Does it make any difference that the creator of Wonder Woman was a man? Or that he was a Harvard psychologist? Or that he had engaged in a polyamorous relationship with his wife and their lover?
And what does make a woman a wonder? And wouldn’t it seem plausable that to create such a character being a woman would be a preriquisite? After all, it’s not for nothing that our Wonder Woman here would in many respects be indistinguishable from a Super Man. A warrior, in other words, hellbent on reflecting all that is said to embody truth, justice and the American way.
Though gorgeous of course. And with some rather “perverse” sexual inclinations. Well, back then anyway.
Still, this is less a film about her than about Professor Marston. And his wife. And their lover. A relationship out of which he invented Wonder Woman in 1941. Though there were still any number of political waves on the horizon relating to gender norms.
And how all this all gets tangled up in turn in such things as “class” and “race” “sexual orientation”. Cluttering up the political narratives all that more.
[and what if we really could invent a machine that would unequivocally distinguish truth from lies? How applicable would it be pertaining to such human interactions as love and lust?]
In fact, whenever all of the possible combination of exeriences that human beings can engage sexually are actually considered and then acted upon, who would ever be able to pin it all down philosophically or morally. Let alone psychologically.
That titantic struggle between, “the world won’t let us” and “the world can’t stop us.” In other words, where are the lines to be drawn? And who is to decide this? If only for the sake of the “children”.
And then there’s this part: William Marston’s granddaughter Christie Marston publicly stated that her family “completely rejects any claims made in the film and in no way support this work of fiction”.
IMDb
[b]Often erroneously thought to be the inventor of the polygraph, better known as the lie-detector, William Moulton Marston was actually the inventor of the systolic blood pressure cuff, an important component of the polygraph. This misconception is reinforced by the biographical picture “Professor Marston and the Wonder Women.” The invention of the polygraph is more appropriately credited to John Augustus Larson.
A very close friend of the Marston family is Lynda Carter, the star of Wonder Woman [/b]
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor … nder_Women
trailer: youtu.be/r991pr4Fohk
Professor Marston and the Wonder Women [2017]
Written and directed by Angela Robinson
Josette Frank [director of Child Study Association of America]: As you know, we are reviewing your handling of Wonder Woman…given the current controversy.
William: You’re gonna give her to someone else? She’s a smash success because of me. I created her.
Josette: Dr. Marston, Wonder Woman has drawn criticism for being full of depictions of bondage, spanking, torture, homosexuality, and other sex perversions. Would you say that’s a fair assessment of your work?
William: I can see how people with a fairly limited understanding of my work could arrive at these simplistic descriptions. They’d be wrong, of course.
Remember, this is decades and decades ago.
[b]William [before his class]: Are you normal…? What is normal…?
…
Elizabeth: The cocksuckers denied me again. I’m smarter, more rigorous more accomplished than any of the so-called “men” in this department.
William: They will issue you a degree from Radcliffe.
Elizabeth: That degree is a load of horseshit. You know it.
William: It is not. It is taught by the same professors, it has the same standards.
Elizabeth: Precisely. If it is the same work then why can I not receive a PhD from Harvard? Because I have a vagina?
…
William: You are very brilliant.
Elizabeth: I know.
Willliam: Smarter than me.
Elizabeth: I know that too.
[he holds her and pushes her down on a table]
Elizabeth: Dear, we… We can’t fuck in the laboratory like animals.
William: Why not?
…
William [of Olive]: You won’t be jealous?
Elizabeth: No, I don’t experience sexual jealousy. Who am I to fight nature? I’m your wife, not your jailer.
…
Elizabeth: Your duties are to assist me and my husband with our research. We keep our papers in the filing cabinet along the wall. Please familiarize yourself with our current research notes…Oh, and if you fuck my husband, I’ll kill you.
Olive: Excuse me?
Elizabeth: Heh. Look, I feel sorry for you. No, really, I…I do, it’s not your fault. It’s, um, your beauty, it’s like a…Well, it’s like a handicap. It’s like having three legs or something.
Olive: Mrs. Marston, I…
Elizabneth: No, there’s no need to be defensive. I’m just asking you the courtesy of please not fucking my husband. Can you do that for me?
Olive: Yes.
…
Elizabeth: No, Freud is full of shit. What would I want with a penis? Seriously, it would be exhausting to have one organ constantly directing the course of your life. Olive, do you want a penis?
Olive: No.
Elizabeth: Do you think that you have penis envy?
Olive:
Elizabeth: I don’t understand what that means, sorry. Will you stop apologizing? Do you know how many times a minute you apologize?
Olive: Sorry.
William: Elizabeth, peach, penis envy is figurative. It means a woman experiences an envy of the male position in the world. His dominance. His ability to penetrate not just the woman, but…life.
Olive: Then perhaps I do have it. I do envy men’s position in life, their physical strength, their entitlement. My aunt said, “A woman must not be told how to use her freedom…she must find out for herself.”
Elizabeth: Your aunt, my dear, is quoting Margaret Sanger.
