The Big Picture: Wunderpants - Wonder Woman's New Clothes

Darmani

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Uriel_Hayabusa said:
I find those "Is the design of *insert random female character* sexist or empowering?" discussions mighty confusing a lot of the time. Like, I understand that having female characters who only have sex appeal going for them is something that bothers people; but at the same time you have characters like Bayonetta who are praised for how sexualized they are because there it's supposedly "ironic" or "empowering".
Comic is dominated by males. De-emphasizing erection fodder is a sign, if not a succes in and of itself, women are not actively being pushed away. See also the not far away starfire hubub and the whole "Hark a Vagrant" comic. Presentation helps loads to not make the picture of a female feel like an attack on females. Whereas actual women are making a decision about themselves however they choose to dress female figures of animation and male dominated venues are "guilty" until proven innoecent.
 

Coreless

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King Whurdler said:
Coreless said:
Nooners said:
Because I don't know, what are all those animated clips from? They look really, really good.
Awesome cartoons....Justice League and Justice League Unlimited.

Nope, they're from the 2009 Wonder Woman film.


Ah I see, thanks for the heads up. I need to catch up on my DC movie/cartoon viewing.
 

Daniel Janhagen

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SnakeoilSage said:
implied dominatrix-y female-dominant authority that MovieBob seems to insist WW has (not sure how he's reading that but hey, some people wear their less-than-subtle fantasies on their sleeves).
Because she literally ties people up, and the immortal women of her homeland do it to eachother for kicks is probably where he got it.

Agree with you on terrible casting and think Wonder Woman deserves someone a lot heavier, both physically and charismatically.

Also, Bob is (as usual) wrong about the 90's - the jacket look is almost never a bad idea.
 

josemlopes

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Its as if no matter what happens someone will always complain and get some smart sounding arguments with a lot of nouns and adjectives while putting fuck all effort into seeing it from the other perspective.

I can just imagine that even if the character originally had pants and now they were taking them off we would be in this exact same situation discussing that for some reason it got worse.
 

Artemicion

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Dec 7, 2009
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I don't really do comics so my opinion here is probably not really worth considering but I like both costumes. I also think the blue jacket accents the rest of the costume well. The pants and jacket additions sort of make sense to me. Themyscira, based on my google image search, is situated in an area that supports tropical life - meaning the climate is generally warm to hot. Her original skirt/whatever you'd like to call it costume fits here because wearing covering clothing in these areas is a good way to have a miserable, sweaty life. Now that she's in North America (and, for all intents and purposes, near the New England area), she'll have to adapt to the much more mild weather. Long pants and a thick jacket may not be the most flexible fighting wear in the world, but they're certainly a bit warmer. Hypothermia's no joke.


(Also: what toon was Bob showing during the video? That looks pretty worth watching.)
 

Lightknight

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Nov 26, 2008
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If pants will suddenly transform wonderwoman into a cool or interesting character then I'm all for it [/sarcasm]

Boomerang tiara, lasso, bullet proof bracelets, invisible jet? HAH, hah hah hah.

Please let a better female take the stage. How she has somehow become the icon for women in comics is astounding to me. Just as sexualized as the other females while being less interesting having a highly eroticized past shouldn't make her an icon for anything other than the bondage niche.
 

Piorn

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I don't know, the entire DC cinema thing hasn't connected with me at all, and I find it hard to get even remotely invested in it.

And while I'm rather interested in all those gender based discussions, they really never go anywhere, because if they could, the discussion would be over. And those discussions never end.
 

SilverUchiha

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I don't see the problem with the jacket. If anything it makes sense so she can just wander around normal society without being stopped every five seconds for people to gawk at her and say "YOU'RE WONDER WOMAN!" Plus, if it has pockets, she can actually carry stuff with her rather than... well... not. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the old costume (other than it really offers the same level of protection as traditional women-specific armor in say D&D or the average anime). But there's nothing really wrong with a jacket or pants or both. This really seems like you're making a mountain out of a molehill here bob.
 

lord.jeff

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The red, white and blue always bugged me more then the lack of pants, I'd like to see Wonder Woman's costume own up to her heritage as an amazon warrior give her some armor with emblems of her gods not a patriotic swimsuit.

Also I like the jacket though she doesn't wear it as well as Rogue.
 

