Wonder Woman 1984

In our first episode, Shanny talks with Lindsay Bernhagen, the Director of the Center for Inclusive Teaching and Learning at UWSP, and Wyatt Cross, a graduate from UWSP, about Wonder Woman 1984.

Send your comments to nocureforcuriosity@outlook.com.

Some texts referenced in this podcast:

• Allison Bechdel's Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
• Jill Lapore's The Secret History of Wonder Woman

Our snappy intro music was written by UWSP music student Derek Carden.  Our bright logo is by artist and graphic designer Ryan Dreimiller.

Transcript

Shanny Luft: 0:03

Hi, thanks for listening to No Cure for Curiosity. I am Shanny Luft, the Associate Dean of General Education at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. The point of this podcast is to promote the values of a liberal arts education. For the first episode, I invited a scholar of gender studies and a graduate of UWSP's theater program to watch the movie Wonder Woman 1984, and then afterwards we had a conversation about the film. If you haven't seen Wonder Woman 1984 consider this your spoiler warning. Wonder Woman 1984 is the sequel to 2017's Wonder Woman film, which was a massive blockbuster and the most successful film ever by a female director, Patty Jenkins. There is so much that is fascinating to me about the history of Wonder Woman. She was created in 1941 by the psychologist William Marston. Marston created the character as a critique of the comic book industry at the time, which he believed celebrated male aggression and power fantasies. So he created Wonder Woman as a powerful icon and leader whose power is derived from her love of humanity. Wonder Woman has been a popular icon for 80 years going in and out of fashion with the times. Gloria Steinem put Wonder Woman on the cover of the first issue of Ms. magazine in 1972. I remember her from the 1970s' TV show starring Linda Carter. The film Wonder Woman 1984 reunites director Patty Jenkins, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, and Steve Trevor as her love interest, played by Chris Pine. The two of them battle two new enemies. The Cheetah, played by Kristen Wiig, and Maxwell Lord, played by Pedro Pascal. My guests are Lindsay Bernhagen. Lindsay is the director of the Center for Inclusive Teaching and Learning at UWSP, where she also teaches classes in sociology, women in gender studies, and education. Lindsay's favorite pastimes are discussing the Real Housewives with her Best Feminist friends, adopting old rescue dogs, and compulsively reading the news. Do you have a lot of dogs right now, Lindsay?

Lindsay Bernhagen: 1:55

I have five, currently.

Shanny Luft: 1:57

Wow.

Lindsay Bernhagen: 1:58

Yeah.

Shanny Luft: 1:58

That is impressive. That is... you've definitely committed to that hobby.

Lindsay Bernhagen: 2:01

I have no children, though. So it

Shanny Luft: 2:03

Gotcha.

Lindsay Bernhagen: 2:03

Like if you add up the weights of all of my dogs, it's like one teenager.

Shanny Luft: 2:07

But you're so you got a big family there.

Lindsay Bernhagen: 2:09

Yeah.

Shanny Luft: 2:09

My other guest is going to be Wyatt Cross. Wyatt is a graduate of UWSP. He completed a degree in musical theater and a minor in Women's and Gender Studies. In his free time, Wyatt works as a barista, enjoys visiting local coffee shops, and will talk endlessly about subjects ranging from space and planetary science to film and consumable media. Wyatt, you're absolutely the perfect guest. I want to thank Lindsay again for suggesting you for this topic. And so thank you both.

Wyatt Cross: 2:35

Thank you both for having me.

Shanny Luft: 2:37

Let me ask first have either of you ever read Wonder Woman comic books before?

Lindsay Bernhagen: 2:41

No. I am very much not an action film person. I don't travel in any of the extended comic book universes regularly. So this is a little bit of a an unusual choice for me, although I certainly enjoyed the opportunity to do it. So yeah, this is like I'm kind of coming in fresh.

Shanny Luft: 2:59

How about you, Wyatt?

Wyatt Cross: 3:00

I did just like throughout, you know, casually, my time in middle and high school would have seen various action movie comic book films. So I didn't see I have seen a lot of like Marvel Marvel and DC movies. But yeah, I have like a little bit of exposure. But I was never like a super fan. But I do think that sort of universe is really, really interesting.

