“The Bionic Woman” Lindsay Wagner voiced dissatisfaction with the current state of female superheroes in movies and on TV.
“Today’s female superhero looks like yesterday’s male heroes in some tights, and maybe a push-up bra,” said Wagner, who starred in the “Six Million Dollar Man” spinoff series for three seasons between 1976 and 1978.
The actress, who appeared on a panel at the 2016 Television Critics Association winter press tour promoting her upcoming Up network TV movie “Love Finds You in Valentine,” went on to explain that modern superhero projects ignore the “feminine wisdom” that women can bring to leadership roles.
“We tried to do that as young writers and people in the 70s,” the actress said. “We talked about that a lot on ‘Bionic.’ … I feel good that we had a fair amount of that in there even as we were people who were struggling, trying to find out what does that look like in a tough story.”
“My hope is that since it’s okay now to [have female superheroes on screen], those elements will be incorporated more and more … instead of using the classic thing of the explosions and the excitement and the violence,” she continued.
Wagner was also critical of filmmakers’ overuse of special effects. “We’re hopefully getting a little bit used to technology so that we’re not mesmerized by it all the time and we can hopefully get back to some story,” she said.