the DCEU has a Wonder Woman problem

[tielan]

Actually, I think it's the same problem that Marvel is facing now for me: heroic heroes vs. world weary Nietzchean ubermensch.

polygon.com: The DCEU has a problem — everybody likes Wonder Woman
With Wonder Woman, Patty Jenkins has returned the focus to humanity writ large. She recognizes that superheroes resonate precisely because their stories are familiar. Yes, Diana is better than the rest of us. As a fictional character, she can do things we can’t, from both a moral and physical perspective. However, that doesn’t make her alien. In the film, her actions instill the allied forces with courage and resolve. The later heroics of Steve, Sameer & Co are less spectacular, but their contributions are no less meaningful and the audience is equally able to learn from that example. Diana inspires everyone around her to be better. That gives the film genuine warmth and makes Wonder Woman relevant to anyone watching in a theater.

But the quotation that I found particularly interesting in the context of my (rapidly dying) love of the MCU is this:

He [Snyder] wants to see Batman have a dustup with Superman, and he’s not overly concerned about how mere mortals relate to the personal struggles of gods.

Which is pretty much how I feel about CACW: the point that would have made for the most interesting movie regarding the nature of heroes - the Accords - was pretty much just a McGuffin so we could eventually see Iron Man fight Captain America (and the Winter Soldier).

Comments

[beatrice_otter]

EXACTLY. The MCU gave up all hope of thematic consistency and characterization to have a punchy-fest with lots of special effects. The attempt to manipulate your emotions is so transparent that it pretty much fails.

Wonder Woman, however, is completely consistent throughout. It takes its premise seriously and treats its characters (yes, even the demigodess made of clay) as real people instead of grand archetypes. I mean, Diana absolutely is a grand archetype, but she is also absolutely a person.

[kore]

Wonder Woman, however, is completely consistent throughout. It takes its premise seriously and treats its characters (yes, even the demigodess made of clay) as real people instead of grand archetypes. I mean, Diana absolutely is a grand archetype, but she is also absolutely a person.

That was what I really loved about it, oh yes. Everyone was absolutely a person, not a plot gimmick or a way to get from Fight A to Fight B.

[tielan]

It's been slowly falling down pretty much during (and since) Avengers 2. I'm not particularly hopeful for Infinity Wars myself.

[kore]

pretty much just a McGuffin so we could eventually see Iron Man fight Captain America

YUP

Wonder Woman was all about the people. About Diana, and Steve and his guys, and the refugees, and the Amazons, and everybody. It was all about people and their feelings and motivations, not just some overpaid white guy bashing two characters into each other like he's playing with his favourite action figures.

Also LOL I think Justice League is probably going to flop.

[tielan]

The things that drive people - and not just simple, uplifting things like courage and a desire to do good, but complicated, messy emotion, like not wanting to watch your people fade from the world (Chief), and yearning for things that society won't allow you (like being an actor), and singing when you just spent a battle dealing with PTSD instead of being a hero...

All the 'extra human characters' weren't there to be heroic; they were heroic in amidst just being there and trying to get along.

Were there even any heroic non-hero characters in CACW? Sharon Carter is the only one I can think of. And her part was minor. She was dropped into the middle of the story like a jam bun into a famine. Tasty for as long as it takes to consume, and then gone (and not really any nutritional value either).

[kore]

She was dropped into the middle of the story like a jam bun into a famine. Tasty for as long as it takes to consume, and then gone (and not really any nutritional value either).

Oh man, I snorked my tea.

Heroic non-heroes....the black relief worker kid they fridged at the beginning so Tony could feel manpain? Although all we saw was one picture. Gotta make time for the manpain.

[tielan]

Oh man, I snorked my tea.

My work here is done.


Look, if Sharon had been treated with one-half the respect and agency that Steve Trevor got in Wonder Woman, then people might have been a little more enthusiastic about her and Steve. (Or maybe not; it's Steve Rogers, fandom's little black dress.)

I didn't count the kid or his mother, because neither got a storyline in the main action - as you pointed out, they're there to stimulate Tony's manpain.

[kore]

if Sharon had been treated with one-half the respect and agency that Steve Trevor got in Wonder Woman

TRUE STORY

Then again, the few women in CW were mainly there to push the men's stories along, not to do anything in and of themselves. (Worst example of this: Peggy Carter Not Appearing In This Film in a casket)

[tielan]

AND WE ARE STILL SALTY.

[kore]

PEGGY WOULD NOT SAY THAT TREE BY THE FLOWING RIVER OF TRUTH WHATEVER STUFF. THAT WAS LIKE PSEUDO-REVOLUTIONARY-WAR RHETORIC BY THE WRITER OF CIVIL WAR _FOR_ STEVE FFS. NO IT WAS NOT A NICE LITTLE EASTER EGG. Peggy's language in the TWO Cap films (yes I said two) and her series is very different from that! She's always very direct and honest and almost never uses metaphors or rhetoric. She tends to deflect anything flowery. And she's always cutting Steve down for being dramatic or self-absorbed.

And Sharon, IN TWS AND THE COMICS, was never just Steve's support prop. Half the time in Brubaker's run she was arguing with him and bringing him back down to earth! She did stuff on her own! SO TO HAVE STEVE SPEAK FOR _BOTH OF THEM,_ AT PEGGY'S __FUNERAL,___ WHICH I DID NOT EVER WISH TO SEE ANYWAY THANKS RUSSOS, CHEESED ME RIGHT THE FUCK OFF. WHY IS SHE STANDING THERE SMILING DELIVERING A MESSAGE TO STEVE AT HER BELOVED MENTOR'S FUNERAL. The Russos managed to put the words of one guy (Cap and/or fucking Millar) in the mouths of TWO women at once! Fucking golf clap for sexism there!

(AND WHY DOESN'T HE KNOW WHO THE FUCK SHE IS? IT WAS RIGHT AT THE END OF TWS. DID THEY FORGET WHAT WENT ON IN THEIR OWN FUCKING FILM? BECAUSE THAT IS THE ONLY EXPLANATION I CAN THINK OF FOR THIS DUMBASSEDNESS.)

....ahem. I have Feelings on this //smiles brightly

[tielan]

AND WHY DOESN'T HE KNOW WHO THE FUCK SHE IS?

YES! Dear heavens, this is a woman that Steve is allegedly falling in love with and he doesn't ever make a joke about HAHA WELL MAYBE I HAVE A THING FOR WOMEN WITH THE SURNAME CARTER at which point she goes, STEVE I HAVE TO TELL YOU SOMETHING - and TWO YEARS HAVE PASSED in the world, and I do not think they've been internet buddies (or even "internet buddies") all that time, because I can't see Steve settling for just emails and whatnot instead of f2f. SO YES, HE SHOULD KNOW BY THIS TIME.

Look, I was willing to give Sharon a bit of a chance (not much, I am and always will be a Maria/Steve shipper) but it was so frustrating to see what CACW reduced her to - reduced all the women to!

[kore]

but it was so frustrating to see what CACW reduced her to - reduced all the women to!

FUCKING SERIOUSLY. Even Natasha. Which was so frustrating, because people were like "Nat had such a great arc!" and I was just like....what? You see her supporting Tony and you see her supporting Steve and that's it. All the women were just props. It was infuriating.

[copracat]

All the 'extra human characters' weren't there to be heroic; they were heroic in amidst just being there and trying to get along.

Love the way you put that.