Shanny Luft: 3:20

So before we get into the new movie, what I'm curious what your thoughts were on the last movie that came out in 2017?

Lindsay Bernhagen: 3:26

I didn't watch it.

Shanny Luft: 3:27

Oh, you never saw it?

Lindsay Bernhagen: 3:28

No, I want to come in fresh.

Shanny Luft: 3:30

That's really interesting. I almost want to come go back and talk to you again, Lindsay, after you watch the first movie, because I think they're really different. I was surprised and we'll get into it. And the ways in which I thought these movies were really different. Wyatt, did you see the first Wonder Woman movie in 2017?

Wyatt Cross: 3:45

I'm with Lindsay. I hadn't seen the first Wonder Woman movie. And I just think I just never got around to it. I think it was on my list. And I just never ended up getting to it. But I revisited some of the articles in such that were written about the first movie after I had watched 1980 1984. So I definitely have a little bit of knowledge, especially about the plot and such but I like Lindsay said I wanted to focus and hone in on this film, specifically.

Shanny Luft: 4:10

I feel like Wonder Woman is such an icon that everyone's heard of her if they've never seen a movie or ever read a comic book. Did you have any sort of associations or thoughts about Wonder Woman before?

Lindsay Bernhagen: 4:21

You know, again, I have that Linda Carter image very firmly implanted in my brain of what she looked like and her being sort of a kind of a feminist superhero. I think my the deepest dive I ever did on Wonder Woman was listening to some of the interviews with Jill Lepore a few years ago when she was publishing her book and just realizing that the backstory of the Marston the creator of Wonder Woman is fascinating, and I always had sort of some interest in sort of dipping back into her just because just knowing that her origin her origin story in that sense not in terms of you know, the comic universe she's from is very unusual. So why she had a lasso though cuz she never seemed very Western to me. That was always sort of a curious set of choices. And a question that I never really pursued. But it's one that has haunted me for years.

Shanny Luft: 5:05

Yeah, the last thing it does it. You're right. It seems like it's from a different genre, but it does actually fit into Marston's background. Do you know much about like, sort of what how he came up with the idea of a lasso?

Lindsay Bernhagen: 5:16

I do know its relationship to some of his other inventions. I don't know why he chose a lasso specifically.

Shanny Luft: 5:22

Yeah. So what's it related to?

Lindsay Bernhagen: 5:23

A lie detector test?

Shanny Luft: 5:25

Yeah, he invented part of a lie detector test. Marston. He also seemed and you can tell this from early Wonder Woman comic books from the 40s. He was kind of obsessed with, like bondage in Wonder Woman's constantly getting tied up. In fact, her weakness is when her a man ties her wrists together. He seemed I guess, he seemed to have a lot of knowledge of ropes. Yes, really specific ideas about bondage. That kind of gives some sense of his maybe more than just as professional interests. Let's put it that way. All right. So let's get into the movie. How would you explain this movie to somebody?

Lindsay Bernhagen: 6:01

So Wonder Woman is working at the Smithsonian, and with her with her buddy, played by Kristen Wiig, who I think is fabulous in pretty much everything and underused in this movie, just to like editorialize a little bit. And they have this magical stone of sorts that grants wishes. And Max Lord wants wants this stone, he's got a failing oil company. He's got some daddy issues. So he finds a way to steal this stone from them. And he takes it he gets his wishes, granted that it sort of becomes the stone and global disruption ensues. And Wonder Woman realizes that she must save the world by stopping this set of actions and she and Kristen wigs character Barbara, end up sort of coming to a head and the end Wonder Woman is able to save the universe.

Shanny Luft: 6:49

What did you think of the film? Would you recommend it or not?

Lindsay Bernhagen: 6:52

I would definitely recommend it. For one I love anything that dips into the 80s I loved glow. I thought that was fantastic. I just love the sort of like dazzling stylistic choices I get to made about the 80s. I love this story being set in a time that sort of known for its focus on selfishness and materialism and individualism. I love that I thought it was a great sort of backdrop for this particular narrative. I thought Delgado was fantastic. She really, really great. And I thought Oh, actually all the acting was was pretty good in the role. And I thought it was kind of a fun story. I've had my quibbles with it, but we'll get we'll get to that, I think.

