Okay... so maybe it's something in the background. Assuming that it's going to be a major factor based on one shot from the set is a bit knee-jerky in the reaction category. However, the fact that transphobia was THERE and that it seriously impacted the CDC's early response to HIV/AIDS is pretty well known at this point. Pretending it was otherwise would be disingenuous, at best.
So, no, I don't see a problem with a scene with that protest in Wonder Woman as an issue. But, perhaps that's just me.
It's easy to misconstrue my message. Just to be clear, I don’t have a problem with HIV/AIDS being referenced in this movie.
I just don't want this film to get "preachy" - NOT because I think these issues aren't important, but because Hollywood tends to suck out all nuance from social issues and leave us with cringey morality plays that boil down to enlightened pre-progressives vs. archetypical straw man bigots.
It's also true of Hollywood's cartoonish depiction of racism with films like (I'm going to step on toes here because even my wife loves these films and disagrees with me), Blind Side, Hidden Figures, The Help ... Driving Miss Daisy ... All period pieces where the past is depicted with broad strokes supposedly to inform ourselves about the genesis of racial discrimination. Real world racism itself is more complex and insidious - it was so in the past as it remains today. Nor am I saying we should sweep history under the rug but I'm tired of the cartoonishly binary way it's often represented on film.
IMO the best treatment of racism on film that comes to mind is, in fact, Zootopia, which was written with more intelligence, insight, originality, wit and power than any and all of those movies combined.
As with racism thus it has been with Hollywood's depiction of sexual discrimination as well, IMO.
And it's not even that I have a problem with films being infused with social commentary. I just feel like Hollywood creates more cringe than insight for me whenever they try.
And if WW84 does happen to go for the social commentary I would happily eat my words if it turns out to be a genuinely original and insightful treatment.
The photo of the protest seems to be an actual protest in the 80's not part of the film. Its just a sign in the background of a shot, no big woop. Although the article seems to suggest more with the rainbow flag behind WW. It might be kinda cool to touch on the movement in the story, it was a big part of the 80s.
That's what I thought at first but then you've got to think they picked the 1980's for a reason:
We'll see.
