Wonder Woman 1984

“Meaningful representation consists of more than simply casting women and people of color.”

Title: Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
Director: Patty Jenkins 👩🏼🇺🇸
Writers: Screenplay by David Callaham 👨🏻🇺🇸, Patty Jenkins 👩🏼🇺🇸, and Geoff Johns 👨🏽🇺🇸. Story by Patty Jenkins 👩🏼🇺🇸 and Geoff Johns 👨🏽🇺🇸

Reviewed by Alicja Johnson 👩🏼🇺🇸

—SPOILERS AHEAD—

Technical: 2.5/5

Warner Brothers’ decision to release the highly anticipated Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO Max for 31 days was a bold move. Many first-time viewers would go without the movie theater trappings that make a blockbuster so memorable: the energy of a packed room, the screen so large that you could be watching the action in person, the audio system that makes you feel the sound. And above all, the total immersion of seeing a film all the way through without any distractions.

Perhaps WW84 didn’t work for me because I missed these elements. It’s hard to know for sure, but I can certainly say that watching the film at home made me far less forgiving of its shortcomings.

The sequel introduces us to Diana Prince’s (Gal Gadot) life in Washington, D.C., over 60 years after the events of the original Wonder Woman (2017). Diana has made a career for herself as an anthropologist at one of the Smithsonian buildings, casually saving lives under her superhero alias whenever she can. After thwarting a robbery, she finds a Latin-inscribed stone among the goods and along with her colleague-turned-friend Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig), they discover that this so-called “Dreamstone” grants one wish to any person who asks—but at a cost. The item’s powers attract the interest of wannabe oil tycoon Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), who turns himself into the Dreamstone and begins wreaking havoc to feed his unending desire for “more.”

While WW84 easily outperforms many other entries in the DC Extended Universe, that's not saying much. Roughly the first hour of WW84 unfolds with little action, weighing down the pacing of the entire film. The main cause for its length, however, comes from the unnecessary choice to reincarnate Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). The intent of Steve’s magical rebirth might have been to raise the stakes for Diana later in the film, but ultimately he drags down the story.

The movie clearly wants viewers to depart with a message about the danger of lies. Unfortunately the dialogue lacks subtlety, bashing us over the head with the importance of truth. Meanwhile, the script attempts to connect the main plot with the moral of the story, but it feels like someone shoving a square peg into a round hole. In the end, the movie suffers from incoherent thematic material.

Incidentally, the film does provide a few tasty nuggets to enjoy. A delight to watch, Pascal dives headfirst into his role as Maxwell. Director Patty Jenkins also feeds us some lovely visuals derived from the neon color palette we’ve come to associate with the ‘80s, and we get an inventive fight scene that plays out within a caravan of moving vehicles, reminiscent of Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). Finally, as a D.C.-area native I must acknowledge WW84’s beautiful shots of the city’s tourist attractions.

Gender: 3.75/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES

Where to begin? Yes, WW84 passes the Bechdel Test. Yes, WW84 focuses on the rare female superhero. Yes, WW84 made Jenkins the highest paid female director of all time. And yet, the movie’s serious missteps on gender representation completely overshadow those successes.

Let’s start by briefly revisiting the first film, which feminist movie fans (including me) hailed as a victory for women. Given its immense cultural impact, we forgave Wonder Woman for its failures. Mediaversity’s review, while largely positive, did flag the most glaring issues: a forced romance, the “born sexy yesterday” trope, and Diana being written as utterly unflawed. I’d hoped that Jenkins might learn from these criticisms for her sequel. But instead, the film adopts new deficiencies and doubles down on some of the original’s mistakes.

For one thing, I found the treatment of Barbara disappointing. The movie introduces her as a weird but kind woman, and then gives up on exploring her character. We never learn what drives Barbara beyond a desire to shed her insecurities, reducing her to the “awkward misfit” variety of the strange girl trope. Being a “weird” woman myself, I know that each of us weirdos are so much more than our anxieties, and I desperately wanted to see that reflected in Barbara.

Additionally, the glimpse of Barbara and Diana’s relationship presents a real missed opportunity. Instead of developing the women’s friendship—or could it be more?—and sending them to bring down Maxwell together, the writers exclude Barbara to make room for Steve. Though many went into the movie knowing Barbara’s destiny as a villain (thanks, casting announcements), the story easily could have used her friendship with Diana to make the antagonistic turn all the more emotional. Considering the lack of nuanced female friendships in film, it’s a shame that WW84 favors a romance over a platonic bond between women.

