It’s quite amusing that just as Newsweek follows the New York Times and Reuters by doing a serious article on how Wonder Woman finally has a female writer after 60 years, Playboy trumps them all with a covershoot that paints her costume on a naked chick.
I’ve covered up Tiffany Fallon’s flash of nipple with a genuine 1940s Wonder Woman button, for the faint of heart.
Predictably, some people in comics’ corner of the blogosphere have hit out, but have any of these people actually ever read a Wonder Woman comic?
The Playboy cover is probably the most authentic and true-to-the-comic version of Wonder Woman’s costume I’ve ever seen. It’s certainly better than this effort by the same model, which I found on the gallery of her website, although she does get bonus points for having a golden lasso of truth.
Anyway, check these covers from the Wonder Woman comic’s current artist Terry Dodson, they’re not much different from the soft-porn mag.
What is Wonder Woman if not a male fantasy figure? Does anyone really think she wears the hotpants and bustier to facilitate her crime-fighting? Let’s not get our spray-painted knickers in a twist here folks.
I’m wondering what Wonder Woman’s creator William Moulton Marston would make of the Playboy tribute, but given that aside from inventing the lie detector he was a bondage nut who lived with both his wife and his mistress in polyamorous bliss, I’m fairly certain that he’d enjoy flicking through the spread with them.
As I understand it, and this may need to be taken with a large pinch of salt, Marston didn’t intend the Amazon princess to be a role model for girls, but a vehicle through which young boys would get used to the idea of strong women. So thumbs up to Playboy then.
Anyway, if this isn’t a great excuse to show a few dodgy Wonder Woman covers, then I don’t know what is.
13 Comments
January 13, 2008 at 10:34 pm
That’s a really nice Wonder Woman.
If she wasn’t so short, and could act(not that either would really be a requirement for Hollywood) I’d say sign her up for the movie.
January 13, 2008 at 11:28 pm
The cover is pretty nice- the actual Wonder Woman covers underneath are freaking hysterical. Nice find, Bob.
January 13, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Whether or not Marston wanted to create a role model girls is debatable, as he could have certainly created Wonder Woman for girls to look up to, or it may have been an outlet for his fetishes.
Those WW comic covers may look like soft porn, but there is a huge difference in their poses. If WW were to ever pose like Tiffany Fallon in her series, it would take away the whole point of Wonder Woman being created in the first place, IMO (and I won’t get into the stilletos). I also get a sense of pride and enpowerment, instead of me cringing when I look at the comic covers. I believe there’s a difference. However, I totally accept the fact that WW is being fantasised over, as any comic character is available for that, both male and female.
Having said that, I’m pretty pissed with the way the article was written, as there have been scans of it. In it, they compare Tiffany Fallon to Lynda Carter’s success… whoa, last time I checked, Lynda Carter didn’t degrade herself by appearing in The Simple Life with that douchebag Paris Hilton.
January 14, 2008 at 1:07 pm
They actually try to compare Carter and Fallon’s successes?
By the time Linda Carter was the age Fallon is now Linda had had a successful TV series and was a huge star people actually knew.
A quick search of the imdb to find out who Fallon actually is reveals that she has done nothing of note at all.
She’s not even related to that goofball Jimmy Fallon.
January 14, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Ha, guys, I have to say,I had no idea who she was until I looke dher up either.
January 15, 2008 at 10:45 am
“If WW were to ever pose like Tiffany Fallon in her series, it would take away the whole point of Wonder Woman being created in the first place, IMO”
Um, I’m not sure if you’re saying that tough women can’t be flirtatious or if you don’t realize that originally Wonder Woman was created as a hero who used “love” and a bondage implement to protect life, liberty and all that.
Comparing Fallon to Linda Carter is insulting to Linda yes, but saying Wonder Woman can’t have a flirty or sexy side is absurd.
January 16, 2008 at 12:03 am
Wonder Woman can be flirtatious, but compare Tiffany Fallon’s pose to any other Wonder Woman cover. Big difference.
January 16, 2008 at 2:04 am
Compare the series Fallon is posing for to the series the covers were drawn for. One’s a softcore rag, the other is Playboy.
Just kidding there folks.
It sounds like you’re trying to say that it’s okay if Wonder Woman is on the cover of Playboy, but only if she’s strapped to a rocket. Come on, if you’re on the cover of Playboy, you’d damn well better be mugging it up. Allowing Playboy but not saucy poses sounds like you’re trying to forbid Playboy without actually, you know, forbidding Playboy.
Even so, I’d understand if you objected to WW being on Playboy at all–I’ve heard the whole objectification vs. empowerment thing about a million times already. I don’t know if I’d agree, but at least it’s much more reasonable than picking on the pose. Either way, I don’t think the characterization of Wonder Woman is so flimsy that appearing on Playboy will cause the fiction to come crashing down. I doubt it helps, but come on. She’s Wonder Woman. She can take it.
The whole Fallon vs. Carter issue is a different can of worms though. I’ll just chalk it up to PR at work.
January 22, 2008 at 5:15 am
??What if they cast this model, Tiffany Fallon in the much-rumored Wonder Woman movie? Stranger things have happened!
January 29, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Actually, if you peak inside the mag, Wonder Woman has shown up practically naked as in chains, as this image demonstrates:
http://www.bondagerotica.com/articles/wonderwoman/wonderwoman19.html
Wonder Woman’s MOM, Queen Hipplyta, has also shown up kneeling before a man practically naked and chained, as shown here:
http://www.bondagerotica.com/articles/wonderwoman/wonderwoman22.html
Kinda makes Playboy look tame, doesn’t it?
I’ve written a long article about Wonder Woman’s strange ways, see my name link fo it.
February 10, 2008 at 3:03 am
Pat: The reason Hippolyta is chained and naked in front of Hercules is that he rapes her.
So… that’s kind of… rapy.
March 14, 2008 at 10:05 am
Chris: I’m talking about the image, not its context. No rape depicted, although clearly there’s nothing consensual going on between Hippolyta and Hercules. And I have to say … so what? It’s a made-up story, Chris, not real life. It’s a DRAWING. Get some perspective.
April 21, 2008 at 9:48 pm
You know what, Pat? If men had to deal with seeing images of other men being objectified and disempowered with the same frequency and ubiquitousness as women do…if, say, getting your balls chopped off was used as a plot device or acceptable back story for male characters with the same regularity as rape is used for female characters…if sexuality were considered the primary quality for every male character the same way it is for every female character…I imagine you would have a much DIFFERENT perspective.