Lynda Carter revealed that producers of the Wonder Woman television series (1975 - 1979) originally thought that women wouldn't like her portrayal of Diana in the series because of her costume.
"When producers mentioned... 'oh women are gonna not like you because the outfits and blah blah blah,' I thought, 'women are going to love me. They're going to want to be me or my best friend because Wonder Woman is non-predatory. Wonder Woman is all of us,'" Carter said in an interview with ComicBook.com. "That's what I wanted to bring more than anything was that she did not think of herself as all that, that she did not think of herself as that she was the 'it' girl because all of her sisters did the exact same thing that she did on Paradise Island."
Producers at the time were concerned that Carter's Wonder Woman wouldn't appeal to women in the audience because of her dress and her feminine demeanor. In reality, her portrayal was popular enough to earn Carter a star on the Hollywood walk of fame and she may even reprise the famous role in an upcoming Patty Jenkins Wonder Woman film. Carter attributes the role's popularity with women to Diana's confidence in her abilities and her relatability to the average woman.
"On Theymiscira they all did the same thing, she just excelled, but she didn't think that she was particularly special, just in this other world," Carter continued. "But she knew who she was. And that's the way I played her, that she knew who she was."
Clips of Carter's Wonder Woman were recently featured in the art piece/short film Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978-79). The piece was created by Dara Birnbaum, a video artist who has been creating artwork challenging gender bias since the 1970s. Birnbaum created the short film to explore the concept of identity and womanhood in media. In her interview, Carter also gave her thoughts on the film.
"Dara Birnbaum is really innovative, you know, by her commentary on various gendered expectations and that sort of thing," the Wonder Woman actress commented. "It's strange when someone else interprets what is something you created and someone else is interpreting something that you created and having their own artistic vision in a different way than it was intended. So that is what is fascinating to me, the intention of the art piece and art rather than just compilation. What makes it a piece of art is that it is what the juxtapositions mean and it's a transformational piece, going from ordinary to extraordinary."
Birnbaum's short film is on display at The Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach. Wonder Woman (1975 - 1979) is available to stream on HBO Max.
Source: ComicBook.com