Wonder Woman: The Female Body and Popular Culture (Library of Gender and Popular Culture)

Wonder Woman was created in the early 1940s as a paragon of female empowerment and beauty and her near eighty-year history has included seismic socio-cultural changes. In this book, Joan Ormrod analyses key moments in the superheroine's career and views them through the prism of the female body. This book explores how Wonder Woman's body has changed over the years as her mission has shifted from being an ambassador for peace and love to the greatest warrior in the DC transmedia universe, as she's reflected increasing technological sophistication, globalisation and women's changing roles and ambitions. Wonder Woman's physical form, Ormrod argues, is both an articulation of female potential and an attempts to constrain it. Her body has always been an amalgamation of the feminine ideal in popular culture and wider socio-cultural debate, from Betty Grable to the 1960s 'mod' girl, to the Iron Maiden of the 1980s. Cover page Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page Dedication Contents Series Editors’ Foreword Acknowledgements Introduction Wonder Woman and the Body in Popular Culture Beginnings William Moulton Marston, Harry G. Peter and the Comic Book Industry After Marston The Superhero Body and the Superheroine Narrative Trajectory Ethnicity and Queer Bodies: Amazons Career Woman/Trickster: Diana Prince Writing about Wonder Woman: The Marston Effect Somatic Theory Plan of the Book 1 Beautiful White Bodies Gender, Ethnicity and the Showgirl Body in the Second World War Gender and Ethnicity in Second World War Propaganda: Pure/Impure, Health/Disease Women and the War Effort Ethnicity, Beauty and the Showgirl Body Race, Gender and Pollution in Wonder Woman Love in Chains: Bondage, Discipline and Submission Loving Domination and Submission in Institutions Conclusions 2 ‘Here Be Monsters’ The Mutating, Splitting and Familial Body of the Cold War Culture, Comics and the Cold War The Impossible Family and the Menace of Multiple Man Monstrous Bodies Conclusions 3 The New Diana Prince! Makeovers, Movement and the Fab/ricated Body, 1968–72 The Fashionable Body and the Superhero Counterculture, Fandom and the Comics Industry, 1968–74 Modernizing Diana Prince Pop Aesthetics, Female Spies and Consumerism Feminism, Costume and the Active Female Body Makeovers, Space and Female Agency The Uncontrolled Body and Uncontrolled Mind of Doctor Cyber After Diana Prince: The Pre-Fab Feminist Body 4 The Goddess, the Iron Maiden and the Sacralization of Consumerism Capitalism, Feminism and the Politics of Health The Sacred, the Profane and the Mundane Marketing the Sacred: The Goddess and the Iron Maiden Consuming/Consumed by the Sacred Myndi Mayer and Lucy Spear Conclusions 5 Taming the Unruly Woman Surveillance, Truth and the Mass Media Post-9/11 Post 9/11: Comics, Politics and American Culture The Fatale Gaze: The Banality of Images and Captivated Audiences Manipulation, New Ways of Looking and the Judgemental Gaze 6 Whose Story Is It Anyway? Revisiting the Family in the DC Extended Universe The DCEU The New 52 Wonder Woman : Dysfunctional Families, Absent Fathers and Negligent Mothers The Dying/Reviving God and the Messiah in The New 52 and Rebirth 7 The Once and Future Princess Nostalgia, Diversity and the Intersectional Heroine Nostalgia as a Promotional Tool in the DCEU The Future Princess Ethnic, Racial and Gender Issues in Early Twenty-First Century America Race and Ethnicity Gender Appendix: Main Story Arcs and Body Themes in Comics Notes Bibliography Index "Wonder Woman was created in the early 1940s as a paragon of female empowerment and beauty and her near eighty-year history has included seismic socio-cultural changes. In this book, Joan Ormrod analyses key moments in the superheroine's career and views them through the prism of the female body. This book explores how Wonder Woman's body has changed over the years as her mission has shifted from being an ambassador for peace and love to the greatest warrior in the DC transmedia universe, as she's reflected increasing technological sophistication, globalisation and women's changing roles and ambitions. Wonder Woman's physical form, Ormrod argues, is both an articulation of female potential and attempts to constrain it. Her body has always been an amalgamation of the feminine ideal in popular culture and wider socio-cultural debate, from Betty Grable to the 1960s 'mod' girl, to the Iron Maiden of the 1980s."-- Provided by publisher