The Timely Triumph of Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman opened in theaters across the country today, making headlines for its stellar reviews. It's a much-needed victory for DC Comics, whose last film endeavor (Suicide Squad) was a total flop, labeled not just bad but offensive.

Critics have praised the new movie as riveting yet comical, a strong plot with a good dose of lighthearted moments. It's the first film DC Comics has released in a long time that hasn't been bashed for its use of gratuitous violence (perhaps DC finally got the message). 

Even more notable, it is one of the few superhero movies with a female lead. While plenty of Marvel and DC films have featured female characters within ensembles (the Avengers, Suicide Squad, etc.), it's unusual to have a woman as the sole lead for a superhero film—the only other one that readily comes to mind is Catwoman. So if Wonder Woman is now a hit, will that send a message to producers? Perhaps viewers are ready for a new kind of hero. The triumph of a female-led film is well-timed, hitting theaters just after the Cannes Film Festival, where Jessica Chastain criticized the lack of representation for women in this year's films, an issue she called, "quite disturbing."

Of course, so far, Wonder Woman has only triumphed in the critical sense. It has received great reviews, but we'll have to wait and see how it does in the box office in its first weekend. Last week, women-only showings of the film sold out in minutes. If that's any indication, I suspect the movie will be seeing big numbers this weekend.

Another interesting twist: Google's initiative, Made with Code, which encourages teenage girls to get into coding, has made use of the film. Today they released a program that allows users to code three different scenes from the movie. I suspect this the first instance of many in which Wonder Woman will span a variety of media platforms in its impact.