When we celebrate films like Wonder Woman, it’s for reasons beyond the female director (which is cool) the feminist message (which is also cool). It’s because representation matters, and it’s especially important not just for girls to have a role model in which to see themselves, but for boys to have an example of what a strong, nuanced, feminist hero can be. Because boys can look up to her, too!
BBC News has rounded up parents and kids talking about their experiences with seeing Wonder Woman, and they’re enough to warm the cockles of your heart. It all started when Patty Jenkins received a list where a kindergarten teacher wrote down all the reactions her students had to seeing the film:
My producer just sent me this… ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE! This makes every hard day worth it. Thank you to whomever wrote it!!❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/3DzIaMueIh
— Patty Jenkins (@PattyJenks) June 11, 2017
A dad then replied to Jenkins, “My six-year-old girl started practising that badass ‘leg sweep’ after watching the film.”
BBC News heard from a mother in Vancouver, Canada who said that her son Jasper said, “‘Boys can be Wonder Woman, too!’ Jasper’s very entranced with her bullet-deflecting wrist guards, so he started leaping around pretending he was under fire and repelling bullets.” Apparently, Jasper loved the film so much that he asked his mom to pretend to be Wonder Woman and train him to fight “like an Amazon.”
I love that Amazons are the new standard for battle.
Gabrielle Domingues’ daughter, Rosie, used to hate eating her vegetables, but she totally chows down now that her mom has started saying “It will make you strong like Wonder Woman.” Domingues goes on to say, “Until seeing Wonder Woman on the screen Rosie didn’t have a role-model that she could truly identify as the ideal combination of both ‘tough’ and ‘soft.’ It has permeated how she is looking at daily elements of her life from choosing not to step on an ant, to confidently sparring with her brother, to comforting a friend scared by thunder. Just last night she said out of the blue, ‘I thought girls were always weak, but actually we’re strong plus lots of other things, even trouble-makers in a good way.'”
Hell yeah we are, Rosie!
(image: Warner Bros/DC Entertainment)
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