Holy Wonder Woman! A Review of Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines

I had the opportunity to see documentary Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines recently. The film provides a history of superheroines, beginning with Wonder Woman, overlaid with a history of women in American culture and women’s rights during the same decades. It was interesting to see Gloria Steinem talking about feminism, Ms. Magazine, and Wonder Woman in the same breath, and to see many women (and men)—some famous, some not—talk about the ways in which Wonder Woman has been an icon of female power and inspiration.

The film also includes what the director or interviewees see as the descendants of Wonder Woman in popular culture:The Bionic Woman, Ripley in the Alien films, Sara Conner ofTerminator, Xena, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and evenCharlie’s Angels. Charlie’s Angels seems like a bit of a stretch, but the film makes a case for it.

More interesting psychologically are the parts of the film that talk about how icons in general, and superheroines in particular, inform us about what we should aspire to be. How they create templates to which we gravitate and fuel our imaginations, our self-images, and who we might want to become. Some of us may resonate with (or aspire to) Sara Conner’s tough, capable, and single-minded way of being strong. Others of us may resonate with Wonder Woman’s model of compassion, bravery, and strength. Or Buffy’s sense of humor in the face of adversity. There is something for everyone in the pantheon of superheroines.

I wish the film had spent more time on the sexualization of superheroines. We all know that superheroines in comic books are drawn with marvelous figures in skimpy costumes, and film and TV superheroines as similarly endowed and attired. The film touched on the issue of superheroines always being sexy, and sexy being equated with power, but a longer discussion of the implications of this for the audience would have been welcome. For instance, what does it mean that superheroines sometimes use their attractive physical appearance to achieve their goals? (Though Wonder Woman rarely does this, other superheroines do.) And what are the effects on females in the audience who see that superheroines only come in a certain size “package,” adorned a particular way. (For interesting research related to this in computer games, see Lissa Behm-Morawitz’s research). What does it mean for women and men that superheroines are, by and large, also seen as sex objects in our world? (Click here for research aboutobjectification, in which the experience of being treated as an object results in coming to see oneself that way. Objectification theory was originally conceived of as primarily pertaining to females. The original article by Barbara Frederickson and Tomi-Ann Roberts in 1997.)

I suppose that’s the subject for another documentary.

Copyright 2013 by Robin S. Rosenberg

All rights reserved.
 Robin S. Rosenberg is a clinical psychologist. Her website is DrRobinRosenberg.com. Her most recent book is What’s the Matter with Batman? An Unauthorized Clinical Look Under the Mask of the Caped Crusader.

Wonder Woman as Émigré

I read last week that DC Comics will be reimagining (sort of) Wonder Woman's origin story (and costume). For those of you unfamiliar with Wonder Woman's (Diana's) origin--the origin before this new one--here are the aspects of her story that germane to the rest of this blog post:

• Wonder Woman is an Amazon--a nation of strong women (and only women)--who live sequestered on Paradise Island; on this island there is food aplenty, no war, and the women living there are immortal while on the island. Although Diana knew that men exist, she had never met one.
• Diana wanted to leave Paradise Island in order to accompany to the United States a wounded solder whose plane crashed off Paradise Island (he couldn't stay on the island because it is for women only, and he wasn't able to return on his own. He was the first man Diana had ever seen.) Diana's mother, the Amazon's Queen, forbade Diana to leave Paradise Island.
• The Queen decides to hold a tournament to determine who is the strongest, most able Amazon; the winner will take the soldier to the United States.
• Diana disobeys her mother and enters the tournament, wearing a mask to disguise her identity; she wins the tournament, knowing that as the winner she must be prepared to leave Paradise Island forever.

My point here is that Diana is very motivated to leave, despite her apparently idyllic existence on Paradise Island. (For those interested in finding out more about Wonder Woman's history, I recommend that you click here and here.)

The new reimaging will change all that, which could be interesting because part of Wonder Woman's personality is reflected in her desire to emigrate. The classic origin story of Wonder Woman is the tale of a young woman desperate to emigrate to a new land--filled with men and different ways and customs. In fact, she so much wants to emigrate that she's prepared both to leave behind forever everyone she's love as well as to lose the Amazonian advantages of perfect health and immortality. Why might someone risk so much to emigrate?

Some people emigrate because their life in their native land is harsh: war, famine, oppression, poverty, or discrimination-with little possibility of significant improvement if they remain. In such cases, the specifics of the situation motivate people to leave who might otherwise remain in their native country in better circumstances. That's certainly not the case with the Princess.

