Smitten, shaken, and stirred

Cong Corrales

WONDER Woman is sooo smokin’ hot!

That first line is just to get your attention. I can almost hear my friends over at Gabriela say — unabashed sexism or sooo macho a statement. Hehehe

Say what you will but if you don’t find Wonder Woman hot, you being either a male or female, then there’s definitely something wrong with your eyes. Pa-check up sa eye clinic, brew. I am smitten by Gal Gadot. She is glorious in those spandex.

The basher and haters of Jack Snyder on social media had a field day nitpicking on the “errors” and “inconsistencies” of the movie, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Grant Morrison of The Guardian writes: “Wonder Woman was supposed to be a scientist and doctor than another spandex-wearing warrior(.) That’s what her origin in the comics was supposed to be.”

I know Snyder’s take on the first Justice League movie is not “accurate” in depicting the characters’ back-stories but I would like to remind the comics aficionados that these characters are figments of imagination.

These are works of fiction, much like the Easter egg hunt last Sunday, or the notion of an all-powerful transcendental being governing the entire human race.

Now if the publishing house, DC Comics in this case, approved Snyder’s take on the characters then who are we to question his creative license? Okay, don’t get your panties in a twist just yet. It is a fact that these characters are fictional. As such, any writer worth their salt would want to “improve” on the characters’ back-stories and introduce plot twists in the stories to fit their own messaging–subliminal or otherwise.

This, I think is Snyder’s main message in the movie: Uphold and respect democratic processes and institutions.

Absolute authority and power is anathema to democracy. Perhaps, and I’m just spit-balling here, Snyder is terrified at the thought that Donald Trump could very well be the next US President. A little digression if you will: Over the weekend, Bernie Sanders won the Hawaii primaries which makes Trump the Chump’s White house campaign a tad difficult. America can still hope of not backsliding into the reign of error of boy-king George ‘Dubya’ Bush.

Going back to my point, that was the messaging I got at least in the start and well into the middle of the movie. Well, Snyder failed to follow through, though, when Batman hushed Wonder Woman that they have to find others like them and have to “fight it out.” That scene pretty much kissed democracy goodbye. Methinks, that scene was the only inconsistency in the movie which tried to preach on defending democracy.

Democracy would be dead and gone when you have a bunch of power-wielding vigilantes forming a “justice” league. It is almost as poetic and tragic as irony itself.

I laughed at the scene where Clark Kent, a journalist of the Daily Planet, asked Bruce Wayne, point blank, on his take of the rise of vigilantism in Gotham City and the latter shot back by asking Kent why the Daily Planet writes a fluff editorial piece whenever Superman saves the day. As I said, irony. How do we define that word again?

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolutely.

As I have posted on my Facebook wall, “after watching Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, my ex-girlfriend and I ended up debating the pros and cons of absolute power.”

Vigilantism and jingoism, in any form, insults democratic institutions. An alien with god-like powers is no different of a threat to democracy than a deluded constituent who dresses up like a bat because they are both the judges, juries, and executioners of their town settings — Metropolis and Gotham, respectively.

Do both characters sound familiar to you? Well, a UP professor friend posted in jest on my Facebook wall that Rodrigo Duterte is like Batman because he is against crime and corruption. While Grace Poe, he said, is like Superman because she is an alien and she tries her earnest to save us all. Pfft.

That, while a local independent candidate for city council was just content in remarking on the same Facebook thread by transliterating the name of the brand of beer my ex-girlfriend and I were holding in the photo. We all cannot intellectualize mythical creatures and fictional characters.

Well, that’s my take on Rob Snyder’s much criticized rendition of the fictional characters who form the equally mythical and fictional Justice League.