#elizabeth olive marston

[theparadiseproject]

A note from Pete’s brother Byrne in his official obituary offers an inside peek at Pete’s role in early Wonder Woman comics:

My brother Pete was always a man of enormous imagination. As a kid, he was a dreamer. When we were teenagers our dad, who was often under pressure to produce scripts for his Wonder Woman superheroine, offered $100 to anyone writing a usable scenario for a Wonder Woman episode. Though $100 was a fortune at that time, Pete was the only one of us who could dream them up.

Pete seemed to have had a good relationship with his father. On top of pitching plots for Wonder Woman, Pete also left Harvard in the mid-1940s to return home and help care for his father. William Moulton Marston had polio and cancer, and passed away in 1947. It’s lovely that Pete created such a testament to his father’s creation with his Wonder Woman Museum. The museum is also a testament to the women who raised him; Pete’s mother, Elizabeth, gave Marston the idea to create a female superhero, and the Marstons lived in a polyamorous relationship with Olive Byrne, who raised the kids (Marston had two with each woman) and also inspired key elements of Wonder Woman’s look and personality.

Regrettably, I never got the chance to interact with Pete directly, though his daughter Christie was a great help when I was researching Wonder Woman Unbound and I know that Pete had a big hand in the materials that she sent me and the recollections that she was able to share. By all accounts, he was a kind and warm man; everyone who visited the museum (a guest list that included Lynda Carter herself!) seemed to come away with an appreciation and affection not just for its myriad wonderful items but also for the man who assembled it all.

-January 19, 2017

[cyanide-sippy-cup]

Friendly reminder that the guy who made Wonder Woman was polyamorous and based her on his wife and their girlfriend. Can you imagine? To love someone so much that you use your position to portray them as a literal goddess of love and hope and truth? And to fill that concept with so much love and heart that she becomes one of the three pillars holding up DC as a whole? Those are the things the world is built on I think.

[tiefy]

"Our love is illegal."

Louise Barnes as Miranda Hamilton in Black Sails (2014-2017) / Rebecca Hall as Elizabeth Marston in Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017).

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

Wonder Woman's bracelets were inspired by those worn by Olive Byrne, who the character was primarily based on. Byrne was in a polyamorous relationship with William and Elizabeth Marston and is said to have worn the bracelets to represent their unofficial marriage in lieu of wedding rings.

[maxwellshimbo]

Happy Birthday Elizabeth Holloway Marston 🎂 co creator of Wonder Woman, feminist, kinky polyam icon 🙌

This is her official Wikipedia picture and I love it.

[magentacat]

Golden Age Wonder Woman always goes hard.

[comicsart3]

Wonder Woman is perhaps the iconic superheroine. With her godlike powers, lasso of truth and Amazon heritage, Princess Diana of Themyscira is understandably looked on as one of the clearest manifestations of female power in the comic book universe. There is of course a backstory to WW’s dominant appearance and that lies with the attitude and views of her creators, writer William Moulton Marston and illustrator Harry G Peter. Marston in particular was heavily influenced by his feminist wife, Elizabeth who wanted her husband to create a powerful female hero, physically superior to men, and equal to them intellectually to demonstrate women’s potential to challenge the restrictive gender roles of the early 1940s. The Marstons lived an unconventional lifestyle, establishing a ménage a trois with the beautiful dark haired Olive Byrne, who Peter allegedly used as his inspiration for Diana’s appearance. William Marston’s liberal and pro-feminist views were real enough, but he also had a deep fascination with the bondage fetish and his Golden Age stories are filled with imagery of Wonder Woman being tied up, chained up and generally held captive by any number of male and female villains. It was therefore no accident that Diana’s principal weapon is not her super strength or robot plane, but her golden lasso - a lariat that compels anyone caught in it to tell the truth, but which is also a super tough rope very useful for restraining enemies who did not wish to be captured by the Amazon.

