As you (hopefully) know by now, this week is Bisexual Awareness Week (you better be living your best and bi-est lives)!
In honor of Bi Week, GLAAD started a petition encouraging Warner Bros. to acknowledge that DC Comics heroine Wonder Woman is indeed bisexual. While this may seem insignificant to some, it would actually be a huge thing for bisexual visibility.
Here’s what Gianna Collier-Pitts of GLAAD, creator of the petition, wrote regarding why this petition is so necessary:
"Earlier this summer, Warner Brothers released their latest DC Comics franchise film Wonder Woman, and women young and old finally saw an image of themselves reflected in a superhero on the big screen. WB also raked in a pretty penny with a gross of over $817 million worldwide (and counting), ranking the film as the third highest grossing film in the studio’s history. Needless to say, it was a success for everyone...except the bisexual community.
The likelihood of Wonder Woman being bisexual has been alluded to over the years, primarily in comics. Writer of Wonder Woman: Rebirth Greg Rucka even confirmed that “Diana has been in love and had relationships with other women”, so why is it so hard to translate this for the silver screen? Wonder Woman’s Diana Prince hails from Themyscira, land of the Amazons and inhabited exclusively by women. This alone should serve as reason enough to confirm her sexuality, since any close relationship she could have had prior to her romantic storyline with Steve Trevor would have had to have been with another woman. Some of you may be thinking that this specificity doesn't make a difference but for people like me who rarely see themselves reflected in media, believe me. It does.
For as long as I can remember, I've had an attachment to TV and film. I would get lost in the storylines and characters for hours, so much so that I earned my degree in Cinema Studies. One of the first things I learned is that representation is power, especially in today's society ruled by technology and social media. What we are exposed to on our televisions, in our movie theaters and Netflix queues, can have a direct correlation to how we view ourselves and the world around us. As I was coming to terms with my bisexuality, I saw few—if any—characters that I could relate to, and those that I did see were almost always portrayed in a negative light.
The majority of the LGBTQ+ community identifies as bisexual or as having attraction to more than one gender, and yet it is the least understood of any identity. We are oversexualized and underrepresented. We are called greedy, dishonest, and confused. We are the least likely to come out and the most likely to suffer from depression and anxiety, on top of experiencing higher rates of sexual/intimate partner violence. We are made to feel invisible and in doing so we begin to see ourselves as invisible. Making Wonder Woman canonically bisexual on the big screen would make her the first openly LGBTQ superhero of any gender from either DC or Marvel's cinematic universes, and would solidify her place as a true role model for women of all ages and identities.
The Wonder Woman franchise is the embodiment of strength and resilience in a genre that places women as the sidekick more often than the hero. The bar is already so low when it comes to celebrating women and LGBTQ characters in a positive way, and I am tired of grasping at straws in an effort to see myself represented.
All I ask is that Warner Bros. directly acknowledge Diana Prince for who she is, who she has always been (regardless of her current love interest), and what her character could potentially represent for millions of people."
Get on board and sign the petition here!
^ Actual footage of you running to go sign the petition.
