Wonder Woman

By Gracie Gurr: February 4, 2018

 

This is the first instance in my lifetime that a DC Comic character has come to life and inspired young girls to grown women. A character that shows that they can be powerful, caring, and feminine. From the hidden island of Themyscira to theaters all across the world comes Diana Princess of the Amazonians. Diana, who is the daughter of Queen Hippolyta, was raised on the concealed island of Themyscira. The island is home to the Amazonian warrior women and it was created by Zeus to protect mankind. Early in Diana’s life Hippolyta shares the Amazonian history which includes how Ares is Zeus's son, and how he became jealous of humanity and tried to destroy it. When the other gods attempted to stop Ares, who killed all of the other gods but Zeus, Zeus used the last of his powers to wound Ares to force him to go into hiding, but Ares died in the process. Later on, Zeus leaves the Amazonians on the island along with a weapon that Zeus calls the "Godkiller", to prepare the women for Ares' return.

As Diana grew older, she becomes focused on becoming a warrior. Her mother forbade her at first, but then reluctantly agrees that she can be trained. In 1918, Diana rescues Captain Steve Trevor who crashed his plane off of the coast of Themyscira while he was being chased by a German ship. Having never seen a man before, Diana interrogates Steve with the lasso of truth, Steve then reveals that there is a war going on in the world. Diana assumes the war is caused by Ares thus she leaves with Steve to London to go fight in the war against ‘Ares’. In London Diana helps the ally spies and reveals the Germans plans to release a deadly gas. When the team reaches the Belgium trenches, Diana goes alone into no-man’s-land to help the Allied forces release the village of Veld. Later on, one of Diana’s allies, Sir Patrick, reveals he is Ares and tries to persuade her to help him destroy mankind, but Diana realizes that mankind does has good inside them. She also discovers that she is the real “Godkiller”, therefore she kills Ares and ends the war.

Truly Diana isn’t just another pretty face, but a woman who stands up in what she believes in, even if other don’t believe in the same morals. She was genuinely a mighty woman with a heart of gold, showing all women and girls that they all have a piece of Wonder Woman’s strength and powers inside themselves. Diana’s honesty, perseverance, sense of justice, will to be a warrior, and intelligence is inside every women and girl. Most importantly her heroism, which makes Diana a total badass, is a quality that young girls and women of all ages can look up to.

Gal Gadot plays Diana, Princess of the Amazonians, (also known as Wonder Woman). No other influential woman could play the important role as a new female superhero like Gal Gadot. Gal Gadot wasn’t only Miss Israel, but she also fought in the Israeli army in which she was apart of the Israel-Hezbollah War in 2006. This role was almost made perfectly for her, a strong yet beautiful role for an equally strong and beautiful woman.

Wonder Woman became one of the top grossing movies of 2017 in early June. There hasn’t been a big budget, female led superhero movie in years (unlike other big Hollywood superhero movies that are male centered) until Wonder Woman came along. Wonder Woman was also directed by a female director named Patty Jenkins. Not only was it directed by a woman, but the movie was such a huge success that it made $821 million worldwide making Wonder Woman the tenth highest-grossing film of 2017. This helped the DC Extended Universe to move past $3 billion at the worldwide box office, making it the fourteenth-highest-grossing film franchise of all time. Wonder Woman also earned the cast many awards like Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Action Movie, Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture, and many other awards.

Aside from all the awards and praise, the movie Wonder Woman showed many aspects of female empowerment and heroism. Unlike the normal cinematic depictions of women in film, which usually depicts the women as a “damsel in distress”, in Wonder Woman Diana is her own hero and risks everything to protect the people she loves and cares about. Even if it means putting her own life on the line. How many times do you see that in movies or in books? Probably a lot of the time considering it is a recurring theme in many superhero movies or comic books, but those movies and comics are usually depicted with men trying to save the girl they are in love with. Which is somewhat different compared to Wonder Woman, who was trying to save not only her new-found friends from death and destruction but also the world. The story of Wonder Woman is truly inspiring and will live on for generations to come.