Lynda Carter Talks Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman

The announcement that the Man Of Steel sequel, colloquially known as Batman Vs. Superman, would feature Wonder Woman was an exciting moment for a lot of people. So how did it feel for Lynda Carter, the woman most famous for playing Wonder Woman in ABC's live-action series centered around the legendary superhero? Apparently pretty good, though Carter does have some Wonder Woman concerns.

Her concerns focus not around the casting of Gal Gadot in the role, but rather how she fears they might choose to write the character:

I’m in her corner. I just hope they write well for her! […] I’m very hopeful she embodies the essence of Wonder Woman. It’s less about super powers and more about heart and intellect and a sense of right and wrong with a goodness in her. Often times, writers really want to take a male superhero and dress him up as a female — and that’s just not who she is. [...] I'm saying they make Wonder Woman a macho Superman type character — they make her mean — and that's not who she is.

This is a concern Carter's expressed before, and though it's one with a few holes (I wouldn't exactly call Superman "mean"), her perspective does bring up some interesting questions about how we think about female superheroes.

Wonder Woman's obviously not the same case as Black Widow, arguably the other biggest female superhero right now who definitely has the most screentime to her name. Black Widow's certainly harboring more acidity than Wonder Woman, and unlike her Winter Soldier co-star Captain America, she's not defined by her "goodness."

We'll of course have to wait and see what Zack Snyder & Co. do under with the character under this kind of pressure; Snyder's already said that he has "a special place in [his] heart for the idea of a strong, empowered female superhero being out there." Whether it'll fit everyone's idea of what that "strong, empowered female" looks like is unlikely — that's a battle hardly anyone can win.

Image: ABC