Tagged: Themyscira

Mike Gold: Wonder Woman – Fox News Loses Its Shit!

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Our planet is being strangled to death by morons, at least one-quarter of all Americans think Vlad Putin’s interference with our elections and our economy is absolutely swell, comedians are being persecuted for making errors in judgment, people can’t afford even basic health care, an increasing percentage of our citizens depend upon neighborhood gas stations and “convenience” stores for their food supplies… and what is Fox News screaming about?

Last Friday, the official opening date of a movie called Wonder Woman, Fox News puppet Neil Cavuto got into a serious hissy-fit about the eponymous character’s wardrobe. Evidently, he thinks moving past the vague red, white and blue of her original comic book costume, designed back when this nation was just about to append the word “World” onto World War II, has been abandoned for colors he considered to be somehow unpatriotic.

Right. In other words, Fox News is pissed because a Greek goddess, the princess of Themyscira, an Amazon warrior trained to defend her homeland and not Cavuto’s, declined to envelope herself in colors that he could run up a flagpole in his own American front yard.

Please, do not tell Neil that our American warriors do not wear red, white and blue costumes in combat either. If they did, that would be a mistake. The last thing a soldier without superpowers would do is wrap himself up in an outfit of bright colors. That really doesn’t go along with the whole trench warfare thing.

According to Media Matters For America, the dialog went something like this:

Gal Gadot, from a Russian fashion shoot.

NEIL CAVUTO: Wonder Woman is out in theaters right now. Some are calling it less American, Dion, because her outfit isn’t red, white, and blue, and, in order to appeal for foreign audiences, very little reference to America at all.

DION BAIA (guest): I think, nowadays, sadly, money trumps patriotism. Especially, recently, I personally feel like we’re not really very patriotic, the country, in a certain sense.

MIKE GUNZELMAN (guest): I think the Hollywood aspect, we see this time and time again, it’s cool to hit America these days.

It’s a shame neither Baia nor Gunzelman were aware that, by definition, the United States was not the only nation fighting the bad guys in World War I. You know, the war to end all wars that didn’t end all wars. Or any. Perhaps they didn’t notice that (very minor spoiler alert) the villain of the piece was a lot more British than Princess Diana was American.

Cavuto and company ascribe the motivation for the costume change to the desire for greater international sales. In a free market economy, one might think your basic rabid capitalist would consider that to be admirable. But, according to that same “logic”, the bad guys would not have been German. There are a lot of movie theaters in Germany. I suspect Wonder Woman will do as well there as just about anyplace else.

Come to think of it, Princess Diana hadn’t been to America before or during World War I. Prior to leaving Themyscira to risk her life in order to aid American Steve Trevor in his battle to save us all, it wasn’t established that she had even heard of the United States of America. Or Great Britain, for that matter. Hell, she had just heard about Germany. I guess they don’t get Fox News in Themyscira.

Or, more likely, Amazons are too heavily vested in that “truth” thing.

Martha Thomases: The DCU – Getting There Is Half The Fun

kandorTraditionally, the last two weeks of August are the time when everyone goes on vacation. The chi-chi restaurants, the ones that don’t rely on tourists, are closed, which is fine because most tourists seem to prefer chains like Red Lobster, which I don’t understand at all. The kids are home from camp and taking two weeks to go to the beach, or the lake, or the mountains (whichever is closest to grandparents), and that seems like a fine idea.

When I was a kid, that was just fine. No schedules, plenty of new places to explore, or just plop down with a book.

As I got older and more pretentious, I wanted to explore the world on my vacations. I wanted to see the great nations of Europe and more. I wanted to see sites I’d never seen, eat food I couldn’t pronounce, and, maybe, fall for with someone who spoke a language I didn’t understand.

I still want to do that. But I also want flop. Is there anyplace to go on vacation that lets me explore and relax at the same time?

Of course there is! Comic books!

As a DC girl, I tend to think of escapes in the DC Universe. And, for the purposes of this column, I’m assuming I do not have a Time Bubble, so I can’t vacation with dinosaurs or Legionnaires. Even so, I’ve found three places that seem, to me, to be ideal.

3. Atlantis! No, not the resort. Not even the sunken continent of myth. The undersea home of Aquaman, king of the seas. It would have all the grandeur of a royal court on dry land, such as castles to explore, and probably cathedrals (or whatever Atlanteans call their communal spiritual structures) and museums as well. I imagine the food is like nothing I’ve had before, maybe sushi, maybe seaweed, but much, much more salty, since it is grown and prepared in saltwater.

Best of all, I bet that tourists would be able to play with the fish. I’ve fed stingrays, and I’ve swum with dolphins, and both have been so much fun. Sure, it’s for rubes, but it’s fun. I would entirely enjoy being exploited by tourist wranglers in Atlantis, and I’d tip as well as I could afford for the privilege.

2. Themyscira! Again, not the place of myth, but the home of Wonder Woman. Coincidentally, it’s also known as Paradise Island, which is also another name for the Atlantis resort. And I imagine it as a paradise, at least for women. Like the Canyon Ranch, but with optional hunting and sword-fighting, it would be all organic food and rejuvenating spa treatments. I have done neither archery nor horseback riding since I went away to camp forty years ago, but I bet the Amazons would tolerate my ineptness as long as I wasn’t an asshole and I tipped well. I can’t think of a better place to go for a Bachelorette party or a class reunion.

1. Kandor! I’ve saved the best for last. I would like to tell you that I want to go to Kandor, the Kryptonian city that Brainiac shrank and put in a bottle, because it would be educational to learn about a culture that is, literally, out of this world in origin. I’m sure that learning how Kandorians interact, their customs and habits and beliefs, would be fascinating.

But that’s not why I want to go.

Kandor retains Krypton’s environment, which includes red sunlight and massive gravity. Unless I took extra precautions, I wouldn’t be able to get up off the ground.

Slide a mattress under me first, and let my lie there in a lump for my two weeks. Now that’s a vacation.