Wednesday 29 August 2007

JOSS WHEDON: WONDER WOMB MAN (LOL)

Nnnghgh: Katie Holmes is in talks to star in the Wonder Woman movie. Why is this so irritating? I’m not one for hating on a sister, but she’s kind of on my list. She’s a sponge of a woman, absorbing those around her until she has no identity of her own and then stepping back into meek silence when it’s brought into question. Or she could just be dignified and content. Whatever. I’m picking a side.


This much-mooted big-screen WW will be a huge disappointment if 'Kate Cruise' takes the lead, because it’s hard to see her as anything other than a simpering accessory. But it’ll probably be a huge disappointment even if she doesn’t get it, since Joss Whedon is no longer on board (he left citing the old “creative differences”).

And his leaving the project is a tragedy of modern movies. Seriously. Joss Whedon’s a smart Hollywood player who’ll actually speak up against things he disagrees with. I remembered a post he made to his fansite Whedonesque back in May, an eloquent post about violence against women. It made me do a swoon. Among the highlights:

I watched the trailer for Captivity… Pretty much all you learn is that Elisha Cuthbert is beautiful, then kidnapped, inventively, repeatedly and horrifically tortured, and that the first thing she screams is “I’m sorry”… Women’s inferiority – in fact, their malevolence – is as ingrained in American popular culture as it is anywhere they’re sporting burkhas. I find it in movies, I hear it in the jokes of colleagues, I see it plastered on billboards, and not just the ones for horror movies. Women are weak. Women are manipulative. Women are somehow morally unfinished… [more]

After licking the screen with love, I went back further to a speech Joss gave in 2006 to Equality Now, who recognised his awesomeness with an award. And Meryl Streep only bloody introduces and lauds him. Permanent life motto: if it’s good enough for Meryl, it’s good enough for us. And it's well worth the 10 minutes or so it takes to watch:



This is all a very, very long way of saying that I wouldn’t like Katie Holmes to be Wonder Woman, if that’s alright, thanks. Rebecca

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