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Last night, my husband and I went to see Gravity. I've been wanting to see it since it came out, but we don't get many opportunities to see movies without singing cartoons in them, so we have to plan accordingly. Thankfully this is still in theaters, and allowed me to check off one of the nominated films.


One of these years I will see them all before the Academy Awards. One of these years. Probably not anytime in the near future...but it's good to have a goal, right?

Anyhow, we went to see it. He found a theater locally still showing it in IMAX 3-D. Apparently, when we haven't seen a grown-up movie in a while, we need to overcompensate. I was a bit nervous since IMAX movies tend to make me nauseous, and I did have to close my eyes a few times, but I made it through the movie without running from the theater, so I will call it a win.

The rest of this post will contain spoilers, so if you haven't seen it yet and will yell at me for ruining something, please stop reading. 

The rest of this post may seem to ramble a bit. I apologize in advance. There is just a lot going through my head after seeing it. I laughed a bit after it ended, remembering all the posts I had seen when it was first released questioning the science of the film. Are there pieces that might not hold water? Of course...but at the end of the day, you have to remember that it's a movie. A stunningly gorgeous one, at that.

Speaking of which, I knew what the movie was about before we saw it, I even knew about the background of the main character and how it ended. Still, nothing was spoiled.

The Loss of a Child
When it first came out, a dear writer friend of mine went to see it in an attempt to escape her reality. After all, that is what movies are supposed to be for, right? As it turned out, though, it was anything but an escape and instead became a reminder of where she is, where she has been.

Dr. Ryan Stone, played by Sandra Bullock, lost her four year old daughter in a freak accident years before the story in the film takes place. At some point, the information about her is revealed, and I can't even begin to imagine what a blow that would have been for Mary Tyler Mom, my friend who also lost her daughter when she was four, though to cancer instead of an accident. She wrote about her experience with the film here in an attempt to prevent other parents in similar situations from being blindsided with the background story. 

The loss of her daughter, as you come to see during the film, was a large part of why Dr. Stone was who she was then, why she did what she did, why she felt comforted by the silence of space, why she was afraid to die but welcomed it anyway, and finally, what gave her the motivation to fight to survive.

It's profound, this emotional struggle that you see play out on the screen. I would think it would be moving for anyone. For those who have lost children, exponentially more real.

I anticipated that seeing the film would probably tap into my anxiety issues, but knowing that going in seemed to help. The scene when she is untethered and spinning uncontrollably further and further into space was abjectly terrifying. I don't think any other word could possibly do it justice.

To be so helpless, to know that you are being pushed away from life and that you are powerless to do anything to stop it is something that I've only truly experienced once in my life - in the moments right after I was told that my baby had died. It is something visceral and raw and it takes the breath from you and squeezes it out.


I'm glad that I knew about that part of the movie going into it. I don't know that I would have been able to watch it otherwise.

Death Can Be Beautiful
George Clooney's character, Matt Kowalski, is a veteran astronaut on his final trip when tragedy strikes. His final moments, when all you can hear is his voice as he drifts further and further away, were hard to hear. The words, hard to process. In those last moments, he knew what was coming, he was well trained for the inevitable and he seemed to face it without fear or hesitation. Instead he turned on his favorite music and admired the beauty around him while he still could.

It was beautiful.

Death can be beautiful, which is something we refuse to see in our society. Though almost none of us will ever be astronauts that meet our end drifting though space, our ends will come. The only thing certain in life is death, and yet it is something that too many of us fear. Because of that fear, we often find ourselves desperately trying to save people at the end. Life saving measures, surgeries, tubes, ventilators, all inflicting more pain but rarely saving anyone. And for what?


Death can be beautiful when it is welcome. When it is surrounded by love and peace and calm and friendship and family. I know this because it is how my father died. He was prepared, as much as he could have been, like this fictional man floating away. Enjoying what time he had left, and then letting go.

Fear and Courage
For almost the entire movie, the characters are in danger. Mortal, immediate danger. Though they are well trained, the fear is still there. The fear can still take hold. The fear does take over at times. Eventually, Dr. Stone fights through the fear and finds her inner strength.


What are we afraid of? It may not be something as overwhelming as an impending debris field, but is there something out there looming in the distance, keeping you on your toes?

Is it something that keeps you from doing what you should, what you must in order to not just survive, but thrive?

