A Wonder Woman's Desires

One of my all-time favorite television shows is Wonder Woman. It starred Lynda Carter and she has pretty big boots to fill; Hollywood has been threatening a remake for years, but can't seem to get it off the ground.
When I was a little girl I wanted to BE Wonder Woman. Part of me secretly hoped that I had been sent for fostering in a regular household in Chicago, so I would be poised to assume my true identity as Amazon princess and save the good old U.S. of A. from evil forces who would dismantle freedom. (Little did I know that these forces would come from within but I should have realized that in this man's world, the real evil-doers would be motivated by GREED, DECEIT, and WAR.) Thirty years later, my same-age cousins still give me crap because I would never let anyone else be Wonder Woman when we played. Of course, if either of them was really and truly Wonder Woman like me, they never would have let me get away with that.

During this pre-school era in my life, someone gave me a book which was a collection of the original Wonder Woman comics by Charles Moulton. It also contained essays about the importance of Wonder Woman in modern culture by people such as Gloria Steinem and Moulton's widow. As a little girl I could not understand why anyone would want to read pages and pages of boring black and white words about Wonder Woman when they could skip to pages and pages of technicolor cells of the Amazon fighting for womankind and country.

And growing up as I did during the U.S. Bicentennial with two darling sisters, a mom I was extremely close to, and tons of aunties and grandmas around spoiling me ... well, I could think of nothing more noble than fighting for womankind and country -- whatever it took. I wanted to grow up to be"...beautiful as Aphrodite, wise as Athena, swifter than Mercury, and stronger than Hercules..." and because I was dragged to Catholic Church each Sunday, I knew all of those talents would come with serious reponsibility. (My other favorite book from that era was Lives of the Saints, so I had a thing for missions and martyrdom.)

I have never lost my love of Wonder Woman. My very first college paper was about Wonder Woman, and yes, I got an "A". Recently, I began reading the very first "Wonder Woman" (from the old, beat-up collection I read as a girl) to my fairy goddaughter.

As mentioned, Wonder Woman was created by Charles Moulton, which was the pen name of William Moulton Marston. Marston was a psychologist and feminist. As a psychologist, he created an early version of the polygraph test, called the systolic blood-pressure test and also published a personality theory based on 4 quadrants of passive to active and favorable to antagonistic. Describing the necessity of creating a female superhero in 1944, he wrote:

"Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power... The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman (Marston, 1944, p. 42–43)".

Marston must have understood women very well. He lived in a polyamorous relationship with his wife Elizabeth, who co-created Wonder Woman and former student and colleague Olive Byrne, upon whom Wonder Woman was modeled. Both woman had children by him and they all lived together as one big happy family. Olive and Elizabeth continued to cohabitate for more than thiry years after Marston's death until Olive died in the early 1980s. (Olive also was the impetus for the publishing of Wonder Woman; she wrote an article for Family Circle magazine which caught the attention of All Star Comics).

Some people credit Moulton and Wonder Woman with introducing bondage themes into pop culture. I do remeber the first time I ever felt THAT kind of excitement was while watching an episode of Wonder Woman. The evil Nazi guy (played by the guy who perpetually played the bad guy on TV in the 70s) had tied Wonder Woman up to some pneumatic table. Still, she refused to divulge the information he wanted, so he pressed a lever and turned her upside down. She was completely helpless and at his evil mercy. He had his eye on her THAT way, too.

Ahem... so I don't know if I believe the bondage thing or not. I'll let you think about it.

whatever ... "You're a wonder, Wonder Woman!"