“No true hero is born from lies.” This is the piece of advice given to young Diana Prince a.k.a. Wonder Woman at the outset of Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984. Obviously, it’s a platitude that’s going to come back at the end of the movie, this immediately established “thesis statement.” Which seems a bit ironic considering Wonder Woman 1984 paved the way for Warner Bros. to effectively end movie theater going by succumbing to releasing the film the “easier” way, via HBOMax’s streaming platform. In any case, this advice is specifically given to Diana when she tries to cheat at an athletic competition against the older Amazons of Themyscira. Antiope (Robin Wright, putting on a terrible version of a Greek accent) stops Diana from beating the others in the competition right as she’s about to thrust a javelin through a ring (yes, very innuendo laden). The moment is heart-shattering to Diana, who was on the verge of winning the race. Antiope informs her that her win would have been a lie (as she took a shortcut to get back on track), and that anything worth achieving is done so honestly. Ah, such a lovely sentiment that only seems to set children back several decades before they look around and see that everybody else gave up that illusion long ago (and certainly don’t bother passing on any such life advice to the Trump spawn that will continue to proliferate for generations to come).
But Diana is indoctrinated early, and adheres to the harsh lesson imparted by always taking the harder path. Even after the pain of losing the human she fell in love with during World War I, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine, looking more and more like a plastic surgery experiment), in 2017’s Wonder Woman. But what would a sequel be without the reemergence of her true love in one way or another? To be specific, an ancient Dreamstone that grants Diana her wish “unwittingly” (even though she never says the words “I wish” out loud as everyone else has to in order to get what they want). She thinks of Steve Trevor as she holds the stone in her hand in front of her fellow Smithsonian co-worker, Barbara Ann Minerva (Kristen Wiig, in the most miscast role of late, until we see Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball). A sharp contrast to Diana’s “cool girl” presence, Barbara is mousy, awkward and passive, going unnoticed by everyone around her. Even their manager forgot what she looked like after only recently interviewing her. In Diana, Barbara sees someone to covet, and that envy comes out as she holds the Dreamstone, daring to wish upon it despite Diana telling her that it’s a fake, despite the Latin inscription she read aloud to Barbara saying it will grant one wish to its holder.
Unaware that wishing to be “like Diana” will also mean the superpowers that come with that package, Barbara is daily surprised by her growing strength and quickly evolving persona. In the meantime, middling businessman and wannabe oil magnate Max Lord a.k.a. Maxwell Lorenzano (Pedro Pascal), has discovered that the stone (originally stolen from the back room of a mall jewelry store, where we saw Wonder Woman make her first “rescue” of the movie) is at the Smithsonian, and quickly moves in on manipulating Barbara in order to steal it. Upon doing so, he wishes not for his fledgling pyramid scheme of an oil company to magically become successful, but instead to become the stone itself–thereby allowing him the chance to grant other people’s wishes that he wields for his own continued benefit.
Soon, he becomes the most sought after businessman in the world, and this is one of the only reasons Wonder Woman 1984 is set in 1984: because in the 80s, the “greed is good” philosophy of “businessmen” (as immortalized on celluloid by Gordon Gekko in Wall Street) was at its most loud and proud apex of overt freak flag flying. Then there was also the additional boon to a plot set during this decade thanks to the importance of oil and nuclear conflict to it. This applies most glaringly when Max flies to Cairo to “make a deal” with the “King of Crude”–or so the latter thinks until his wish to wall out those who are not “of his own kind” from his “sacred land” comes true. And also when the Soviet Union starts getting all uppity about escalating nuclear war, made worse when the president wishes for more nuclear weapons to scare them into submission (girl, did you not see 1983’s WarGames? No one ever wins tic tac toe).
