BlackBook: If there were ever a litmus test for how to make female superheroes into feminist icons, it’s Patty Jenkins’ adaptation of Wonder Woman. Led by Gal Gadot as the titular hero, the film checked off all the boxes it needed to, made nearly a billion dollars globally, and, most importantly, showed the world that female warriors can fight in outfits that don’t look like Princess Leia’s slave outfit.
21 comments:
This is a very interesting article that really calls out how male designers like to sexualize a lot of costumes, and that is the problem with this industry. There is an obvious conversation that needs to take place here, because, in all honesty, all design teams should have both a male and a female opinion on the major things. Since this movie also stands for a lot of feminist movements, with a kick-ass female lead, it hurts to see a male design team and a male director decide to sexualize that because often they believe that is what will sell more and bring in the big bucks. That is also part of the problem with Hollywood in the first place, and just when we think a movie like "Wonder Woman," will come along and change the industry, male teams decide to take us back three steps in our progress. Hopefully, this will change as the discussion continues.
This whole situation is a clear example of what happens when there aren't any women in the room. Patty Jenkins paved ways in terms of superhero movies with Wonder Woman and Gal Godot's performance as a woman who can be smart, attractive, strong, clever, and also save the world. One would think that DC would have realized that after the success of Wonder Woman compared to the rest of the DC movies that maybe having a woman dictate the portrayal of women on film is probably more profitable and well-received throughout. The male designers of the show thought this would give them edge, but its simply creating an uncomfortable change to objectification from a feminist film to a once again male led superhero movie. Its disheartening to know that there will be a backtrack from Wonder Woman to the Justice League, but the more people talk about these small sexist micro aggressions, the faster DC may realize that diversity and progressiveness should be on the forefront of their tasks.
I went to go see Justice League the other day- Over the course of the movie, I definitely felt like Wonder Woman's costume had shrunk on her since we last saw her. Further, there were literally random shots of Gal Gadot's butt in some scenes. I truly cannot believe DC dropped the ball like this. Wonder Woman was an absolutely incredible movie in every way- Snyder took the budding legacy that DC is trying to build in the film industry and crushed it under his heel, oversaturating the movie with objectified women in every scene. I genuinely believed that the film industry was beginning to move past its sexist shortcomings, especially with recent events regarding Harvey Weinstein starting an avalnache of outings in the industry, but clearly, the industry hasn't grown nearly as much as I was under the impression it had. What confounds me, though, is really that a whole team of people approved this movie for release. Like what the fuck!? Who watches this movie, especially in our current social climate, and thinks it is a good idea to produce, let alone release, such mysoginistic filfth as this movie!?
It is really interesting to see the contrast between the two costume designs. Even though both show skin, one gives me a connotation of power, confidence, and strength; however, the other costume designs from Justice League give me a Jane from Tarzan, vulnerable vibe. I have to admit both styles of costumes have some similarities including exposed skin and tight fitting forms, but even then the Wonder Woman costumes designed by Lindy Hemming seem practical with the chosen metals and protected stomach whereas in the Justice League costumes I see more skin than cloth. It makes sense that an all male design team came up with “sexualized warrior outfits”, much like all female art and depiction in films, the female role is to be observed under the male gaze. Everything about a woman’s film character and looks are defined by what the male audience wants to see and fantasize about.
This is just so frustrating to see all the hard work done in Wonder Woman by Patty Jenkins and Lindy Hemming to properly and realistically cloth the women warriors in a way that still stays within the original style of outfit without just making it sexual. They have armor covering their stomachs and upper torso - so their vital organs are protected - but they still have the mobility they need, which is exactly what you want when you're going into battle. But then you look at the Zach Snyder and Michael Wilkinson costumes and it’s just scantily clad women. Sure, their abs are really impressive and the outfit can show it off, but their skirts are also shorter and the one woman sitting down literally has a hole in her amor over her sternum. Why. Everything about the outfit shrunk and made you focus more on her sexuality than on how she is a warrior. Even their legs aren't as protected. This is just another example of men looking to sexualize female fighter on screen when, if you just asked a woman, you can have fierce, beautiful, and functional costumes without removing 80% of the outfit. I really thought we were moving past this.
