Love her or hate her, there’s no denying that Gloria Steinem has been one of the most transformational American figures of her lifetime, not only fighting the good fight of feminism but also skillfully shifting the course of the national dialogue, taking concepts that were once considered radical and making them palatable and urgent to a broad audience.
That ability to bring big and potentially scary ideas to the masses, and to inspire thought and action, is sorely missing from “The Glorias,” Julie Taymor’s subject-approved biopic, based on Steinem’s memoir “My Life on the Road.” It’s a mannered and muddled take on an exciting life story, and even Taymor’s trademark flights of fantasy are fairly hit and miss.
Taking the title of the book literally, Taymor and co-writer Sarah Ruhl use a bus as a central motif, and the passengers are Steinem, in four separate phases of her life: The child (Ryan Kiera Armstrong, “Anne with an E”), the tween (Lulu Wilson, “The Haunting of Hill House”), the young journalist and budding activist (Alicia Vikander), and the founder of Ms. magazine and beyond (Julianne Moore). It’s a gamble that works when the older Glorias commiserate — Moore’s Gloria provides a snappy comeback to a sexist talk-show host that Vikander’s Gloria couldn’t — but feels mawkish when, for example, the oldest Gloria holds the youngest Gloria’s hand at an emotional moment.
Until Moore takes over the role, “The Glorias” lurches back and forth through her early life, pinballing from memories of Steinem’s charming but unreliable father (Timothy Hutton) and emotionally fragile mother (Enid Graham, “The Sinner”) to post-college Steinem traveling through India and going undercover as a Playboy bunny to write the investigative piece that originally put her on the map as a reporter.
The latter sequence gives legendary cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto a moment to shine, as Steinem and a dozen other Playboy bunnies climb a lit-from-beneath spiral staircase for a photo shoot in a Busby Berkeley-esque sequence. It’s one of those moments where Taymor’s propensity for dazzle supports the story she’s telling; less successful is a childhood flashback involving an impromptu tap-dance number, which would have worked much better had Taymor and Prieto not cut off the dancers’ feet out of frame so much. And as for an extended “Wizard of Oz” sequence, the less said, the better.
“The Glorias” tries to pack an eventful life into two and a half hours, and the results feel simultaneously overstuffed and lugubrious. (“Are we there yet?” gripes the youngest Gloria at the two-hour mark, and I felt her pain.) Steinem may have issues with the recent FX miniseries “Mrs. America,” but that show at least offered enough real estate so that viewers came away understanding the significance of moments like the National Women’s Political Caucus’ presence at the 1972 Democratic Convention or the 1977 National Women’s Conference. (Moore’s Gloria refers to the latter as “a catastrophe,” but “The Glorias” never explains why, except to say that the Equal Rights Amendment didn’t wind up passing.)
Taymor and Ruhl also fall a bit short in their portrayal of minority women’s voices in the feminist movement. Whether it’s Indian women talking about the degradation they’ve suffered under the caste system or Black marchers in Washington, D.C., relating the horrors visited upon Fannie Lou Hamer, much of “The Glorias” involves women of color teaching Steinem about their own fraught histories. Clearly, the intent here is to illustrate Steinem’s education and evolution, and to underscore the importance of intersectionality when discussing issues relating to women’s rights. The results, more often than not, come off as the story of a white woman experiencing personal growth via the trauma of non-white women.
Vikander and Moore, two of the screen’s most versatile and empathetic performers, both seem oddly stilted here, as though capturing Steinem’s singular speech pattern somehow restricted the rest of their performance. (Another point for “Mrs. America,” which gave us Rose Byrne’s Steinem, a funny, fluid and ferocious creation.) During her handful of scenes, Lorraine Toussaint dominates the film; her take on activist and author Flo Kennedy provides a dynamism that “The Glorias” could have used a lot more of.
As the film periodically reminds us, Gloria Steinem grew up loving the movies and wanting to become a dancer, and she poured that sense of show business into a paradigm-shattering career as an activist; one of Steinem’s great strengths is understanding the media, whether she is its subject or, as the publisher of Ms., one of its practitioners. Someone this savvy about words and images should have rated a biopic that is, too.
An Abridged History of Wonder Woman (Photos)
76 years ago, the eighth issue of “All-Star Comics” introduced a new heroine who would become one of the most essential icons in comic books and feminist culture: Wonder Woman. Now, she has made her long-awaited arrival on movie screens around the world in a new film directed by Patty Jenkins and starring Gal Gadot. Here’s how the champion of the Amazons got here.
