Lethality
Most successful team in your lifetime
- Oct 23, 2014
- 38,592
- 44,472
- AFL Club
- Hawthorn
- Other Teams
- Melbourne Hawks, NY Rangers
- Banned
- #1
An interesting read from the AV Club about how male and female love interests differ, even in supposedly feminist superhero films. In recent successful comic book movies, the likes of Mary Jane, Lois Lane, Rachel Dawes are the female love interests who represent only one part of the male hero's life, yet when it comes to the male partner, it seems the heroine's entire journey is seen and characterised through him. This is certainly the case in Wonder Woman, the latest from DC.
http://www.avclub.com/article/steve-trevor-joss-whedon-and-men-getting-way-wonde-257124
Steve Trevor may not be a household name like Lois Lane or Mary Jane Watson, but like those characters, he’s been a staple of Wonder Woman’s story from her very first appearance in All-Star Comics #8. Steve’s plane crash landing on Paradise Island is a key part of Wonder Woman’s origin story, in much the same way Jor-El sending Kal off in a space bassinet is a key part of Superman’s. So it only makes sense that Steve would have a major role to play in the first-ever big screen take on Wonder Woman, where he’s winningly brought to life by Chris Pine.
Though I’m hesitant to judge anyone too harshly by an unproduced script that was written more than 10 years ago, the excerpts represent the sort of Wonder Woman film many feared the first female-led superhero property of the cinematic universe era would be—one filtered largely through the perspective of her male love interest. Whedon’s script uses Steve Trevor as a snarky POV character, and—from the limited excerpts at least—it seems as interested in Steve’s reaction to Diana as it is in Diana herself.
Still, even though Steve never threatens to overshadow Diana, her relationship with him overshadows her relationships with just about every other character—and that’s disheartening. While a male hero like Spider-Man can be motivated by both his love for Mary Jane and the moral code imparted to him by his Uncle Ben, Diana isn’t granted those kinds of layered, complex emotional connections. In her final battle, she’s thinking of Steve and Steve alone—not, say, her beloved aunt and mentor whose untimely death has relatively little impact on her arc.
http://www.avclub.com/article/steve-trevor-joss-whedon-and-men-getting-way-wonde-257124
Steve Trevor may not be a household name like Lois Lane or Mary Jane Watson, but like those characters, he’s been a staple of Wonder Woman’s story from her very first appearance in All-Star Comics #8. Steve’s plane crash landing on Paradise Island is a key part of Wonder Woman’s origin story, in much the same way Jor-El sending Kal off in a space bassinet is a key part of Superman’s. So it only makes sense that Steve would have a major role to play in the first-ever big screen take on Wonder Woman, where he’s winningly brought to life by Chris Pine.
Though I’m hesitant to judge anyone too harshly by an unproduced script that was written more than 10 years ago, the excerpts represent the sort of Wonder Woman film many feared the first female-led superhero property of the cinematic universe era would be—one filtered largely through the perspective of her male love interest. Whedon’s script uses Steve Trevor as a snarky POV character, and—from the limited excerpts at least—it seems as interested in Steve’s reaction to Diana as it is in Diana herself.
Still, even though Steve never threatens to overshadow Diana, her relationship with him overshadows her relationships with just about every other character—and that’s disheartening. While a male hero like Spider-Man can be motivated by both his love for Mary Jane and the moral code imparted to him by his Uncle Ben, Diana isn’t granted those kinds of layered, complex emotional connections. In her final battle, she’s thinking of Steve and Steve alone—not, say, her beloved aunt and mentor whose untimely death has relatively little impact on her arc.