The Princess's desire to move to America reflects constellations of personality traits--personality dimensions--that are typical of many people in our world who emigrate (Olson, 2007):

• Extraversion: composed of enthusiasm, adventurousness, optimism, and a tendency to seek our excitement, thrills, and risk;
• Openness to experience: composed of curiosity and a preference for variety and novelty.

People high in these personality dimensions are more likely to get bored in a culture that is closed and monotonous--like that of an island culture, particularly one in which there is not a lot of back and forth with other villages and other people (like Paradise Island). People who score high in extraversion are more likely to emigrate than people who score low on these dimensions (Chen et al., 1999). In contrast, people low on both of these dimensions will be more content--or at least more willing--to stay home, both literally in their home as well as culturally at home, not venturing into cultures too different than their own.

It's easy to imagine someone like Diana, someone who's bored with the monotony of village life--especially life in a village life in which food is plenty, health is guaranteed, and most tasks are easy for her. She must have been itching to leave. (And it's likely that Amazons who were similarly high in extraversion and openness to experience left Paradise Island long ago; the women left on the island are those who aren't likely to have much wanderlust (Olson, 2007).

In fact, research bears out this speculation about Diana's wanderlust and that of past Amazons. Italian psychologists Camperio Ciani and colleagues (2007) compared the personality traits among residents of three small island Italian villages with villagers from three mainland areas facing the islands. Each of the small islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea has a history of isolation; people do not frequently move between islands, or from the mainland to an island. (Researchers estimated that in every generation, around 30% islanders would have to leave because given the space limitations of each island, only a fixed number of residents could be sustained.) In fact, until recently, the islands were relatively isolated from the mainland.

As part of the study, the villagers completed questionnaires and also were interviewed. Consistent with the personality traits of people who emigrate, all three sets of islanders (each of whose grandparents were also islanders) were less extraverted and less open to new experiences than were the mainlanders. That is, people who were temperamentally suited to island life left so that those who remained did not have the personality traits characteristic of wanderlust. Those who were most willing to emigrate to other parts of Italy did so. And people born on the islands but then emigrated to the mainland had higher levels of extraversion and openness to experience than did people born on the islands but who remained. These personality dimensions have a genetic component (Angleitner & Ostendorf, 2000), and so the children of those who remain on the island are in turn more likely to feel comfortable with life on an isolated island. As the researchers note:

"In effect, extraverted individuals like novelty-seekers (Benjamin et al., 1996) are expected to be more emigration-prone, since they have a more outgoing attitude and are more curious about new environments; thus, their alleles fade away, since they leave no descendants on the island. Islanders also become less open to experience, due to the fact that life on small islands is more repetitive than on the mainland, and individuals with high levels of openness find less cultural, social or intellectual stimulation in such confined spaces. All these factors may induce extraverted and open individuals to leave the island." (p. 14).

Other studies found similar results. One study found that Finnish people high in extraversion were more likely to move from their native rural area to a more urban area--and were more likely to move longer distances--than their low extraversion counterparts. And in the United States, people high in extraversion and openness were more likely to move within a given period of time than were people lower in these personality dimensions (Jokela, 2008; Jokela et al., 2009).

Changing the emigration aspect of Wonder Women's origin changes who she is; I guess that's part of the plan.

Copyright 2010 by Robin S. Rosenberg. All rights reserved.
Robin S. Rosenberg is a clinical psychologist. Her website is DrRobinRosenberg.com. Click here to take her brief What is a Superhero? Survey.

References:

Angleitner, A., & Ostendorf, F. (2000, July). The FFM: A comparison of German speaking countries (Austria, former East and West Germany, and Switzerland). In J. Allik (Chair), Personality and culture: The five-factor theory perspective. Symposium conducted at the 27th International Congress of Psychology, Stockholm, Sweden.

Chen, C., Burton, M., Greenberger, E., & Dmitrieva, J. (1999). Population migration and the variation of dopamine D4 receptor (D4DR) allele frequencies around the globe. Evolution and Human Behaviour, 20, 309-324.

Ciani, A. S. C., Capiluppi, C., Veronese, A., & Sartori, G. (2007). The adaptive value of personality differences revealed by small island population dynamics. European Journal of Personality, 21(1), 3-22.

Olson, K. R. (2007). Why do geographic differences exist in the worldwide distribution of extraversion and openness to experience? The history of human emigration as an explanation. Individual Differences Research, 5(4), 275-288.

Helping Others, Helping Ourselves

Here's a true story: Star Wars fan Josh Weisleberg had polycystic kidney disease, a hereditary condition; his kidneys were failing, he was on dialysis, and the waiting list for a new kidney was-and is-long. Josh had exchanged emails with other Star Wars fan on an online forum for collectors; at one point he mentioned his condition. Subsequently, Barry Benecke II--another collector on the online forum, who knew Josh only by his screen name--offered to donate his own kidney to Josh. Barry was a match, and the operation was successful.