Wonder Woman was created in 1941 by psychologist William Moulton Marston in order to provide comic books with a superhero who didn’t embody the hyper-masculine qualities of Superman and Batman. Marston was in a polyamorous relationship with his wife, attorney and psychologist Elizabeth Holloway, and a former student, Olive Byrne. Both women were the key inspirations for Diana Prince.
Wonder Woman’s debut story revolved around WWII pilot, Steve Trevor, who crash lands on an island populated by a race of powerful women called Amazons. There, he is healed and falls in love with Diana, Princess of the Amazons. When they learn of the war outside the island, Diana wins a tournament held to decide who will be the Amazons’ champion and fight the Nazis in the war, earning her the title of Wonder Woman.
Noting that Byrne often wore a set of bracelets, Marston decided to give Wonder Woman a pair of bracelets that could deflect bullets. The bracelets were originally shackles Amazons wore when they were enslaved by Hercules and his men, and after they liberated themselves, they continued to wear them as a reminder to stay vigilant.
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Marston also created a weakness for Wonder Woman: Whenever the bracelets were chained together, she would lose her Amazon strength. This would often lead to Wonder Woman triumphing by breaking from her bondage, turning her into a WWII-era symbol of women breaking free from society’s constraints.
Wonder Woman also returned the favor with a bondage tool of her own: her magic lasso, which forced those ensnared by it to tell the truth. An odd weapon for the time, but a fitting creation for Marston, who was one of the inventors of the lie detector test.
A year after her debut, Wonder Woman broke away from All-Star Comics and got her own series. Her rise coincided with the rise of Rosie The Riveter and an interest in more feminist media as women were called upon to contribute to the war effort by taking factory jobs while men were away on the front lines. But she couldn’t break every boundary. She served on the Justice Society of America — a precursor to the Justice League — as the team’s secretary.
By the 50s, the rise of the nuclear family, combined with the change in comic book content imposed by the Comics Code Authority, forced Wonder Woman on a different path. An emphasis was put more on Wonder Woman’s romantic life with Steve Trevor and her origin story was rewritten so that she was a descendant of the Greek gods, a move made to placate censors uncomfortable with the idea that Marston’s Amazons had no fathers in their society.
In 1968, Wonder Woman made her most shocking move yet, choosing to surrender her Amazon powers rather than travel with her people to another dimension so she could stay with Steve. Opening a mod boutique and relying on a Chinese mentor named I Ching to teach her martial arts skills she could use instead of her powers, Wonder Woman was taken far away from her roots.
But in 1972, Wonder Woman found new life as a feminist icon, starting with her appearance on the cover of the first issue of Gloria Steinem’s Ms. magazine. A year later, DC restored her powers in “Wonder Woman Vol. 1, #204,” while the character gained popularity outside of comic books as a part of the “Super Friends” animated TV series.
Then, in 1974, Wonder Woman made her live-action debut in a made-for-TV movie starring Cathy Lee Crosby. A year later, Lynda Carter stepped into the role in an iconic TV series that rivaled Adam West’s “Batman” series in popularity.
Following the entire reboot of the DC timeline with “Crisis On Infinite Earths” in 1986, Wonder Woman’s origins were rewritten again. Her original, fatherless origins were restored, while the Greek mythology from the 50s continued to play a major role. Diana’s home island was also given a new name: Themiscyra, a name still used to this day.
In the '90s, NBC attempted to revive Wonder Woman on TV with a new series that would see Diana work as a professor in Greek mythology while not fighting bad guys as Wonder Woman. Unfortunately, the series was scuttled before filming could begin.
In 2011, DC rebooted its entire continuity again with The New 52, leading to writer Brian Azzarello giving Diana a new addition to her arsenal along with her magic lasso: a sword and shield, both of which are used in the new movie.
In 2016, DC writer Greg Rucka confirmed that Wonder Woman is, by canon law, bisexual. “Themyscira is a queer culture,” he said. "I'm not hedging that. And anyone who wants to prevaricate on that is being silly.”
That same year, Israeli actress Gal Gadot stepped into the role of Wonder Woman and gave the character her feature film debut in “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” Though critics largely panned the film, praise was reserved for Gadot’s performance, as they saw potential for her future in a solo movie.
That potential has been realized in 2017 with “Wonder Woman,” the first solo film for a super heroine in DC’s Extended Universe. Wonder Woman will also play a major role later this year in “Justice League,” where she will team up with Batman, Cyborg, The Flash, and Aquaman.
From WWII heroine to feminist icon to movie screen maven
76 years ago, the eighth issue of “All-Star Comics” introduced a new heroine who would become one of the most essential icons in comic books and feminist culture: Wonder Woman. Now, she has made her long-awaited arrival on movie screens around the world in a new film directed by Patty Jenkins and starring Gal Gadot. Here’s how the champion of the Amazons got here.