Olive: My aunt is Margaret Sanger.
…
Elizabeth: So, what you’re saying is, you are descended from two of the most famous radical feminists in the world and yet you were raised by nuns?
Olive: Yes.
…
William [lecturing a class]: Dominance, inducement, submission and compliance. All human relationships break down into the interplay between these categories of emotion. A person is most happy when they are submissive to a loving authority. It is essential that a person submits to an authority willingly…that it is their idea. We get into trouble when people feel forced to do something they don’t want to do, and that is merely compliance. People who comply instead of submit are unhappy and repressed and this can lead to resentment. Taken to its extremes it can lead to crime, war, fascism.
Student: How do you avoid compliance? It seems like that is built into most situations.
William: Inducement. Inducement is the act of seducing somebody to your way of thinking… dominating them so completely that what you want is what they want and they love giving it to you…and that, ladies, is the key to life, to love, to happiness to peace. Women are better at inducement than men.
…
Elizabeth [to William hooked up to the lie detector]: Are you in love with Olive Byrne?
William: No.
Elizabeth [after the needle jumps]: Hmm. Well, I guess it works after all.
…
Olive: I don’t love him.
Elizaberth: Of course you do.
Olive: No.
Elizabeth: Don’t take me for a fool, Olive. I’m many things, but I’m not a fool.
OLive: I know that. You’re brilliant.
Elizabeth: Don’t you see? It’s over. Whatever this is, was, it’s over.
Olive: I love you.
…
Josette: You’ve incorporated the lie-detector test into the Wonder Woman comic…her Golden Lasso, it forces criminals to tell the truth.
William: That is correct.
Josette: Why is Wonder Woman an Amazon?
William: In Greek mythology, Amazons were a powerful tribe of women who lived without men.
Josette: Without men?
William: It is important to me that young girls realize they have the power within themselves to create their own destiny. To be president of the United States if they want.
Josette: And Wonder Woman’s catchphrase is “Suffering Sappho.”
William: Sappho is a famous poet from ancient Greece…
Josette: Known for her love of women.
William: It is my belief that passion and emotion between women is perfectly natural.
Josette: Dr. Marston, lesbianism is an emotional illness. As a doctor of psychology your endorsement of this abnormal behavior in the pages of your comic is reckless.
…
M.C. Gaines: What the fuck are you doing?
William: That woman has been an enemy of the Wonder Woman comic from the beginning.
M.C. Gaines: She’s the head of the Child Study Association of America. Every parent in America listens to what she has to say. I told you to smooth it out. I mean, we got politicians sniffing around this thing. They’re talking Senate subcommittees. You know what that would mean to us? You got to go in there and play ball.
William: And if I don’t?
M.C. Gaines: Then I can’t protect you anymore…or Wonder Woman.
…
William [to Elizabeth]: What is it that attracts you to her? She is beautiful guileless, kind, pure of heart. You are brilliant, ferocious, hilarious, and a grade A bitch. Together, you are the perfect woman.
…
William [to Elizabeth]: We’ve been fired.
…
Olive: I want to be with you. I want to be with both of you.
William: Yes.
Elizabeth: Are you both insane? Do you not realize what has happened? We are ruined. All of us. You will not be able to marry. You will not be able to teach. I will not be able to do anything. What kind of a world do you think we’re living in?
William: We are in love.
Elizabeth: We cannot be in love.
William: It’s unorthodox, sure, but it’s…
Elizabeth: It’s preposterous. It is a fantasy, and we have to live in reality. And in this world and these lives, love it doesn’t matter.
Olive: I don’t believe that.
Elizabeth: Well, then you’re a fool. A stupid, simpering dilettante.
Olive: I’m pregnant.
…
Josette: Wonder Woman has a secret identity.
William: Yes, she does.
Josette: Why is that?
William: She has to hide her true self from man’s world.
…
Josette: Why don’t you write Wonder Woman under your real name?
William: Well, that’s just my therapy practice. It avoids confusion.
Josette: It’s not because most Americans have a low opinion of comic writers?
William: I do not care what most of America thinks.
Josette: Or is it something else? I wonder if you’re the one with the secret identity.
…
Elizabeth: Honey, this is pornography.
Olive: Isn’t this illegal?
William: Yes, yes, but look closely.
Elizabeth: I don’t understand what we’re supposed to be looking at.
William: Okay. Dominance, inducement, submission, compliance. This imagery is a metaphor for DISC theory. These pictures communicate in an instant what I’ve spent my entire career trying to explain. This is what we should be doing.
Elizabeth: Sweetheart…this is pornography.
…
Charles: Notice the finesse of the knots. Rope work is not an art for dullards. People come to me all the time lost, searching. They ask me why the rope, or costume the role play. I tell them we play roles all the time in everyday life, constantly. Out there we are bound by much stronger chains than the ones we use in here. But the truth is men and women long to control and to be controlled. It is human nature…Real life is full of pain and disappointment but fantasy, fantasy…is possibility.
