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Sunday, January 23, 2011

More Wonder Woman info

Hey look! More info on Wonder Woman.

And...it's not really looking good to me, I have to say.

The project is described as a reinvention of the iconic D.C. comic in which Wonder Woman -- aka Diana Prince -- is a vigilante crime fighter in L.A. but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life. "I had a lot of fun writing it," Kelley said of the script at TCA last week when the project had just been put on hold. "It's a huge project, and it was probably a bit too much to ask anyone to try to chew on it for next season. But I'm confident it will still happen. It's a very complicated piece, which is the most fun thing about it."


I mean, it's not that I have anything against the premise of a corporate executive who is also a "modern woman" and a superhero.

But is this really Wonder Woman?

What's so hard about the idea of a chick from an island of all women, meets a cute guy and then follows his ass into modern United States where she remains badass. Kind of Xena meets Felicity.

Granted, if she keeps the Paradise Island origin and the corporate business woman thing is just a cover, that could be fun. At the very least it'll be more satisfying to see than her playing mousy secretary to Steve Trevor. (On the other hand, it loses some of the symbolism: even the mousiest, most ordinary of women has a bit of Wonder on the inside.)

And of course, while doing Dispatches from the Fridge, I encountered someone suggesting that this version was somehow less sexist than the original which made my brain literally shut off in self-protection. I mean, granted, there's nothing immediately NON-sexist about the new origin (all two words of it), but still...

I might be cynical just because I've seen David E. Kelley's idea of a modern woman in a traditionally masculine power role trying to balance the different elements of her life. I kind of think he'll be delivering something a bit closer to Ally McBeal than Lynda Carter.

But before I let myself get TOO negative, I will say that if the show didn't have "Wonder Woman" attached, I would be pretty interested in the two phrase description, so I'll wait it out.

If it sucks though, I reserve the right to bitch endlessly. :-)

2 Comments:

  • At January 24, 2011 4:01 PM, Blogger Ace said…

    I honestly hate the phrase "modern woman". What self respecting woman would NOT be a 'modern woman'? By having the right to vote and actually be something more than a typist or receptionist, they are modern. The phrase has no meaning these days - it stopped having meaning by the mid-90's.

    I'll wait for more details before I make a judgement, but I'm looking forward to seeing something super-hero that isn't Superman-But-Not-Superman.

     
  • At January 24, 2011 10:56 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    a vigilante crime fighter in L.A. but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life.

    Why do we rarely, if ever, see stories centered around how Bruce Wayne has to struggle to balance all of the elements of his extraordinary life? How *does* he manage to stay a corporate executive by day, vigilante crime fighter by night, and manage to do it all without getting stress wrinkles or sacrificing time for proper styling and care of his hair? Why aren't we ever presented with gripping scenes such as Bruce complaining that he can never go out for fancy lunches with the other Board members lest his thighs get too fat for his Batsuit?

    Or less sarcastically, why hasn't the whole "oh em gee balancing act!!!" ever been the core premise for any Batman television series or movie? Even if elements of that conflict are sometimes there, I can't think of a single major piece of Batman media where the PRIMARY sales pitch has been "gosh it's so hard to be an executive by day, crime fighter by night! How *does* he do it?!"

    I guess that with Batman it's just a given that he can and does balance all of the elements of his extraordinary life. But with Wonder Woman all of a sudden we have to play into this "man, it's so tough for women to have it all!" theme that seems to infect so many television heroines across so many different genres. Ugh.

     

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