Shanny Luft: 7:26

How about you, Wyatt? Would you recommend it to somebody?

Wyatt Cross: 7:28

Yeah, well, I definitely enjoyed good majority of it, a good majority of it. But I do think that there were some fatal flaws in this specific film that I think brought down the potential and momentum and hype that it had moving up towards release. I definitely echo what Lindsay said, I think that the acting was fantastic. I do think that some of the seek the action sequences were really interesting. And I did really appreciate the doll that it brought forth with the whole 80s theme, which is really interesting considering I was born in 97. Like I definitely like I was born in 97. But I'm like it made me nostalgic for the 80s I thought that was kind of hilarious.

Shanny Luft: 8:10

Yes, I also was really excited about the 80s. And this of it. I graduated high school in 1990. So a lot of the music of my teen years or 80s music. If anything, I wanted more 80s in this in the movie. I liked all the colors. I like the mall. I wish there was more 80s music in the film well, and

Wyatt Cross: 8:29

you want to know what I think going also the fashion aspect of it too, in terms of like the 80s. And so I think it was really interesting, at least like now currently where we are in like popular culture, the 80s has had this sort of like strange resurgence. I think that a lot of our like modern popular culture currently is being influenced by a lot of like 80s things like I mean, like the mullet is like coming back and like not ironically, like it's actually coming back. And so I think that this film really tried to tap into the Political Economy of that.

Shanny Luft: 9:00

Although I was a little confused why it was called 1984. Because when I first heard that was the title, I assumed it would be both about the 80s but also about the book 1984 there's nothing at all about 1984 the subject, there's no big brother ish ness of it.

Lindsay Bernhagen: 9:17

I had the exact same thought I was like, Where's the Orwellian lesson here? Why don't we pick '83,'85, '86?

Shanny Luft: 9:23

So let's get into the gender stuff because I'm fascinated by the gender dynamics of this character. galaga.is incredibly sexy and and she's wearing this outfit that's, you know, really revealing. So, the physical attractiveness of the character and the way the camera can sometimes linger on her body seems very sexualized. At the same time, she's super powerful, and that's why she has been at times a bit of a feminist icon. And so that's part of what fascinates me about this character is Is she a feminist icon? Or is she kind of reinforcing sexist stereotypes and this movie I thought provided a lot of fodder for a conversation like that, so anyone want to start? Where would you begin with that topic?

Lindsay Bernhagen: 10:04

Well, I would first sort of trouble the premise of your question, which you're probably not surprised to hear. And I would say that it's both and like, while I remember when it when he was in my class that I would often say things like listening, nothing is pure good, but some things are pure bad, right? There's no there's no perfect and an imperfect world, but there there's like their sheer badness. So I would say that she falls into that sort of mixed camp. I mean, she's both feminists and some really interesting ways. And also, yeah, reify some kind of problematic norms. I mean, she looks a lot like Angelina Jolie, honestly. And like the Tomb Raider movies. I think she's she's beautiful. She's very normatively beautiful. Her outfit is a little Yes, it is. It is a little scantily clad. I wish she had on pants, but I do as a very active person. also understand that like having on tight clothing is really helpful when you need to move around a lot like having on tight stretchy clothing. Like you don't want pantaloons. You know, you don't want a hoop skirt, that's not going to help you like in these action scenes. So, you know, there's a reason that like gymnasts wear leotards. It's not all sexualization. Like there's some practicality to that. And the way that she's dressed in the other parts of the film, like she's got sort of a very masculine like men's wear suiting, you know, tailored, obviously beautifully for her body and whatnot. But she's got this very masculine sort of appearance. And I think that's probably a conscious choice to counter what's happening with with a classic Wonder Woman costume that we all expect to see her in. And I really appreciated that.

Shanny Luft: 11:22

That's really interesting. Like you're saying that you're contrasting the Diana Prince costumes, right when she's in her

Lindsay Bernhagen: 11:28

Yeah.

Shanny Luft: 11:28

human clothing.