The differences between those two designs are pretty startling. It’s particularly interesting that at first glance, the design elements aren’t necessarily that different, but the visual impact of the changes that *were* made are significant.
I was so pleased with the way the Amazons were portrayed in Wonder Woman. They were strong, capable, and beautiful in part because of that strength. They were warriors *and* feminine. Their armor made some sort of practical sense – it was protective and they could move in it.
There’s something about the difference between these two costumes, something that’s difficult to put my finger on (more skin, the purposeful, impracticality of bare stomachs?) that betrays that beauty through strength idea. These new Amazons’ beauty isn’t rooted in strength… it’s rooted in being dressed up as objects of desire.
It seems like such an obviously tone deaf choice on the part of the director and designer. Having seen Wonder Woman and being aware of the conversations that are going on in the world, why would they choose to step backwards?
It is very interesting to see the difference between a woman designer and a man designer on what they think are important in designs. Lindy Hemming did not sexualize the Amazons in Wonder Woman, but made an outfit that looks accurate to what a woman would wear if they were in that situation. They clearly would need protective armor and to have part of their body covered so they would not get as hurt. In the Justice League those costumes are very sexualized and are just not practical. They would not put a man in an costume like that if he was going into battle. He would have on much more protective armor and have more of his body covered. This is proof right here that there needs to be more women in higher positions in films that are shown around the world and seen by so many young people. Young girls need to be shown that they can be superheroes without needing to look super sexy and use their bodies to get what they want. We need more movies like Wonder Woman.
Wow. What disappointing costume choices. Just think about the practicality of those new costumes. That is no armor. The first thing any enemy would do would be to disembowel that Amazon! The leather strips are also actually practical in the first movie to protect against sword slices while still allowing movement and true to the original comic. The new skirts, however, are just there so it doesn’t look like these women are just wearing bikinis (which they are). It’s interesting that male gaze is so obvious once you start to look for it. The first time I noticed, was watching the original Star Trek. It was so obvious with the lighting, the focused camera work, and dramatic pauses, but I didn’t notice in modern things for a long while. While watching Wonder Woman, it was so nice to NOT have male gaze present, that it was fairly shocking. I want more movies that can avoid that male gaze, especially the movies that are aimed at female audiences.
Wow that's pretty infuriating. I love when the film industry takes very clear steps backwards within months of having taken those same steps forward. I remember seeing Wonder Woman this summer and being actively impressed by how the Amazon armor was practical and protective while still looking good. Admittedly, I'm no experts on armor or costumes in general, but the costumes from Justice League look about as protective as a crop top, short shorts, and boots would be. So on a Friday night, I'm about as protected from angry sword-wielding warriors as these Amazonian women are, but I am far less likely to run into the aforementioned warriors. I also just legitimately don't understand why they didn't just reuse the costumes from Wonder Woman. It's highly possible that I'm just stupid and don't fully understand the copyrighting, but it seems as though DC has partial rights to those costumes, and could have just bought the rest of the rights from the designer in order to prevent wasting time, money, and resources on entirely new costumes for the same group of actresses. In addition to just being very impractical and not at all protective, these new costumes are pretty ugly in my opinion.
Ugh. Here we go again. I think I am most disappointed by the fact that yet another group of men got together to assume things about women. No! That a major corporation hired a group of all men to decide the fate of how a women is interpreted. For the Wonder WOMEN movie. I just don't get it. In a world that is putting more and more of a light on the diversity in our industry, things like all male creative teams still happen. Somehow gender gets left behind in this fight. Getting to the costumes, it's just as much as a mystery. Why would anyone go into battle wearing such little protection. I'm no expert, but even I know that with those costumes you are just asking to get stabbed in your bare stomach. Sure, maybe it's hot wear they are, but I think everyone would agree they would rather sweat a little than be vulnerable to such stabbing.
This is a perpetual problem of our society. And in this case is especially frustrating as Patty Jenkins version of Wonder Woman has been so inspiring to women and girls all over the world. And instead of going into the perpetual rant of how it’s the patriarchy, because we all know what it is and why it is happening, I think that instead I’d like to petition that this is further proof that we as women need to do everything we can together to get more women into the industry and more women into positions that allow them to make decisions for good. Then maybe alongside the changing tide of society right now we might be able to actually cause change. Progress is made slowly with several steps forward and one step back as aggravating as it is, persisting real change in the world is not an easily managed task.