Gorrath

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Pants, skirt, leggings or just that, I dunno, underwear? None of it really matters to me. What I care about is whether or not the character of Diana is portrayed in a way that shows WHY she's indispensable (not just valuable) to the JL and how she is different than both Supes and the Bat. Diana's personality and the decisions she makes are what's going to determine whether or not she's being "done right," not how much of her legs/cleavage you can see.

On a personal aesthetic level? The skirt only works if it's a pteryges in my opinion but pants/short-shorts both look fine, though the latter only with those tall boots of course.
 

walsfeo

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The thing about the jacket is "why?". And the answer is - they couldn't really give her a cape. I don't know why, but capes are really stupid for many characters, and they didn't want to give her one. The jacket is a surrogate for that kind of costume accessory.

Also, it has pockets. Pockets are more important than you'd think, I'd hate to go without mine for a week.
 

Lightknight

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Piorn said:
I don't know, the entire DC cinema thing hasn't connected with me at all, and I find it hard to get even remotely invested in it.
These are paragons. The whole reason why the Marvel Universe is catching on so well is that the characters are deeply flawed and human. This is why things like Mark Miller's Batman caught on but superman keeps struggling. Human/flawed is what we connect with. They've tried to humanize them a little bit but have gone full emo or other directions that just makes it weird.
 

shirkbot

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Daniel Janhagen said:
Agree with you on terrible casting and think Wonder Woman deserves someone a lot heavier, both physically and charismatically.

Also, Bob is (as usual) wrong about the 90's - the jacket look is almost never a bad idea.
I don't know anything about the casting beyond the photo included in this video, but I'd agree that a physically stronger actress would be fun. It's a shame Olga Kurkulina (see: Mother Russia from Kickass 2) isn't younger and a brunette.

And I will not only defend the jacket, I'm going to defend the title of the movie. Seriously, is "Dawn of Justice" really that much worse than anything else to come out of the hokey comic titles of yor? We have a character literally named "Batman." That's not a super hero, it's a Universal Studios Monster. Not to mention, from a marketing standpoint it's genius. How many times has it been mentioned since being announced, in Bob's own show even? Furthermore, it does what a title is supposed to do: Describe the action.

OT: Pants, no pants, nude, I'm probably going to ignore the film because Wonder Woman's fatal flaw is that she is a superhero. She's boring because she is not only guaranteed to survive, but to win, and be beautiful while doing it.
 

Alarien

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Personally, I really like the pants and stupid jacket look. I don't think it makes her less appealing. For me, it actually makes her character a bit more attractive, more subtle.

That's not to say I think there's anything wrong with a leotard look. I think Power Girl's look is just fine, despite the "window." The current depiction of Ms. Marvel is fantastic.

However, Wonder Woman's traditional outfit just mostly likes kinda silly. Overdone and absurd. The giant tiara (bleh), the birdwingboobs and of course, the "'Murica Stars" leotard bottom that looks like bikini underwear that would be worn by Stan from American Dad. Awful.

Honestly, I couldn't really care less which way they go, but I'm hardly going to be upset if Wonder Woman ends up wearing something that the average person wouldn't be embarrassed to leave the house in.

Personally, I'm with Lightknight above. I've always found Wonder Woman to be Queen Bland of the Vanillalanders. She's a fitting match for Superman. DC's problem has always been that their characters have been about as dull as dishwater.
 

Mr. Q

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WARNING: RANT MODE ACTIVATED

I don't mind if there Wonder Woman is going to wear pants or not. I just hope to God its not the fugly as sin Jim Lee redesigns.

Wonder Woman #600 redesign:



New 52 redesign:



And don't get started by saying Jim Lee had no hand in designing the New 52 look. He's Co-Publisher of DC Comics. I will bet you Dollars to Pecos that he had strict control over how each of the DC characters looked in the New 52 era.

You can tell that I have a serious beef with Jim Lee. Not as a person (although, some have pointed out he can be a smug prick: http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/09/08/understanding-harley-quinn-comics-with-jim-lee-and-larry-young/) but as an artist. To me, he's only a good artist and not a great/legendary artist many of his fans would like you to believe. This is mostly due to his lack of creativity. He cannot, for the life of him, make a good superhero design. As one of the many artists that came from 90s Image, he had a hand in the design flaws of that period (style over substance, too much detail and unnecessary add-ons, lack of visual recognition of who the character is, oversexulized female character poses aka the constant cocked hip pose, etc.) and its very apparent in his work. When Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw talked about the hideous art design of Darksiders ( http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1404-Darksiders ), he was referring to Joe Mad, another bastard child of 90s comics but the ascetic flaws are there.

