Wonder Woman means different things to different people, including an Amazonian princess, superhero, and role model. None of these epitaphs truly fit, however, as Diana Prince and her Wonder Woman alias has lived a 75-year life that has seen its fair share of ups and downs, highs and lows, with multitudes of praises and many criticisms along the way. For this reason, Wonder Woman is impossible to stereotype, label, or truly define. Yet still the character has endured, even thrived, and continues to inspire to this day.
The ToonSeum – a non-profit museum of the cartoon and comic arts in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – paid homage to Wonder Woman and all that she represents with Wonder Woman: Visions, which opened on November 17, 2017, and remained on display through February 25, 2018. The exhibit featured original comic art from such artistic legends as Cliff Chiang, Ramona Fradon, George Perez, Trina Robbins, and original Wonder Woman artist H.G. Peter, the first person to ever draw the iconic character.
Wonder Woman: Visions was more than an exhibit of comic book art spanning over 75 years, however, but a rumination on the many ideals that Wonder Woman represents as well. Over ten amazing local Pittsburgh female artists created equally amazing original artwork for the exhibit that not only reflected their talent but their own personal thoughts – their visions – of what Wonder Woman means to them.
The list of those artists included Asia Bey, Caitlin Rose Boyle, Jessica Heberle, Illene Win Lederer, Cynthia Lee, Rachel Masilamani, Jenn Meridian, Maggie Lynn Negrete, Christina Joy Neumann, Jayla Patton, and Lizzie Solomon.
As part of Wonder Woman: Visions, the ToonSeum likewise offered visitors the opportunity to create their own “visions” of Wonder Woman, in both words and images, to be included in a montage that both paid homage to the character and added depth and understanding to what Wonder Woman means in these contemporary times for not just women but everyone.
William Moulton Marston, the creator of Wonder Woman, argued for the need of a superheroine within his own clearly defined, yet slightly distorted, perception of the female persona.
“A male hero, at best, lacks the qualities of maternal love and tenderness which are as essential to a normal child as the breath of life,” he once explained. “Suppose your child’s ideal becomes a superman who uses his extraordinary power to help the weak. The most important ingredient in the human happiness recipe still is missing – love. It’s smart to be strong. It’s big to be generous. But it’s sissified, according to exclusively masculine rules, to be tender, loving, affectionate, and alluring. ‘Aw, that’s girl’s stuff!’ snorts our young comics’ reader. ‘Who wants to be a girl?’ And that’s the point – not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, power.”
Thirty years later, activist Gloria Steinman shared a similar viewpoint.
“The trouble is that the comic book performers of such superhuman feats are almost always heroes,” she lamented in 1972. “The female child is left to believe that, even when her body is as grown-up as her spirit, she will still be in the childlike role of helping with minor tasks, appreciating men’s accomplishments, and being so incompetent and passive that she can only hope some man can come to her rescue. Of course, rescue and protection are comforting, even exhilarating experiences that should be and often are shared by men and boys. But dependency and zero accomplishments get very dull as a steady diet.”
For both William Moulton Marston and Gloria Steinman – in many ways polar opposites of the same spectrum – the ideal of a Wonder Woman was something that the world greatly needed. And in many ways, and more often than not, the character has lived up to that ideal. She fought alongside men during World War II, as well as fellow superheroes as part of the Justice League. She may not have rescued womankind as a whole, but she stood tall alongside those females oppressed nonetheless and inspired them to become “wonder women” in their own right. She was not afraid to fight for what she believed in, but was also capable of compassion, understanding, and yes, love.
In 2010, Lynda Carter – who brought Wonder Woman to life for millions of fans in the late 1970s on television – shared her own “vision” of what the character represented.
“While I am forever identified with the role, Wonder Woman belongs to us all,” she explained. “She lives inside us. She’s the symbol of the extraordinary possibilities that inhabit us, hidden though they may be. I loved Wonder Woman as a kid, I loved Wonder Woman when I played the role, and I love Wonder Woman to this day. She is the goddess within us all. If Einstein is right, and imagination is more important than knowledge, then maybe what we need is to ‘wonder’… to open our minds and our hearts, to believe in what we cannot see. Who knows? Maybe Wonder Woman can save the world.”
A comforting thought for both women and men, young and old alike, everywhere.
Anthony Letizia
(Anthony Letizia served as co-curator of Wonder Woman: Visions.)