Lindsay Bernhagen: 11:30

Yeah.

Shanny Luft: 11:30

He wears like pants suits.

Lindsay Bernhagen: 11:32

Menswear? Yeah.

Shanny Luft: 11:33

Wyatt, what did you think?

Wyatt Cross: 11:34

I was really excited about the feminist undertones of, you know, like the character of Wonder Woman and how they were presenting her and exactly like Lindsay said, I really appreciated how she almost exclusively had her own agency, especially like, I mean, she was, as far as I understand, was the director of the geology department at the Smithsonian. So that was something that was just like, I really, really appreciate it. But then at the same time, I think that something I really noticed was in a lot of the more action packed scenes, she sort of just seemed like she was getting her ass kicked a lot. I mean, she was like, constantly getting beaten. And I was like, I don't know if that I was trying to think back to like, you know, other superhero films that I had seen with like, male protagonists. I'm like, does that really happen with them? Or does it or am I just more sensitive to it being a female protagonist, but I think that the feminist undertones of this film, like Lindsay had mentioned forever, I think on both ends of the spectrum. And I really appreciated the steps that we're taking to make it make Wonder Woman have her own agency. But I think that they also lost I think some of that momentum in some other areas of the film.

Shanny Luft: 12:48

When I saw the first movie in 2017. We took our daughter, who was 10 or 11. At the time, there's a sequence where Wonder Woman, she burst through a solid brick wall, my 10 year old daughter, literally, like jumped up out of her seat in kind of like shock and excitement. It so resonated with her to see a woman just be that strong. We watched the second movie with her and I asked Ellie, what she liked about it. And the first thing Ellie said is, Wonder Woman is empowering, right that she likes seeing this really super strong female superhero. So are there points where you kind of like frowned or kind of furrowing your brow? Or kind of winced watching the movie? Yeah, I rolled my eyes I was actually taking notes and I just right I roll next to my notes list those eye roll moments.

Lindsay Bernhagen: 13:36

The first one was when Barbara and Diane I guess they're having one of their you know, their first are hanging out as friends.

Shanny Luft: 13:44

Barbara is the woman that becomes The Cheetah later on, even though there's

Lindsay Bernhagen: 13:46

Kristen Wiig again, criminally underutilized. I got lots of issues with her with her character. I'm like, okay, they're having a conversation their co workers, this movie's gonna pass the Bechdel test, which is an extraordinarily low bar.

Shanny Luft: 13:57

Explain what the Bechtel test is?

Lindsay Bernhagen: 13:58

Oh, sure. Yeah. So Alison Bechdel actually wrote the only comic style thing I have ever read on home. It's a great book, also a great comic strip called dykes to watch out for. So if anybody's interested in that she's a really fantastic writer, that she was sort of assessing whether she wanted to see a movie based on whether it passed the three types of criteria. Is there more than one woman in it? Do the two women characters talk to each other about something other than men? And we'll talk do they talk to each other about something other than men, and also the characters have to be named. So it can't just be like hot girl next door, one hot girl next door to they have to actually have names. And a surprising number of films that should pass this test do not. They're also terrible films that pass the test that is not on its own sort of a universal way to assess the quality or even the General Dynamics within a film but it's sort of a bare minimum.

Shanny Luft: 14:43

So did this movie pass the Bechtel test?

Lindsay Bernhagen: 14:45

Yeah, it did. I think

Shanny Luft: 14:47

you sound hesitant like it barely passed.

Lindsay Bernhagen: 14:49

Well, yeah, I mean, I think it did kind of barely passed because the conversations between Wonder Woman and Cheetah are so limited and they they diverge very quickly. And to talking about Maxwell Lord, I felt like a lot of the time sort of about the stone. But you know, he very quickly becomes the stone. So, and then one of their first meetings, Kristen Wiig asked her, you know, have you ever been in love and I was like, This is not a realistic conversation between two people who have just met each other, like two women who are brilliant scientists are working at the Smithsonian and clearly have like interesting backstories backgrounds, all this kind of expertise. They're having their like, first friend hang out. And this is like the top of that is just a very weird that did not ring true to me at all. And I that was my first moment of my role in the film. But I understand superhero movies, you got to have the love story, because that's part of the that's part of that blueprint. You know,