As can be seen from the page above, the bondage in Marston’s and Hay’s work was not confined to Wonder Woman herself. Her college sidekicks, the Holliday Girls led by the overweight but irrepressibly cheery Etta, were frequently bound and gagged and requiring Amazonian rescue, but were more than capable of dishing out the bondage themselves when the occasion arose. As the relative comics artistic freedoms of the wartime years were pulled back in the 1950s, and the portrayal of Wonder Woman passed to other illustrators, the fetish imagery associated with the character was considerably reduced. However, Wonder Woman has remained a favourite comic book character, female role model and feminist icon ever since. The groundbreaking Marstons would be proud.

Source: Wonder Woman: the Golden Age Omnibus Vol 1 (2023)

[orlissa]

I was at a book launch with a friend last night--the book itself was a richly illustrated album containing biographies of women from history wo, for different reasons - forward in romance, having power, demanding recognition - were labelled a whore during their lifetime. It was written by two very sweet women, and whole launch was just lovely.

The friend bought the book and some of their earlier stuff (the yhave written several similar books on women's history before, and one of them also has several historical novels published), and we remained behind to have them signed and to have a few words with the authors - and I mentioned them that they would surely find William Moulton Marston's story fascinating with his "pro-women" crusade and two wives who pretty much enabled his carreer (the authors were fascinated, made a note of it, and thanked me for the tip).

And then somebody behind my back just yelled in "akshually, the two women were in love with each other, not with Marston."

First of all, RUDE. Second of all, you have seen Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, have you? Bless your heart.

I hate that movie. Okay, I have a love-hate relationship with it, because it does a good job at explaining Martson theory. But all the historical bits are basically bullshit, and let's be clear here: the movie was written and directed by a lesbian woman, and she pretty much pushed the envelope on the clear lesbian angle.

The truth is... we will problaly never know the whole story. But the facts: 1, Marston brough Olive into the relationship, and pretty much said that Elizabeth either accepts her, or he is choosing Olive. Elizabeth wasn't present for the beginning of the relationship. 2, Marston did have this idea that a woman who has sexual relations with another woman will be a better lover for her man 3, The children (both Elizabeth and Olive had two kids from Marston) didn't know that they were biologically half-siblings, or that Olive and Marston were lovers. Olive An, Elizabeth's daughter, still said, as late as in 1999, that Olive was their housekeeper. 4, After Marston's death in 1947, Olive and Elizabeth lived together for the rest of their lives, altough Marston's biographer, Jill Lepore, puts it down firmly that they had seperate bedrooms (which the other end of the envelope pushing, imho).

So it's likely that there was something between Elizabeth and Olive, but it's clearly Marston who was the center of this relationship-universe. To say that the primary relationship was between Elizabeth and Olive is inaccurate.

...And to yell it from behind my back while I'm talking to the authors is rude.

[doctorkinktraveller]

[queersintherain]

Other relevant media on these folks: Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, the incredible movie directed by Angela Robinson (who was also behind D.E.B.S.).

Nerdy Fact #1434: Wonder Woman was originally based on two women: the wife of creator William Marston and one of his former students that both he and his wife had sexual encounters with. 

(Source.)

[navarrocabrera]

Wonder Woman 80 anniversary

  Wonder Woman first appeared in All Star Comics #8 in October 21, 1941So this month we celebrate her 80 anniversary! YAY! Creators: W. Moulton Marston, H. G. Peter, Elizabeth Holloway Marston and Olive Byrne Art: Mariano NavarroColor: Hernan Cabrera——– Wonder Woman apareció por primera vez en All Star Comics #8 el 21 de octubre de 1941.¡Así que este mes celebramos su 80 aniversario!…

[tiefy]

what we want can never happen.

- why?

because the world won't let it.

- the world can't stop us.

[shadowovo]

The desire🔥

“I don’t know why I let you bait me like this. I hate you. I hate you with all of my heart.”

[wlwcatalogue]

A few sapphic film recs!

Just a few recommendations for sapphic films under 2 hours which may or may not have flown under the radar:

Moonlit Winter / 윤희에게 (1hr 45m, 2019, dir. Lim Dae-hyung)

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (1hr 48m, 2017, dir. Angela Robinson)

Who's the Woman, Who's the Man / 金枝玉葉 2 (1hr 50m, 1996, dir. Peter Ho-Sun Chan)

Sisterhood / 骨妹 (1hr 37m, 2016, dir. Tracy Choi)

DEBS (1hr 31m, 2004, dir. Angela Robinson)

Farewell, My Queen / Les adieux à la reine (1hr 40m, 2012, dir. Benoît Jacquot)

Bonus - short film: Love Does Human / 사람 하는 사랑 (24 mins, 2019, dir. Oh Seon-ju)

Commentary under the cut!

