There’s a scene in Wonder Woman 1984 where the luminous Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) glides into a crowded party. Everyone is staring at her – but this is no Cinderella moment, with admiring glances and a collective gasp. It’s an exposé of sexual harassment. The camera switches to Diana’s POV, and we experience a series of persistent, entitled men cracking on to a woman who is clearly not interested. It’s a rare case of a superhero movie showing everyday sexism from the woman’s point of view.
It is a fitting move from Patty Jenkins, the film’s director and co-writer who has developed the accessible feminism of 2017’s Wonder Woman in tune with the times. Since the release of the first film, the accusations against Harvey Weinstein emerged, the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements were born and the Producers Guild of America released new guidelines to combat sexual harassment on set. The first film to sign up to the guidelines? Wonder Woman 1984.
“The PGA called these guidelines the ‘first steps’ in changing Hollywood’s culture,” says Helen O’Hara, author of the forthcoming book Women vs Hollywood. “They signal that those in charge take sexual harassment seriously. Those are signals that have not consistently been sent through Hollywood history; really the opposite has sometimes been true, with access to young women treated as a perk of the job for senior men.”
Throughout Wonder Woman 1984, Diana and her new friend Barbara (Kristen Wiig) endure unwanted male attention, from chat-up lines to sexual assault. It is suggested that this is a factor in both Diana’s reclusive lifestyle and Barbara’s dark desire for power. “In films where a formerly meek woman gets superpowers, she will lash out against men who harass,” points out O’Hara. “Catwoman did it way back in 1992, in Batman Returns, and again in the Halle Berry film of 2004.” She also references Hit-Girl in the Kick-Ass films. “Interestingly, a lot of these women are antiheroines or morally murky figures.”
While not strictly a superhero, Lori Petty’s punky heroine tackled lecherous men in the 1995 film Tank Girl. Producer and actor Margot Robbie is planning a remake, and you can see her influence in this year’s Birds of Prey: when a pet seller lasciviously suggests “payment in kind”, Harley Quinn (Robbie) feeds him to a hyena.
A more wholesome example dates back to 1984 itself and the critically derided Supergirl, starring Helen Slater. In one scene she goes up against two truckers who escalate from calling her “honey bun” to threatening gang rape. “Why are you doing this?” asks Supergirl. “It’s just the way we are,” they shrug, before being kicked into a dumpster. Cut to 2019, and Starlight (Erin Moriarty) in Amazon’s The Boys is trouncing attackers with similar gusto. But her storyline has a #MeToo spin: she turns vigilante after being coerced into a sex act by a superior.
While these offenders are clearly villainous, Wonder Woman 1984 shows that ordinary men can be a collective nuisance without realising it. “I think this film makes great strides forward in portraying harassment as a reality,” says O’Hara. “The party scene gets across the feeling that it can be wearisome and distracting, while remaining entirely credible. I hope that gives men watching the film some idea of the sheer irritation factor that can be involved in that sort of low-level harassment.” Later in the film, a key scene subtly conveys a message: nice guys keep the conversation clean, and don’t outstay their welcome.
Elsewhere in the nostalgic story, there’s a playful feminist streak at work. The villain, Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), poses in cheesy TV adverts with a bevy of models, echoing Biff Tannen in Back to the Future Part II. In an inversion of a famous movie cliche, the dressing-up montage involves a man. Walking in high heels is revealed to be an actual superpower. And Barbara is clearly in awe of Diana’s extraordinary beauty and poise – it is acknowledged to be an unattainable ideal (unless you happen to get your hands on a magic stone). While her appearance helps sell movies, Wonder Woman’s kindness is her most important attribute in the plot.
So Wonder Woman 1984 feels like a #MeToo movie in many senses – but will more superhero films commit to the cause? This year’s production crisis could set back progress on sets, says Louise Tutt, deputy editor of Screen International. “The PGA guidelines require extra training of all cast and crew – and at a time when productions are having to spend around 20% of their budget to implement Covid-19 safety protocols, these kinds of ‘optional extras’ may fall by the wayside.”
Dame Heather Rabbatts, Chair of Time’s Up UK says there’s hard work to be done: “As we enter 2021, we must ensure that the strides we have made in stamping out bullying and harassment are not set back.”
At least, with a bit of luck, next year will bring more female superheroes to the big screen. After releasing Captain Marvel in 2019, Disney’s 2021 plans include the delayed Black Widow, directed by Cate Shortland and starring Scarlett Johansson, and Eternals, directed by Chloé Zhao and starring Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek. That’s a lot of powerful, A-list female talent ready to kick harassers into line – or even just gently nudge them into the present.
