I think what people don’t appreciate about this moment is that Diana has literally NEVER SEEN A BABY BEFORE. She has likely read all about them and seen pictures, but there are no babies on Themyscira. So of course she is excited to see one!
Her face in that last gif is the fricking CUTEST THING
I saw Lindy Hemming’s work in Wonder Woman and I almost
cried. Scratch that, I did cry. Lindy Hemming didn’t use fetish lingerie
as her starting point, she used armor. Actual armor. Roman armor, to be
specific. Romans made armor out of overlapping bands of very heavy
leather. Because it was organic material, very little of it survived,
but here’s a fragment:
You can see this same technique clearly on Antiope in Wonder Woman:
And you can see it here on Diana:
It’s been highly stylized on Diana, but the inspiration, the intent, is there:
Remember when I said sometimes I can tell exactly what a designer was
looking at when they designed something? This is a piece of Roman
leather armor made out of a crocodile hide:
This is one of Hippolyta’s costumes. I almost squealed out loud in the theater when I saw it!
All the Amazons had fantastic, warrior-based details. The folklore
about Amazons cutting off a breast so they were better able to fight?
(which has no historical basis, btw) Lindy Hemming gave them a metal
breast plate on one side:
And, as a side note, can we talk about the casting of the Amazons?
All those gorgeous, strong, athletic women of all ages… swoon!
Yes, Diana’s costume has been stylized and they made her attractive,
but that costume first and foremost is armor. It’s functional:
That skirt? The shape is Roman, cut high over the thighs so it doesn’t impede movement:
Those aren’t sexy thigh-high boots:
They’re Roman greaves, meant to protect, and they buckle on. Again, ARMOR!
With Wonder Woman, the starting point, the INTENT, is
everything. The reason I literally cried watching the Amazons fight is
that FINALLY, somebody started at the right place. That design showed
respect. The intent, right from the start, was to portray those women as
warriors, and that, at least for me, made all the difference.
I used to want to save the world. To end war and bring peace to mankind. But then, I glimpsed the darkness that lives within their light and learned that inside every one of them there will always be both. A choice each must make for themselves. Something no hero will ever defeat. And now I know that only love can truly save the world. So, I stay. I fight, and I give… for the world I know can be. This is my mission now. Forever.
It probably really irritates Wonder Woman when the Justice League is getting shot at and she has to do the Robot to block bullets with her bracelets–meanwhile Clark is just standing there, bullets bouncing off his chest. He’s not even wearing armor. His mom just sewed some of his old baby blankets together and he’s making it work.
And she has to lug a shield around just so, like, fucking muskets can’t kill her. Like if someone shoots an arrow at her, she needs to block that, or she’ll die, apparently.
So just off-screen there, picture Superman just casually strolling by. “Hey, you, uh, you need some help there? Wanna stand behind me? I have this cape, it blocks bullets too.”
Okay, so it’s even the small things. The way she eats the ice cream. She just eats it. No coy lick or self-conscious taste. There’s no male gaze here. No oral/sexual pleasure of the viewer. Just she eats the ice cream and it’s the kind of sloppy big bite of someone who is not self-conscious of eating, who hasn’t been trained from birth to think about how she looks as she does everything, even eating. Hasn’t spent her life being told that her purpose is in being attractive, even as she does a vital daily thing like eating. Doesn’t have a voice in her head saying, oh but ice cream, it’s kind of fatty, and what will people think.
She’s just, wow, this thing is delicious, I think it’s great, the person who makes it deserves to be told how great their skill is. How great their actions that have lead to this product are. Even in this she demonstrates valuing people by their actions and abilities and choices and who they are, not what they look like.
Fuck. This is agency. And the fact that is so rare and startling and obvious to me, the fact that Diana Prince eating ice cream moves me so much is So Terrible and makes me despair for our civilization and (nearly) all media produced before this.
And during the shot when she takes the first bite, Steve is reaching his arm out to pay the ice cream seller. That movement is much bigger and more eye-catching than Diana eating the ice cream. This scene normalizes females eating on screen (which shouldn’t have fucking been a problem in the first place), through both subverting the erotic eating trope and allowing women to eat and enjoy whatever they want without feeling self-conscious. Kudos to Patty Jenkins.
Yes! Excellent point!
And even more, Steve isn’t looking at Diana as she eats. A big part of the male gaze is that the default POV of films is generally that of the straight, white, male viewer. And generally Steve would be the stand in for that default gaze, but he doesn’t even look at her! He doesn’t buy it for her so he can watch. And he doesn’t even pull some Nice Guy bullshit like, I did something nice for you now do something nice for me, even as a vague joke or subtext. He isn’t trying to get anything out it. He just thinks she’s probably never had it and might enjoy it. It’s about her enjoyment, not his. Despite everything trying to tell us that women feed appetites but aren’t meant to have any of their own.
Apparently I am never going to get over Diana Prince eating ice cream.
Also i nearly teared up at how highly she valued this man’s skill. Its so common to ignore the actual skill and talent of street foodsellers, particularly low cost food. But the way she said “you should be Very Proud” just… idk hearing that said to that man in this capitalist hell we live in touched me in a way that i didn’t think it would.
Cheloneuniverse 