1. Moonlit Winter / 윤희에게 (1hr 45m, 2019, dir. Lim Dae-hyung) - IMDB | MyDramaList

This movie is about a daughter (Kim So-hye) who finds out about her divorced mother’s (Kim Hee-ae) past with another woman (Katase Jun), and how in encouraging her mother to reconnect, the two finally open up to each other as well. Dry stuff on paper, but there’s more to it: the mother and her former lover didn’t just break up, they were split apart by their families as teenagers and the mother was forced to marry a man against her will. In short, it deals with the aftermath of the typical “bad ending” of older stories featuring WLW characters, wherein schoolgirls in love would be separated and married off to preserve the heteronormative status quo.

Although the queer relationship does not get much screentime at all – the two characters share a single scene, there are no flashbacks, and there’s not even a hug – queerness remains at the heart of the movie. It’s a rare depiction of how the repression of queerness leaves scars on people which affect how they engage with the world, but which also shows that as long as they are alive, there is still hope that those scars can be healed. Also, despite the heavy-sounding subject matter, it’s a very gentle experience: there are no direct depictions of homophobia and no sensationalism, just a little story of human connection unfolding in a snow-cloaked Hokkaido.

2. Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (1hr 48m, 2017, dir. Angela Robinson) - IMDB

The blurb on IMDB says that this movie is about “psychologist William Moulton Marston (Luke Evans), and his polyamorous relationship with his wife [Elizabeth] (Rebecca Hall) and their mistress [Olive] (Bella Heathcote) who would inspire his creation of the superheroine, Wonder Woman”. As someone who is not particularly drawn to biopics, male protagonists, polyamory, BDSM, or Wonder Woman, I assumed that this movie wouldn’t be my jam and so didn’t watch it until quite a while later – which is when I discovered just how wrong I was.

First, the two women take up just as much of the movie’s focus as Marston. Elizabeth, Marston’s wife and fellow psychologist, is highly intelligent but equally highly-strung; she does not know how to deal with her husband’s attraction to new research assistant Olive, nor Olive’s attraction to both her husband and Elizabeth herself, and this internal conflict (even after the three enter into a polyamorous relationship) features heavily in the story. Second, although it declares itself to be “based on a true story”, the movie is not especially interested in recreating or representing the past. Rather, the historical elements are used as a framework to explore certain ideas: Diana’s Lasso of Truth symbolises how progress and healing must be first founded upon honesty, for example. The polyamory and BDSM is also not at all sordid or sensationalised, but rather presented in a nuanced (though still sexy!) manner. More than anything, this is a movie with a big heart and big ideas, and should be judged on its own merits.

3. Who's the Woman, Who's the Man / 金枝玉葉 2 (1hr 50m, 1996, dir. Peter Ho-Sun Chan) - IMDB | MyDramaList

All you need to know going into this sequel of 1994 movie He's a Woman, She's a Man (金枝玉葉) is that main character Wing (Anita Yuen) is a woman who has found both fame and (heterosexual) love while disguising herself as a male idol, and that her relationship with record producer Sam (Leslie Cheung) is known to the general public— although it is perceived as being homosexual in nature due to her persona. At this point, you might be wondering why an M/F romantic comedy is on this list, but this movie is a bit odd in that instead of focusing only on problems such Sam’s internalised homophobia and misogyny (both of which are addressed in the story), one of the new obstacles facing the couple is the female lead meeting female pop star Fong Yim Mui (Anita Mui)… and both starting to fall for each other.

