Happy New Year! I got a good feeling about this….2021 might be a great year.
Maybe. It has to be right?! To cap off the year, I did a new Beltway Banthas podcast on FEAR and HOPE and what I’m thinking going into the new year. It’s taking some of my recent musings here on Politicize Me and I expanded on those posts for the pod.
————-> You can listen to that here
————-> or on Apple Podcasts
Today we have a guest post on the new Wonder Woman 1984 film by entertainment writer and author, Remso Martinez. Tweet him @HeyRemso with your thoughts on the post and WW84 if you saw it.
P.S.: Do you want to write something for Politicize Me? Email me at Stephen.kent89@gmail.com with your pitch for a piece and let’s talk about it!
What Wonder Woman 1984 Isn't About
It’s not enough to just try and be a good movie these days, apparently, there always has to be some subversive, underlying commentary about politics specifically from one side of the aisle’s point of view — to even get the opportunity to premiere on the silver screen. Wonder Woman 1984 manages to draw many criticisms ranging from odd casting choices to poor storytelling, but explicit or subtle political messaging doesn’t appear to be one of them.
For the first time in a while, we have a movie that appears to just be trying to be entertaining for entertainment’s sake.
For almost a year now, pop culture outlets and tabloids have been wondering what big political sucker punches this new Wonder Woman film would deliver. Most of the focus was directed towards the film’s primary antagonist, Maxwell Lord (played by Pedro Pascal), an over-the-top businessman in the vein of the 1987’s film Wall Street’s Gordon Gecko mixed with a little Grant Cardone and Bernie Madoff. Pascal had been asked on occasion whether his take on Lord was in any way inspired by Donald Trump, to which he said only partially when you consider the many other corporate tycoons on-screen and real-life scam artists he also pulled inspiration from. While Donald Trump may be part of the mosaic of figures that made up this film’s Maxwell Lord, I can assure all conservatives wondering if this movie is for them, that Pascal is not playing an evil, superpowered Trump.
The true message I took away from having viewed the film three times (twice in theaters to support local businesses and once on HBO Max from the comfort of my home) is this- that the ideal world we wish for….no matter how perfect…would come with some very problematic real-world consequences.
Without getting too much into spoilers, the crux of the film focuses on a magical stone that grants wishes to whoever holds it, but with a cost. For our protagonist Diana, her wish comes at the expense of his powers, the secondary antagonist Barbara Minerva/Cheetah (Kristen Wiig) begins to lose her humanity, and for Maxwell Lord, his health is at risk.
In a year like no other, many of us can sympathize with wanting to wish for better lives, whether for ourselves or for the world around us. In politics, it is often easy to fall into our camps and lecture people about how perfect things would be if we could grab our own magic stone and wish our ideal world into existence. It’s easy to see all the good and all the joy our visions could bring, but that is the ultimate trick….we fall face-first into the unintended consequences because we were too distracted by what we just wanted in the first place.
Every wish comes with a cost in the film to whoever makes a wish, taking the old saying “be careful what you wish for” to a whole new level of extreme.'
While WW84 did have some objectively feminist narratives scattered throughout the film, I can’t say any of the messages or tones were at all divisive to passive viewers or disingenuous to the comic book source material. From the standpoint of a comic book and sci-fi fan, there are way better superhero films out there than WW84, but in a year where the challenges and circumstances of the world around us often seemed unfair, it was just nice to sit back and see a film that tried to be joyful and wonderful just because it could.
Remso W. Martinez is a best selling author, social media consultant, and avid comic book collector. He hosts two regular podcasts, "On the Run w/ Remso W. Martinez" and "The Second Print Comics Podcast." You can find him on Twitter @HeyRemso
Parting thought. Grasping the timeline of STAR WARS is really hard. If you grew up during the prequel trilogy, it was kinda easy to understand the whole thing. But I do not envy being a kid today with Star Wars having a very expansive canon universe and a timeline getting super chock full of movies and new shows. SO!! I sat down with my daughter to help her understand it all, and order the movies and TV shows on a chalk board. Now it makes more sense!
It’s me, Stephen Kent! I’m the curator of Politicize Me, host of the Beltway Banthas Podcast forthcoming author of ‘How The Force Can Fix The World’ (Hachette-Center Street). You can follow me on Twitter @Stephen_Kent89.