I grew up in the mid-1970s. A major event in my childhood was finally getting a color television – Hello America! This new explosion of color was heralded by the dynamic presence of Wonder Woman. She was all curves and dazzle. Her active role and bulging breasts, tiny waist and ample hips encased in the colors and motifs of the American flag, along with that mane of dark hair, signaled power to me, but not as I’d known it. (At least I got the mane of dark hair.) It stuns me that, within a few years, another fictive action-heroine in the film Alien would capture my imagination in entirely different fashion and without recourse to curves or color. Eventually, my mother, concerned at my daily consumption of fluffy sitcoms, good guys and bad guys, got rid of the television and handed me books. Kick-ass heroines are now common. Wonder Woman, an early revelation, remains in my affections. More sustaining, however, are the girls and women with depth and flavor who battle with themselves and, hopefully…emerge victorious.
-Kyla Mackenzie
For more information, visit Wonder Woman’s page on the DC Comics website or check out the Wonder Woman Museum.
Visit us tomorrow to learn about a fictional heroine who solved crimes and is still read by girls all over the world.