I was surprised at how sensitively Wing and Fong Yim Mui’s respective arcs are handled, especially for a mainstream movie from the 90’s starring two of Hong Kong’s most popular performers at the time. Instead of giving the two women a meet-cute and leaving it at that, a lot of care is put into showing them processing and coming to terms with their feelings in their own time. Romantic and sexual attraction is also highlighted separately, which is refreshing given how they are usually depicted as inextricably linked even now… Obviously Wing and Fong Yim Mui don’t end up together, but their feelings aren’t dismissed and – relative to the narrative constraints – the ending is a warm, optimistic one. Also, Anita Mui gives an absolutely award-worthy performance in one of the scenes with her character and Wing, so fans of her should definitely give this movie a try.

Important note: Although there’s much that’s good about it, Who's the Woman, Who's the Man is far from perfect. Early on, there’s a masquerade party where two of the characters are wearing masks which look like racist caricatures, and the masks are crop up in multiple scenes in the film. More serious is the subplot about a male character who keeps trying to win over a lesbian, culminating in her agreeing to sleep with him once while he’s dressed as a woman (CW: transphobia, homophobia) – though this storyline ends with the man accepting that she really is gay and parting on friendly terms. That said, these problems are already mild compared to the actively hateful transphobic and homophobic jokes present in so many of its contemporaries, so if you’ve watched a 90’s Hong Kong comedy before, chances are that your tolerance level is more than high enough.

4. Sisterhood / 骨妹 (1hr 37m, 2016, dir. Tracy Choi) IMDB | MyDramaList

Sisterhood opens with tragedy. Originally from Macau, main character Sei (Gigi Leung) is living quietly in Taiwan with her husband after the 1999 Handover when her life is overturned by a newspaper personal ad informing her that her long-estranged friend and colleague Ling has passed away. The movie is shot through with flashbacks to earlier times, tracking a young Sei (Fish Liew) as she starts doing sex work and is taken under the wing of the more experienced Ling (Jennifer Yu) and her friends. Memories of togetherness and community are juxtaposed against sequences of present-day Sei struggling to navigate her grief, the tensions of the now-fractured friend group, and a Macau that has changed just as much as she has. The acting and script can be clunky in places but the sentiment shines through, especially after the first third, at which point the movie starts honing in on Sei and Ling’s relationship. It’s not a happy story, but nor is it defined by sadness; instead, it posits that the past is not merely to be mourned, that it is instead something that can shape and provide a foundation for the future. I won't talk too much about how queerness figures into this story, due to spoilers, but rest assured that it is present and important!

5. D.E.B.S. (1hr 31m, 2004, dir. Angela Robinson) - IMDB

Okay, you've probably heard of this one before if not watched it already, but anyway! This was the first WLW movie I watched, and for a long time, the only one which I actually enjoyed. It’s about an elite spy (well, more like an honours student at spy school) (Sara Foster) and a criminal mastermind (Jordana Brewster) falling for each other, a premise which is just as fun and over-the-top as it sounds. The movie does a great job of mixing action, humor, and romance, and it doesn’t overstay its welcome – it’s got a nice compact runtime and a cracking pace. There’s still nothing quite like it in my opinion, though I’m very welcome to any recommendations in this line (my askbox is open if you have any!).

6. Farewell, My Queen / Les adieux à la reine (1hr 40m, 2012, dir. Benoît Jacquot) - IMDB

Loosely based on Chantal Thomas’ novel of the same name, Farewell, My Queen is a portrait of French nobility in decline, following maidservant Sidonie Labarde (Léa Seydoux) who is in the service of Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger). It's a beautiful, lavish production which effectively conveys the perspective of a servant locked in the gilded cage that is Versailles during the French Revolution, and is a rare case of a historical figure as famous as Antoinette being presented as queer in a serious historical drama.

That being said, the queerness is mostly background, coming mainly in the form of Antoinette’s crush on? relationship with? duchess Gabrielle de Polignac (Virginie Ledoyen)— though a case can be made for Sidonie, whose outward opacity belies an unwavering, almost unsettling, devotion to her queen. Also, be warned that the movie has many a dodgy shot of cleavage, and two instances of unnecessary and voyeuristic nudity... but other than that, it really does have gorgeous cinematography.

Fun fact: there really were rumours about Antoinette having a scandalous relationship with the duchess, although these have nearly always been written off as baseless reputation-smearing.