But this is just one of my many worries of how Wonder Woman will be portrayed in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (Jesus, could they have not come up with a more clunky-sounding title). My biggest fear, and I mentioned this in a previous thread, is that she's gonna be the Frank Miller "I hate all men but I want to be sexually conquered by one" abomination in All-Star Batman and Robin #5 or the New 52 version where she has zero fucks to give in the compassion department or some other awful misrepresentation in the past. I want to be hopeful that she will turn out great, but lets not forget who's writing the script. -_-

http://comicsalliance.com/um-actually-man-of-steel-writer-david-goyers-remarks-on-green-porn-star-she-hulk-and-other-nasty-business/
 

Tireseas_v1legacy

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Gizen said:
I actually liked the stupid jacket. >.>
Thank god, I thought I was the only one.

And while I think the argument for the old-style costume is certainly persuasive, I think that it does need to change due to the change in what it meant. I don't think "but that was its intent" should be the conversation ender, as a lot of things have changed over the last 70 years. Hell, during that time, pornography went from banned to taboo to empowering to exploitative to major industry. The pantsuit went from non-existent to the female uniform in some industries. Strong female characters that weren't Wonder Woman started to exist.

And let's not talk about how many characters got a redesign during that time.

Point is, I actually prefer the skin-tight leggings and the bomber jacket because that looks like what someone who is confident with how they look would probably dress: shows off what you got without showing everything. Plus, there's pockets.

I've never been a huge fan of the spandex look on superheroes, especially in movies, because it feels extremely artificial and often straight up arbitrary in their design. I think the Captain America uniform is about as close to those as you can get: form and function with a reasonable explanation as to why he appears to have the least effective camouflage on the battlefield.
 

Jacked Assassin

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Jun 4, 2010
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I don't see why complaining whether pants are right or wrong is the problem. If anything I'm expecting in most cases that the part they give Wonder Woman to might be more comfortable wearing pants. And that decision has more to do with the actress they choose.

Its not like we haven't seen a Female Character switch to pants before. Cammy in the (bad / cult classic) live action Street Fighter movie wore pants.

And if Marvel ever decided to portray lets say She Hulk.... Assuming her green counterpart is played an actress its probably going to be pants.

But even if any of these Female Characters were very Intelligent how many guys would respect that instead of be very picky about how much clothes She's wearing between her inner thighs?

-

And before someone could consider me a Hypocrite for my Favorite Female DC Character being The Cheetah from the animated series Justice League (Unlimited).... You know because She's nude minus nipples & vagina....

That the reality of it is I'm more obsessed with her Cat Like Face. Instead the usual generic human like face that I find overly hyped by people who usually either hate furries or are obsessed with sexy cosplay.

And I would've had no problem with my Favorite Version of The Cheetah wearing Pants & a Top that lacked revealing breasts.
 

templar1138a

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Dec 1, 2010
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I'm not the slightest bit interested in seeing that movie, though you make a valid point about the shallowness of addressing costuming. I feel that if creators are going to have female characters dress in a skimpy manner, they need to put effort into making it clear that it's the character's choice and it isn't one made lightly.

For example, Morrigan from Dragon Age. So much side-boob. However, the ornate necklace she's wearing, her love of jewelry gifts, and her story about the mirror she stole heavily points to the fact that she's very much aware of her appearance. She also tells a story where the moral is, "Men are always willing to believe two things about a woman: one, that she is weak, and two, that she finds him attractive." All that put together means that Morrigan deliberately dresses scantily as an advantage.

Besides, once Morrigan starts sociopathically sharing her Hobbesan views of the world, her side-boob tends to be pushed out of my mind.
 

shadowmagus

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Wow Bob, let me take a moment and applause you. That is the most well-reasoned argument I've heard you make concerning women in pop culture in a long time. The fact that you didn't go immediate white knight mode both surprises and impresses me, so let's stay on that track shall we?

Otherwise, I completely agree. People have already started the WW conversation and it always starts with the costume. Never mind the actress, or how she will be portrayed. Nope, all of that is secondary because legs, apparently.