Wyatt Cross: 15:39

Lindsay and I are totally on the same page that Kristen wakes character I can't eyes almost rolled out of my head. Like every time something happened with her because her wish specifically was to be sexy, and cool and strong. I was a little bit, I guess, a little bit confused as to like, why that was exactly her characters like flop because she like has a PhD. And she's working at the Smithsonian. And she's like a very accomplished woman. So is she like, really, I didn't necessarily by the fact that she was that dissatisfied with like her position that she needed to wish for her life to be drastically changed in that way. I did appreciate the fact that her character at least was dynamic in the sense that you know, the scene where she was harassed in the park.

Shanny Luft: 16:28

I actually specifically want to talk about that scene. Right so Kristen Wiig plays this woman, Barbara Minerva is her name. She becomes the cheetah, right? One of Wonder Woman's nemeses. And pretty early in the movie, Barbara is walking home from work, there's a guy in the park, and he harasses her later on in the movie. This is the thing I really want to ask you both about Barbara. She gains Wonder Woman's power. And then the next time she's walking down the street, and she sees that same guy, she really she literally kicks him 20 feet. The guy, it looks like his teeth fly out of his head at one point. And I want to ask you both about that scene, because when it started that kind of scene where she beats him up. I thought this is kind of like a revenge fantasy. Like she finally gets the physical strength to be physically stronger than her attacker. Although she she takes it pretty far and nearly beats the guy to death. What did you think of that scene?

Lindsay Bernhagen: 17:17

See, this is another thing where it's sort of what Wyatt was saying about the kind of lack of backstory for her is that I want to understand better why she wants to be like me, we can guess why she wants to be hot and powerful. But I would like a little bit more sort of like understanding her motivation, like did she have, there's no sort of, like redemptive. This is this is a problem with the film. There's no redemptive backstory for her to explain why she sort of behaved badly, or maybe sort of out of bounds or excessively once she had this power. We don't get any of that backstory about her. On the other hand, we do get that about Maxwell Lord, but she I thought she needed that I wanted that I think that would have made her character more complete. Again, that was you think and a two and a half hour long movie, there would be a little more room to explore that part of the story, but they're just there wasn't

Wyatt Cross: 17:57

if I was going to pick one thing that would be my main criticism of 1984 is that the script seemed underdeveloped to me underdeveloped or like we had talked about before, like just like fraught over and over analyze so much that it almost just didn't make a lot of sense that one of the things that stuck out to me as kind of problematic was yes, there's the female protagonist as Wonder Woman. And I guess the foil antagonist, which is Kristen makes character is quote, unquote, this feminist film really accomplishing much of their having this like good versus evil woman on woman crime, you know what I mean? a literal catfight over over this man, that scene in the White House specifically where they were just like going at it. And then the third act final scene when she was the apex predator, I just had such a hard time grappling with that, because not only did I not really buy that Kristen was that into this guy that she was, you know, willing to fight Wonder Woman so that he can continue to like do his evil bidding. But I also think that catfight didn't necessarily translate well in the quote unquote, feminist nature that I think this film was trying to accomplish.

Shanny Luft: 19:12

One of the things that the director Patty Jenkins has talked about is she's she was very inspired by the the Christopher Reeve Superman movies. For example, in the second Superman movie, he essentially decides to give up his power because he decides he wants to be with Lois Lane, then the world is in danger. And he realizes, well, he has to actually go back to being Superman, and he's not allowed to be in love with Lois Lane. That's a big part of the plot of Superman too. That happens in 1984, also, right? Wonder Woman makes this wish to bring back Steve Trevor. And over the course of the movie, she starts to lose her powers. What I want to talk to you both about is the idea that women can have it all, right, that you can have a job and a family and a career. You can be president and a housewife, that you can be all things to all people 1984 suggests what you really can't either you can have a boyfriend, or you can save the world you have to pick, you don't get to have both.

