Professor Marston and the Wonder Women

Dir: Angela Robinson

2017

****

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women tells the story of psychologist William Moulton Marston who helped develop the Lie Detector Test and created the comic superhero Wonder Woman. The film is described as fact-based, and that is accurate to a degree, as no one represented in the story actually kept a record or diary of their lives, indeed, Marston’s private life was kept very secret – his granddaughter has been very vocal that she’s not happy with this representation, so it is fair to say much of what is seen in the film is objective. However, while the film suggests that Marston and his wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston actually invented the lie-detector (they didn’t, the invention of the polygraph is credited to John Augustus Larson) they were both the inventors of the systolic blood pressure cuff, a component of the polygraph which features heavily in the story and is a key component of Wonder Woman’s story. Things may not have happened the way the film suggests but much of it can be backed up as fact. As a huge comic fan, it was a real eye opener. I often wondered about the early Wonder Woman comics and their suitability for kids. It’s well known among Superman fans that Superman's Co-creator Joe Shuster drew a lot of fetish art for Nights of Terror while he was down on his luck and suing DC comics over Superman copyright. They sold under the counter and eventually banned by the U.S. Senate. It was quite a stir in the comic world and parents began taking more interest in what their kids were reading, but I knew little about Marston and the origins of Wonder Woman. A Professor of psychology at Harvard College in the 1920s, Marston was the father of DISC Theory – a theory that people illustrate their emotions using four behavior types: Dominance (D), Inducement (I), Submission (S), and Compliance (C). He argued that these behavioral types came from people's sense of self and their interaction with the environment. He included two dimensions that influenced people's emotional behavior. The first dimension is whether a person views his environment as favorable or unfavorable. The second dimension is whether a person perceives himself as having control or lack of control over his environment. Although Marston contributed to the creation of the DISC assessment, he did not in fact create it as it is understood today. In 1956, Walter Clarke, an industrial psychologist, constructed the DISC assessment using Marston's theory of the DISC model. He did this by publishing the Activity Vector Analysis, a checklist of adjectives on which he asked people to indicate descriptions that were accurate about themselves. This assessment was intended for use in businesses needing assistance in choosing qualified employees. Again, these are details. Marson and his wife Elizabeth researched and developed the polygraph and studied the concepts of dominance, inducement, submission and compliance and when you look at all these closely, you begin to see where Wonder Woman came from. Their marriage was unorthodox and they kept the fact that they entered into a loving relationship with their research assistant Olive Byrne (daughter of Ethel Byrne and niece of Margaret Sanger – two famous suffragists and feminists of the 20th century) a secret until their deaths. Elizabeth and Olive were both very different from each other, Elizabeth being head-strong, confident, opinionated and outspoken, while Olive was much younger, innocent and seen as more pure. The three loved each other equally and entered into a polyamorous relationship until William’s death. The three got into bondage and sexual submission, seeing it as not just a sexual thing but something of purity. The writing was on the wall – or in their case, in the comics. Olive and Elizabeth, who lived together until the tender ages of 81 and 100 respectively, were essentially the inspirations behind Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman, based on Olive, Elizabeth, the polygraph and DISC theory, was essentially intended to support the feminist movement to further equal rights for women through a populist medium. Job done, and out of all the superheros around today, I’m glad Wonder Woman is well up there as still one of the most popular. My only criticism with the film were some of the slower tender moments and sex scenes. The character development was a little too fast-paced, so the sex and sudden interest in bondage sort of came from no where and the years skipped by in seconds rather quickly. There was a lot to fit into just one film, and I loved the structure with Marston being interrogated by representatives of the Child Study Association of America as he was in 1945, I just think it needed far more in terms of narrative and development.The film reminded me of Werner Herzog’s 2001 drama Invincible in some respect. It told the story of Zishe Breitbart (aka Siegmund Breitbart) who was said to be the inspiration behind Superman. While Superman is never once mentioned, it feels like an origin story that itself isn’t quite attached to the superhero as we recognise them today. There are many DC fans who won’t be interested I’m sure, but if you are into the origins and mythology of comic characters – and you like a sexy drama – then look no further.