Wonder Woman spoilers – Question of Smoke

piraterey:

Okay so we can all agree that Wonder Woman (2017), Dir: Patty Jenkins was a goddamn masterclass in storytelling, especially with the inversion of male-coded language. The “No-Man’s Land” scene gave me chills and every time they played her theme song I wanted to get up and roar.

But I wish they’d taken it a step further. I wish Ares had been a woman. Maybe, like Diana, she was always the daughter of Zeus, an Amazon sent to free her people. Maybe she was Hippolyta’s firstborn. But she wasn’t satisfied just hiding away from the world, she wanted to make men pay for what they did to her people. It would explain why Hippolyta was so reticent to let Diana learn to fight, lest she go down her sister’s path.

And it would totally work as a Big Reveal because with people’s basic knowledge of Greek mythology (which was kind of Christianized in the movie anyway) and some clever writing, the audience would assume, like Diana, that Ares was a man.

It would also be so much cooler as a fight, because instead of Condescending Mustache Man smirking, “You have so much to learn,” Ares could have held her hand out to Diana like so many Amazons had before her and said, “Please. Let me teach you. We can rid this world of men and make it like Themyscira. We can go home.”

I just think it would be so much more compelling, and so much harder for Diana to refuse one of her sisters – her only true sister – who claims to be trying to make the world over into the paradise where Diana grew up, than some mustachioed asshole rying to rip the world apart.

It also totally shatters the second-wave feminist idea of “women good, men bad,” which is touched on when you see Diana’s rage and Steve’s gentleness, but never really driven home.

If you’re going to subvert male-dominated language, go all the way. Make Ares a woman.