Lindsay Bernhagen: 20:08

Yeah, I also completely agree that's super interesting. And it's when you put in the sort of the setting of the ad is it seems like a profoundly anti feminist message, because that was sort of like the idea of the ad is just like you said, Shawnee, but I think that, you know, a more contemporary discourse among feminists, and you know, of all of all sort of stripes, and in all kinds of conversations, the realization is that like, Yeah, actually, the world's still set up in a way that you can't have both, you can't have everything, you're gonna have to give something up, you can't be the best mom and partner and person at work and save the world and have the hottest body and all this kind of stuff. You can't do all those things. Right? I do think it was sort of problematic, though, that the overall arc of the film is that, you know, Wonder Woman is here to tell you that the main lesson is that, yes, you have to give up the thing that you want that you love most to save other people. And that to me was like, such a sort of problematically mom, like a problematic mom message, sort of, you know, like, that's sort of the expectations that mothers will do that for their children. And that made me a little uncomfortable, like, Oh, that's, that's the big message we get from Wonder Woman is like, you have to give up your truest desires, or whatever it is that you want most. So that the rest of the world, you know, can function. I think that that's, I think we could have done a little better with that with the writing.

Wyatt Cross: 21:20

Well, and I completely I completely agree, because it seemed really under develops, and just sort of just like it to me, it kind of just like felt a reason to get Chris Pine back in the film so that they can, you know, put his name on on the movie posters almost. Because I mean, other than him flying that plane to Cairo, there was not really any other reason for him to really be in the movie. Like he didn't, he didn't really do much plot wise, except for give Wonder Woman some kind of love interest.

Shanny Luft: 21:49

So let's get to Maxwell Lord. Now he is this 1980s TV personality, presenting himself as a smart and capable millionaire. But in fact, it's all a sham, and he kind of is lying. And he's not very successful or good at business, but he's just good at being a TV personality. That sounds like someone else. The final act of the movie is her confronting him as a movie, I didn't find this sequence really compelling. But it resonated very closely with what Marston the creator of Wonder Woman intended for Wonder Woman. And so that's what I want to ask you both about when she confronts Maxwell Lord, He is essentially connected to this satellite. And he is giving wishes out to the entire world, which is literally causing a nuclear war. Right, the warheads are in the air. And how does she beat Maxwell Lord?

Wyatt Cross: 22:41

Yeah, I mean, she just like sits in the corner and talks to him about humanity and asks him to like rescind his wish. And then somehow in the process of that brings up his son, and somehow he's able to find a little bit of ounce of humanity left in him to rescind his wish for his son. It was just kind of bizarre, because Wonder Woman just was just kind of sitting there. And just like talking to him. Yeah. I don't know, in terms of like a superhero film. It was just underwhelming. I mean, it's just more ladies doing emotional labor.

Shanny Luft: 23:20

What I found fascinating about that is, that kind of is what Marston intended. Right? Marston believed when he was writing Wonder Woman in the 1940s, that women were psychologically superior to men, right? He believed that in 100 years, women were going to take over the country and that women would be leaders. But the reason he believed that was because he thought women were inherently more loving and selfless. And that that's why they were built for leadership. Right? This is a very, like 19th century cult of pure womanhood idea.

Lindsay Bernhagen: 23:53

It's also like, a dash of Freud with a little bit of like Carol Gilligan mixed den that women have these different ways of relating with the world, these sort of, you know, sort of essentialist ideas about womanhood, that's as both flattering and condescending all at once.

Shanny Luft: 24:10

If you could bring Marston back to life, he would have been very satisfied by this ending, because in his comic books in the 40s, and 50s, she did not beat up a bad guys, she kind of talked them out of it. That seems like kind of essential to Wonder Woman's personality, and also kind of it's so backwards, she ultimately has to become a 19th century mother in order to literally save the world.

