Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, entertainment

Defending The Bondage Of Wonder Woman With Doctor Jill Lepore

Jill Lepore, author of The Secret History Of Wonder Woman has been talking Wonder Woman to the University of Warwick, who recently bestowed her with an honorary doctorate.

Where, about nine minutes in, she was happy to regale them with a comparison with the use of bondage in the early days of the comic book – something creator William Moulton Marston was keen to push on the publisher, writers and artists – and similar iconography used by suffrage movement and the birth control advocates, itself borrowed from the abolition movement. And how women who were involved in abolitionism took on the physical theatre from that arena to the next, whether chaining themselves to 10 Downing Street or the gates outside the White House. But how this imagery was less acknowledged in the forties. Lepore invites us to reread those Wonder Woman comics in this context. Although, as she admits, that doesn't explain the underwear costumes. That's down to William Moulton Martson appreciation of pornography…

It's a good listen.

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