Don't burden Wonder Woman with American jingoism

The following is a letter to the editor of the New York Post.

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Dear Editor,

Maureen Callahan's appraisal of the upcoming Wonder Woman movie (Why 'Wonder Woman' is less American than ever, June 1, 2017) seems to center on the extent to which it fails to be a propaganda exercise for the cause of American Exceptionalism. In the process, she betrays the national insecurity and defeatism at the heart of mindless flag-waving for its own sake.

America is already great in many ways, even if its sons and daughters have been repeatedly deceived into harm's way in the name of (or within the highly-charged milieu of) patriotism. Think of the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" that was fabricated by elites to lure unwitting Americans into the Vietnam war (which didn't actually have anything to do with "stopping communism"), or the "pre-emptive" oil war in Iraq that was waged by George W. Bush under the false pretense of the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" that were already known not to exist.

When will more Americans realize that the sense of "patriotism" they've been trained to feel is actually a form of mind control that keeps them supporting people and causes that are diametrically opposed to their own interests? When will they stop offering themselves up for manipulation by politicians such as President Trump, whose numbskulled appeals to patriotism of the most jingoistic variety were designed to turn the crowds at his campaign rallies into arenas full of angry barking dogs?

Patriotism in and of itself is a complicated and contradictory affair, and so I do not share Ms. Callahan's dismay that today's Wonder Woman doesn't honor her roots as wartime propaganda with an hourglass figure.

Finally, Ms. Callahan concludes her piece by asking "Why can't Wonder Woman make America great again?", which inadvertently amounts to the author bashing her own country. Looking at the bigger picture, a country that is truly great doesn't need to constantly preen and flex its muscles for the benefit of the rest of the world - it simply needs to let its actions speak for themselves.

James Deagle
Ottawa, Canada