Winter of my discontent: Inaugural edition feat. Goethe throwback

Photographed by Ffion on the flickr.

Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom?, but we hope it, we know it.

(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.)

Honestly, I could do, like, three more Goethe Months, and maybe someday I will, but for now, I hate January and I want to do something about it.

The Wonder Woman project helped me appreciate and understand her better; the William S. Burroughs project opened me up to new ideas and biographical facts I’d never known nor even heard of; and the NSFW November project — well, the NSFW November project had boobs.

Photographed by Eros Turannos on the flickr.

So this January I will be seeking out deep, positive messages about Winter along with photographs that show me more than bleak snow and the dull, same ol’-same ol’ that the cold weather serves up to me in my perception, and try to draw some conclusions about just why exactly I wake up on January 1st feeling particularly low and the mood does not lift until late February.

69 Days of Wonder Woman, Day 47: Wunderoos and declaration

Over it. I’m done. I’ve reached the end of caring about this 69 Days of Wonder Woman thing. I started out not liking Wonder Woman, I like her okay now, I understand the things I don’t like about a woman being the strong-rescuer-type, and the attributes, conscious and subconscious, in myself which I dislike by disliking Wonder Woman. I know what to work on and what to try and stop being afraid of.

Now I just have all these pictures and links that I no longer consider relevant, but I also have, like, twenty-two days left in this project. We’ll see if I do any more. I’m calling this one, at least from the audit perspective. Stick a fork in it. It’s done.

69 Days of Wonder Woman: Day 44, Medication time

via.

Click to enlarge, print, and color. Very soothing, color crayons.

69 Days of Wonder Woman: Day 43, Maximum minimal

via.

“Basically it’s a distillation. It’s taking things about [Wonder Woman] that are great and the things that have made her an icon and discarding the things that are less important.”

(Joss Whedon. Interview, 2005.)

He was talking about his Wonder Woman film script. The project currently languishes in development hell.

69 Days of Wonder Woman: Day 41, Wonder Woman is the “Secret Self” inside every woman

via bohemea on the tumblr.

Wonder Woman is the “Secret Self” inside every woman — the beautiful, unafraid, tenacious and powerful woman we know resides within us. She is the antithesis of “victim.” …

While I am forever identified with the role, Wonder Woman belongs to us all. She lives inside us. She’s the symbol of the extraordinary possibilities that inhabit us, hidden though they may be — that, I think, is the important gift Wonder Woman offers women.

(Lynda Carter. “Wonder Woman Can Save the World.” Introduction, Wonder Woman No. 600. DC Comics: August 2010.)

Due to Lynda’s introduction and the all-out anniversarydom of the issue, I bought Wonder Woman #600 in July in Couer d’Alene on vacation, specifically for this project. I plan way ahead … and then I procrastinate.

69 Days of Wonder Woman: Day 39, Are you attracted to needy, damaged, or helpless people?

I hate myself for disliking Steve Trevor and thinking him weak when all he does is honestly need Wonder Woman’s help in this panel, and I hate myself for being left cold by the role-reversal, male-damsel-in-distress trope established by female-centric comic books, for which they are rightly lauded. The whole point of this project was to prod at my dislike of this exact scenario. So, as with anything we hate, we have to examine whether we are despising an aspect of ourselves in the object of our objection.

On my and Diana Prince’s Christmas wish list, yes?

69 Days of Wonder Woman, Day 38: Who the world needs me to be

All-Star Comics No. 8, featuring the first appearance of Wonder Woman, debuted in December, 1941. It hit the stands amidst the tumult following the Japanese strafing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th. After President Roosevelt’s Infamy Speech and declaration of war, patriotic fervor was wild. The response to the fortuitously back-storied and red-white-and-blue-attired Wonder Woman on the team of the Justice Society was overwhelming. The following month, January, she appeared in Sensation Comics No. 1, this time on the cover. Six months later, United States involvement in the second world war at full swing, Wonder Woman’s own title comic line debuted. It has not ceased publication since.

