Professor Marston & the Wonder Women
Blu-ray
Review by Kam Williams
Ever
Wonder How Wonder Woman was Created?
William Moulton Marston (Luke Evans) was a Renaissance man with an
impressive array of talents. After earning his B.A., Ph.D. and law
degrees, the Harvard grad was hired to teach psychology at Radcliffe,
his alma mater's sister school.Despite a demanding academic career,
this jack-of-all-trades, inter alia, found time to write self-help
books and to invent the precursor of the lie detector.
To
this day, however, he remains best remembered as the creator of
Wonder Woman. Selling the idea to a comic book publisher in 1941 was
no mean feat, since until then, Superman, Batman, The Flash, Captain
Marvel, The Green Lantern and all the other superheroes had been
male.
The
character Dr. Marston envisioned was not just a powerful
crime-fighter, but an attractive, scantily-clad Amazon displaying an
eroticism and a dominance her detractors would deem to be sexual and
sado-masochistic in nature. Yes, Wonder Woman wore a skimpy outfit a
la Superman, and she did use a rope to subdue and restrain
adversaries, but the comic was far from pornographic.
Truth
be told, Marston had ostensibly been motivated by the success of the
Suffrage Movement to further advance the feminist cause. In fact, he
once stated "The only hope for civilization is the greater
freedom, development and equality of women."
Another
source of inspiration were the two women sharing Dr. Marston's bed,
his wife, Elizabeth.(Rebecca Hall), and their
longtime lover, Olive (Bella Heathcote). He would father a couple of
kids with each, and they all lived under the same roof, although the
scandalous arrangement would lead to the family's being shunned by
polite society.
Written
and directed by Alexandra Robinson, Professor Marston & the
Wonder Women is an intriguing and informative biopic belatedly giving
a brilliant visionary previously marginalized by history his due.
Thanks to these more enlightened, LBGTQ-embracing times, William
Moulton Marston can finally be fully appreciated, polygynous
relationship and all.
Excellent
(4 stars)
Rated R
for profanity, graphic sexuality and lewd images
Running time: 108
minutes
Production Studio:
Stage 6 Films / Boxspring Entertainment / Topple Productions
Distributor: Sony
Pictures Home Entertainment
Blu-ray Extras: The
Secret Identity of Charles Moulton Motion Comic; A Dynamic Trio:
Birth of a Feminist Icon; A Crucial Point of View: Directing –
Professor Marston and the Wonder Women; and 3 deleted scenes: Love
Leaders, Coughing Blood and Who is Sappho?
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