The Wonder Woman...!

The film begins in straightforward fashion, detailing the history of the character who was created by Dr. William Moulton Marston in 1941 just as women were entering the workforce in droves because of World War II. Envisioning a matriarchal society to come in the next hundred years, the eccentric Marston was also an inventor of an early version of the lie detector, which no doubt inspired Wonder Woman’s “lasso of truth.”

Although Wonder Woman’s popularity declined in the ‘70s, especially when D.C. Comics took the unfortunate step of briefly stripping her of her powers, she hit her pop culture zenith with the hit television series starring Lynda Carter, one of the film’s many interview subjects.

Besides Carter, who clearly still relishes the popularity she enjoyed as the character, the film also includes interviews with figures ranging from academics to feminist icon Gloria Steinem, as well as comic book fans, including one guy dressed as a Star Wars character who credits the character for “helping teenage boys through puberty.”
The film falters somewhat when it ambitiously but superficially branches out into explorations of such similarly female-oriented film and television shows as The Bionic Woman, Charlie’s Angels, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and even Thelma and Louise. But its fast pacing and clever use of comic book-style graphics make the sometimes heavy-handed educational content go down easy.