I’d like to later do a thing comparing Wonder Woman to all the Joan of Arc propoganda through the decades but I need to make dinner. Catch you on the flip.

69 Days of Wonder Woman, Day 37: World AIDS Day

via Michael J. Faris.

World AIDS Day 2010. A day before heads-up. Try and raise awareness tomorrow.

69 Days of Wonder Woman: Day 36, Muppet connections

Now this is the quickest way to my heart.

One-way ticket, express train. Complementary snacks and beverages.

Lynda Carter appeared on Episode 36 of The Muppet Show as herself, Lynda Carter. As with the Roger Moore “Bond” episode, where he appeared as himself, much to the consternation of the cast who were hoping for spy action, the Muppets’ running gag was to continually try to draw out Wonder Woman.

Appearing in a sketch as Wonder Pig, Miss Piggy asks Lynda if she regrets not bringing her costume along. All the Muppets take superhero lessons to impress Wonder Woman and Fozzie learns the value of bullet-deflecting bracelets.

Another Muppet venture, the Children’s Television Workshop, referred to the character of Wonder Woman in the recent Sesame Street “Preschool Musical” episode (a parody of High School Musical), when little Mariella up there sang about dress-up and how it made her in to someone else, someone that reflected the dreams and desires of who she wanted to be. Mariella spun until she changed in to the above outfit, and she remained in her superhero costume for the rest of the sketch.

Yesterday, Paolo was taking Corinnette back over to the coast for school, so I slid down to C-town to keep Miss D some company. We watched Muppets Take Manhattan on the television and folded laundry. “Sea Breeze Soap — Use it so you don’t stink.” It was truly wonderful. Besides the great writing and the actual entertainment value, I think that what makes the Muppets special for me is their relatability, their familiarity, and the comfort of their consistency. Maybe this is part of what has made Wonder Woman, too, an enduringly popular character, a standout hero in the genre, and a classic element of how we tell certain types of stories: if a girl is going to triumph, then she is Wonder Woman. “You’d have to be Wonder Woman to get all that done!” There is something special about that.

I need to give her credit for this: people love Wonder Woman, not only in comics but also in her pantheon of moving viewing material. They come back to her again and again and feel retro and nostalgic about it. I respect that, because I have things that I, too, love in that way.

69 Days of Wonder Woman, Days 9 – 35

I was wayyyy too lazy about actually posting up my thoughts each day on the reading and research I was doing on Wonder Woman and I’m playing catch-up now. In order to make up for that lost time and have something properly worthwhile to represent the span of days lost, here’s a little drawing and expounding on the Amazonian from superfly amazing Adam Hughes, whose Catwoman work has been spotlighted here numerous times in the past.

Wonder Woman is the greatest comic-book superheroine of all time, and I can prove it with math. If you need proof of Wonder Woman’s stature as the greatest comic-book superheroine of all-time, then, PLEASE, go add up all the issues of any other female character and see if you come close to SIX HUNDRED.

No other female character has remained in print, consistently, since the Second World War. Think about that. Are there ANY? From ANY company? Nope. Sometimes, simple statistics speak volumes: Wonder Woman has been around, month-in-month-out, for almost 70 years. How many heroines (or heroes!) can boast such a feat? How many PUBLICATIONS have been in print since WWII?

She has inspired, intrigued, and entertained – NON-STOP – through 5 American wars, 13 U.S. presidential administrations, and she’s even outlasted regimes like the Soviet Union. Wonder Woman endures because she’s the best of the best, the baddest of the bad, the bluest of the blue.

(Hughes, Adam. Posted by Alex Segura via the DC Universe Blog.

Dang if that is not a convincing argument. Actually what I’ve found is that I am growing to like her the same as I do any of my regular favorites (perhaps with more respectful acknowledgement than, say, fervent love), and wonder why I didn’t before. Like it’s not even a big deal.

