Wonder Woman: Honorary Ambassador

Nevertheless the announcement was met with opposition from the outset until the end of Wonder Woman’s contract less than two months later. Opposing voices felt that the Wonder Woman image was an overly sexualised one and her clothes boasted American flag emblems that were culturally insensitive to other nations. Despite this, in 2017, Wonder Woman (played by Israeli actress Gal Gadot) is making her presence felt at the box office in the first live-action feature film where she gets her own script.

The plot is an intelligent combination of genres - Greek mythology combined with real-life historical backdrops smartly interwoven to provide a very credible story.

This is an origin story so naturally, here we have a paradise - the island of Themyscira or Paradise Island – where the Amazons, skilled warrior women governed by Queen Hippolyta, live. Here, men are prohibited and children are made from clay (thought Princess Diana aka Wonder Woman is actually the daughter of Zeus in this script). The island has been hidden for centuries behind a magic membrane created by the god Zeus so as to protect the Amazons from the world of men. Peace reigns here.

In bursts Steve Trevor, a British intelligence officer, flying into the world of the Amazon warriors in a malfunctioning airplane that penetrates the magic membrane. In so doing he allows for the entry of a German naval fleet that is in pursuit of him.

The Amazons thunder down onto the beach where the queen’s sister, the greatest warrior and leader of the army, Antiope is killed in battle. The Amazons win the battle against men but it inspires their princess to leave their safe world to go into the world of men to fight in the “war to end all wars”. The reference is brilliant – mythical in sound but based in fact.

World War I otherwise known among other names as the “War to End All Wars’ (a term coined by science fiction writer HG Wells) or “The Chemist’s War” (as Dr Poison represents) is a perfect setting for Wonder Woman’s origin story.

Steve Trevor’s unwitting penetration of the magic membrane that had protected the Amazons from the outside world is the first indication of the impact of the war on borders and boundaries. World War I set the stage for the disruption of geography, the reshaping of boundaries and nations, the creation of ethnic rivalries, the growth of new nations and also set into motion events that would trigger World War II almost 20 years later.

It was the first time that all nations were involved in a war of such massive scale, an observation that made science fiction writer, HG Wells remark, that this “was not a war of nations but of mankind” (Edwin Steep A War to End All Wars, Vision. Other articles on Wells’ essay are available online) No doubt, the writer of the 2017 script would have been influenced by Wells’ ideas. It is ideally the sort of world into which we should introduce a heroine such a Wonder Woman, a heroine with the right amount of love for mankind and the moral will to do what is right.

But even she realises, like Wells did, that even though she defeats Ares, the god of war, such victories are short-lived for there is a dark side to humans. Ironically, Greek gods have both light and dark sides and are significant archetypes for human behaviour but we gloss over this in the film. Instead, we focus on the fact that Wonder Woman is the idealist, the form that wishes to triumph with love.

After what I would consider a decent enough plot with some screwball comedy that is inevitable when an Amazon enters the world of men, the ending is a disappointment as the film closes with a clich?d line on love as the triumphing spirit (something to that effect). It is nevertheless, the brilliant interweaving of periods and worlds that remains the strength of the story.

In our current world of rapid technological advancement, experiments with weapons of mass destruction and the threat of another war, the films is even more relevant in its call for a different type of governance.

Where literature and film present us with possibilities this new version of the Wonder Woman story itself makes us aware that we have the power to rework narratives.

And that, for me, is the usefulness of art.