Analysis of the First Female Superhero: Wonder Woman

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The first widely recognizable female superhero is Wonder Woman, from the All- American Publications, which was one of the three companies that merged to form DC Comics. Wonder Woman was presented in a way that was typical of most women in comics, although her Character portrays a strong independent heroine; the comic series still nevertheless caters to the promiscuous fantasies of young male readers. Wonder Woman is depicted in a hyper sexualized fashion and an object of consumption for males. Recurring scenes of wonder women in skimpy outfits accentuating her melon sized breasts and small waistline emphasize the idealized female body and how it was used to draw the gazes of males in visual media. Wonder Woman serves as an example of many of the major changes in representations of women in comic books from the beginning of the 20th century to today. Wonder Woman is an ideal example of one of the major themes in Comic books, that being American feminism. Although wonder woman is a dominant female character with a great deal of power and independence, her character exposed storylines that focus on fitting her into traditional gender roles with regards to romance, and is also consistently presented as a sexualized object for a male audience. Although there are notable exceptions, women in mainstream comics are often represented in the same way. According to Kelli E. Stanley, Wonder Woman emerged at a time when women were being encouraged to join the workforce as part of the war effort (149). Early publications of Wonder Woman comics present her as strong, powerful, and independent from men. In the post-war period, however, Wonder Woman’s storylines, focus more on domestic virtues and romance, as women were being urged to leave the w... ... middle of paper ... ... equally when they're on the good side' of it”. The beauty of comics is there force as a medium. following on directly from that shared culture with political cartooning, is that you can let your work do the speaking for you. When comic series choose to depict women with J-Lo butts, undistorted size hips and include scenes in which women do not take their clothes off to fight crime will be a real breakthrough in the comic book industry. That day will be the deciding factor on sexism, not characters with "normal" bodies but ones that break the mold from the cookie-cutter female bodies male comic book artists obsessively use to depict so called powerful women. In conclusion the day this boys club mentality loosens its grip on the comic book industry and starts letting women do what they want, will be the day the comic book industry will be considerably more balanced.

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