69 Days of Wonder Woman, Day 8: Super Dictionary, “I am against the people who make trouble.”

It’s interesting how quickly, even before the infamous code descended and cut out some of the popular gory lines, comics became dominated by superhero/crimefighter stories, due of course to the mad success of Superman. Sure, there have always been pulp adventure and horror comics, but when most people even think of comic books, it’s the heroes with which they associate the genre. The writers are driven by the publishers, who are driven by sales, which are driven by readers — so the natural conclusion is that a story about a badass goodhearted hero who fights crime is what the audience wants to read.

Drawing by Anthony Tan via fyeahww on the tumblr.

Comics are such manifestly wish-fulfillment-meets-folktale, flimsy-and-touching paper myths, that I think there’s a beautiful lesson here: we want to read about the hero who fights crime, who is “against” troublemakers and waiting with her golden lasso to show them what real trouble is, because we, ourselves, wish to do that. We wish to have a secret identity and fight for those who have no voice, to put a stop to injustices against our fellow men. All these generations of readers have wished to make the world better, not just for accolades or girls but because it is the right thing to do. And that’s really a great and inspiring thing. It’s sweet and charming and kind of triumphant, isn’t it?

69 Days of Wonder Woman, Day 7: Why then, o brawling love, o loving hate, o anything of nothing first create?

(This was all news to me. So the theories advanced here are kind of fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants.)

Wonder Woman’s archnemesis Cheetah was apparently introduced in No. 6.1 of the original, Marston-penned Wonder Woman line (1943). The original Cheetah was Priscilla Rich.

via the wiki, Cheetah’s first appearance, 1943. Cover art by Harry Peter.

Priscilla Rich was depicted as a young, insecure debutante who suffered from a split personality developed because of her inferiority complex. Following a benefit dinner, Ms. Rich’s alternate personality became dominant, triggered by an encounter with Wonder Woman, whose superiority to earth women activated Ms. Rich’s coping mechanism for her low self-esteem. This other self, Cheetah, continues to come out from time to time to try and kill Diana, foil her plans for good, etc.

I noted with interest in researching her that, in a lot of the panels I read, it seems that Ms. Rich’s alter ego, Cheetah, actually hates the Priscilla personality almost as much as she dislikes Wonder Woman.

Priscilla retreats to her room and collapses before her makeup mirror. There she sees an image of a woman dressed like a cheetah. “Horrors!” she cries, as she gazes at her evil inner-self for the first time.

(the wiki.)

“Don’t you know me?” replies the reflection. “I am the REAL you — the Cheetah — a treacherous, relentless huntress!” The image commands her to fashion a Cheetah costume. “From now on,” intones the reflection, “when I command you, you shall go forth dressed like your TRUE self and do as I command you…”

(Ibid.)

It is not terribly difficult to see metaphors here for female cattiness. I think it goes back to what I wrote about earlier, the empty need for women to best each other. Ms. Rich and Wonder Woman had no actual beef: why did Ms. Rich create one? Because she felt insecure.

And why does Cheetah hate herself almost as much as she hates Wonder Woman?

I think because she despises her own weakness, and, as Cheetah, she sees her Priscilla personality as hampering her goal to become the greatest woman alive.

So a) she makes something out of nothing because b) she feels badly about herself, doubly over. That’s crazy and yet so true and typical.

She does not want to, but she must. Why? It is so unnecessary, just as it is unnecessary for women to gang up on one another in real life, too. But they always do.

Final note: the IGN ranked Cheetah in 2009 as the 69th Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time, which is great synchronicity for our 69-day project.

69 Days of Wonder Woman, Day 6: Insight from beautiful and brilliant Australian performance artist Evelyn Hartogh

Brisbane-based performance artist Evelyn Hartogh photographed by misteriddles on the da.

‘Even Superheroes get the blues,’ Evelyn Hartogh, aka Wonder Woman, tells Graham Redfern.

For about 15 years, Evelyn Hartogh has been pulling on the iconic bulletproof bracelets … of her alter ego, the feminist superhero Wonder Woman.

