From pretty much the first moment that the above promotional photo of Friday Night Lights’ Adrianne Palicki as Wonder Woman was released, this project has been mocked and scorned by half the internet. David E. Kelley, of Ally McBeal fame, had planned to reboot the popular 70s superhero series with Palicki in the title role, but this past week NBC passed on the pilot …
… and Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon thinks it might be because America’s not quite ready for a female superhero who literally wears the pants and runs a corporation.
Apparently in Kelley’s re-imagining of the series, Wonder Woman’s alter ego was to be Diana Prince, a corporate executive — a departure from her origins as an amazon princess “whose mission was to bring the Amazon ideals of love, peace, and sexual equality to a world torn by the hatred of men.” Kelley’s version shifts Wonder Woman from a Superman to a Bruce Wayne, grounding her in more of a sense of reality and making her less exotic and alien.
While that description doesn’t sound awful, it’s hard to ignore the fact that the promotional photos for the show didn’t show Palicki in a skirt suit with her hair tied back motioning to things on a PowerPoint presentation — they were all either studio shots, like the one above, of Palicki in various versions of the Wonder Woman costume, or photos of her jugs a’ jigglin’ as she ran on set.
Williams places most of the blame on Kelley’s shoulders — arguing that a man who made waifish Callista Flockhart famous in a be-skirted rom-com legal show was perhaps not the best person to pen an ass-kicking, pants (or shorts)-wearing superhero program. That seems a little unfair, honestly — especially since by placing Wonder Woman in the corporate world, Kelley was moving the series in a direction he is perhaps more comfortable with.
Williams also questions whether, after several summers of success with the likes of Iron Man, Thor, Spider-Man and Batman, whether the cancellation might just come down to a network or an audience willing to accept a female lead as a superhero. That argument seems weak, given that the show was a huge hit 40 years ago. The other reason it seems weak is because all of the other examples are movie franchises, with the exception of Smallville that hasn’t done well in the ratings in years and frankly, most people are surprised to learn it’s still on the air.
But Williams jumps between a number of theories and the one I think most likely is that the show probably just wasn’t going to be that good. The costumes — all of them — looked tacky and Palicki seemed ill-fitted to the role somehow. What I dislike is the notion that if a female-centric movie or show comes out, its success will determine the probability that a studio or a network will allow a large group of women to star in something for a good long while. Maybe that’s true, but it’s also annoying because it makes it seem as though I’m being a bad woman if I don’t support any female-starring forms of entertainment. I may see Bridesmaids, but while I am glad that it seems to subvert a lot of wedding movie genre norms, I’m not going to go into the theater with my fingers crossed for womankind.
At the end of the day, I want to watch quality entertainment with interesting characters. The gender of the majority of the characters is irrelevant if the movie or show is good enough. And again, in the case of Wonder Woman… the project honestly just looked like a turkey from the start.
What’s your take? Would you have watched the show? Should women support female-centric projects just by virtue of the fact that they star women?
The premise of Wonder Woman was ridiculous. How was a corporate executive possibly going to find time to fight crime? Bruce Wayne has never been overly involved in his business outside of a few parties and board meetings, but WW would have had to put actual hours in to keep her job and be believable. So was half the show going to be Diana at work and half WW kicking ass (half Ally McBeal and half Linda Carter WW)? Or was her job only going to be marginally relevant? If so, then why even bother coming up with such an involved back story? At least make her “day” job something that would give her flexibility with hours (like a photo journalist, journalist, writer, or something) It doesn’t help that I loathe Ally McBeal and was never happier to see a shitty show get the axe.
I like your commitment to discussing meaningless topics.
It’s the week before finals. Meaningless topics are all I care to discuss.
I think the costume killed it. They went through at least 4 I know of and ever time they got released to the fans the response was negative each time. You thing the one in the post was bad you should of seen the other 3 >.<
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If they had gone with the reboot costume from the comics that would of be way better and a lot less revealing. The one with the pants and gloves if your wondering :p
The costume looked so cheap and awful I think it just killed any buzz around the series.
I would have watched the show. I watched every episode (all six of them) of Bionic Woman a fews years back, too. I thought it was just getting really good when they yanked it. I think many males have ZERO problem with a strong female super hero. I agree with others here about the costume and the (mis)casting of the lead. She doesn’t have the right look to me, IMO.
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I feel that every Hollywood decision comes down to whether something will make money. Period. So I disagree with the thought that the reason for axing the show was because “it might be because America’s not quite ready for a female superhero”. All the greedy producers care about is money.
Yeah… the costume totally killed it. It looks like a cheap Halloween costume. And as pointed out in the above article, live action superhero shows don’t do well these days. I’d guess because people expect movie-quality scripts and effects in shows that just don’t have the budget or the writers.
When talking about strong Female characters your forgetting about Buffy Charmed,and The Closer.I see nothing wrong with this WW costume,I do agree that WW working in the Corporate World doen’t make any sense.They should leave her as an Amazon Princess.I liked Adrienne inFriday Night Lights.I hope that another Network like the WB,Oxygen,FX will pick up Her Show.
This Wonder Woman didn’t make it to TV because it looked terrible. Everything about it did. The costume sucked. The woman who played her didn’t look the part. From what I saw she didn’t look like she was physically capable of pulling off the role, or a good enough actor to do it. I know it’s hard to understand, but the fact that a woman was going to be in power had nothing at all to do with it and it is horribly sexist to even suggest such a thing.
Having seen most of this pilot, I didn’t see anything to admire in it. Not on any level. I suppose we’re supposed to see her as OMG!FEMINIST because she protests the size of the boobs on her action figure at one point, but by then I already hated her. They took a superheroine known for her wisdom, strength, and compassion and turned her into an outright terrifying vigilante thug. Wonder Woman straight up kills several men, even taking out a security guard with a baton straight through his neck. And the worst part? At the end of the episode, after her rampage of destruction and murder, she is lauded as heroic and wonderful as the employees at her company (probably in fear for their lives) cheer for her rather than hand her over to the police. Then again, the police are probably terrified of her, too.
Then she goes home to her double life, where she watches TV with a cat and that is, presumably, all she does in that life. What a horrible, pointless, insulting show. I don’t know how no one, while filming this killing spree, stopped and said “Wait a sec. Aren’t people supposed to like Wonder Woman?” How did this even make it to pilot?