I’m about to argue with somebody about WONDER WOMAN, but before I do I want to establish that the target of this argument is not her reaction to a goddamned movie. Honestly. You are free to hate WONDER WOMAN if you want to, for any reason from just hating superhero movies on principle, to thinking Gal Godot looks like a duck. I may think you’re crazy but I won’t be mad at you.
The one exception is saying (as this person also did) that she cannot look at Israeli Gal Godot and not think about the sad plight of the Palestinian people, because of course Gal Godot is guilty by association with everything her country does; which is on a par with saying you cannot look at Denzel Washington and not think about the black guy who once mugged your grandfather. That is “fuck you” territory. I don’t care how enlightened about the middle east you think you are, how you parse the relative faults of Israel and its Palestinian rivals; this particular statement is racist as hell, and you need to be ashamed of yourself.
But what this person also said is that Wonder Woman in that film embodies the “Born Beautiful Yesterday” trope, an actual named phenomenon involving female movie characters who are ridiculously naïve while having supermodel looks.
Of course, Wonder Woman embodies no such thing. Honestly. We meet her in the context of her own society, where she is a perfectly intelligent human being, a born leader in type and (we learn) birthright; we follow her to London, an unfamiliar society where her naivete manifests as cooing over a baby, delight at ice cream, and dismay over the clothing options available to her; and then we follow her to the front lines, where she is again a leader, successfully defying the advice of male companions over what is and what is not possible. At what point in that arc is that “born beautiful yesterday?” She is naïve about cultural things, that in no way impact her superhuman level of competence, or alter our understanding that she is an amazing person. She has a learning curve, when it is reasonable for her to have a learning curve.
It is, in fact, the same learning curve demonstrated by that profoundly male character Thor, when he arrives on Earth in his own movie, only more charmingly rendered.
The fact is that Wonder Woman’s initial naivete when arriving in London is quite rightly treated as just one element in a broad spectrum of character traits, one that cannot be mistaken for stupidity except by somebody who’s sitting there with arms crossed hoping to be offended.
It cannot even be argued as a permanent feature of her character, because what we see is a flashback, bookended by scenes of the civilian-guise Diana Prince occupying a position of significant authority in the world’s greatest museum.
And during this, lady, you sat in the theatre with a grumpy look on your face and thought, “A-ha! Born Beautiful Yesterday! I’ve caught you!”
And this is where we arrive at the actual point of this entry.
It’s good to label tropes with phrases like “The Bechdel Test,” and “Manic Pixie Dream Girl,” “Fridging the Girlfriend,” “The White Savior” and so on, because these phrases help define the unexamined assumptions we pass on with our fiction.
It is not good when your level of understanding doesn’t just begin but also stops at the labels, when you are so impressed with a label that you consider it the end of the argument; when “fridging the girlfriend,” for instance, is used to label any action story where any female character dies, for any reason and in any context, and not just those where it happens solely to provide a male character with motivation for a killing spree. It is not good when the use the premise of the Bechdel Test to assault any story that fails to pass, without really examining what any individual story is about and whether the Bechdel Test is at all relevant to it. You do this, you start walling off entire categories of plot twist as politically unacceptable, no matter how they are handled in a story, no matter how any particular moment might be ameliorated in context. Here, you are so impressed by trope label “born beautiful yesterday,” that you eagerly use it to condemn a story where a ridiculously competent woman is naïve about some aspects of a life in a society she’s never visited before, and that is evidence that once the trope was named, you stopped thinking, satisfied in the thinking that had already been done for you. And that is never a good thing. Because that leads to missing everything good and dying angry.
These tropes have been labeled as a guide to thought, not as a substitute for thought.
For God’s sake. Use them to think.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
June 12th, 2017 at 9:17 am
And I’m serious about the other thing, too. Saying you can’t look at Gal Godot without stressing on the plight on Palestinians is a little like saying you can’t look at, oh, for the sake of picking names at random, Alexander Siddig or Tony Shalhoub, and not having flashbacks to 9/11. It is a fucking racist thing to say, period.
Comment By: Allan Dyen-Shapiro Author
June 12th, 2017 at 11:18 am
The problem discussing with any such issue is that the Palestinian/Israeli situation is quite complex and very few Americans of any ethnicity understand it on deeper than a bumper sticker issue level. Sloganeering is rampant. I Googled “Gal Gadot politics” and found very little that indicated other than bland, consensus Israeli opinions. She’s not a political activist (except perhaps on feminist issues). However, prominent in the Google search, I also found Jewish sites labeling “other actors” as Pro-Palestinian. Merely criticizing Israeli policy was enough to get an actor labeled. Jon Stewart was labeled as dangerously pro-Palestinian. This sort of us versus them mentality is profoundly unhelpful in terms of people getting along in the US and irrelevant to the situation in Israel/Palestine. It can also be hijacked by those with ulterior motives–a US politician giving lip service to this issue can often use it to shield themselves from the consequences of other unrelated views.