… the Amazonian princess was the perfect fit for the performance artist’s humanist ideals.

Photographed by Alicia Lane, 2006.

But behind the comedic performances and the bright red boots, Hartogh’s affinity with Wonder Woman has taken an ironic twist.

“Everyone has to put on a strong face to the world and everyone has their own problems,” she says. “That’s maybe why Wonder Woman is so appealing, because we all feel the pressure to be more than we really are.”

(Redfern, Graham. “Fighting Personal Demons: Interview.” 5 Dec 2007. The Courier Mail. via Evelyn Hartogh‘s official website.)

“Mopping Bartleme Galleries” by Ian Wadley, 1993.

Extremely positive thing that I can admit I dig about Wonder Woman: her iconism — ladies like her and want to be her. I can appreciate that because I support anything that makes women want to stand up for themselves and acknowledge their potential might instead of being self-critical and predictably needy.

Added insight from Ms. Hartogh: ladies understand the tremendous pressure Wonder Woman is under to achieve and to be the topmost and the Bestest in the Westest because they themselves are trying constantly to score Outstanding in every category while juggling all their responsibilities; they recognize that she, like them, is a champion with a plight.

Photographed by Alicia Lane, 2005.

Taking it one step further: when we read Wonder Woman and all the odds are against her but she pulls it out of the bag at the end because, hello, she is Wonder Woman — we can reassure ourselves that we, too, will pull it out of the bag at the end, because, hello, we are wonderful.

I can totally hang with that.

Please do check out Ms. Hartogh’s official website, hit her up on the myspace (from whence most of these pictures hail), and take her live performance videos on the youtube for a spin. She is thought-provoking, playful, deep and awesome!

Flashback Friday — Self-audit (finally starting it up again) and Advice: FROM me ABOUT Zooey Deschanel, totally SFW!

This post originally appeared on Dec 2, 2009, at 9:57 PM.

Grand news. The parent-teacher conference went wonderfully!, beyond my wildest dreams!, and I think I may even have snowed kidlet’s teacher in to buying that I am an adult, an elaborate new con on which I’ve been working, whose growing success at the grocery, church, and among new acquaintances is beginning to perturb me and make me check for crow’s feet.

via zooeydeschanel.us

On the way back from picking up the kidlet and Special K from the park where they played while I was at the conference because I was busy conferencing on top secret conferencey shit, Katohs and I were discussing all things fantastic, adorable, unique, and vintage-ish, as we are wont to do, and she said, “I came to a point in my life where I realized I was never going to get to be Zooey Deschanel, and I was like, ‘What’s the point in going on?'”

via zooeydeschanel.us (again)

I replied, “But that’s okay. All we can do is try to inject a little Zooey into each day, like be inspired by her energy!” advancing one of my typical over-optimistic, all-god’s-chillun-got-hands, hippie-crazy-go-nuts solutions that often barely even mean anything in the final analysis. When I am up against a tough point in conversation with a friendoh who is downohs, I sometimes morph into Dharma from Dharma and Greg — cryptic comments about the universe and energy and destiny just fall out of my mouth. But I think, actually, this time I managed to string together some pretty good advice!

via zooeydeschanel.us (again)

I think we women often admire a quality in another woman and somehow, whether it is something ugly and atavistic, or something society has trained us to do that we can more easily shake off, we want that quality for ourselves instead of simply accepting with grace and admiration what a lucky thing it is that that other woman has the quality we like and how fortunate we have been to experience it. We are a covetous bunch, we ladies. “If I could sing like her; if I had hair like hers; if only I had her body; her style; her car or career or cake serving set…”

via zooeydeschanel.us (again)

“…then?” What? Your life would be perfect? Never! There has never been a perfect, easy, or charmed life in the history of EVER! We are wasting such chances with our jealousy and poisonous reaction to a standout quality in another gal, blinded by our instant avarice: when something sticks out in your mind about another woman, ignore the negative instinct and instead seize a vital opportunity to connect with a woman, as two people. We need all to work on this.