Speaking of Steve’s return, it triggers a whole host of issues for WW84’s messaging around gender. The romance already weakened 2017’s Wonder Woman and here, the writers only further this forced romance. Jenkins tells ET that reviving Steve “came very organically,” but the choice actually reinforces the notion that heterosexual love is an essential part of life. To make matters worse, Diana only drums up the strength to defeat Maxwell because of a monologue from Steve, reminiscent of how his “I love you” enabled her to save the day in the original film. It’s immensely troubling that both Wonder Woman films show our female superhero depending upon the insight of a male love interest to save the day.

The last thing I’ll say about Steve is that his significant role in WW84 highlights the double standard plaguing comic book movies. He receives a larger character arc than the love interests of male superheroes, as well as agency to advance the plot. It’s unfair that in The Dark Knight (2008), the Joker kills Rachel Dawes to motivate Batman and in 2016’s Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Lois Lane sees fully three “damsel-in-distress” sequences wherein Superman must rescue her. In contrast, Steve becomes a nearly equal partner to Wonder Woman for much of the film.

On the whole, Jenkins’ film feels trapped in the second wave of feminism, where walking gracefully in heels symbolizes female empowerment. While the second-wave movement holds importance and fits the 1984 setting, it unfortunately focused on uplifting upper-class white women at the expense of women with lower incomes—usually from communities of color. In her own words, Jenkins wants to be part of “last-wave feminism, when you’re so feminist, you’re not thinking about it at all.” Unfortunately, Hollywood has a long way to go before we can stop “thinking” about gender equality, and WW84 seems to erroneously suggest that we’ve won the fight.

Race: 2/5

While 2017’s Wonder Woman made an effort at ethnic diversity, WW84’s approach looks more like an afterthought. That’s not to say the movie’s racial representation is a total loss. In fact, Maxwell Lord, a non-Hispanic white character in the DC comics, becomes Latino under Chilean American actor Pedro Pascal’s performance. WW84’s Maxwell uses the surname “Lord” in place of his given name “Lorenzano” to tastefully suggest that he had immigrated to the United States and altered his name to avoid discrimination. Further rendering him with sympathy, Jenkins strives to show Maxwell’s sincere efforts to teach his young son Alistair (Lucian Perez) that he can have anything he wants—the “American dream,” if you will. Even as the story makes Maxwell’s villainous trajectory plain, Alistair frequently appears to remind us of his father’s humanity. In his final moments onscreen, Maxwell abandons his pursuit of “more,” rededicating himself to being a loving father.

Setting aside Maxwell, however, WW84 commits a number of racial diversity sins. For starters, the movie takes place in the weird alternate universe of a mostly white D.C.—even though the city has been majority-Black since the 1950s, and white residents made up just 26% of the population in 1984. Additionally, it stereotypes characters from other countries, particularly when it comes to Arabs. Journalist Ahmed Ali Akbar calls the film a “white feminist movie” on Twitter, explaining that “the Arab men are fanatic bigots desiring a border wall” while Roxana Hadadi argues for Slate that "WW84 indulges a view of Middle East and North Africa that bears little resemblance to its myriad and unique identities, in the 1980s or now."

Jenkins also throws a mindbender at us in the form of so-called Mayan shaman Babajide, played by Indian American actor Ravi Patel. Though his exact relationship to Mayan culture is intentionally unclear, Babajide shows Diana and company an ancient Mayan text left to him by his great-great grandfather that identifies the Dreamstone. The movie’s dialogue suggests that Babajide’s real name is Frank Patel, turning his masquerade as a Mayan shaman into a joke. But why? At best, casting Patel as Babajide may be a bad wisecrack, but at worst, it may be WW84 treating two distinct cultures as one and the same.

Bonus for LGBTQ: +0.00

As our review of the original film details, Diana has long been heralded as a queer icon. In 2016, writer Greg Rucka confirmed her to be canonically bisexual. So it was disappointing to see the first Wonder Woman go without acknowledging her place in the LGBTQ community. On the plus side, WW84 contains several moments that suggest romantic chemistry between Barbara and Diana—for example, Barbara calls Diana “sexy” and we see the two women intimately discuss their love lives over a date-like meal. The movie’s first trailer especially teased the possibility of a Diana/Barbara love affair. Unfortunately, WW84 opts to maintain the heteronormative relationship between Diana and Steve, relegating the above potential to mere subtext.

Mediaversity Grade: C- 2.75/5

I cannot stress enough how much I wanted to like Wonder Woman 1984. But meaningful representation consists of more than simply casting women and people of color. Unfortunately, WW84 half-heartedly does the bare minimum, resulting in a bland, white feminist picture.

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Grade: CLiJanuary 2, 2021Female/Nonbinary Creator