Can you power through the fear? Courage isn't about the absence of fear, not at all. It is about being afraid and doing it anyway.

Insignificance
Films like this one that include shots of the Earth from space, almost by definition, are supposed to make us ponder our place in the universe. Our smallness. Our insignificance.

When life overwhelms me, I try to remember that I am but one of over 7 billion people on this planet. My problems are inconsequential when compared to what most of those 7 billion people have to face every single day. What is huge and even life altering for me is just a drop in the bucket of humanity.

Do you ever just think about that? The hugeness of the universe? How little we know?

Do you ever stare up at the night sky and wonder what it all means? If there are planets full of life out there pondering the same thing?

I do. All the time. I marvel at it. It humbles me, keeps me grounded.

It tells me that no matter how much I think I know, I really don't know anything. Seeking knowledge only makes me want to seek more of it. The more I absorb, the more I realize how much more there is to know and understand the truth that I will never be able to learn it all.

Movies are for entertainment. They transport us somewhere we may never be able to visit, take us to a time and place far and away. They use lighting and images and music and sound to immerse us somewhere else entirely. Sometimes they take us all the way there just to bring us inward, to make us feel, to make us think.

The best movies do it all. They leave us asking questions, not just of the filmmakers, but of ourselves.

This?

One of those.

About two years ago, I was cleaning out the toys in the basement with the hopes of donating some that weren't played with anymore.

Pinkie Pie Freckles

Twilight Sparkle Mini-me

Last spring, my husband signed up to volunteer at Comic Con. You should have seen the look on the girls' faces when he told them both that there would be a MLP panel at the Con.

Some of the clearest memories of my childhood involve a pair of Wonder Woman underroos, running around in the backyard and protecting the world from evil. For a while there, I think I actually believed that some printed cotton and elastic bestowed superpowers on me.

Of course, back then, I was just a little girl with no understanding of the history of the character. I didn't know why there weren't more female superheroes, I just knew she was there and that I wanted to be her. Little boys had their choice of everyone else, but all the little girls wanted to be her, the Amazon princess turned crimefighter in heels.

For a great many years, I loved Wonder Woman quietly. The show ended when I was in preschool, and she mostly disappeared from pop culture. Unless you actively read comics, you didn't see or hear about her much for years and years. Occasionally she'd pop up on a cartoon or two, but that was about all.


In the last few years, though, my love for her has become fuller and more open. I've spent a lot of time learning about the development of this character and why we perceive her the way we do now. I don't just love her, I identify with her. When you understand the back story, it becomes easier and easier to see why she has yet to assume her full potential as a super among supers, why she hasn't been the lead character of a summer blockbuster film.

Wonder Woman was first developed in 1940 by William Moulton Marston, a psychologist by trade, after a suggestion by his wife that there should be a female hero that triumphed over evil using love rather than strength and power. The idea was submitted to DC, which was dominated by male-led hero comics at the time.

His goal was to take all the strengths of women and use them as her greatest attributes, while still making her appealing and beautiful. He wanted her not just to appeal to other women, but to men as well, and make her strong but not overly intimidating.


The comics have been in continuous printed series ever since then, except for a few brief breaks. The show, as anyone in my generation knows, aired during the 70's. A few attempts at television series have been mentioned since then, to no avail, and the blockbuster movie is still on hold.

At Comic Con earlier this month, I sat in on a panel about Wonder Woman, led by two of the current content creators, both men. They detailed how the character has evolved (or devolved as some would say) over the decades. Diana started as a warrior princess turned American superhero during the war in the 40's. When the war ended, our nation struggled with the identity of women who had run everything while the men were gone fighting, but were expected to return to the home upon the end of the war. Like many women in real life, Wonder Woman started to struggle with her identity as well.

The character was drawn in more domestic settings, the storylines started to revolve around finding love and wanting a relationship, less about fighting evil anywhere in the world. Though the character had always been depicted in bondage-like settings, she became more so. Women were supposed to relearn their place, and accordingly, she was reminded of that too.


Once the feminist movement started, Wonder Woman slowly began to change back, caring less about love and marriage, more about saving the world again, but there's an argument to be made that she still hasn't fully resumed her original role as warrior princess. Many fans, male and female alike, seem preoccupied more with what she's wearing than what she's doing.

When is the last time you heard someone discuss the practicality of Superman's costume? Or were taken aback by how much skin a male super is showing? While male superheroes have rarely been sexualized, she has been from the beginning. She has been, because in order to appeal to the male-dominated comic book market as a female superhero, she can't just kick ass, she has to be gorgeous and desirable too.

Wonder Woman isn't just about comics though, she is a cultural icon. There aren't many female heroes out there in general, and she is certainly the most well-known. In the decades since the TV series aired, there has been a movement towards more female hero leads, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena the Warrior Princess, Sarah Connor from Terminator, Ellen Ripley from Alien and Katniss from the Hunger Games.

When asked questions from the audience about why there isn't a movie yet, the panel didn't really have a clear answer, because the reasons are many. The main one is that Hollywood isn't willing to gamble on a movie about a female lead hero because they aren't sure they can sell her story enough to make it worth their while. She's a peace-seeking powerful princess who fights for justice in the name of love. She isn't about violence or revenge. She protects the women and children of the world...and they aren't sure that will put enough butts in theater seats to justify bothering. Imagine that....the male dominated film industry unsure if a female character, created and drawn by men is compelling enough to appeal to a fan base that they are already assuming is predominately male.

What's missing here?

It should be fairly obvious. The WOMEN.

You know, Wonder WOMAN.

The women are missing. The legions of little girls who ran around in underroos that grew up and taught their daughters to love superheroes - nowhere in this discussion.

What no one seems to understand is that there is an entire generation of women who grew up idolizing Lynda Carter. Who wanted an invisible plane and a truth lasso. Who made bracelets out of aluminum foil and begged their moms to make their hair curly just like Wonder Woman.

The women who've grown up with her, with the Buffys and the Xenas and Sarah Connors and the Ellen Ripleys and the Katniss Everdeens would love to embrace this character entirely.

So, the interest is clearly there, I can promise you that, even if Hollywood isn't convinced. Maybe those execs need to watch the documentary PBS aired earlier this year about Wonder Woman.

Then you run into the second problem. Casting.

Lynda Carter is Wonder Woman in the eyes of pretty much everyone. She was gorgeous, her body was to die for. She was strong without being masculine. Who is going to follow in those footsteps??? Who could???

There are a great many websites devoted to arguing about who should be cast as Wonder Woman already, and no matter who is suggested, the masses will find a reason to disagree. Whoever plays Wonder Woman needs to be tall....really tall. She needs to have a ridiculous body. She needs to be able to act. She needs to be able to do stunt work. She can't bring along with her any baggage from her personal life or prior film history. She needs to be believable. She needs to be a goddess.

The biggest problem with that is that everyone seems to have a different idea of what that all looks like, women included.

Wonder Woman isn't just a character, she's an icon, a cultural ideal, one that we attach our own set of values and expectations to in a way that simply doesn't happen with male heroes. She's an imagined perfection that looks a little different to each one of us....so how do we take all those images and find someone who embodies them all?

This is one of my favorite WW drawings ever, and can be purchased in the etsy shop of the creators, the Satrun Twins, here.

Talk about setting the bar high.

Ramona Fradon was on the panel as well, a comic book artist from the Golden Age of comics. She brought a unique insight to the discussion, as a rare woman in this male world. In her eyes, the movie hasn't been made yet because it can't be. The world isn't ready for a woman as powerful and strong as Wonder Woman. We live in a world where women in positions of authority are often referred to as bitches for demonstrating the same personality traits and leadership qualities as men. Until we can accept the value and importance of women as equal leaders, Wonder Woman should wait, she thinks.

Women in general, and women in the fantasy world of superheroes, she argued, have much to bring to the table. Our concerns are different. Our motivations are different. We fight for those without voices. We protect the interests of children. We urge peace over war. Wonder Woman embodies all of that, and the world just isn't ready yet.

But it will be.

Soon.

Very soon.

And we'll all be waiting.

The world needs her.

My costume is always ready.

I'm not going to lie to you people because that's not how I roll. The last week or so has been rough around here. It seems like there are few lulls in the drama around these parts, and those lulls never seem to last very long when they do show up.

Also in the past week or so, we've watched a lot of movies. Some were escapist, transporting me to a different world entirely. The older I get, the more I like those movies, because they're so far out there that there is no way to tie them to reality. Maybe that is why I find myself watching more and more science fiction type stuff. Even if it's entirely ridiculous, at least it doesn't stab me in the heart.

Then there are the other movies. The stab me in the heart movies.

Last week sometime, we watched Silver Linings Playbook. I've heard the book is better, but can't speak to that personally since I haven't read it yet. If you haven't seen it yet and want to, you might want to stop reading. I'm usually far enough behind with watching movies that it's safe for me to write about them, but there's always going to be someone who tells me I'm a spoiler. So, if you're going to read this then tell me I am a spoiler, just stop now.


Anyway, it's a good movie. We had to watch it in pieces though because it was so emotionally overwhelming. I don't know how I would have done if I had watched it in a theater.  Bradley Cooper's character has bi-polar disorder, diagnosed after he completely loses control when he catches his wife cheating on him and almost beats her lover to death. He ends up in a psychiatric hospital until his mom goes out on a limb,signing him out to care for him at home.

He won't take his meds. He thinks he's fine. He is obsessed with exercise. He is socially awkward. He is totally preoccupied with trying to win his wife back, restraining order and all. There are scenes in the movie that were so painful for me that I had to avert my eyes, the worst being the one where he is tearing his room apart looking for their wedding video.

Then you get to know his parents more. Mom is a fixer. She is the glue in the family, and her main currency is information. She tells people what she thinks they need to know, she hides the rest, because she wants to fix things. Dad has OCD and a pathological gambler. He wants a relationship with his completely messed up son, but wants the relationship that he wants, not the one that his son is capable of having or wants with him. Mom is a fixer, he is a forcer.

Goddamn apple trees. It's one thing to have to deal with them on a daily basis, but seeing it play out before your eyes is overwhelming at times. We all get our crazy from somewhere, and we don't usually have to look too far to find it.

Jennifer Lawrence's character lost her husband and her life spiraled out of control. She's heavily medicated too, but seems to manage her emotions a little better. Even if they are ugly at times, at least she's aware of them. She has anxiety, she's depressed, she's acting out, she's lost. Then she finds a guy who's even more messed up than she is. It's a match made in dysfunctional heaven.

Good lord.

One of her lines in the movie is me, completely: I do this! Time after time after time! I do all this shit for other people! And then I wake up and I'm empty! I have nothing!

I cried buckets after that movie ended, the kind of crying where your head hurts for a few days afterwards and you end up dehydrated. Seeing so much mental illness crammed into two hours, so much of it the illnesses that exist in my own tree, was too much. I want better for my children. I'd give anything to help them avoid some of the things that have happened to me.

Doing that means taking long, ugly, hard looks in the mirror. Confronting it all. Dealing with it. Having awareness of it. It means you can't pretend it's not there, you can't wish it away. You have to suck it up and deal. You have to.

No other option but to face it all, or you are doomed to take the repeating cycle for another generational spin.

Then last night we watched This Is 40. It's a comedy. It's by Judd Apatow. There will be fart jokes, right? He likes fart jokes. It will be funny, right???

Parts of it were hilarious. Like holy shit there are people following me around with cameras and they know what happens in my house and they put it in a movie hilarious.

Parts of it weren't funny at all, and I found myself crying too many times to count. I asked my fans on Facebook what to expect yesterday, and some of them warned me. Some of them said it was just stupid or that it wasn't very funny. I think I envy them a little, because they just aren't there yet. I shouldn't be there yet. I'm not 40, but according to this movie I'm at least that old.

Financial crises, people who run away from their problems, mouthy kids, insecurity about getting older, the threat of the younger woman, addiction, unplanned pregnancies, an accident prone husband, trying to find connections with parents who aren't very parental....all of it.

Pete: Did you ever think marriage would get easier?
Barry: No, it gets harder. Much harder.

A-freaking-men

Check, check, check.

Is this really what happens when we hit mid-life?

Does everyone go through the same shit eventually? Is it that universal?

Why am I so lucky that I get to do it all years or decades before everyone else?

I'm a little bitter this morning, forgive me.

I'd like a refund on my youth, it ran out long before the warranty was up.

Thanks, Judd.

I think the next movie I watch will need to have robots or aliens or talking animals in it. This is getting ridiculous.

Now, before you read any further, there are a few things you should know.

First, I often refer to myself as a superhero. It's even up there ^^^ on my header. I'm not actually a superhero, of course, because superheroes aren't real, but I take issue with anyone who wants to challenge me on the subject, and have done so before. I've been through a lot, I've done a few things that firmly seat me in superhero categories and I pulled off a kickass Wonder Woman costume for Halloween last year. If you're going to have a problem with any of that, go ahead and stop reading right now. Don't make me deflect stupid with my bracelets.

I happen to think I make this work.

Second, I'm a dork. Full blown geek. I read comic books, I go see the movies on opening weekend. I watch trailers online the day they are released. I've had passionate arguments with my family and friends about whether Batman is a superhero or not. I can tell you the differences between DC and Marvel. I'm going to Comic Con at the end of the month, and yes...I'm wearing the costume. I'm completely geeking out over the chance to meet Stan Lee and George Takei. If you don't know who they are, please google it. For the love of god. If you are intent on making fun of me for any of that, go ahead and stop reading now.

Third, I'm writing about the Iron Man 3 movie in this post, so if you really want to see it and don't want anything spoiled, stop reading now. I'm not really discussing the main plot anyway, but I'll leave it to your discretion. If you read this, and I ruin something for you, don't say I didn't warn you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now that we have all that nonsense out of the way....

I saw Iron Man 3 the weekend it came out. Of course. I happen to love superhero movies in general, but if you put RDJ in one of them, you know that I'll be there.

Good lord that man is aging well. 



Anyway, I'm a fan of the franchise in general, though I didn't love the second movie and can't stand Gwenyth.  I'm there for RDJ though, I mean...come on, let's be honest about that.

I didn't really know what this movie was about, mostly because the trailers are really good at showcasing the action in these movies, but tend to leave out any details about the actual plot.

Spoiler Alert

In this one, Tony Stark fights some demons, and not the kind that descend from other planets with armed droids or the kind that invade other countries or any of that. I mean, he fights his fair share of bad guys, don't get me wrong...but that's not what I'm talking about here.

He is fighting the demons inside his own head.

Between the second and the third movies, he developed an anxiety disorder. As a very intense type A personality, a highly intelligent control freak, this didn't sit well with him. He lived in denial of it for a good long time, until the panic attacks got so bad that they were interfering with daily living and endangering his life when the bad guys showed up.

What the what???

A superhero who has anxiety attacks???

Maybe I really am a superhero after all.

That whole italicized description of Iron Man above could be one of me...well, up until the fighting bad guys part. My enemies aren't all-powerful radioactive injected re-generators, but they're just as bad at times. Trust me on this.

I have always been an intense person, a control freak if you will. Then life decided to start playing tricks on me, and when everything spirals rapidly out of control...people like me tend to do okay for a while, then hit the wall. I've had at least three panic attacks in the last year. The kind where you go from being okay, thinking you're managing everything just fine one second, to completely believing that you're going to have a heart attack and drop dead the next. Your heart starts racing, the walls start closing in, you start sweating, you literally cannot do anything to stop it once it starts.

It's not fun.

Seeing it play out on a screen was a bit of a reality check for me. I've lived it, but I haven't seen it.

A few days before I saw the movie, I finally sucked it up and told my doctor. He wrote me a prescription for anxiety meds after he made me promise that I would call him if they didn't help. I did. I will. As much as I want to believe that I can always handle everything life throws at me, I know otherwise now. Sometimes you need help. Sometimes you need to call an audible. Sometimes you need medication.

Even if you're Iron Man.

At the end of the movie, after he'd defeated all the bad guys of course, he had the power generator in his chest removed, stripping him of his superpowers.  Technically, he's just a smart rich guy with a ton of fancy toys now (like Batman heh heh). Technically, you could make the argument that he's not a superhero anymore. They ended the movie with a false finish, claiming the story had closed, that he was putting himself out to pasture to live out the rest of his life uneventfully away from the messy business of saving the world.

Real Marvel fans know you have to stay until the end of the credits to see the whole movie though. It's simply not true.

We all know he'll be back. We all know he'll still be a superhero, even if he's not one by everyone's definition anymore. And we all know he'll still be awesome, even if he's a little more human now, a little more flawed, even if he displays a little more weakness.

Maybe, just maybe, superheroes are real...and maybe, just maybe, there doesn't have to be anything super about anyone to make them a hero.

My family of very un-super superheroes.

You know the drill.