Index
Trina Robbins, Re-Inventing Wonder Woman — Again!
Noah Berlatsky, Villainy, Thy Name Is Woman
Noah Berlatsky and son, There’s Something Besides Fire to Contend With Here!
Jones, One of the Jones Boys, How Do You Solve a Problem Like Diana?
Kelly Thompson, Wonder Woman: It’s In Her DNA
Sina, Goddesses of the Lesbiverse
Vom Marlowe, On Wonder Woman, Bondage, and Princess Leia
William Marston, On Sorority Baby Parties
Sharon Marcus, Wonder Woman vs. Wonder Woman
Ben Saunders, Loving Authority: Some Thoughts on Wonder Woman #28
Ben Saunders, on William Marston and Sex
Vom Marlowe, Wonder Woman and the Space Crocs of Nikszkelion
Richard Cook, A Fanboy Denied
Derik Badman, A Peter That Never Existed
Charles Reece, On Second Thought, I Really Don’t Like Wonder Woman, part 1, part 2.
Introduction
Three years and a month ago I started a series called Bound to Blog in which I blogged my way through the entire Marston/Peter run on Wonder Woman. It’s taken a while, but I’ve finally come to the last Marston script — Wonder Woman #28. To celebrate, I’ve asked a bunch of friends and fellow Marston/Peter travelers to contribute to a roundtable focusing on this final issue.
And if that all isn’t enough Wonder Woman reading, you can check out my first ever post on Wonder Woman, which coincidentally focuses on Wonder Woman #28.
Oh god, I really need to finish my inking, but I was just checking the old files for the proper spelling of Hippolyte’s name (with an e, as I’d remembered, which means Marston’s original greek is better than new, corporate DC, HA) and I got distracted by the deer-hunting and eating, the sheer number of bound poses, the lasso of control, the giant underwater octopus, the sky kangas, and the awesome boar tossing. I have been laughing helplessly over the blog posts, too. I love when you read Marston’s book, ”
It’s fun, too, that Marston has apparently written a whole book here to demonstate, scientifically, once and for all, that everyone else is wrong, and his kink is normal, normal, normal.” I had to lay my head on the desk and just chortle, because oh god.
I just saw the boar tossing again because my son was reading it! How awesome is boar tossing, I ask you.
Also, I was wrong. Marston did not write a book to justify his kink. He wrote (at least) two.
Pingback: Girls on Film: Avenging the Divide Between Superheroes and Superheroines
Pingback: News: Girls on Film: Avenging the Divide Between Superheroes and Superheroines | News Aggregator for you
This seems as good a place as any to ask: Noah, what’s your take on Etta Candy in the context of Marston’s psychological theories? From what little I know of those theories, she seems like a refugee from a much more Freudian comic, but I’m sure there’s some clever interpretation that makes her fit.
I’m actually hoping to figure Etta out a little better in the book…I’ve just started researching my chapter on cross-dressing, butch/femme and so forth…so, yeah, I don’t know that I have it quite worked out what I think.
In terms of Marston’s theories…he definitely believed that female/female attractions, and especially female/female bondage/dominance/submission, were all normal — kind of definition normal, even normative in some ways. So I’d say Etta’s submission/bondage relations with pledges, or her close friendship with WW — Freud or Freudian readers (like Wertham) could look at the text and say, there are these unconventional, abnormal desires that are charging the text and peeking through. But Marston would probably say, those aren’t unconventional and they’re not peeking through; they’re there to teach girls to be girls and boys to be girls, and everyone should be happy about it.
More specifically — I think Freudians might look at the oral fixation and the lesbian intimations and say, well, it’s all about wanting to go back to the mother and infantilization. And Marston might well agree, except he’d say that that’s a good thing, since matriarchy is the ideal for all….
Does that make sense at all? I think Freud’s a really useful way to think about what Marston’s doing, though Marston also shines a revealing light on Freud. Basically a lot of Freud starts to look very different if you insist that women and women’s experiences are the default rather than seeing those experiences as theoretical noise (which is sort of what Freud often does, I think.)
Yeah, that makes sense, as far as it goes. It’s just that Etta’s orality tends to overwhelm her other features as e.g. comic foil, helpmeet, sorority mistress, crypto-lesbian…and I don’t know how that orality fits with Marston’s focus, whereas there’s a ready-made slot for it in Freudian theory.
Hell, maybe Marston and/or Peter just thought she was funny. Fat comic relief sidekicks have a long literary history all the way from Don Quixote to Popeye — and it was de rigueur in superhero comics in the 40s. From what I’ve read, I can think of Doiby Dickles (Green Lantern), Uncle Marvel (Captain Marvel), Alfred Pennyworth (Batman — he was originally a fat dude), Woozy Winks (Plastic Man)…so maybe the candy thing is just a justification for her weight? Come to think of it, one of Wimpy’s distinguishing characteristics is his obsession with hamburgers; Segar’s Sunday strips eventually become a hundred variations on the theme of Wimpy trying to mooch some hamburgers. Marston/Peter could have been responding to that, or at least had it in mind.
Yeah. Like I said, I think the orality/childishness actually fits well with Marston in some ways, since he idealized mother/child relationships….
Pingback: Hello! «
Sigh. Here again, you blog about Marston’s mentality but without the proper psychology framework to do so. Therefore you’re essentially deceiving
I’m not blogging about anything! It’s an index!
Really…I’m happy to chat, and am interested in your perspective, but if you’re going to go anonymously spewing snark across every Marston post, I’m going to start deleting you. Fair warning.
I’m not snarking. (who the hell invented that annoying word anyway?!?)
I’m passionately supporting my teachers, and any other true Marston scholar out there, who know the TRUTH about Marstonian psychology/philosophy, and are sick and tired of all the false propaganda that’s been spread about Marston. Propaganda that starts from individuals making UNeducated guesses about Marston’s works without the proper framework.
The man isn’t alive to defend his position! So do you see why its highly disrespectful?
This is why the Marston family is closed-lipped about all this.
BTW: I’m not “anonymously” doing anything. I’m RIGHT HERE! Unmasked! Not afraid to defend Marston or my teachers.
You’re not using your actual name. Which is fine; folks here do that all the time. It’s just weird for scholars citing their authority to do it, I guess. But if you’re a student that makes more sense.
Could you just keep the conversation to the other thread, though? Less confusing and messy that way. Thanks.
BTW, Noah,
“actually hoping to figure Etta out a little better in the book…I’ve just started researching my chapter on cross-dressing, butch.”
If you wanna know Etta better, then research the mythological archetype she was created from. the nymphs of Artemis.
Nah…there are various ways to get to know Etta better. Butch works quite well.
I mean…if you want to go mythology, more power to you. But if you think Marston was not quite, quite aware of the gay culture of his time…well, we’ll just have to disagree.