…
Elizabeth [as William ties Olive’s wrist with a rope]: Olive, don’t let him do this to you.
Olive: I don’t mind.
Elizabeth [turning to walk away]: You…Why the fuck don’t you mind?
…
William: Please, dear, have an open mind.
Elizabeth: How much have you spent on this, anyway? And the rest of that smut he sold you.
William: It’s research material.
ERlizabeth: When will you stop justifying the whims of your cock with science?
…
Elizabeth: A comic book, Bill?
William: Well, it’s perfect. I’m going to inject my ideas right into the thumping heart of America. I mean, I’ll get a real artist to draw it properly.
Elizabeth: She’s an Amazon princess that lives on an island of all women.
William: Paradise Island.
Elizabeth: And a man crash-lands on the island?
William: Yeah, Steve Trevor, the spy.
Elizabeth: And she wears a burlesque outfit.
William: Well, it’s athletic.
Elizabeth: And silver bracelets.
William: They deflect bullets.
Elizabeth: And all her friends are sorority girls who have spanking parties, and everybody fights Nazis and rides in an invisible plane?
William: Yes.
Elizabeth: Bill. We love you truly, so much. But nobody…I say this with all the compassion and truth in my heart…nobody will ever publish this.
…
William: Excuse me. I’m looking for a Mr. Gaines.
M.C. Gaines: Who’s asking?
William: Dr. William Moulton Marston. I have an 11:00.
M.C. Gaines: You have five minutes.
William: You are the man that discovered Superman?
M.C. Gaines: Yup.
William: You’re a man of considerable taste, which is why I’ve come to you first.
…
William [to M.C. Gaines]: Suprema, the Wonder Woman will not be an ordinary comic book. But instead, the start of a powerful feminist movement. She will be carefully crafted, psychological propaganda based on a lifetime of research into the human mind inserted into a populist medium to further equal rights for women.
…
Voice [on a newsreel]: With war raging across Europe there’s a new hero in town fighting for our freedom, and she’s a lady. They’re calling her Wonder Woman. She’s the latest and prettiest sensation in a superhero craze that’s sweeping the nation. Sales are skyrocketing, and she’s outselling Superman. But not everybody is as enthusiastic about the new comic-book craze…
…
M.C. Gaines: We’ve been banned.
William: What do you mean?
M.C. Gaines: Put on a list, banned.
William: Well, by who?
M.C. Gaines: By the National League of Decency.
William: They’re fascists.
M.C. Gaines: No, Catholics.
William: Same difference.
…
William: We gotta cut the kinky shit by what?
Woman: Fifty. Fifty to 60 percent.
M.C. Gaines: Fifty to 60 percent, we gotta cut the kink. Doc, there’s, like, twice as much bondage stuff in here.
William: Three times. I tripled it.
…
Josette: You don’t even deny that these images are overtly sexual.
William: An erotic component is necessary. How else is submission supposed to be pleasurable? I am teaching readers to submit to a loving authority. And that submission is pleasurable. Young boys must learn this if they are to grow up respecting powerful women. Josette: What is powerful about a woman running around in a bathing suit?
…
Josette: Wonder Woman is filled with violence, torture and sadomasochism.
…
Olive: They had no right to…
Elizabeth: No, they did. They have every right. Their right to shun us and perhaps their right to beat us. Not because we fuck each other, but because we’re foolish enough to think that we’re better than them. I’m not a scientist. I’m a secretary. And Bill is not a psychologist. He writes comic books. And you…I don’t know what you are.
…
Elizabeth [to Olive]: You have to go.
…
William: You gave up. The both of you. I’m going to die…and you will be left all alone with your bitterness and your rage and your knowledge that you loved her and she loved you, and you threw it away for them.
Elizabeth: Our kids don’t deserve to be attacked, to be ostracized.
William: Our children are inheriting your shame. Is that how you want them to live? Is that the lesson you want to teach them? Now, do you love her?
Elizabeth: Yes.
William: And have you always?
Elizabeth: Yes.
William: So then ask her.
Elizaberth: Olive…will you forgive me?
No.
…
William: You need to submit to her.
Elizaberth: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
William: You cannot win every argument. You cannot dominate all the time. Get on your knees.
Elizabeth: I will not. This is absurd.
William: Get on your knees.
[she gets to her knees]
Elizabeth: I… Olive, please forgive me.
William: More.
Elizabeth: Please take us back. I thought I knew everything. I thought love wasn’t enough. But it…It has to. It has to be enough because we cannot…We cannot live without you. I cannot live without you. Please come back to us.
…
Title card: Marston passed away in 1947 from cancer. Elizabeth and Olive lived together for another 38 years until Olive’s death in 1985. Elizabeth lived to be 100 years old.
Title card: After he died, Marston’s overtly sexual motifs were stripped from the Wonder Woman comic book…along with her super powers.
Title card: In 1972, Gloria Steinem reclaimed Wonder Woman by putting her on the cover of the first issue of Ms. magazine. Wonder Woman’s super powers were eventual restored.[/b]