In the interim, Barbara has gotten drunk on her own power, and the reactions she’s getting from other people who finally take notice of her existence. This feeling is one she refuses to part with, no matter the price. And it is at this point in the movie that both Barbara and Diana (with her deceased lover’s soul inside of another man’s body in tow) are informed they must renounce their wish for that which they’ve lost to be restored. That’s right, because of the Monkey’s Paw caveat, both have lost something significant in exchange for their wishes coming true. In Diana’s case, it is her powers (though isn’t it also kind of a “loss” that Steve isn’t in his own body?), and in Barbara’s, it is her humanity (but who really needs that in a cruel world like this?). Barbara is adamant about not letting go of what she’s become, whereas you can see in Diana’s eyes–thanks to the lesson we saw her learn in that initial scene, hammering us over the head with a moral–that she knows she will have to capitulate to giving up Steve yet again. He was not “achieved” honestly, and the lie of their relationship is too glaring to ignore. Or so she must tell herself.
The thing is, people love lies. They do not feel “bad” about buying into something that patently is one. More often than not, it is just another means of self-preservation. Of being able to endure what Prince referred to as “this thing called life” (Purple Rain came out in 1984, lest you forget)–and, speaking of Prince, the film’s soundtrack takes zero advantage of using 80s music. It’s about more than “merely” cutting corners for those who happily live a lie. Denial is like a beauty cream, best applied daily for optimal effectiveness of these internalized petites illusions. This, too, speaks to Lord’s entire mantra about how if you can believe it, you can achieve it–and it is still the foundation of how the U.S. functions (or rather, doesn’t). Lies are “the stuff that dreams are made of,” and America is still telling itself it’s made of dreams. Thus, for screenwriters Jenkins, Geoff Johns and Dave Callaham to make such a huge point (complete with the heavy-handed dialogue unnecessary to do so) about humanity’s inherent dissatisfaction and hollowness stemming from a belief in the salvation of a “quick fix” or “instant gratification” is a lie itself.
No one can be made to feel “immoral” (not even by Hollywood) because of the white lies that we tell all the time to ourselves and others–just as the Marquis de Sade’s work did not “make” anyone debauched, but simply highlighted the fantasies already thought of but not expressed. Yet that seems to be the ultimate aim of Wonder Woman 1984: to talk down to its viewer while pontificating on the purported merits of something we’ve seen for ourselves does not tend to pan out in real life for those who would go out of their way to be “honest.” To take the moral high ground. Indeed, this movie itself is a lie in that regard. The evil are not punished, but reanimated. And so we have movies like Aladdin, in which Jafar getting hold of the genie bottle (much like Max Lord) makes him summarily “implode,” to teach us that power in the hands of evil can never last (true, it just gets “re-funneled”–e.g. the French Revolution resulting in Napoleon). Then there is the likes of Bruce Almighty, in which an ordinary man like Jim Carrey as Bruce Nolan is made to realize that he is not as equipped as he thought to take on the powers of God (the Barbara and Wonder Woman foils in this instance). That the responsibility that comes with it is too great for someone like him (not evil, per se, but not competent or selfless enough).
These are the movies that help to keep humanity in line with believing that goodness is ultimately rewarded–and that to be good one must be ethical. At the conclusion (drawn out and interminable as it is, it finally does come) of Wonder Woman 1984, we’re supposed to believe 1) no one on Earth was unselfish enough to wish for world peace and 2) Diana’s sacrifice of her great love was all worth it upon taking in a few scenes of people smiling and simply “being human” a.k.a. basic and unremarkable. Just as we’re supposed to believe humanity was worth saving at all, considering the opening scene of her first rescue takes place in the bowel-like atmosphere of the mall, where all the unsophisticated and uneducated tropes of America come to hang out.
But all that matters, apparently, is that we’re imparted with the message that the world is “at peace” when we all stop trying to cheat the system with our lies. What seems to be missing in that equation is the acknowledgement that the system itself is rigged, a juggernaut of deception and nepotism that responds only to the same underhandedness in those who are unavoidably a part of it.
