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Essays, Not Rants! 272: But What About The Men??? 2: Sexy Lamps
Back at a con panel in 2013, Kelly Sue DeConnick (writer of Captain Marvel, etc) coined the Sexy Lamp Test. Its rubric is that if you can take a female character out of a story and replace her with a sexy lamp and your plot still works, then "you’re a [beeping] hack." Like all tests used to judge stories (ie: Bechdel), it’s not perfect – mostly because it’s a little too vague. But it still provides a good starting point to examine fiction.
Like I love The Dark Knight, but Rachel in the movie is very much a sexy lamp. She doesn’t do anything that affects the plot in a major way. She’s there for Bruce and Harvey to pine over and then to be 'fridged and give Batman some angst. Still a great movie, but there are issues with how the film handles women.
Conversely, Star Wars aces it. You can’t replace Leia with a lamp that goes along for the ride, she does way too much – her first appearance is giving the Death Star plans to Artoo and setting the movie’s plot in motion. Throughout the film she does stuff, she has agency, she makes things happen.
You with me so far? Because here’s where we’re gonna talk about Wonder Woman. And dudes.
Steve Trevor is The Male Character in Wonder Woman. Sure, we’ve the villain and the other soldiers, but Steve Trevor is The Guy. He buddies up with Diana early on in the film and they go out and Do Things. Given that Diana is the protagonist of this movie, Steve becomes, quite naturally, the deuteragonist of the film and fulfills what in any other movie would be the 'girlfriend role.’
This is one of Wonder Woman's acts of brilliance: the film flips the roles. Steve is the one who buoys Diana's force of character, he's her tie to the real world, and he's the one whose main role is to support her and her arc. Like I said, he’s the girlfriend.
Consider Peggy Carter in the first Captain America. Though this was later remedied in her tv show, she doesn't really affect the plot much in the movie. She supports Steve Rogers and helps out here and there, but at the end of the day doesn't really change the plot much more than a talking sexy lamp would. Oh, she's still a really great character, but the plot doesn't position her in such a way that she does stuff. This is one thing the Sexy Lamp Test exposes: cool characters who don't actually have much agency or effect on the plot. Like Boba Fett, who outside of going to Cloud City offscreen, has no more narrative impact than a lamp in dope armor. Except Peggy is actually one of the main characters of The First Avenger.
Steve Trevor of Wonder Woman, however, does quite a bit in the movie; considerably more than your typical 'superhero girlfriend.' Without spoiling too much of the film, it's his actions - particularly one he does of his own volition and not under orders - that set most of the plot in action, and in the final act he gets to make a Big Choice that changes the course of the climax.
A sexy lamp Steve Trevor is not. And maybe that can be chalked up to good writing, but I’m gonna blame it on Steve being a guy. Imagine this; it’s the climax of the film and the main male character does nothing. Maybe he drives a car so the main female character can go save the day, but elsewise he watches. It’s basically unheard of, and uncommon at best (look at how much Peeta and Gale get to do in the climaxes of The Hunger Games movies). But it happens all the time for female characters. It’s what Peggy does in The First Avenger. It’s what Pepper does in Iron Man 2. Sexy lamp or not, it’s easy to cast aside the supporting female character, the 'girlfriend role,' at the climax. But Steve Trevor still gets to Do Stuff, and Important Stuff Of His Own Accord at that.
For all its subversions of norms, Wonder Woman doesn’t neuter the agency of its male lead. Which, woo, equality! But at the same time, it shows how unfair the treatment of women in blockbusters – especially superhero films – is. We’ve got the first female-led superhero in over a decade and we still have a dude who goes around saving some of the day. Oh, it’s still Diana’s movie; but Steve gets an arc just about any other female character would kill for in just about any other film. Even in a movie about Wonder Woman, the dude still gets special treatment.
Which in this case means fair treatment.
And therein lies the problem.
For the first But What About The Men???, go here.
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