Lindsay Bernhagen: 24:36

Yeah, which is like part of that overall lesson that like, if you make this great personal sacrifice of the things that you want them, the people around, you will live better lives, which is like that really burdensome model of motherhood that I think a lot of women feel a pressure to live up to. And this is just another another piece of it. I have such complicated feelings about that because I love the idea that like, Listen, we don't need to keep like beating the shit out of each other to solve our conflicts. We can actually talk through things and if, like I'm fully on board That I talk therapy, I love it. Like, let's do more of it. We don't need violence to like deal with all of our problems, we can have people who are trained in like conflict resolution, and you know, reflection, and all these kinds of things sort of help out with these with these problems, like I'm on board with all that the fact that it's like a woman that has to do it, I think, a different version of this movie, if it were Wonder Man or something, and were a man talking other man off the ledge, that would be a little bit more compelling. But I think the General Dynamics here, again, raise some questions because of some of the development we've talked about in other parts of the plot.

Wyatt Cross: 25:29

On top of that, as well, the epilogue of the film, where, you know, she's in the middle of the city, and it's snowing and it's Christmas time. The very end of the film is her running into the man who Chris Pine was inhibiting. She runs into him at the very end. And I'm like, was that like, last note of like her pursuing this romantic interest with this random man that she met on the street like really the best, like last thought to be left with at the end of this two and a half hour long movie?

Shanny Luft: 26:03

Yeah, that ending scene is another scene in which I feel really torn. So at the very last scene, she sees the as you said, the guy who like Chris Pine, he bought, he jumped into, she kind of flirts with him a little bit. And then he walks away. And what you, I think are supposed to get from that is she is able to connect to human beings, right? It's like the opposite of how she is in the beginning of the film, where you're supposed to get the sense that Wonder Woman has matured emotionally because she's gotten over Chris Pine, but I that's not a bad idea, right? That she got over this like boyfriend, who from World War One, great, although that's the way the movie communicates to you that Wonder Woman is now a fulfilled human being? Lindsay, you're just shaking your head. No,

Lindsay Bernhagen: 26:45

I just don't even know what to do with that. Again, that's that felt unnecessary. To me. Often, I feel like the sort of injection of a romantic narrative into I mean, this is this is one part of my larger struggle with these kind of, you know, blockbuster big studio superhero movies in general is that we sort of inject this romantic narrative into them all the time, as if like, that is the only way that a person can have meaning, or we can become invested in a character is through this sort of romantic, I'm just kind of over it. You know, I keep seeing that. You don't need to like artificially stuffing into this story. Even though I thought Chris Pine was delightful. And I you know, he can be on my screen anytime he wants to be. That's all fine. I just didn't need it for the sake of the narrative.

Shanny Luft: 27:23

So here's my closing question for you both. If you could have one Wonder Woman superpower, which power would it be? And why?

Lindsay Bernhagen: 27:32

I mean, flying has always sounded really great to me. But since you can't do that, without with Chris Pine and his anachronistic knowledge of 1980s prop planes, I guess I'm not gonna get that from her.

Shanny Luft: 27:43

Is that so the power flight Is that yours?

Lindsay Bernhagen: 27:46

To be a little more realistic, I think is sort of like using people's strength against them. That sounds like just a great way to throw up a middle finger, but in a way that's actually really impactful at the world around me when I would like to do that. That sounds more fun. I don't know that I want to like be able to tell the truth out of people that that makes me I don't know that I want to know the truth. Sometimes. I like the carefully crafted version of reality that I'm presented with, you know, there's a little more judgment allowed there. And sometimes I need that.

Shanny Luft: 28:10

Wyatt, what do you think? What Wonder Woman superpower would you like?

Wyatt Cross: 28:13

Yeah, sure. I am I shit on that scene at the airport the whole time. But the One Power I would have is I still don't really understand how she made the plane invisible. But I thought that was like really badass, and super cool. And something that could be quite useful, I think, again, still don't understand exactly how she did that. Wasn't explored very well. But it was a pretty cool power. I think.

Shanny Luft: 28:36

I feel like the lasso. That is probably the power I would like. Although having that power to lasso somebody and get the truth out of them very much fits into the monkey paw theme of this movie, in that you you think it's a power you would like and then if you actually got it, and you could force anyone to tell the truth, you actually would be miserable with that superpower. So I kind of want it and know that it would not work out. Wyatt and Lindsay thank you both so much. This is a great conversation. I really appreciate it.

Lindsay Bernhagen: 29:04

Thanks, Shanny.

Wyatt Cross: 29:05

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Gretel Stock: 29:09

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