Bonus - short film: Love Does Human / 사람 하는 사랑 (24 mins, 2019, dir. Oh Seon-ju) - MyDramaList

Some say that the best science fiction puts a spotlight on some part of the human condition, and this short film does just that. Main character Tae Eun's (Kim Min-ju) girlfriend Joo An (Jang Sam-yi) no longer has a human body: after carrying out a medical operation which transferred her consciousness to a computer system, she now has a web-camera for her eyes, a speaker for her mouth, and control over their home's devices for her hands. And although the change was by Joo An's choice and Tae Eun was supportive, the pair struggle to adjust to this new reality, and are confronted with the need to communicate and to consider each other's perspectives. Love Does Human has a bit of a slow start, and there were points where I didn't understand why the characters were reacting in a certain way, but it all comes together beautifully in the end. Through its sci-fi premise, viewers are encouraged to think about real-life problems using a different angle, and the movie never gets too heavy. Also, shoutout to some excellent voice work from the two actors - Joo An is performed nearly entirely through voice but she feels deeply human and present, and Tae Eun's actor also has a standout scene featuring some great voice acting. All in all, it's a short film that's well worth checking out (especially since the director has made it available for free, with English subtitles, on Youtube - embedded above)!

[gaywrathwife]

Sorry for all the Professor Marston and the Wonder Women spam below but OH MY GOD THIS MOVIE

Also spoilers but when Elizabeth, Bill, and Olive have all been together, and then Olive reveals she's pregnant, and Elizabeth is talking about their situation, and Bill says "it's your baby too" BECAUSE THEY WERE BOTH WITH OLIVE DURING CONCEPTION AHHHH

I'm gonna die, go watch movie, bye

[a-queer-little-wombat]

Hand one, more people should know about this.

Hand two, this downplays his wife's role, the role of their marriage's third partner, and for fucks sake, doesn't even mention their names - Elizabeth Holloway and Olive Byrne.

So keep reading more about this, friends, and learn some history:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/origin-story-wonder-woman-180952710/

So there was this psychologist who invented a type of blood pressure test, and while testing it on his wife, he noticed her blood pressure seemed to be elevated when she was angry or excited. This fact lead to a California police officer named John Augustus Larson to develop the polygraph, aka "lie detector", by combining the blood pressure test with several other measurements in an attempt to determine if the subject is lying.

This has lead the psychologist to be known as the father of the polygraph, even though he didn't directly invent it. He definitely tried to commercialize it, though including appearing in a series of ads for Gillette Razors, using the lie detector as a theme.

A few years after the invention of the polygraph, he published a book titled "Emotions of Normal People", heavily based on the original research of his life partner (as he and his wife were in a polyamorous relationship, living together for many years (including 50 years after his death!) and having two of his children). In it, he provided a defense of many sexual taboos. In it, he developed the DISC theory: dominance, inducement, submission, and compliance. He assigned active and passive to emotions and behaviors, and environments as antagonistic and favorable, and theorized how these different attitudes and environments interacted. For example, "Submission produces passivity in a favorable environment".

This was pretty much exactly as BDSMy as it sounds, with him also having theories about how the masculine drive for freedom was inherently violent, whereas women could use their "loving allure" to lead people to an ideal state of submission to loving authority.

Anyway in 1940 he was interviewed by his life partner under a pseudonym, and said that there was great potential for education in the medium of comic books. This interview got read by Max Gaines, a comics books publisher, who co-founded All-American Publications (one of the companies that later merged with National Comics Publications to form DC Comics). The psychologist was hired on as an educational consultant.

After a conversation with his wife about creating a new super hero based on fighting with love instead of fists, he took the idea to Max Gaines and was given approval to create a comic under this idea. His wife's main contribution was the idea that the hero should be a woman.

In any case, the polyamorous psychologist with a bondage kink who had formerly helped invent the lie detector went on to develop his super hero comic based on all these influences. So in 1941, under the pseudonym of Charles Moulton (combining his name of William Moulton Marston with Max Gaines' middlename), the first issue of Wonder Woman was published under the Sensation Comics line: