I remember loving the series "In Search Of..." in the late 70's and early 80's.
They explored everything from mysteries to folklore to paranormal phenomenon, and we lapped up every episode. Burgeoning nerds we were, we loved anything having to do with science fiction and/or the unexplained. I was already a mystery junkie, and this show was just catnip to me. What I really loved though, were the shows where they investigated mysterious creatures, like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Those episodes held my attention for the full hour, wondering if they just might give me a glimpse of these elusive monsters.
Actually, I kinda wish the show was still around today. I have a creature I would like them to investigate to see if in fact it actually exists.
I want them to find the elusive Wonder Woman. Obviously not the DC comic superhero, nor the Lynda Carter, 70's variation that I grew up with. Well, not SPECIFICALLY, anyway...
What I want them to find is this mysterious woman who has attained the state of perfection that all women are supposed to aspire to.
She still wears the same size she wore in high school, because although she is married and has three perfect children, an advanced degree and a high powered job, she still has the time and energy to work out every day and prepare three healthy meals a day for her adoring family, all of whom she has individual time for as well. She is the picture of health, wealth and success. We, too, can be her if only we try hard enough.
And we believe it. To the tune of a billion dollar health and wellness industry hell bent on selling us the myth of perfection attainable if only we buy this cream or that super-food or practice another new exercise fad. Lets not even mention the proliferation of for profit colleges consistently promising more than they could ever reasonably deliver in an employment climate already overburdened by too many people with degrees they can't possibly use.
But still we seek her...
Facebook is a useful experiment is social psychology. We all flock to the posts of (and eagerly press "Like" for) the posts of women we think have a handle on life. We need to affirm, in large groups, women we think fit the image we hold in our minds of Wonder Women. This could be a woman who is successfully managing a household. Or a woman with a career we admire. Whatever we think it means to attain absolute success as a woman, we cling to that image, and anyone projecting it, with a reverence most wouldn't believe if they weren't practicing a bit of it themselves.
But these are just regular women. Not Wonder Woman...
I remember reading an article in the fall of last year stating that Hollywood could not get a satisfactory reboot made for Wonder Woman, the DC comics female superhero with roots in both World War II and the Cold War. Many ideas have been tried and discarded, and one script even made it all the way to a pilot being shot before it was realized that, that, too, would never work. Our 70's icon, Lynda Carter, intimated that maybe what Hollywood was missing was the fact that a great deal of the Wonder Woman story was about sisterhood. Others opined that it was an unwillingness to seriously consider the ideas of female writers. Heck, even I dabbled in creating a story for Wonder Woman (What's one more bad idea among so many?) Although I think both Ms. Carter and the female writers are both correct in their statements (and Hollywood has a HUGE tendency to write female characters as if they only exist for male satisfaction), I think there is even more to this mythology that is missing.
If we are searching for a Wonder Woman, we are going to have to create her. If we go by the models that we already have, from comic book superheroes, to the flavor of the month media sensation, to the internet fueled Mommy Wars, we are already experienced at creating impossible images to hold ourselves up to. What we need , then, is someone who can hold the weight of all of our expectations, both real and imagined. Someone perfect, inside and out.
Or we can create someone closer to who we really are. A woman who means well, but doesn't always manage every situation well, every time. Someone who fell for the wrong person, and is now a single parent ( far truer than most realize), but is doing the best they possibly can with their current circumstances. A woman who is neither thin, nor fat, nor cares what people think because she is too busy with a full life to be bothered with the type of pettiness that the world would love to keep women embroiled in.
And occasionally she DOES don a cape. Just to keep out the wind or the rain, mind you. But she looks wonderful in it.
They explored everything from mysteries to folklore to paranormal phenomenon, and we lapped up every episode. Burgeoning nerds we were, we loved anything having to do with science fiction and/or the unexplained. I was already a mystery junkie, and this show was just catnip to me. What I really loved though, were the shows where they investigated mysterious creatures, like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Those episodes held my attention for the full hour, wondering if they just might give me a glimpse of these elusive monsters.
Actually, I kinda wish the show was still around today. I have a creature I would like them to investigate to see if in fact it actually exists.
I want them to find the elusive Wonder Woman. Obviously not the DC comic superhero, nor the Lynda Carter, 70's variation that I grew up with. Well, not SPECIFICALLY, anyway...
What I want them to find is this mysterious woman who has attained the state of perfection that all women are supposed to aspire to.
She still wears the same size she wore in high school, because although she is married and has three perfect children, an advanced degree and a high powered job, she still has the time and energy to work out every day and prepare three healthy meals a day for her adoring family, all of whom she has individual time for as well. She is the picture of health, wealth and success. We, too, can be her if only we try hard enough.
And we believe it. To the tune of a billion dollar health and wellness industry hell bent on selling us the myth of perfection attainable if only we buy this cream or that super-food or practice another new exercise fad. Lets not even mention the proliferation of for profit colleges consistently promising more than they could ever reasonably deliver in an employment climate already overburdened by too many people with degrees they can't possibly use.
But still we seek her...
Facebook is a useful experiment is social psychology. We all flock to the posts of (and eagerly press "Like" for) the posts of women we think have a handle on life. We need to affirm, in large groups, women we think fit the image we hold in our minds of Wonder Women. This could be a woman who is successfully managing a household. Or a woman with a career we admire. Whatever we think it means to attain absolute success as a woman, we cling to that image, and anyone projecting it, with a reverence most wouldn't believe if they weren't practicing a bit of it themselves.
But these are just regular women. Not Wonder Woman...
I remember reading an article in the fall of last year stating that Hollywood could not get a satisfactory reboot made for Wonder Woman, the DC comics female superhero with roots in both World War II and the Cold War. Many ideas have been tried and discarded, and one script even made it all the way to a pilot being shot before it was realized that, that, too, would never work. Our 70's icon, Lynda Carter, intimated that maybe what Hollywood was missing was the fact that a great deal of the Wonder Woman story was about sisterhood. Others opined that it was an unwillingness to seriously consider the ideas of female writers. Heck, even I dabbled in creating a story for Wonder Woman (What's one more bad idea among so many?) Although I think both Ms. Carter and the female writers are both correct in their statements (and Hollywood has a HUGE tendency to write female characters as if they only exist for male satisfaction), I think there is even more to this mythology that is missing.
If we are searching for a Wonder Woman, we are going to have to create her. If we go by the models that we already have, from comic book superheroes, to the flavor of the month media sensation, to the internet fueled Mommy Wars, we are already experienced at creating impossible images to hold ourselves up to. What we need , then, is someone who can hold the weight of all of our expectations, both real and imagined. Someone perfect, inside and out.
Or we can create someone closer to who we really are. A woman who means well, but doesn't always manage every situation well, every time. Someone who fell for the wrong person, and is now a single parent ( far truer than most realize), but is doing the best they possibly can with their current circumstances. A woman who is neither thin, nor fat, nor cares what people think because she is too busy with a full life to be bothered with the type of pettiness that the world would love to keep women embroiled in.
And occasionally she DOES don a cape. Just to keep out the wind or the rain, mind you. But she looks wonderful in it.
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