She is what a toxic, patriarchal society has made her to be: a bitter, angry, intelligent woman whose lack of conventional beauty due to scars means she can never quite be what society asks of her. Her bitter reaction to Trevor zeroing in on Diana without any context says everything. Isabel Maru is so starved for positive interaction that all it takes is a random stranger telling her he admires her work with zero strings attached for her to consider changing allegiances. Patty Jenkins is making a point about the inherent violence of patriarchal society that relegates women to secondary involvement at best (Etta Candy), downright exploitation and manipulation at worst (Isabel Maru, aka Doctor Poison). The coexistence of these two elements feels intentional. Diana leaves a society run by women where militaristic action is entirely defensive and protective and enters a world of violent, aggressive conflict. There are ways female characters could have been more integrated into the story and to me, it’s significant that they aren’t. I do think that a more prominent role for women in the British army-as soldiers, not as nurses or factory workers, which are roles they did fill-would have been anachronistic, but that’s beside the point. However, there’s more to this decision than a simple failure on Patty Jenkin’s part or merely an artifact of making a film about World War I. I’m sympathetic to the criticism that apart from Etta Candy, Diana has no significant interactions with female characters after leaving Themiscyra. Specifically, the lack of women after Diana leaves Themiscyra and the casting of a Greek God with a white male actor rather than someone of Greek or otherwise Middle Eastern descent. However, there are other criticisms of the film I’ve heard that I do believe bear closer examination.
I don’t consider him an authority on the objectification of women’s bodies, and I think treating him as such gives more credence to his critique than it deserves. While not surprising, I’m not entirely interested in discussing the way in which Diana’s costuming choices can or cannot be labeled ‘objectifying’, especially when they come from James “I gave a non-mammalian alien breasts so that the presumably straight white male audience would lust over them” Cameron. Recent comments by a specific Hollywood director have sparked conversation around Wonder Woman and its feminist takeaways.
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