Dear Diana: You can recover and be a Wonder Woman again.

Dear Diana:

By now, I am guessing that you’ve heard the news: Your foray into 1984 was… how shall I put it?… a bust. It’s not all your fault! Who sets a feminist superhero movie in 1984 and doesn’t expect some bizarro cultural blunders? I mean, it is the year that brought us that Tom Hank’s – Daryl Hannah masterpiece Splash, in which the female lead appears unwittingly naked in public multiple times (because that’s funny, right?). 1984 also premiered the “power woman“-led sitcom Who’s the Boss? (When you have to ask who the boss is when it clearly is the woman, you know you have a problem with gender roles.)

Disney+ didn't want butts on their platform so they edited Splash with digital fur technology pic.twitter.com/df8XE0G9om

— Allison Pregler 📼 (@AllisonPregler) April 13, 2020

Having actually lived through the 1980s, I find it hard to be nostalgic for those “simpler times” when catcalls were compliments and sexual harassment was something you learned to live with if you wanted to succeed. It was the kind of era when Wonder Woman was more sex object than superhero.

Since Wonder Woman 3 is already in the works, I thought I’d do you a solid, Diana, and share with you some of the insights that American women have gained since 1984. Hopefully, you will be able to fast-forward on the female empowerment journey before you start shooting the next film. Here goes:

1. You can’t the save the world until you save yourself.

I get that an unresolved past is kind of a superhero thing, but the trope is broke. Your mom disappeared when you were a little kid to “save the world” and how did that work out? Does the world seem saved to you? No. Instead, she burned into your psyche that anyone you love and depend on in the universe will ultimately abandon you in order to save strangers who won’t appreciate it, turn on them, and ultimately screw the place up even more so that their offspring can repeat the cycle of dysfunction. Co-dependent no more!

It’s time to break the cycle by setting some boundaries, Diana. When a narcissistic televisual-capitalist tries to take over the world, is it really necessary for you to jump in an invisible plane and jet over to the Middle East to confront him? Instead, consider taking some “me time” to ask yourself: What does Diana need? (See #2, below, before you answer that because it’s not your deadish boyfriend.)

2. It’s clinical depression, not a missing boyfriend.

You rarely go out socially, you have no close friends, things that used to spark joy like lassoing crooks at the mall leave you feeling listless and sad. I know you think it is because you have been missing your boyfriend for decades. And that may have been what started this cycle. But what you suffer from, Diana, isn’t lonely girl syndrome. It’s clinical depression. You are only two years away from the beginning of a pharmaceutical and cultural breakthrough. When Prozac hits the market in 1986, people will stop hiding their depression and be able to seek out treatment.

Stigma around mental illness is one of the leading reasons people don’t seek out treatment. You are a superhero! You battle stereotypes and cultural oppression! Don’t displace your real mental health needs onto a false narrative of lost love. Get the help you deserve.

Want to learn more? Check out this ad for Zoloft, another anti-depressant from 2001:

3. It’s your invisible jet, so fly it.

As a kid, you fearlessly leapt onto the back of racing stallions and dove from great heights into the open sea. Hell girl, you even defied General Antiope! But by 1984, when your ghostish pilot boyfriend shows up, you take the passenger seat of life? And then you gaze out the “windows” while he weaves elementary-school-level poetry about being one with the air?

Wake up! You are a m-f-ing superhero! Get behind the controls and fly that plane! I hate to play the comic-geek-origins-card, but don’t you remember that your mother originally gifted you that plane when you set off for the WWII version of “Man’s World”? You were able to use your tiara to make the jet appear and control the plane with your mind. So why would you just hand your ride over to Steve? If you think it’s going to get him to love you enough to stay in 1984, please see advice item #1, above.

This all comes dangerously close to the “I made that bitch famous” practice of men claiming or getting credit for women’s accomplishments. No. You are Wonder Woman. Demand your herstory!

4. Stop apologizing for other people’s bad choices.

In your showdown with Barbara/Cheetah, you apologize for electrocuting her into submission when she refuses to renounce her wish. If anyone had anything to apologize for during this scene it was the production team that thought a CGI-generated cheetah would look badass in the year following the horror movie that was Cats. You took the action necessary in the situation. Don’t apologize!

Study after study shows that women apologize more often than men. One possible reason why is that girls are conditioned to be more empathetic—they are trained to think about how their behavior affects others. Dr. Steven Hinshaw, author of The Triple Bind and how girls get screwed up during adolescence explains it like this:

“if a boy wins a race, he’s less likely to consider how his victory affected his competitors, whereas a girl might win and be happy for it, but downplay her success out of concern for the loser’s feelings. Girls are more often rewarded for focusing on others’ feelings while boys are more often rewarded for asserting themselves.”

Sound familiar?

5. It’s not your job to reform a narcissist. Just get him off the airwaves.

Okay, so this lesson is one that America is still working on so it’s understandable that you got suckered in by the gaslighting and thought your mission was to save the narcissist rather than the world. Here’s the thing about people with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD): no one can “cure” them other than themselves. And even then, it’s nearly impossible because of the nature of the disorder.

The Mayo Clinic explains that the people with NPD “have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism.” Intensive, long-term talk therapy along with pharmaceutical treatment are the paths recommended for NPD “recovery” but because of their fear of criticism, many suffering from NPD avoid therapy or terminate it early. NPD isn’t funny. It’s sad and destructive to everyone, especially the person suffering from NPD. Having said that…

The only thing more mythical in your movie than the rock that can grant wishes is this narrative of redemption for Maxwell Lord. The film could have been over at least an hour earlier if you had just understood that the only thing you can do with a narcissist who commands international television broadcasts is to cut off his oxygen—get him off the airwaves. (CNN, I’m talking to you: Just stop giving him oxygen, already!)

6. If a person doesn’t ask for tea or can’t ask for tea, assume they don’t want tea.

Okay, so we need to have an uncomfortable conversation. I realize that in 1984 you probably had just watched Revenge of the Nerds where one of the “geeks” steals a “jock’s” costume to trick the jock’s girlfriend into having sex with him, and that it is okay because (get ready for the joke…) the girlfriend finds that the geek is better at sex than the jock. This may have given you the false sense that it would be okay to have sex with your body-snatcher boyfriend while he was in the snatched body. But here’s the thing… If someone can’t answer the question “Do you want tea?” don’t make them tea. And if you meet some guy named Brett Kavanaugh in your journeys through Washington D.C. in the next couple of decades, I suggest you leave quickly if he mentions tea. Or if Bill Cosby invites you back to his hotel room for a cup of tea, do not drink it. Trust me on this one.

Don’t get the reference to tea? Watch the video below.

It’s a lot to take in, I know, I lived through it all myself. But if you work on these issues, you have a decent shot at making Wonder Woman 3 something other than a giant steaming hot piece of sh*t dropped into our Christmas stockings.

Your friend and long-time fan,

Amy