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The following is a quote from a British Glamour: (Glamour is a magazine very similar in style and audience to Cosmopolitan. The target audience is young women and the variety of topics and material varies from fashion, to sex, to to more fashion and more sex.)
“14 Ways to Be a Real-Life Wonder Woman
Author Kate Reardon’s Top Tips For Life is the ultimate How To guide (but we can’t promise the power to fight all evil, sorry)
How To…
1. Stop biting your nails
2. Get super-smooth legs after shaving
3. Keep swimmer’s hair soft
4. Rid wool of bobbles
5. Stop a ladder in your tights
6. Extend the life of fresh herbs
7. Cure a sore throat with natural ingredients
8. Cook a fuss-free breakfast
9. Deal with mosquito bites
10. Freshen the smell of your car
11. Remember passwords
12. Prepare to move house
13. Look good in photos
14. Slice an onion without crying”
When Wonder Woman first made her appearance in comic books in the early 1940s. She was created by a William Moulton Marston, who was actually an American psychologist and feminist theorist. Wonder Woman’s figure does not even attempt to hide the fact that Mr. Marston was attracted to women– he lived in a polyamorous relationship with two women. However, Wonder Woman’s voluptuous curves and tiny uniform did not distract her from taking on bad guys and monsters, and eventually after a page of “booms” and “pows,” saving the nation (we know that she was at least heroic enough to sport American flag underwear). In the 1970s, Wonder Woman took her place on the front cover of Ms. magazine, portraying her long displayed heroism as feminism. Wonder Woman was the first female superhero– something that gives testimony to how much power she embodied. The fact that she became a significant cultural reference says even more.
So what then, made Wonder Woman change so drastically from feminist to sex symbol in less than 30 years while still under the pretense of being our nation’s premiere female role model?
I never experienced the Ms. Wonder Woman, but I have grown up surrounded by clones of the Playboy Wonder Woman. This Wonder Woman has taught me to make sure I keep my legs shaved and my waist skinny. Barbie has even come out with a Wonder Woman doll, which has helped attach a new meaning for young girls to her curvy figure– just another way we have compounded body issues with our culture. Wonder Woman is still patriotic, but she is now objectified as a sex symbol. She represents “sex” for patriots. Take this picture, for example:
Kim Kardashian as Wonder Woman
I don’t know if Kim Kardashian chose this outfit for her little Halloween party because she felt sexy and confident, whether she believes boys are turned on by a girl in a skimpy American flag, or a little bit of both, but it is most likely that Ms. Kardashian is not wearing it because it makes her feel like a powerful embodiment of Wonder Woman.
There is little left of the muscular Wonder Woman and her feminist power. What she left behind is her silhouette, complete with silky hair, smooth and shaven legs, and a slim and curvaceous body. Below is a video modeling the modern Wonder Woman:
Even though this video is a spoof and certain things are exaggerated for comic relief, this Wonder Woman fails at almost everything she is trying to do. She cannot fight crime, she is weak and not very vigilant, and cannot even make being a superhero glamorous. For being someone who is supposed to be a role model for women, you would figure she would at least be able to do that. The spoof actually accentuates the root of the problem with the quickly morphing cultural concepts attached to the phenomenon of Wonder Woman. Is there a way to reverse the trend? Or can we induct new female national role models into our collective culture?
