Wonder Women

Justice League, where the sex ratio is worse than Haryana’s

A few months ago, DC released a powerful trailer for Wonder Woman. It was a dream come true. On October 21, she was appointed the Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls, true to her character. She’s not perfect, but she’s better than nothing.

I became a fan of WW in Justice League: The Animated Series and since then, I have wanted to see this Amazon on the big screen. In the following years, studios made movies on Batman, Superman, Spiderman, X-Men and even Avengers but not WW! But didn’t everybody know her? Wasn’t she one of the most powerful superheroes? I didn’t think they’d do it. I didn’t think they’d make a Wonder Woman movie. I convinced myself Halle Berry’s Catwoman was good so that I could watch a movie revolving around a female superhero. Yep, I really did that. Until the Wonder Woman movie came out, the animated one.

The movie did not receive much attention worldwide but it was a step in the right direction. I read comics and manga, but I love characters even more when they’re moving, so to say. Live action and animation make the experience so much more immersive. The target audience for strong content in both is primarily male. As a regular anime-watcher, I can tell you that it’s ten times more difficult to find an anime with a strong female lead. They’re not non-existent, but very rare. Even in those, the lead is constantly reminded how it’s so cool that she is ‘not like the other girls’. As if being like other girls is an insult.

For many people, this may not be a big deal. But the glass ceiling will be broken by little things like these. For each woman breaking that ceiling inspires at least two others to do so. And we all know how exponents work. The world can be an equal place, maybe in a fifty years, maybe more. But I’m confident that it will. Till then, the League would have to do with a sex ratio worse than Haryana’s.