Lost credit, one of my zillion pics back before I was wise enough to source

We have to love each other first, because then loving ourselves will come next, and then when you have so much going on already, it’s only natural that the love of whatever man or woman strikes your fancy will follow! (See, if the whole admire-other-women-and-love-them-for-the-reflection-of-the-creator-in-them-that-is-also-in-you bit didn’t work, then hopefully the it-will-make-your-crush-crush-back bit will. I’m new-agey but also very sneaky!)

Lost credit, one of my zillion pics back before I was wise enough to source (again)

None of this is to say Katohs was jealous. She was expressing admiration for Zooey Deschanel. But I think it’s interesting that our culture has conditioned a young woman, especially even one as bright and categorically outstanding as Special K, to, when she sees a woman she admires and idolizes, even joke about wanting to be her, rather than just be able to be like her. Weird people we all are or have been made to be. I’m trying to change, personally. I’m hoping it’s something that can be a choice.

Lost credit, one of my zillion pics back before I was wise enough to source (again)

Other highlights: over lunch at Thai House, I introduced Katohs to the concept and history of “spoonerisms;” kidlet told me flatly that she was going to marry Jude Law, and, when she did, I would need to build her a house for them to live in (knowing Jude Law and the rumors I have heard of his skeeviness this is entirely possible and I guess I had better start saving); and Special K and I determined that it is mainly okay to slap a baby if the baby is really, really annoying.

via zooeydeschanel.net

No babies were slapped in the writing of this self-audit.

edit: So this is the promised Flashback Friday post that picks up the thread of thought in the 69 Days of Wonder Woman: Day 5 post. It’s all about rejecting the modern standard of cattiness and pointless avarice and trading them for cooperation and admiration. I mean, Jesus Christ, we are playing right in to the hands of the machine with this bullshit behavior, ladies. If you’re all bound up in bitching each other out, then you’re not paying attention to what’s going on around you, which means you’re not trying to change anything, which means everything can stay its shitty same self, which means the machine wins. Do you see? Revolution! — won’t you please help me do it up right?

69 Days of Wonder Woman, Day 5: Fruitlessly turned against each other instead of joined in force

It seems to me that despite all our claims of girl power and sisterhood women are still our own worst enemies, and I do not have to ponder or prod at the why of that: it is manifestly so much easier to lay the blame for a situational upset or emotional turmoil at some other chick’s feet than to examine your own self.

Scanned by yours truly.

“We have met the enemy, and he is us” (Walt Kelly, Pogo creator, comic legend). You know?

And so we fruitlessly turn against each other instead of joining forces and really making new and great things happen, and the more often we do that, the less is ever truly resolved, and women end up with all these doubts and neuroses that we’ve unfairly placed on ourselves. We are all doing ourselves a bad turn. Like, why, on meeting someone equal to you in strength, would you need to best them instead of teaming up and being friends? Wouldn’t they understand you better than anyone else you’ve ever dealt with, and wouldn’t you better benefit from mutual friendship than from facing off? What a horrible instinct, to destroy what’s like you in order to be sure you are still alone and “The Best.”

Wait, I feel like I’ve written something about this before … I want to say it involved a picture of Zooey Deschanel looking twee with a pink ribbon.

(three or so minutes later)

Okay, found it. It’ll be today’s Flashback Friday, and it’ll be posted directly following this WW Day 5, inspired by and related to this post. And actually it works great because that was about my first parent-teacher conference for kidlet last year, and I just went to her first parent-teacher conference for this year yesterday.

Synchronicity: still for dinner.

69 Days of Wonder Woman, Day 4: Tools of the trade

“Wonder Woman is actually a dramatized symbol of her sex. She’s true to life — true to the universal characteristics of women everywhere. Her magic lasso is merely a symbol of feminine charm, allure, ‘oomph,’ attraction. Every woman uses that power on people of both sexes whom she wants to influence or control in any way. Instead of tossing a rope, the average woman tosses words, glances, gestures, laughter, and vivacious behavior. If her aim is accurate, she snares the attention of her would-be victim, man or woman, and proceeds to bind him or her with her charm.”

