1 Corinthians 13:11: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." Watching the Marston's and Olive go through this process is like watching your first child take their first step. The first lie they told us was that nobody was watching us in the privacy of our home. The next big lie was that nobody cares what we do in private in our bedrooms. The third big lie was that we could do whatever we wanted regarding sex. By the way, who is "they"? Why, the Federal Bureau of Investigation of course, and every other federal department tasked with monitoring morals. "They" do care what kind of sex we have, "they" are watching and "they" will find a way to punish us outside of the court system, and especially if the courts' attorneys refuse to enforce the ten commandments as "they" interpret it. While at the lake on their pic-nik, Elizabeth Marston tells Olive Burn that she and Bill attended law school. We can tell they did not complete their law course by their behavior. They think nobody is watching when they have sex on campus. They believe nobody cares what kind of sex they are having. Bill believes the world will not try to stop them. He says so at video minute 37:10.
The study of logic brings us to at least one conclusion: various and sundry people lie all the time. There will be repercussions for immoral behavior. The community will find out, one way or another. They will cast you out of their conservative neighborhoods. Once you understand this, it is up to you as an individual to decide what level of suffering you can live with, and what your purpose is. I'm not convinced that Olive had a valid option. She had no conventional family. Therefore, any decision she made regarding her relationship with the Marston's must be compared to her previous home life. The three-way love affair with the Marston's may have been the only love she had ever known. Certainly this is implied by Olive's life in the convent. If we must judge by the conduct of the women at that convent, it was no more moral an environment than the three-way with the Marston's.
Bill Marston truly believed his comic art would help to empower women. His methods and conduct prove that he has been very badly abused. No honest person would use violence to demand the kind of humiliating submissiveness Bill depicts in his art. Or perhaps, it's the directors interpretation of Bill's art that demands the submissiveness. It's hard to tell. Bill maintains throughout the film that he is trying to empower women. Child Study Commissioner Josette Frank mentions that Wonder Woman's golden lasso is used to force criminals to tell the truth. Marston states at video minute 1:41:35 that Wonder Woman reforms criminals. The contradiction between Bill Marston's repeated statements that the purpose of his art is to empower women, versus the depictions of violence against women in his comics, together with his acts of sado-masochism with Olive, imply that some truth has been lost along the way. What is less obvious are the covert attempts to derail Bill Marston. The fact that Bill Marston even verbalized the idea that women should fight back, that women should fight against physical restraints, that they should struggle, have sex outside of socially acceptable norms, scream, yell, argue, accuse, jump, run, throw things, think for themselves, and demand honesty, all this would attract the attention of those people who hate powerful women. Bill then becomes a target for the devil and his soldiers. The devil's only recourse is to lure Bill off the path with a red herring: violence as a necessary evil.
Elizabeth Marston appears to be the only truly sensible feminist in the film. She objects to Harvard refusing her a degree. She is the only person who objects to Bill using rope to tie up Olive at Guyettes shop. She was the only voice of reason that attempted to stop their love affair. She claimed they were living a fantasy, but the world lived in reality. She ordered Olive to leave.
Bill, Elizabeth and Olive go through a maturing process in a very public way, as adults, and with the added burden, or bonus, of children. As it turns out, the community did care about their three-way love affair, and they did fire the Marston's from employment at Harvard, and they did punish the children, and they did demand that the children be removed from public school. The world did try to stop them from maintaining their three way love affair. Women have historically been considered the weaker sex in no small part because of their inclination to submit to this kind of violence and perverted sexual conduct. That is not intended as an insult. We must be trained in the art of logic and argument to be capable of fighting with this demon. In times past, most women were not sent to school, especially the lower income households. They could not afford to send women to school. Thinking logically does not come naturally. More Men were trained in logic than were women. Men are tasked with protecting women. Mr. Brandt knew that. He tried to protect Olive from what he believed were immoral people. It is hard to tell whom is more open minded about the situation: Bill, who attempts to investigate and catalog the events, or Brandt, who condemns their love affair without investigating it. It can not possibly be a coincidence that Olive's aunt is the feminist Margaret Sanger. Again, we can see the evidence of child abuse in Olive's response to the Marston's behavior. She submits so easily to the abuse. It's like a bad habit. She accepts the pain without a word of objection. There is another point here that is not well developed in the script. Sometimes we have to fight. There are evil people on this planet. We may have to fight physically with them to defend ourselves. This idea is less obvious at first glance. The battle takes courage, stamina and a belief that our fighting back will make a difference. The fight was hard. It hurt. It was ugly and sometimes it was sexual, but it did prove fruitful. Bill showed that in his art. The director does not give this idea much screen time. Instead, Marston's comic strip art appears unattractive and excessively violent. The Marston's appear immoral and weak minded. The Director gives no screen time to the victory Wonder Woman achieved over the criminals. The director did not point out the importance of the process of expressing unattractive emotions and getting over them. The Marston's and Olive maintained their three way affair until they died. They did not conform to a socially acceptable heterosexual relationship. The situation was not resolved in a Universally acceptable manner. What the director did show us was the passion. The passion was Olive crying and argueing with the Marston's to keep her in their life. The film shows them rejecting her, then her rejecting them. It shows them begging for her to come back. It shows her going back to them. The three of them appear to truly love each other. It's the process, not the product that is important. If everyone was waiting for Olive to explode in rage and kill one of the Marston's, they were disappointed. Love won the fight, but it was not socially acceptable heterosexual love.
