SXSW Film

Wonder Women!: The Untold Story of American Superheroines

For a crowd that's all about fighting injustice, superheroes have never done much to address gender equality in their own ranks. It's a superman's, man's, man's world, and as this doc points out, few people can name more than one or two females in the caped crusader set. Wonder Women! focuses on the best-known one, tracing the Amazon princess' history inside and outside the comics and how it's reflected women's changing roles in American society. Four-color images of the golden age Wonder Woman pop! on the silver screen, lending visual support to the testimony of Gloria Steinem and others about the impact that images of this powerful female had on them. The film makes a moving case for the necessity of heroic women in pop culture, never more affectingly than when a fourth-grade girl who's teased at school tells how this fantasy figure in star-spangled shorts inspires her to never give up.

Friday, March 16, 4:30pm, Alamo Ritz