Pop Culture Still Can’t Imagine Women — So We’re Imagining Ourselves

 I was scrolling through Netflix the other night, trying to find something new, when I realized every “strong female lead” looked like a variation of the same woman; perfect hair, flawless makeup, tight costume, and somehow still centered around a man’s storyline. Earlier that day, I’d paused a music video because every woman in it looked copy‑and‑paste identical. And then my daughter asked me, “Why do all the girls look the same?” That question sat with me. Once you start noticing how predictable women’s representation is, you can’t unsee it.

That’s why Wonder Woman became the lens for my thinking this week. Diana is powerful, brilliant, and compassionate. She is everything a heroine should be, but she’s also filmed in a way that keeps her strength “pretty” and her body “consumable.” Even in battle, she looks photoshoot‑ready. It’s empowerment, but only within boundaries that feel familiar. Sellnow’s feminist perspective argues that media teaches us what to expect from women, and Wonder Woman is a perfect example of that lesson in action.

Walsh et al.’s “Beauty and the Patriarchal Beast” explains this exact pattern: women can be powerful, but only if they remain beautiful, desirable, and non‑threatening. Diana fits that mold exactly; a warrior shaped to still appeal to the male gaze. And honestly, this isn’t just about superheroes. You can see the same pattern in real‑world beauty trends, especially the rise of BBL culture. When the same tiny waist–big hips–big butt silhouette gets rewarded in music videos, reality TV, and Instagram feeds, it shapes our imagination of what women are “supposed” to look like. Even when women choose these procedures for themselves, the standard to which they are responding is not without precedent.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mirror-mirror/202108/the-bbl-bubble-how-social-media-fuels-body-modification

The videos this week make all of this even clearer. Miss Representation shows how women in media are boxed into narrow roles, and even when they break out, the box just gets prettier. Sexism in the News reminds us that real women face the same scrutiny, appearance first, substance second. And Dreamworlds 3 exposes how the camera often treats women’s bodies as visual pleasure before character, something we see in the way Wonder Woman frames Diana’s movements.

But films like The Woman King, Hidden Figures, and Everything Everywhere All at Once show what happens when women are allowed to be complex, messy, unglamorous, and fully human. Female Heroines in Film highlights this shift: when women are written with depth and filmed without the male gaze shaping every frame, audiences respond. The issue isn’t that people don’t want complex women, it’s that Hollywood keeps defaulting to the same script.

So here’s where I landed: Wonder Woman shows both progress and limits. Pop culture is trying to imagine powerful women, but it still can’t let go of the beauty standards that keep them palatable. Until media expands its imagination, our culture won’t expand its own.

Here’s what I’m still chewing on:

1. If even our most “empowered” heroines are shaped by patriarchal beauty standards, how does that limit the roles women feel allowed to take up in real life?

2. What would a heroine look like if she didn’t have to be beautiful, graceful, or “likable” to be powerful?