He was especially interested, though, in finding ways to detect deception. Marston held three degrees from Harvard, one of which was a PhD in psychology his graduate work had involved conceiving of ways to measure human emotion. The character was created by William Moulton Marston, a veteran of World War I who was also a professor, a lawyer, and a scientist. When the character debuted in 1941, as the second of the world wars raged around her, she was a paradox incarnate: The Amazonian princess was a warrior whose purpose was peace. The golden rope, in that way, connects the Wonder Woman of 2017 to her comic-book origins. Most of all, though, she uses it for precisely the purpose its name suggests: to force people, usually against their will, to admit to reality. The lasso features prominently in the director Patty Jenkins’s film, as both a weapon and a tactic: In it, Diana uses the glimmering device repeatedly to whip, to entrap, to win. The device was forged of the chain mail worn by Diana’s mother, the warrior queen if someone finds themselves ensnared within the lasso’s golden grip-as Steve learns in the new Wonder Woman-that person will be compelled to tell the truth. So Diana Prince, daughter of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons-a character who neatly combines the myths of ancient Greece with aspirations of contemporary America-fits fairly seamlessly into this moment of ever more normalized, and ever more commercialized, feminism.īut the character suits the times in another way, too, not just because of the fights she fights, but also because of one of the weapons she uses to fight them: the Lariat of Hestia, otherwise known as the Golden Lasso, otherwise known as the Lasso of Truth. It has managed, even before its release, to enrage men’s-rights activists, which is quickly becoming a reliable measure of a movie’s modernity. Wonder Woman is set at the height of World War I, but is otherwise a decidedly modern movie: It stars a woman (Gal Gadot) and treats a man, Steve (Chris Pine), as its damsel-in-distress. Talk to People on the Telephone Amanda Mull
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