Wonder Woman is a feminist icon. She’s also a sex symbol. She’s a wish-fulfillment power fantasy and a sexual fantasy, which is part of why she’s had such lasting appeal to fans all over the gender spectrum. But her sex appeal has been a consistent cause of consternation for critics, fans, and casual passersby since her earliest days as a comic-book character.
Director James Cameron is the latest commenter to claim there’s a contradiction there, that feminism and sexiness are somehow at odds. In a furor-raising recent interview at the Guardian, he said that in Patty Jenkins’ new Wonder Woman film, the character is “just an objectified icon, and it’s just male Hollywood doing the same old thing!” He claimed it was a “step backwards” from...
