Wonder Woman: The Female Body and Popular Culture Joan Ormrod (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK) 9781350191648

Wonder Woman was created in the early 1940s as a paragon of female empowerment and beauty and her near eighty-year history has included seismic socio-cultural changes. In this book, Joan Ormrod analyses key moments in the superheroine's career and views them through the prism of the female body. This book explores how Wonder Woman's body has changed over the years as her mission has shifted from being an ambassador for peace and love to the greatest warrior in the DC transmedia universe, as she's reflected increasing technological sophistication, globalisation and women's changing roles and ambitions. Wonder Woman's physical form, Ormrod argues, is both an articulation of female potential and attempts to constrain it. Her body has always been an amalgamation of the feminine ideal in popular culture and wider socio-cultural debate, from Betty Grable to the 1960s 'mod' girl, to the Iron Maiden of the 1980s.

This book explores how Wonder Woman's body reflects her socio-cultural contexts.

About the Author
Joan Ormrod is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. She is the editor of the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, co-author of Superheroes and Identities (2014) and has an extensive journals publication record.


Book Information
ISBN 9781350191648
Author Joan Ormrod
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Weight(grams) 381g