Today in the Annals of the Loser Left

I thought Wonder Woman was overrated, chiefly because I have very little enthusiasm for the whole comic book superhero film adaptations, which all seem unmemorable in as little as 30 minutes after leaving the theater. And they all have the same climax: the hero is losing to the villain, until some magical point when the hero summons up a reserve of hidden strength, or discovers a new dimension of power, and turns the tables on the bad guy. Big surprise: Thor beats Loki—again. Make closing speech about love or something. Roll credits. Be sure to toss out your empty popcorn bag.

But one great bonus of Wonder Woman is how it has summoned forth some examples of the cultural left in full clown mode. Like Jonathan Cook, who actually wrote this:

Wonder Woman is a hero only the military-industrial complex could create

. . . My argument is that this much-praised Gal Gadot vehicle–seemingly about a peace-loving superhero, Wonder Woman, from the DC Comics stable–is actually carefully purposed propaganda designed to force-feed aggressive western military intervention, dressed up as humanitarianism, to unsuspecting audiences.

In short, this is straight-up propaganda for the military-industrial complex. It would have looked and sounded identical had it been scripted by a joint team from the Pentagon and the Israel Defense Forces. . .

The complete piece is quite long, and most of it has little to do with Wonder Woman. But then the main subtext emerges late in the piece:

There has been plenty of guffawing at Middle East countries, including Lebanon, for seeking to ban Wonder Woman because it stars Gal Gadot, an Israeli beauty queen turned actress who plays the title role.

In fact, it is understandable that the Lebanese might object to a film heavily promoting Gadot as the world’s savior, given that she served in the Israeli army, one that brutally occupied parts of their country for two decades until 2000 and continues to maintain a belligerent occupation of the Palestinians.

I imagine if Jonathan Cook had been around in the 1970s for Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman, he’d have simply swapped out Vietnamese for Palestinians. Unlike comic book superheroes, leftists don’t have to summon up any extra powers to achieve their comic book results.

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