An open letter to Joss Whedon, and anyone else who wants to see WW made... by madkat

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An open letter to Joss Whedon, and anyone else who wants to see WW made...

POSTED BY: MADKAT
UPDATED: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 21:24
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Wednesday, November 29, 2006 9:24 PM

Dear Mr. Whedon,

I'm writing this for a few reasons. First just allow me to get a fact or two out of the way which are not those reasons. I am an actress, and I have wanted to be Wonder Woman since I was about 3 years old, and the TV series was on, in the late 70s.

That's not why I'm writing. Or – I guess it fuels part of why I'm writing, but it doesn't predicate the goal. My goal, simply, is to convince you to finish the Wonder Woman script and make the Wonder Woman movie. Soon.

I've followed the news about the movie's development with interest, both due to the fact that it's my profession and because I like your work, but the real reason I've followed the story with interest was sort of revealed to me recently on the internet. I came across an announcement of a talk-back session at the production of "My Name is Rachel Corrie." To my shame I couldn't place the name. I knew I'd heard it, but I couldn't quite…

And I did a search. And I felt awful.
I still feel awful.

When I was an adolescent I was an activist. In addition to Drama Club, and whatever performing groups I could access, I was in Students United for a Democratic China, Beyond War, an environmental group called "Green Up", and was one of the first teenagers ever trained to lead meetings for Stop AIDS in its earliest days of reaching out to younger folks. Then I went to a conservatory, fell in love, had my heart broken, and, apparently, forgot there was a world outside my little universe of auditions, dayjobs and networking. Every once in a while I'd actually poke my head out of the sand and look around at the putrescence our country is spewing onto the rest of the world (and its own citizens) and gripe about it, but mostly I went about my business.
I forgot that the world is my business.
It is all of our business.

You know who taught me that?
Do I even have to type it out?

I was raised Catholic but, if you know anything about the religion, its teachings and the way they seem to drift away from the supposed tenets of the religion, you know that that sure as heck isn't what instilled in me a sense of responsibility for what goes on in the world, and a belief in my power to affect it.

Then last night I came across this site.
http://www.rachelcorrie.org/
And this one:
http://www.rachelswords.org/rachels-emails/
which has this quote from something Rachel Corrie wrote:

"We are all born and someday we'll all die. Most likely to some degree alone.
What if our aloneness isn't a tragedy? What if our aloneness is what allows us to speak the truth without being afraid? What if our aloneness is what allows us to adventure – to experience the world as a dynamic presence – as a changeable, interactive thing?
If I lived in Bosnia or Rwanda or who knows where else, needless death wouldn't be a distant symbol to me, it wouldn't be a metaphor, it would be a reality.
And I have no right to this metaphor. But I use it to console myself. To give a fraction of meaning to something enormous and needless.
This realization. This realization that I will live my life in this world where I have privileges.
I can't cool boiling waters in Russia. I can't be Picasso. I can't be Jesus. I can't save the planet single-handedly.
I can wash dishes."

And I remembered that I have a responsibility. That part of the reason I chose this profession was because I recognize that I'm either not brave enough, or not selfless enough to do the things people like Rachel Corrie do, but that someone has to make sure their stories get told. Someone has to be fighting for important stories, with characters current and future generations can look up to and learn from, to get made. I recognized that this is where my talent and potential and strength lie, as does yours.

And I'm asking you to make sure this story gets told, and gets told right.

Moulton's Wonder Woman, even in the 70s TV series, as cheesy and 70s and hippy-dippy as it got, instilled in me, and surely countless other little girls, a message of peace through understanding, love, and occasional butt-kicking (but only if the first two didn't work, and only enough that the first two could find a way). It's a message I've tried to live by – even when I forgot where it came from, even when I forget that there's always more I can do to help, I retain the knowledge that if I don't get along with someone it's probably because I don't understand them yet. And even if I hate what they do, I can still try to see the human in them and feel compassion. This was taught to me by Wonder Woman and my mother, who's about as close to a Wonder Woman as mortals can get, I figure.

As an adult, out in the world, the only things that keep me from despairing is that I see that other people have taken these messages to heart, too. Rachel Corrie was one of them.

So please – write a Wonder Woman who will inspire girls and women alike to use their strength and talent to help make the world a better place for everyone. I know you can do it. Buffy was evidence that you can make a superhero accessible and inspiring at the same time.

Get on it, willya?

Many thanks,

KW

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