Comment By: Heather Park-Albertson
June 12th, 2017 at 2:18 pm
It is just laughable someone would label Jon Stewart that way. And not just becauae of his heritage (and faith, I think?)
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
June 12th, 2017 at 3:17 pm
If you want to understand the Israeli/Palestinian dynamic, watch the dueling-magician movie, THE PRESTIGE. I am not even remotely kidding.
Comment By: Michael A. Burstein
June 12th, 2017 at 3:17 pm
Adam-Troy, I’ve seen THE PRESTIGE. I don’t quite see the analogy…
Comment By: Cameron McCoy
June 12th, 2017 at 7:17 pm
Brinksmanship.
Comment By: Marguerite Reed
June 12th, 2017 at 10:18 pm
And as I said: does this mean I can’t also enjoy the sight of Gal Gadot taking apart Ludendorf? Am I to forget that side also?
Comment By: Marguerite Reed
June 12th, 2017 at 10:18 pm
I think choosing Siddig and and Shalhoub as examples is brash–if not downright ill-considered of you, and it doesn’t really fly, does it? Siddig is English-Sudanese and spent most of his life in England, starting his career on stage. Shalhoub is Lebanese-American and was born in Green Bay. Neither one of them spent any time in the military, let alone the military of any Muslim nation or any suspicious para-military terrorist organizations. There is no *reason* to associate them with 9/11. Try again. As someone sympathetic to Palestinian issues, I think it’s damn disingenuous of you to say that anyone watching Gal Gadot in this movie and thinking about the Palestine-Israel conflict is racist. Am I supposed to turn all thoughts about the outside world off when I watch a movie? I’m not damning her or saying all Israelis are horrible or spouting anti-Semitic bullshit. Art and entertainment are *ALSO* a dialogue with the irony and miracles of human history, and you are saying I should excise my faculties of comprehension and context. No thank you.
Comment By: Cameron McCoy
June 12th, 2017 at 10:18 pm
Every Israeli citizen serves in the Israeli military if they are Jewish, Druze or Circassian. She could have no less avoided military service than I could have avoided signing up for Selective Service.
Comment By: Linda Hepden
June 13th, 2017 at 5:18 am
If you think Siddig and Shalhoub are poor examples of actors who are Arabic, how about the most famous of Eygptian actors, Omar Sharif?
Comment By: Michael Rapoport
June 12th, 2017 at 9:17 am
Yes. And this sort of relates to another point you’ve periodically made, not about WONDER WOMAN but in general: that no subject should be considered out of bounds for dramatization, not the Holocaust, not rape, nothing. It all depends on how a particular work and a particular creator HANDLE that topic.
Similarly, with regard to these tropes, it’s all about how you handle the situation in context. I can imagine that creators of less skill than Gal Gadot and Patty Jenkins and Allan Heinman might have fallen into the “born beautiful yesterday” trap, but the movie we actually got did not, as you say, and it was terrific. The only real problem I had with it was that it used super-slo-mo way too much. ð
Comment By: David Weingart
June 12th, 2017 at 9:17 am
I’ve actually seen a fair amount of “Gal Gadot is Israeli and therefore problematic” from a distressing amount of my fellow members of the left.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
June 12th, 2017 at 9:18 am
As have I, and I would have a lot more respect for those voices if they understood that Israel — for all its brutal excesses — has TAKEN a lot of shit, too. Firing rockets into Gaza makes a lot more sense when you reflect that they’ve been firing rockets into Israel, daily, but somehow that doesn’t enter the left’s conversation.
Comment By: Tracy J Erickson
June 12th, 2017 at 9:18 am
Which boggles my mind since they’re ignoring the the truly problematic involvement of Steve Mnuchin as EP to focus on her.
Comment By: Michael Rapoport
June 12th, 2017 at 10:18 am
Interesting that they buried Mnuchin’s name in the end credits, by the way. Was his credit listed separately from other EPs or producers of a similar level? I saw his name go by and thought it was odd that an EP didn’t get a screen to himself as they usually do but was just buried in a list.
Comment By: David Weingart
June 12th, 2017 at 10:18 am
Adam-Troy Castro Yeah, although that’s somehow OK.
(I mean, the Israeli government does a lot of things I disagree with, but I find it telling that they’re really the only country in the world that isn’t allowed any sort of defense against attacks at all)
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
June 12th, 2017 at 10:18 am
For two years I worked next to a woman of Palestinian descent who frequently wanted me to know how evil Israel is, and then one day I asked her, “Fine, it’s a country that deals harshly with people trying to destroy it; and I will discuss nuance with you right now if you tell me that it’s wrong to set bombs on school buses, or walk into crowded markets wearing suicide vests. I will discuss the wrongs done to Palestinian civilians if you will concede right now that Israeli civilians also have the right to go through their day without somebody trying to blow them up, or even if you concede that you will support any, any, peaceful solution short of having every single Israeli get on a boat and look for some other country willing to have them.”