“Lasso of Truth” by Samurai Pet.

“Woman’s charm is the one bond that can be made strong enough to hold a man against all logic, common sense, or counterattack. The fact that many women fail to make strong enough lassos for themselves doesn’t deprive the lasso material of its native magic. The only thing is, you have to use enough charm to overcome your captive’s resistance.”

(William Moulton Marston, creator, qtd. in girlfriend Olive Richard’s Family Circle article “Our Women Are Our Future,” August 14, 1942.)

Michael Turner.

Disagree. Dislike. First of all, if I think someone is not as in to me as I am to them, I soundly give up: I really never expected them to be reciprocally interested in me to begin with and I hate admitting to having feelings, let alone letting those feelings make a fool of me. Nothing I hate more. I am supposed to be impervious and deflect all attention. Upping my game and maybe getting shot down again is the absolute last thing I would ever do. So the idea that I need to re-aim and throw my lasso again is round bullshit to me. No way am I going to tip my hand like that and risk that people know I Feel Ways About Things.

But, my sad and complicated shit aside, secondly and more widely applied, I also dislike the idea of telling chicks that you have all the charm you need, you just need to work harder because it sets up false expectations in women, who probably have enough going already without further blaming themselves for what they perceive to be failures in romance, and redoubling an effort that may be toward a pointless cause to boot. I believe the expression is “He’s just not that in to you,” yes? So what? Glance down the bar and see if someone is looking at you and quickly looks away. Oh, no, his collar isn’t popped and he does not know the cool jam on the jukebox? Talk to him anyway. You will be surprised.

“Old School Wonder Woman” by Lauren Montgomery.

I also don’t like the idea that I got to use some elusive yam-fried set of feminine tricks to get my way. What’s wrong with walking up and honestly asking for what I want from a man or woman? Why does it have to be couched in some charmy little game where I snare someone with an invisible rope? Why can’t I be like a man and straightforwardly address my needs in business and in social settings?

By quasilucid, via fyeahww.

Now how about this: “Woman’s charm is the one bond that can be made strong enough to hold a man against all logic.” Whoa, so even if my idea, the thing for which I’m campaigning and slinging my golden wily lasso, is crazy and illogical and against “common sense,” as long as I’m feminine enough, it’ll still work because by god and the grace of my “charm” I’ve roped that guy? Hell, no. No. Why would I a) want to do something illogical; b) decide to dishonestly employ a feminine wile instead of forthrightly putting a plan in motion; and b) use this imaginary “power” for evil, in a dishonest way that does wrong by some poor dude and the laws of logic? I don’t like any of that. I highly resist and even resent that.

The weird thing is, I don’t think, from the comics I’ve read, that Wonder Woman is like that at all. Marston says she’s the dramatized symbol of this binding feminine charm that he perceives, but I think he’s wrong. She’s straight-up, in the main, and an almost always equal player on a male-dominated planet. Wonder Woman is not walking around this world with a water bra and a bunch of batty-lashy tricks up her sleeve. And if by some shady necessity she is going about her business sidewise or in disguise, she is a bit by the seat of her pants and obviously unaccustomed to artifice. And the Lasso of Truth seems to run counter to the tricky charm lasso to which Marston analogizes non-wonder-women’s apparent powers. Truth, not some murky invisible binding charm that stickily works despite logic and sense. So, no. I realize that Marston was Wonder Woman’s creator, but it doesn’t make him right in my eyes. He said a lot of bullshit: why should I accept his interpretation of anything?

Seems I’m in the surprising position of defending Wonder Woman, from her own father.

Done for today.

69 Days of Wonder Woman, Day 3: Clothes make the (wo)man

The original Wonder Woman costume must surely rank high in the list of all-time great, iconic comic hero get-ups. Is this part of what puts me off?

