Left: Adrianne Palicki promo shot for NBC’s Wonder Woman.
Right: Kimberly Kane promo shot for ‘Wonder Woman XXX: An Axel Braun Parody’.
….is it just me or does the porno version outfit not only look WAY BETTER crafted and prettier, the actress also has more muscles, a nicer fitting chest piece and a waaay more fitting body type and skin tone.
Also the porno version doesn’t look more “feminine”/more sexy whatever.
That… is EMBARASSING
I looked for some iteration of this post for some time now. It’s so incredible!
Second-hand embarrassment is off the charts. The jokes write themselves.
~Ozzie
Pretty sure the difference here is that Axel Braun knows people who buy his porno want to see Wonder Woman… NBC probably figured they just wanted to see a random female character.
– wincenworks
This week’s throwback inspired by Tumblr user @aspiringwarriorlibrarian who mentioned that Amazons in Justice League movie would look like porn parody of Wonder Woman… if the actual porn Wondy’s costume wasn’t SO MUCH more faithful to what she looks like in the comics.
Also, reminder that the last scrapped attempt at bringing Diana back to TV is the plastic tackiness on the left.
No wonder that Lindy Hemming costumes are remembered so fondly in hindsight, considering the standard for life action Wonder Woman look was set so low that “better than the never-aired NBC series, at least as good as the porn parody” was the minimal expectation.
~Ozzie
For those people who really want to appreciate the $40-at-Party-City-ness of the costume on the left, you’re welcome:
You might notice that her clothes look a lot like Sylvanas’, even after they gave her pants. Even down to keeping the thong!
They did try to differentiate her with the leg armor and cape, but they couldn’t bring themselves to actually design her properly, despite the fact that they supposedly redesign their characters all the time. She has the exact same coverage as Sylvanas, even down to the upper arm bands. Doing a bingo on her would just be redundant!
I’ll give them props for giving her an interesting jawline, but that seems to be the extent of their creativity.
Also, is it just me, or does the jewelry she wears in her dragon form not resemble her humanoid jewelry at all? Even the rings on her horns seem to be different.
But now at least we can make an informed guess that those old costumes were some sort of hard-earnedcompromise between giving the actresses wearable armor and meeting the “sex sells” demand from higher ups. It’s obviously no coincidence that once there were no women in power over the next movie Amazons appear in, any restraint over shamelessly objectifying them was gone.
Okay, I may not be a huge comic book buff (yet still a huge fan!), but I’m willing to learn if there’s something I’m missing. I’ve always loved the idea of Wonder Woman – a powerful female warrioress from Ancient Greece/Amazonian culture (iirc), a Xena-like character who fights for virtue, honor, truth, all those good things. She plays with the big boys, and not only keeps up, but shows them how it’s done.
If that’s so, then…whywhyWHY is she most always shown in a skintight, strapless, pantsless, thong/swimming suit/flimsy piece of spandex???? I know she’s pretty indestructible, but do you know how HARD it is to fight in a leather corset, where there’s no straps to keep that gigantic chest in place?
It makes me VERY sad that such a famous, prominent figure of feminine power is mostly seen as a sex icon, mostly featured in sexy/escher-esque poses, wearing “clothing” that looks like it was sprayed on or hanging on with a wing and a prayer (and maybe ample amounts of superglue?), or any variation thereof? I say ‘mostly’, because I have seen some versions where she’s more practical, with pants, real armor, heck I’ll even settle for the Greek/Xena-style skirt in some versions. Bravo to those people for giving our poor warrioress some semblance of dignity.
If I understand correctly, like in the Xena universe, that is the ‘style’ of the era, the leather skirt with the bodice and shoulder armor, reminiscent of Romans and Greeks from Sparta, etc. Well okay then, give WW an outfit that actually looks/works like real armor from that period, instead of the spandex thong/corset she’s most often depicted in. Also, iirc, maybe she doesn’t wear full armor because that’s the ‘Amazon way’, IE: she’s so OP that she doesn’t need full covering. But give her SOMETHING that isn’t so obviously designed to sell sex first, and practicality last!
Spandex may be all the rage for comic books (and it’s probably easier to draw), but I’d like to direct your attention to some of these wonderful blogs for many, many more reasons why our beloved Wonder Woman deserves more than a minimal-coverage, maximum-bust corset (and why practical armor can be even more BA and gorgeous):
Unless there is a practical, logical reason why WW is nearly always shown in the aforementioned ILLOGICAL ways, let’s face it: Sex sells, and too many people are buying. And that is no excuse, because women like myself want to see our gender treated with more dignity, respect, and understanding than what is given. You know what, I’ll bet Superman is chivalrous. And so is Wonder Woman.
I challenge any WW artist to design her with something more akin to Lady Sif (from the movie version), instead of just going with the flow.
TL;DR – Wonder Woman is too freaking amazing to be treated as a sex icon. She deserves a whole heck of a lot more from us, her fans. She deserves something befitting who she is, and what she represents.
My post isn’t intended to insult anyone, I know we all have different ideas and viewpoints. I’m just expressing my own views and frustrations with society :/
/end rant (btw, I have no problem with the comic book world; check my blogs, I’m a huge nerd! But I do have a problem with how prevalent the sex industry is, especially in my fandoms! Move over boys, girls are nerds too!)
I really find it baffling that after sixty-four years and countless re-boots, re-designs, re-imaginings for different mediums, etc. DC Comics keeps coming back to basically her original costume but with no skirt:
Epic creativity.
– wincenworks
Even when she gets a skirt, it’s like a swimsuit equivalent.
It’s shaped like a W, get it?? …For Wonder Woman!
-Icy
This was the most appropriate throwback we could think of, with Justice League film and its degraded Amazon costumes coming so soon. Diana, as well as her people, really deserves better.
Even the cover above, which Icy added, is a perfect example of Wonder Woman costumes which @realms-master talks about! That armor is literally painted on her (impossibly narrow-waisted) torso, especially the boobplate that somehow conforms to gravity along with the breasts. No amount of intricate shading would mask that. Also note the dissonance between Wondy’s serene expression and triumphant pose. It’s obvious that the artist, Liam Sharp, aimed to make her more “appealing” than powerful.
As the article points out, the Justice League movie has an essentially all male executive team as well as a male costumer. There’s presumably also a Creepy Marketing Guy (or even a small army of them, seeing as this is a DC/Warner Bros production).
No matter who to blame, this is just self-demonstrably shameful.
What’s really baffling about this is that Zack Snyder and same costumer, Michael Wilkinson, did manage to create a fairly decent (fantastic by comparison, but certainly not without it’s faults) female costume design in Man of Steel, as worn by the glorious Faora-Ul:
Most of the high end production staff from Justice League also contributed on Wonder Woman. So that leaves us with several equally terrible possibilities:
Someone with executive power literally saw the early sections of Wonder Woman and decided that what it needed was more women’s body on display so asked for “sexy versions of that”
The executive(s) in charge have been starting with “playing it safe” to build hype on the initial movies, and now have concluded that since those were a success they can throw female characters and fans under the bus in favor of their own puerile fantasies
You may notice a theme of this being an executive with very poor judgement, and as much as a suspect otherwise I really hope it’s NOT Zack Snyder. Because if it is, this does not bode well for the future:
