5 Reasons Why Joss Whedon Shouldn't Direct Batgirl
2. Wonder Woman's Treatment In Justice League
Warner Bros.
It really is incredible how quickly WB have managed to dismiss Wonder Woman's legacy, little under six months since its release.
While Gal Gadot was again spot-on as Diana, there were a number of sequences in Justice League that seemed to fly in the face of what Jenkins' film had accomplished earlier in the year. Whedon gets his trademark 'awkward nerd stumbles into woman's chest' moment when Flash crashes into Wonder Woman during a battle (echoing the Banner/Black Widow scene from Age of Ultron), and even Jason Mamoa's Aquaman has an awkward moment when he's sat on the lasso of truth, in which he proceeds to list off how beautiful the character is for no other reason than to be that guy.
It's just awkward, and beyond disappointing in how predictable Whedon's depiction of female characters has become in recent years. While Wonder Woman on the whole emerges from Justice League unscathed, these awkward sequences, combined with the apparent controversy that emerged with the Amazon Warriors' wardrobe in the weeks leading up to its release, has left an ugly cloud over Justice League.
It's one that'll linger over Whedon too, with production on Batgirl inching slowly forward in JL's wake.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
