Chelsea Morganelli
Professor Melissa
Santos
EN 199-003
13 February 2015
Blog Entry
When you think of a superhero do you think of a man or
woman? There are more male superheroes than female and that does not surprise
me. Men are usually always the heroes in stories saving the day. One superhero
that changed the norm of male-only superheroes is Wonder Woman.
Wonder Woman was created in the 1940s by
William Moutlon Marston. Her character was very empowering to women around this
time and still is to this day. Wonder Woman is strong, independent and
beautiful. In Andi Zeisler’s book Feminism
and Pop Culture, she explains, “ABC dropped the show after its first
season, and though CBS was quick to snatch it back up, the resulting version
changed everything: It shifted the narrative from the 1940s to the present-day
1970s, never mentioned Paradise Island or Diana’s Amazon roots, and perhaps
most important, positioned its heroine as a sex symbol” (Zeisler, 80). Wonder Woman became a sex symbol because of
the way she was being portrayed. She no longer lived on Paradise Island with
her fellow Amazon women, but now has big boobs, skinny waist and a skimpy
outfit. Just like other women in comic books, Wonder Woman is shown in a
hypersexual way. Mostly males read comic books and so the images are drawn for
them. It’s wrong that comic books are drawn for men because now women may feel
they aren’t supposed to like comic books.
There
should be new women superheroes that aren’t drawn in a sexual way. This would
be a good influence for other women and to make them feel empowered again. They
could be smart, strong and independent without having to be sexy. Women
shouldn’t feel like they have to be sexy just because they are strong and
independent.
I agree with what you said right off the bat. Most of time when we hear the word superhero we think of a man. Whenever there are female heroes they always have to be sexualized.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I forgot until the class discussion about wonder wonder. I believe the reason for this is stereotypes in society. I hope for generations to come that there are more women superhero and when you think of the word super heroes, that your mind will not automatically go to thinking about men superheros.
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