She rolled her eyes. And would not.
This is where I lose sympathy.
Comment By: David Weingart
June 12th, 2017 at 10:18 am
Tracy J Erickson Mnuchin’s involvement as EP presumably predates his time in government. So why is it problematic?
Comment By: Tamra Heathershaw-Hart
June 12th, 2017 at 10:18 am
David Weingart Maybe because GG’s time in the Israeli army predated her time in the movie, but even though that’s in the past and his gov. time is in the present only her time is considered relevant when discussing the movie — thus making all the comments about GG look even more misogynistic and anti-Israeli.
Comment By: Jan Baer
June 12th, 2017 at 11:18 am
The far left despises Jews. All of the noise about Gal Gadot is because she’s a Jew. (It’s not really racism if you hate Jews.)
Comment By: David Weingart
June 12th, 2017 at 11:18 am
Jan Baer Define “far left” here and explain how it’s any different than “far right” with respect to antisemitism please.
But the criticism of Gadot has been, specifically because she’s Israeli.
Comment By: Jan Baer
June 12th, 2017 at 11:18 am
David Weingart Did I mention anything about the far right?
Comment By: David Weingart
June 12th, 2017 at 11:18 am
No, but you made a blanket statement about the far left and how the comments about Gadot are because she’s Jewish rather than because she’s Israeli.
Comment By: MJ Sydney
June 12th, 2017 at 11:18 am
Jan Baer ” (It’s not really racism if you hate Jews.)” This must be the part where you really don’t understand the Jewish people.:-/
Comment By: Jan Baer
June 12th, 2017 at 11:18 am
David Weingart BDS is far-left
Comment By: Jan Baer
June 12th, 2017 at 11:18 am
MJ Sydney Colleges don’t like racism, but anti-jewish groups are allowed to thrive.
Comment By: MJ Sydney
June 12th, 2017 at 11:18 am
And all schools spout off about how they’re intolerant of bullying yet it thrives in most school districts to the point of punishing the victim. I fail to see how the way a school of any level responds to the problem changes what it is.
Comment By: David Weingart
June 12th, 2017 at 12:17 pm
Jan Baer BDS is certainly far left. I’m not sure how it differs from far right in their mutual love of Jews.
Comment By: Sarah Stegall
June 12th, 2017 at 12:17 pm
Are you only now noticing the strident anti-Semitism of the Left? Really? They’ve been drinking the Kool-Ade for decades.
Comment By: Heather Park-Albertson
June 12th, 2017 at 3:17 pm
Shortly after returning home from Germany, where I learned what it felt like to be part of a group explicitly targeted by terrorists, I was one of my high school’s hosts for a group of Israeli kids, including a Jewish girl and a Druze boy. None of my classmates understood the idea that they kissed their families goodbye and told them they loved them before going to the market or the theater.
They did that because they might never come home.
It’s an immense, tangled awfulness on both sides. Neither Exodus nor The Haj is the full story.
Comment By: Josh Olson
June 12th, 2017 at 12:17 pm
Towards the end of his life, Charlton Heston showed up at the American Cinematheque for a Q&A after a screening of Planet of the Apes. I’d wager 90% of the people in the house despised the man’s politics and his work with the NRA. I think one person made some comment about politics, and got booed by the crowd. You gotta learn to separate the work from the jerk, or you’ll never get to enjoy ANY art.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
June 12th, 2017 at 1:18 pm
I would have loved to meet Charlton Heston.
And, for that matter, John Wayne.
Comment By: Amy Hays Craane
June 12th, 2017 at 5:17 pm
I’m so sick of the word mansplaining. It’s being overused by people determined to be offended. There is plenty of actual mansplaining going on, it’s just not going on here, or on Jim Wright’s wall, or David Gerrold’s wall. Just sayin’.
Comment By: Amy Hays Craane
June 12th, 2017 at 5:17 pm
Hopefully that will head off any accusations. Probably not, though. You know how people are. ð
Comment By: Josh Olson
June 12th, 2017 at 5:17 pm
It’s also being MIS-used a lot, which, ironically, creates the situation in which sometimes people have to have the meaning of the word, er… explained to them.
Comment By: CR McDonough
June 12th, 2017 at 6:40 pm
In regards to public statements about the Israeli/Palestinian “situation,” what infuriates me is the attitude that (depending on political spectrum) either Israel or the entire set of Palestinian factions can do no wrong.
And, BTW (not directed to you, Adam), to criticize the Israeli government’s actions on any point does not make one either anti-Israeli or antisemetic.