Why did Barry want to give one of his kidneys to a man he'd never met? Barry explains that he'd recently loss a number of people close to him, all from different types of cancer: his mother, the daughter of a friend, a good friend, his wife's uncle. "It was because of losing those folks that I was compelled to try to help someone else. The first person who I found that I might be able to help was Josh." Josh notes "Everybody likes the heroics and people trying to do good and make the galaxy safe. When you translate that to everyday life, you have folks trying to live that...Barry is a hero for sure...He's Luke Skywalker." (Click here for more information about their story. Selfless behavior wasn't new to either of these men; they both belong to the 501st Legion, an international organization of Star Wars fans who enjoy putting on Star Wars costumes and doing good works such as running in marathons for charities, and wearing their costumes to entertain children in hospitals.)

The same selflessness motivated another 501st Legion member, Eric Seeman, to donate one of his kidney's to fellow Legion member, Jeff Romanoff, who had kidney cancer (click here and here to find out more about that story). Romanoff wrote, "Eric is a true hero and emulates everything Star Wars is about. A wonderful, selfless friend, putting his life on the line, so I may see my son grow up."

Barry's and Eric's selfless behavior falls under the category of what psychologists call prosocial behavior, actions that are directed to help others. Common examples include sharing, cooperating, comforting, and giving assistance. Why do people behave in these ways? What light can psychological theories and research shed in helping us understand why Barry and Eric gave of themselves-literally?

Psychologists divide possible motives for helping others into two groups (click here for an article by Daniel Batson on the subject) :

1. People help others because doing so allows them to attain some goal for themselves, referred to as egoism;
2. People help others because they want to improve the welfare of others, referred to as altruism.

The first type of motive covers a wide ranges of situations and experiences. In addition to the more obvious ones (e.g., that the helper collects a "chit" so that the person helped may feel the need to "pay back" the helper at some later point, or that the helper's status increases in other people's eyes), people may also help to relieve their own negative emotions in a situation--such as distress, guilt, or sadness; helping relieves those feelings. Solicitations for donations to help children with cleft palates may motivate people to donate because seeing photographs of children with this problem leads the viewer to feel sad or distressed for the children; donating money lessens these uncomfortable feelings.

Among superheroes, Peter Parker's decision to help others as Spider-Man seems to stem from egoism; he became a superhero, at least in part, to relieve the terrible burden of guilt he felt about being (indirectly) responsible for his Uncle Ben's death. Although this type of motive may seem less "noble" than the second type, the helping behaviors that result from this motive are still helpful to others and shouldn't be thought of negatively simply because the helper had less altruistic reasons for helping.

The second type of motive can arise when we feel sympathy or compassion for others. For instance, some of us may respond to the photo of the child with a cleft palate with a deep sense of empathy and compassion for the child, and want to help-donate-simply to improve that child's lot in life. Among superheroes, Wonder Woman's reason for being a superhero fits this description-she helps others simply because their suffering--or potential suffering--touches a chord within her and she feels compelled to act on their behalf. Altruism was at work when Barry and Eric each decided to donate their kidney.

My reaction to hearing about Barry and Eric's generosity was probably similar to yours: I felt humbled and awed and wanted to perform some "good work." Psychologists refer to the feeling that I had--and that people have when they witness or hear about other's altruistic acts--as elevation, a term first used by Thomas Jefferson to describe the desire to do charitable acts in response to seeing an act of charity performed by another.

Psychologists are investigating the extent to which the feeling of elevation translates into actual helping behavior. We may feel great by hearing about or witnessing other people's good works, but does it change our behavior? The handful of studies investigating this question suggests that it does (click here for an overview of this topic. For research papers, click here and here).

Might superhero stories--in which the superhero clearly acts heroically--induce a sense of elevation in readers or viewers? If research found that they do, it would be interesting to see whether reading an appropriate comic book story induces more, less, or the same amount of elevation as does watching a superhero cartoon or movie. (Ideally, to minimize confounding factors, the storyline should be the same across the media portrayals.) Perhaps (some) superhero stories don't just teach moral behavior; maybe they also induce people to help others through elevation. Wouldn't that be super!

[Thanks for Stephen Sansweet of Lucasfilm for telling me about the remarkable story of Barry, Josh, Eric, and Jeff, and to Mary Franklin of Bantha Tracks for her reporting of them in Star Wars Insider.]

Copyright 2010 by Robin S. Rosenberg. All rights reserved.

Robin S. Rosenberg is a clinical psychologist. Her website is DrRobinRosenberg.com. Click here to take her brief What is a Superhero? Survey.