Costumed (or semicostumed) heroes such as Wonder Woman and Superman, rather than the villains they fought or the outlaws rampant in crime comics, were the main objects of the Catholic Church’s early [1938] criticism of comic books, censure that began to take the form of a serious campaign against comics.

Bishop Noll explained that the NODL [National Organization for Decent Literature]* objected only to Wonder Woman’s costume. “There is no reason why Wonder Woman should not be better covered, and there is less reason why women who fall under her influence should be running around in bathingsuits,” Noll wrote.

(Hajdu, David. The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2008. Print. 75-78.)

I did not save a lick of info related to this pic, but from the moment I saw it, I thought she was about to turn in a circle and transform in to Wonder Woman. If you can help with credit, please do!

I guess it’s true that I never liked her costume much, but I’ve never found it any more all-that-scandalous than those of usual dat-ass suspects such as Power Girl, Emma Frost, or Huntress. (God, I hate Huntress, and there is nothing mysterious about it. She sucks. You will not be seeing a “__ Days of Huntress” around here, ever.) I don’t think I ever gave Wonder Woman’s outfit much thought in print … but I did contemplate it onscreen, watching the Lynda Carter television series. The TV Diana had so many great wardrobe changes, not only with that wonderful spinning-into-Wonder Woman sequence, but with gear tailored to her various missions: remember that slick diving suit?

Separate from my later feelings about Wonder Woman as a comic hero, as an early television role model I had nothing but full esteem for the character, in particular her outfit. I can remember sitting on the tacky rose-patterned velour daveneau on which I’d been conceived and on which I took my afternoon naps — and, depending on where we were living, sometimes slept at night on the hide-a-bed as well (very strange experience, since my parents were extremely up front with me about the couch-conception thing and seemed to find it heartwarming; I had more mixed feelings) — in the early afternoons before I even started school, watching syndicated re-runs of the program and being wowed. If I picture Lynda Carter in a blouse and blazer speaking confidently to a male coworker, I can still vividly feel kid-sweat from playing after lunch melting the sofa’s scratchy, worn fabric in to faint little clumps under my legs. She was so glamorous that she wore earrings everywhere. Everywhere. I loved that shit.

This is definitely a non-issue. The outfit has nothing to do with me shying away from Wonder Woman for the last mumble-muffleth years. Asked and answered!

In any case, Wonder Woman’s costume recently underwent a redesign. That’s her new look up there. I don’t really care one way or the other. I guess I’m a little wary and disappointed, as always, by tampering with classics, even ones of which I’m not a fan — and, in the same way that I was slightly rankled by the initial reinvention of Kate Kane as a Jewish lesbian in the Batwoman comic (Why not make her deaf and HIV-positive, to boot? How unforgivably uninclusive of you, Non-PC D.C.!), I feel not-just-vaguely pandered to. Then again, I like the new Batwoman line now and I am hunky-dory with the matchup of Renee Montoya with Kate. So maybe the costume redesign of Wonder Woman will be another in-my-face situation. Tough to gauge since I don’t know if I’ll come out of this project wanting to read her or not.

Longtime fans, what do you think of the change?

*more on those guys soon.

69 Days of Wonder Woman: Day 2

via fyeahww on the tumblr

“Wonder Woman — and the trend toward male acceptance of female love power which she represents — indicates that the first psychological step has actually been taken. Boys, young and old, satisfy their wish thoughts by reading comics. If they go crazy over Wonder Woman, it means they’re longing for a beautiful, exciting girl who’s stronger than they are. By their comics tastes ye shall know them! … Wonder Woman satisfies the subconscious, elaborately disguised desire of males to be mastered by a woman who loves them.

… Normal men retain their childish longing for a woman to mother them. At adolescence a new desire is added. They want a girl to allure them. When you put these two together, you have the typical male yearning that Wonder Woman satisfies.”