Literally Vanessa summed up what I was thinking, here we go again or this is why we can't have nice things. We took some pretty great steps forward with Wonder Woman. The costumes were anchored in historical fact and application, and were really inspiring to read about and observe. I haven't seen Justice League, and currently have no plans to do so, but this comparison is utterly frustrating. As "sad sexualized ideas of what men think female warriors would wear to battle," these costumes are just so utterly disappointing. Why oh why would they have strayed from something that was so widely celebrated and looked amazing? Does anyone actually think that someone would want to go into battle with half of their body exposed? Of course thats not to say that didn't happen, but the amazons are supposed to be the be all end all of military might and stratagem--I think they would have noticed that their midsections were primed for someone to easily stab them? Get more women in the room--this is just embarrassing and unacceptable.
How infuriating. There are several obvious problems with the Justice League outfits, and I think pretty much everyone - except, apparently, the Justice League creative team - can spot them. Beyond the re-sexualizing of the Amazon warriors, there are several other issues that these outfits raise. I personally wonder at the lack of continuity displayed by the outfits from Wonder Woman to Justice League. With such a strong image established of the Amazons, why tamper with what has been received so successfully by audiences and critics alike? Also, Wonder Woman was not released that long ago, so one might assume that the portrayal of the Amazons in that film would still be relatively fresh in audience's minds, especially since Justice League is looking to draw on much of the Wonder Woman fanbase with her inclusion in the film. Finally, I have to wonder if the Justice League creative team thought that perhaps no one would notice. If that's the case, I would be surprised if they were thinking at all.
Perhaps it was the perpetual optimist in me, but I simply assumed that whatever designer would be assigned to Justice League that they would reuse (or at least only mildly reinterpret) Lindy Hemming's original designs for the Amazons so that we would still feel as if we were in the same world that was inhabited in Wonder Woman earlier this year. It hasn't been told to us whether there was just zero communication at all or if this was simply Michael Wilkinson willfully choosing to move in the same old direction we've seen a billion times. Either way, though, these new costumes are (rightfully) rage inducing. So far the only defense I have heard is that these are supposed to be "prehistoric" Amazons and that is why they're half naked with no proper armor construction or abdominal protection. Even if this is true, though, prehistoric peoples still wanted to keep their entrails from spilling out all over the battle field as much as could be managed. So instead we have the typical misogynistic laziness that we usually get in action films tainting something that was constructed out of feminist excellence.
My favorite thing in the world is a female warrior clad in what is essentially a bathing suit – such that her torso (containing those unnecessary internal organs) in unprotected from the monsters/enemy fighters she faces down. I cannot describe how ecstatic I am to see one of my favorite movies with a brilliant costume design based off of actual roman armor that actually can protect people from swords reimagined by a man to increase the sexual appeal of a race of exclusively female warriors. Men really do make everything – especially movies targeted towards a female audience portraying strong female characters – better. Thank God for the gift of the male gaze so that we can finally objectify the history of one of the first female superheroes in the big screen. I cannot imagine anything this design could have done (or not done) to make this feature film a more enjoyable experience. I was looking forward to this movie, and now I’m dreading it. Yay.
You would think that after Wonder Woman was such a success they wouldn’t try to mess with a good thing, yet here we are. Yet another incidence of the comically impractical female armor. You see this everywhere from movies, to TV, and especially video games. Why bother putting a woman in armor at all if you’re going to leave the top and her chest and her entire stomach exposed? No matter how good of a fighter you are one hit to the stomach wearing that and you’re gone. All joking aside I’m very disappointed with this costume choice, but I’m not surprised given the difference in directors between the two films. This is a perfect example of the male gaze influencing the appearance of female characters. Jenkins’ Amazons in Wonder Woman were designed to be fighters, while Snyder’s were designed to be sex objects. It’s probably too late at this point to go back and change this, but if there is time I hope that they see how women are responding to this and fix their mistake.
