I Cannot Take One More Sexist 'Wonder Woman' Review
Vulture’s David Edelstein was forced to write a response to his scathing (and sexist) Wonder Woman review today, called, “A Word About My ‘Wonder Woman’ Review.”
Well, I have “a word” about that word. See, he starts his review by saying the only saving grace is “five-foot-ten-inch Israeli actress and model Gal Gadot, who is somehow the perfect blend of superbabe-in-the-woods innocence and mouthiness.” Um, okay. You know what I think the layman equivalence of that is? She’s a “firecracker” – aka, one of my least favorite terms used to describe women.
Like, oh my God, let’s be super surprised if a woman can actually speak when not spoken to and defend herself without a man’s help. What a rarity! And, of course, we must call attention to her figure, because what else is a woman, if not her body? And he fails to mention Robin Wright at all, which feels like a real slap in the face to that heroine, and genuine badass, as well.
Edelstein also wrote that “the gushing reviews of Wonder Woman suggest that people are grading on a big curve.” Because it’s impossible that a woman-led movie could just be good, right? That’s like the same logic that insisted women only wanted to vote for Hillary Clinton because she is a woman. As if we all just make decisions with our vaginas now and can only do things if we’re pulled there by the womanly magic billowing out of our uteri – you know, kind of like that smoke baby Melisandre (Carine Van Houten) birthed in Game of Thrones. (That’s actually what The Feminine Mystique is about.)
In his follow-up piece, he flat out admits to not taking Wonder Woman seriously, but it’s his reasoning for this that really takes the cake. Are you ready? I promise you you’re not, but I’ll proceed anyway. Okay, so this white dude thinks Wonder Woman isn’t worthy of any significance because “directors (and critics and scholars) have been grappling with the idea of gender in male-dominated action films for decades.” WOW.
His evidence for this is TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which he literally notes came out TWENTY YEARS AGO. [*Editor's note: Also, Joss Whedon is not really the poster child for feminism anymore.] So sure, that would be a great point if we had made any strides since then. But have we? He gives Katniss (The Hunger Games) as an example, and X-Men, but those aren’t necessarily the same as super heroes, and they feel more about the marketability of Jennifer Lawrence than they do about letting us try and fail with women in action films the way we do with men.
Look at Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson. Hulk has had two flops – one with Ed Norton and one with Eric Bana. Both sucked. And yet they didn’t consider keeping him out of The Avengers. They just gave Mark Ruffalo a go at it instead. They keep making Spider-Man over and over after the third one with Tobey Maguire let fans down. They didn’t even take a break, just moved right on to Andrew Garfield, and now Tom Holland. And don’t even get me started on the mess that was Man of Steel or Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. But they’re not about to stop making those movies.
However, where is Black Widow’s movie? She’s merely a consideration after the long list of Avengers films and Black Panther (though I’m not badmouthing this one – it looks badass and the cast is amazing – I cannot wait), another Thor, etc. And they ruined the last Avengers for me by throwing in this bullshit love story with The Hulk, taking her from a no-nonsense fighting machine to a lovesick schoolgirl.
“I underestimated how much a super heroine at the center of a woman-directed film would mean to many people,” he writes. Um, yeah, obviously, as a man you don’t think about why representation of anyone other than white males matters. But you’re also a reviewer and a writer, so you’re not just representing yourself. You’re also representing your brand, and you’re speaking to a lot of people. It’s really dangerous to just completely ignore all of them in your writing just because you’ve never faced their disenfranchisement or hardship… especially now. How could that thought not cross your mind when women’s rights to their own bodies are being stripped away by the day?
He continues, “Moreover, if Wonder Woman will empower women at this moment in history – in which reproductive rights are imperiled, and an admitted groper is working to undo decades of gains for women – then some of the criticisms of my review are just.” Oh boy, thanks for throwing us a bone, man. Thank you, kind, empathic, compassionate man, for letting us feel how we are all feeling. What a benevolent man you are.
Like, can you get the f**k over yourself? If you’re going to be that self-involved and blatantly sexist and ignorant of politics and anyone’s struggles other than your own, than you can’t be so shocked and sensitive when the rest of us don’t respond so kindly to such prose.
And look, I love Vulture. It’s honestly one of my favorite sites, and I even usually like Edelstein’s reviews. But this one was just so far out of line and just, to be frank, stupid. I’m really let down.
This was originally published on Entity Mag.