(Marston, William Moulton qtd. in “Our Women Are Our Future.” Richard, Olive.* The Family Circle. August 14, 1942.

Art by Phil Noto.

Marston was Wonder Woman’s creator, but that’s a story for another day. Also he lived in a polyamorous relationship with his wife and the author of this article, Ms. Richard, but that is also a story for another day. I’m pleased that this brief dive into psychology has already uncovered an aspect of Wonder Woman that leaves me cold, or that I feel I do not share. I don’t mind taking initiative (especially in certain aspects of the relationship), but I hate being the stronger one.

Denise Milani.

I dislike getting pushed in to the corner and forced to make decisions and ask repeatedly for a thing to be done that has to be done and can only be done by my partner. It makes me feel like a nagging bitch, which I fear and hate, and it’s not fair. I want to be equals, I want to feel like we can rely on one another. I don’t even necessarily want to be total equals; I don’t know that I’d want to completely submit to a partner, but it would be nice to relax and feel taken care of. Not to always worry, not to be the only one tuned in to the big picture — not to feel alone.

Art by quasilucid via fyeahww on the tumblr

And it starts out all nice-guy like, “No, you pick a restaurant. I don’t care where we go,” or, “Let’s get something you want to see,” but it builds in to this passive-aggressive thing where it turns to this slow-simmering resentment on both sides. Mine because I don’t want to be in charge, at all, ever, I hate feeling that way and I hate being forced to lose respect for someone I love; the other person’s because even though they have put me in this position of power it was really to avoid responsibility and now they’re feeling mutinous, the immaturity of which makes me see that they really are, in fact, weaker than me and makes me lose even more respect. When I can’t respect someone, then I don’t feel like I have a partner, and when I don’t feel like I have a partner, I don’t feel safe, and when I don’t feel safe, I am out of love.

I hate, hate, hate that aspect of a relationship. I hate being more powerful. There might actually be literally nothing that I hate more than that when it comes to love.

Cheese blintzes, looks like Day 2 was pretty damned educational for me. I’m going let that make up for the week and some odd days in between Days 1 and 2.

Daily Batman: Hate and a re-tread, by way of introducing 69 Days of Wonder Woman

HATE.

Despite proudly embodying the female geek who doesn’t do it for the attention nor as an excuse to wear body paint to Comic-Con, and resists getting pigeonholed into gender-based stereotypes of any kind, I have always disliked Wonder Woman with a strength bordering on disgust, when by rights you’d think I’d be a loyal fan. Thing is, when it comes to neuroses and the inside scars that cover us all, I’m quite the nutritious and delicious bowl of grape nuts: my shit is complicated (a complete part of your imbalanced breakfast!). Let me re-run a former post as an explanation.

This post originally appeared on July 4, 2010 at 9:54am.

Never liked Wonder Woman, tried to explore it and gave up, but that article from yesterday’s Daily Batman got me questioning why once more I have this antipathy toward her. I think it’s because she is flat-out frankly powerful and balls-out aggressive, and for some reason that leaves me cold. Because I’m not like that? Or because I want to be? Going to work it out. Got to get back in to that “Jump” frame of mind!

via lookatthisfrakkinggeekster on the tumblr.

“Let’s think the unthinkable, let’s do the undoable, let’s prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.”

(Douglas Adams.)

Happy Fourth of July! Scheduling a Daily Batman, maybe a Girl of Summer and then I will catch you on the flip.

/end former post

Again: HATE.

So — I’m done with my thinking, have assembled research materials, and am ready to start a project wherein I explore the character and my response to her and try to extrapolate some meaning from those explorations.

Final note: it turned out funny but please let’s not go mentally gutter-trolling in re: the “sixty-nine” days. That’s not representative of the sex act but rather a day for every year the character has been around. I know it is titillating, but, hey, I didn’t tell her to first appear in December of 1941, in which month we will conveniently end the project. Synchronicity: it’s What’s For Dinner! It is also an album by The Police!