The study of logic brings us to at least one conclusion: various and sundry people lie all the time. There will be repercussions for immoral behavior. The community will find out, one way or another. They will cast you out of their conservative neighborhoods. Once you understand this, it is up to you as an individual to decide what level of suffering you can live with, and what your purpose is. I'm not convinced that Olive had a valid option. She had no conventional family. Therefore, any decision she made regarding her relationship with the Marston's must be compared to her previous home life. The three-way love affair with the Marston's may have been the only love she had ever known. Certainly this is implied by Olive's life in the convent. If we must judge by the conduct of the women at that convent, it was no more moral an environment than the three-way with the Marston's.
Bill Marston truly believed his comic art would help to empower women. His methods and conduct prove that he has been very badly abused. No honest person would use violence to demand the kind of humiliating submissiveness Bill depicts in his art. Or perhaps, it's the directors interpretation of Bill's art that demands the submissiveness. It's hard to tell. Bill maintains throughout the film that he is trying to empower women. Child Study Commissioner Josette Frank mentions that Wonder Woman's golden lasso is used to force criminals to tell the truth. Marston states at video minute 1:41:35 that Wonder Woman reforms criminals. The contradiction between Bill Marston's repeated statements that the purpose of his art is to empower women, versus the depictions of violence against women in his comics, together with his acts of sado-masochism with Olive, imply that some truth has been lost along the way. What is less obvious are the covert attempts to derail Bill Marston. The fact that Bill Marston even verbalized the idea that women should fight back, that women should fight against physical restraints, that they should struggle, have sex outside of socially acceptable norms, scream, yell, argue, accuse, jump, run, throw things, think for themselves, and demand honesty, all this would attract the attention of those people who hate powerful women. Bill then becomes a target for the devil and his soldiers. The devil's only recourse is to lure Bill off the path with a red herring: violence as a necessary evil.
Elizabeth Marston appears to be the only truly sensible feminist in the film. She objects to Harvard refusing her a degree. She is the only person who objects to Bill using rope to tie up Olive at Guyettes shop. She was the only voice of reason that attempted to stop their love affair. She claimed they were living a fantasy, but the world lived in reality. She ordered Olive to leave.
Bill, Elizabeth and Olive go through a maturing process in a very public way, as adults, and with the added burden, or bonus, of children. As it turns out, the community did care about their three-way love affair, and they did fire the Marston's from employment at Harvard, and they did punish the children, and they did demand that the children be removed from public school. The world did try to stop them from maintaining their three way love affair. Women have historically been considered the weaker sex in no small part because of their inclination to submit to this kind of violence and perverted sexual conduct. That is not intended as an insult. We must be trained in the art of logic and argument to be capable of fighting with this demon. In times past, most women were not sent to school, especially the lower income households. They could not afford to send women to school. Thinking logically does not come naturally. More Men were trained in logic than were women. Men are tasked with protecting women. Mr. Brandt knew that. He tried to protect Olive from what he believed were immoral people. It is hard to tell whom is more open minded about the situation: Bill, who attempts to investigate and catalog the events, or Brandt, who condemns their love affair without investigating it. It can not possibly be a coincidence that Olive's aunt is the feminist Margaret Sanger. Again, we can see the evidence of child abuse in Olive's response to the Marston's behavior. She submits so easily to the abuse. It's like a bad habit. She accepts the pain without a word of objection. There is another point here that is not well developed in the script. Sometimes we have to fight. There are evil people on this planet. We may have to fight physically with them to defend ourselves. This idea is less obvious at first glance. The battle takes courage, stamina and a belief that our fighting back will make a difference. The fight was hard. It hurt. It was ugly and sometimes it was sexual, but it did prove fruitful. Bill showed that in his art. The director does not give this idea much screen time. Instead, Marston's comic strip art appears unattractive and excessively violent. The Marston's appear immoral and weak minded. The Director gives no screen time to the victory Wonder Woman achieved over the criminals. The director did not point out the importance of the process of expressing unattractive emotions and getting over them. The Marston's and Olive maintained their three way affair until they died. They did not conform to a socially acceptable heterosexual relationship. The situation was not resolved in a Universally acceptable manner. What the director did show us was the passion. The passion was Olive crying and argueing with the Marston's to keep her in their life. The film shows them rejecting her, then her rejecting them. It shows them begging for her to come back. It shows her going back to them. The three of them appear to truly love each other. It's the process, not the product that is important. If everyone was waiting for Olive to explode in rage and kill one of the Marston's, they were disappointed. Love won the fight, but it was not socially acceptable heterosexual love.