Wonder Woman: No Longer American

Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman,1970s

Maureen Callahan objects to the de-Americanization of Wonder Woman.

The long-awaited “Wonder Woman” has generated more buzz than any movie this year, and rightly so. She’s the most beloved and iconic female superhero ever, yet it’s taken decades — the film’s been in development since 1996 — for a Wonder Woman movie. It’s the first to pair a female director with a big-budget, comic-book film meant to be a franchise. In Gal Gadot, it has a star who served in the Israeli army and brings authority to her fight scenes.

“She is the ultimate symbol of strength,” Gadot said in 2015. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d grow up to be in a movie playing someone who influenced as many women as she has.”

What’s curious about this version, coddled and crafted over decades, is the near-total absence of America. Wonder Woman was born during World War II, created by American psychologist William Moulton Marston, and her debut on the cover of DC’s Sensation Comics in 1942 depicted her in red, white and blue, storming into battle. She’d left her home, Paradise Island, to fight the Nazis in “America, the last citadel of democracy and of equal rights for women!”

This new Wonder Woman, however, has almost nothing to do with America. The film is set during World War I, in London. Steve Trevor, the pilot Wonder Woman rescues and falls for, is American in name only — here, he’s working for British intelligence.

Most tellingly, Wonder Woman’s iconic costume has been leached of all color. The bald eagle on her chest, the white stars on her blue bottom, the red-and-white striped boots — all have disappeared. She’s no longer vibrant and strong; she’s sad, a pacifist whose armor resembles mourning attire.

Wonder Woman’s global box-office appeal, it seems, depends on no longer being American. According to a piece in the L.A. Times last year, 70 percent of box office revenue is generated overseas, and those markets now take precedence, no matter how closely your superhero is identified with the United States. In 2010, director Joe Johnson said that his Captain America “would not be a flag waver . . . just a good person.”

RTWT

Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, 2017