Wonder Woman co-opted

 
Linda Ford writing on Feminism being co-opted on Counterpunch.com:

She begins:

I am a retired history professor and historian of women, a socialist, and a radical feminist.  I know what feminism is, and I know it’s being co-opted.  What is feminism?  How is it defined?  Feminism is the belief in equality for women.  But feminism is being used now for unrelated, or even opposite causes, like war, transgender bathrooms, anti-Russia hysteria and political opportunism.

And, on the subject of Wonder Woman:

In a way, Wonder Woman also represents the contradictions of radical, egalitarian feminism.  Her creator, William Moulton Marston, wanted to show female superiority, and so placed her origins in all-female Amazon society.  I’ve—as a feminist—always loved the idea of Amazon society, whether as historical reality (there is evidence) or Greek and Roman myth.  In both cases, Amazon society is a women-run matriarchy, led by strong, capable women warriors, warriors who did go to war for more than self-defense, although they apparently were always up against stronger armies.  Marston’s superior Amazon society was also, although featuring women warriors, a peace-loving society.
Hence Wonder Woman was tasked to bring her superpowers to the service of a peaceful world:  she would save the world from violence and evil.  She was also a female superhero, personifying Anthony and Paul’s feminism whose “ideal is strength,” as did the Amazons of history and myth.

So now we have Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, the movie, and again, feminism is co-opted, this time in the service of what Glen Ford of black agenda report calls the War Party.  The New York Times’ review of “Wonder Woman” said the movie highlights Wonder Woman’s “sacred duty to bring peace to the world,” although admitting it took a lot of killing to do it.  There is, therefore, this Orwellian “war is peace” aspect to the film.  The Wonder Woman I knew and loved was never this bloodthirsty, seeming to revel in the violence and the fight.  She was always the strong character—female superhero!—she did not, as goddess and superhero, have an equal and/or romantic relationship with Captain Steve Trevor, always portrayed as weak and in need of rescue.  I also had a problem with the actress Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, a woman, in real life, very much in the service of Israeli aggressive military might, even when that might was turned against the children of Gaza in 2014.  Wonder Woman here, as Jonathan Cook recently wrote in an excellent piece on Mondoweiss, is disguised as someone practicing “humanitarian intervention,” à la neo-liberal imperialists like Hillary Clinton.  Wonder Woman, in this movie, is promoting aggressive western military domination.  Amazonian feminism, women warriors ruling their own world, or a superhero woman saving the world without bringing more violence to it, is co-opted.