I just saw this movie yesterday, and I saw wonder woman a few months ago. I knew about the issues with the outfits going in, and so I was ready to be angry when the scene came that they were wearing them. Look, it was annoying, and there seemed to be some changes in the wonder woman costume as well. There were some times during justice league where I felt like her whole butt was out and I never noticed that in wonder woman. I think the biggest issue with the two movies is that one eliminates the male gaze, and one is dependent on the male gaze to survive. Justice league is a "man movie". Granted there are tons of women who like them, but it marketed toward men. There are a whole slew of issues with that, but the presence of the male gaze and what that means for a woman is really substantial. In wonder woman I felt like I was watching a whole movie about a girl who was only operating around other women. She didn't change the way she acted around men. And in justice league it was like everything was tainted by men, and what they wanted from women, rather than who the women actually were. There was a shift, it was small, and un noticed by the man I saw the movie with, but noticed because I do it. We change when men are in the room. We are less free, more calculated, and trying to be their vision of a woman, rather than our own, and thats the wonder woman i saw last night.
I am always disappointed and usually pretty angry at how female heroes are presented in media. When the trailer for Wonder Woman came out, I was honestly pretty confused over the whole no-body-hair, bald-as-a-naked-mole-rat thing. This is a woman who has lived on a magic island, away from “civilization,” amongst ONLY WOMEN, yet she still has the skin of a freshly-waxed seal. I was pissed. This movie and premise was the perfect excuse to begin to introduce body hair on women into mainstream media, something that is incredibly important to our advancement as a society. they could have slipped a little armpit hair and leg hair in there, people would have been shocked for the first 15 minutes of the movie, then they would get over it. Or not, but the shock that choice would cause some people would be well worth the up side of representing real women as strong, powerful, independent, capable, role models who have actual human bodies. When I saw the movie, yes, I was distracted by her lack of hair, her obvious makeup (especially eyeliner), and high heeled boots (who the HECK thinks high heels are the most practical to fight in?), I realized that this character was a total badass and a step in the right direction, compromise that would please a large audience and help to work our way towards a more “extreme” (as some would call it) representation of woman and feminism. This new movie, no. Disappointed but not surprised. I guess it is impossible for people to create something good and beneficial without taking two steps back next. Can we please just have some success for feminism? This costume design is humiliation to the Amazons.
So I am huge fan of comic books and often am bewildered at the hyper sexualization of female costumes in comics along with the fact that most comic book costumes are just horrendously impractical. D.C. With the Christopher Nolon Batman trilogy tried to bring the comics books into a more relatable world and that ball was dropped until Wonder Woman came out and I honestly thought to myself damn cool armor that actually looks like armor on females that a breath of fresh air. Looking at Justice League costumes though just make me think where the the awesome armor go, is this a 90s tv show. Why can't we get past the idea that female warrior's costumes need to be sexy? I could kind understand if part of the character concept in a fem fatale idea, but these Amazon warriors just aren't that, they are bad ass warriors.this is a simple idea but or at least it should be.
Not having seen Justice League yet, this is the first time I am hearing and seeing this. It is just sad because the costumes for the amazons in Wonder Woman are so spectacular. They look really astounding and are actually something I could see as being worn into battle for the most part. The leave little exposure to vital areas and generally are pretty covering as most armor has been. There is still obviously some issues with it in terms of if it actually would be used in battle but its much better than what I just saw next to it. Its so sad that they changed the whole look for the amazons not only because I can’t see how one would translate into the other as they supposedly would have in a linear time frame. They just look like they could be slaves due to the lack of clothing which supposedly would protect them but they could even be perceived as bondage slaves because it’s not even full leather carcass but leather straps that make up the clothing for the most part. It’s just very disappointing and degrading.
It's honestly too bad that the maker of "Justice League" had to take such a cliched and oversexualized approach to the Amazon's costumes given how much progress was made through the blockbuster success of "Wonder Woman." Honestly, what do they hope to accomplish through the blatant backtracking of the Amazon's costumes? A couple more tickets sold? Based on the reviews, I would think that the creative process of justice league could've used a little bit more plot and character development, and a little less sexism. That's just my opinion, we'll see what the box office thinks. That's all WB seems to be concerned with, in any case. I look forward to the day we make blockbusters for quality and spectacle rather than profit, and when female heroes are portrayed with the consideration and realism of your standard batman and Iron man. They deserve it, they're certainly just as interesting, if not more so.
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