.

This one is a double-edged sword. On one hand, we’re so, so, so ready for a lady superhero to be represented as a person, not just an anatomically incorrect sex symbol. I mean, look at the Hawkeye Initiative. Doesn’t that prove that there are men and women who give a damn about positive representation of women in the comic book fandom? Doesn’t that hint that there is an audience waiting for an awesome reboot of a famous but underrepresented female superhero?

On the other hand, we’re watching. If the studio screws up, the Internet will be on them like hounds.

But really, how difficult is it to put a positive female character on the big screen?

Functional costume + relevant plot + great lines + she’s-person-not-a-piece-of-ass mentality = satisfying female superhero.

Jesus, it ain’t that hard.

4. Wonder Woman already has cultural power.

A recent piece from Wired provocatively entitled, “We Don’t Need No Stinking Wonder Woman Movie,” has made some good points – for example, the original comics were far from feminist and, so far, modern treatment of the character has been dismal.

But NOTHING says we have to stick to the original comics, plot lines, costumes, or ideals. The Dark Night Trilogy is a far cry from the 40s comics- there’s no reason why we can’t reclaim Wonder Woman and give her an origin story that she (and we) deserve.

We live in society that A) desperately needs strong women in the media and B) really, really wants them. Wonder Woman, for all that she has a messy past, is a character that is recognized as a powerful female lead by people who haven’t read the original comics, people who haven’t read many comics at all.

She already has cultural power and currency, and now is the time to reboot her story.

3. Opportunity for character development.

Yeah, ok, Wonder Woman’s canon is rather screwy in several ways.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

It means that there’s a lot of space for change, experimentation, and progress in her characterization.
What if she was black or Latina? The Internet has gleefully fan-casted Gina Torres as Diana and I have no doubt that she’d be amazing. But come on, think outside the box just a bit more. How about a bisexual or asexual Wonder Woman? Ooo, daring right?

Actually, no.

It’s about time popular culture did more than wet its feet in the representation of non-white, non-heterosexual people. A Wonder Woman film could be an amazing opportunity to take a step in positively representing excluded portions of the population via a famous character.

2. Too complicated? Really?

People have been stating and restating the “complicated” nature of Wonder Woman’s story as a reason to either go slowly or not at all in producing a film.

Are you people kidding me.

First off, why is complexity a bad thing? Complexity makes characters and stories memorable, interesting, and important. I go to movies hoping that I won’t come out saying, “Yeah, I knew that was going to happen, that character was going to say that, and obviously that other character was going to do that.” I relish being forced to think, being outwitted, and being surprised by a plot or character. Audiences can handle complexity. For goodness sake, look at Inception.

Second, we have films that have tackled Shakespeare, the Bible, wars, political milestones…are you seriously saying the Wonder Woman comics are more complex? More politically, socially charged than a movie about an assassination or genocide? Seriously?

I promise, we can handle a Wonder Woman movie and the complexity of her story is a GOOD thing.