Canadian Politics Today

Ok, so you are focussing on the phrase "tackle" and if we burst that apart we can find Wonder Woman is in that cohort of embedding social issues on the light end of the spectrum:

Not to nitpick, but I'm going to nitpick...

-Serious films that are directly written about social issues - preachy or not - such as Inherit the Wind, Philadelphia, Schindler's List

I'm not sure genocide and gas chambers are exactly a social issue in recent times. I think the debate on those issues has been long settled, other than for a deranged few. *cough*cough*taxme*cough* 

-Films that aren't about those issues but embed social issues within them - Birth of a Nation, Lethal Weapon

uh... Lethal Weapon? I guess I missed the embedded social issues.

-Sitcoms and popular television that overtly put 'social episodes' together - Different Strokes, Soap, or All in the Family

As I mentioned I haven't seen a full episode of All In The Family, but my understanding is that the social commentary flowed organically from the premise, as opposed to "very special episodes" of sitcoms where the attempts at social commentary felt forced. 

-Sitcoms that embed minority characters for you to get to know the 'other' - Will & Grace, The Cosby Show

Agree, although I believe the thought process is primarily "Let's make a popular TV show!" rather than "Let's make a show that will educate people."

-Fantasy and sci-fi that buries the social themes, but are detectable - Wonder Woman, Handmaid's Tale

I have not yet seen the new Handmaid's Tale TV show, but I saw the movie some time ago. It was set in a near future world where human fertility had been drastically reduced (due to environmental degradation? I forget). The few remaining fertile women became commodities.  It was a not-at-all subtle take on reproductive freedom issues, with other social issues thrown in for good measure.    With many US states enacting laws that seek to elevate the rights of a fetus above the rights of the women carrying it, and with Mike Pence one heartbeat/impeachment away from the White House, it might be a very relevant premise for American audiences at this point.

I think it's too simple to say that the producers are tapping into issues to make money.  Unlike others, I do accept that money is the prime driver and in some cases (Soap, All in the Family - Norman Lear in general) the idea seems to be to get viewers on the back of controversy.  But I also think that creators are artists, and as such they do have an agenda.

Yes,  I agree.  I didn't mean to suggest that it's all a callous plan to exploit real issues to make cash.   But ultimately, the studio and the investors didn't scrape together a big-move budget without the intention of seeing a return on their investment.

I think that the artistic people involved-- the actors, the writers, the directors-- often have genuine intention of doing something positive.  And perhaps the studio people do as well, but their primary decision is not "is this positive?" but rather "would people watch this?"

Perhaps back in the 1970s some studio guy looked at the pilot for "All In The Family" and said "this will never fly, we need dumb jokes and an annoying kid to make it more other sitcoms", and maybe his colleague said "are you kidding? this is amazing! people will watch this to find out what everybody is talking about!" and luckily for us the second guy won the argument.

I have no doubt that Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot and the creative people in the Warner Brothers DC Comics division wanted to make a female-positive movie, but ultimately they had to make a movie that people would go see.

Wonder Woman as some kind of breakthrough still doesn't make complete sense to me, but if the chattering classes in my Facebook feed are any indication maybe there's something to it. 

I don't think "breakthrough" is the right word.  You used the word "signifier" earlier, and I think that's closer.

They've made a movie that's by most accounts an unabashed celebration of female empowerment, about a character who is perhaps the most unabashed symbol of female empowerment ever created.   And the movie has been incredibly well received, from both an artistic and a commercial standpoint.  I just find that gratifying.

After a year where the first woman to run for President lost to a senile orange idiot, it feels like a win.

 -k