Another Dienstag

I cannot stress enough how important for girls to have good, strong, female role models. I’ve been obsessed with Super heroes since I was TWELVE and I’ve NEVER seen a female super hero portrayed in a way that captured the strength and power the hero was capable of without sacrificing the passion or the innocence of the character. My favourite female super “hero” is actually the villain Harley Quinn purely because she is absolutely fearless and she refuses to take shit from anybody without fail. She was the only female super anything that I had seen with that attitude EVER. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still love Harley and she will for ever be my queen of crazy, but tonight I finally found a version of a female hero whose main purpose wasn’t to be a sexy character that the “real” hero could flirt with. The film makers stayed true to the original costume, but not ONCE did I feel like they used it to sexualize her in an unnecessary way. She was sexy, naturally, but it wasn’t forced. She never had to use it in the attempt to seduce the bad guy, men were distracted by her, but the movie made it clear that that was not her fault, she was focused on her mission the entire time and never once faltered for a boy. They just did SO MANY THINGS RIGHT by keeping everything about her focused on her being a badass rather than her being fucking gorgeous, even though she is that too. The best part about her attitude is that she wasn’t “weird” because of it, it was normal and even encouraged for her to be like that. Speaking of attitude, let’s talk blocking. She was put in so many power positions throughout the movie, it was like she refused to let anyone ever look down on her. She had the high ground in SO MANY fights, she was running on rooftops, she was getting all up an some general’s face lecturing him about honour, and this girl WOULD NOT BACK DOWN. Someone tell her to stay put and she didn’t want to? She didn’t. She went exactly where she wanted, exactly when she wanted. And then, in one of my favourite moments, she FLIPS that classic “stay here, I’ll go ahead”, line that guys had been using on her throughout the movie back onto them before running STRAIGHT TOWARDS ENEMY FIRE AND TAKING OUT EVERY BAD GUY IN HER PATH. BUT for every ounce of magnificent attitude in her body, there was AT LEAST an equal amount of compassion. She genuinely cared for every civilian, for every soldier, for every person that she met and everything she did was guided by her desire to do what she believed was right. And despite being told she was wrong, that it was crazy, that “that’s not how the world works”, she was RIGHT. I won’t go into detail, because spoilers, but she was RIGHT. She also treated everybody like they were just as important as her and HELLO THIS GIRL IS TAKING OUT WHOLE PLATOONS NEARLY SINGLE HANDEDLY, SHE DESTROYED A FUCKING TANK AND SHE STILL DIDN’T SEE HERSELF AS BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE. And more on that compassion thing? She was still very capable of emotions and you could see them swirl together and twist themselves into knots as she tried to process the idea that everything may not be as she was raised to believe. However this is the first time I’ve seen a female super being feel emotions as powerfully as that and, rather than becoming useless or distracted by them, she was actually STRONGER because of the passion she was feeling. Let me repeat that HER FEELINGS DID NOT IN ANY WAY PREVENT HER FROM BEING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL BADASS. EVEN MALE SUPER HEROES AREN’T GENERALLY ALLOWED TO DO THAT. AND as for things that don’t directly relate to Diana herself, it dealt with soldiers suffering from PTSD (whom she reminded of their value and still saw them as warriors), carried a heavy theme of honour and acting on what you believe in, and it didn’t use the demeaning of men as a tactic for female empowerment. To be clear, it showcased Diana’s strength without making the guys come across as weak, cowardly, or immoral. That’s a victory for equality. I was physically shaking on the edge of my seat for most of the movie, I’ve literally spent the last 8 years of my life waiting for a hero like this, 100/10, GO WATCH THIS MOVIE.