Wonder Woman, the world fell in love with her again when the latest movie was released earlier this year. Ardent fans, Amaya Suriyapperuma and Seshani Cooray, school friends, dressed as Wonder Woman at the Sri Lanka Comic Con, to embrace the message of Wonder Woman, and the message that name entails.
Lanka Comic Con is a cultural festival where cosplayers wear costumes and accessories to represent a specific character.
“Comic Con is a place where you can be whoever you want. Not caring about what others think and just be proud of yourself. A place where you can use your creativity and be brave,” Seshani encapsulated the whole concept of Comic Con and her decision to dress as the Wonder Woman. “She’s in inspiration to all the girls. She’s strong, independent and has such a kind heart. She really does embody the concept of “Girl power”. Throughout all comic books and movies she shows that there’s kindness among everyone and to always be brave and to trust yourself.”
Amaya said that she knew she’d dress like Wonder Woman for the Comic Con months before, when she first saw the movie. “I always loved Wonder Woman but I especially liked the way that character was portrayed in the movie. Also, first day of Comic Con fell on my birthday, so everyone, including my mother, supported me to dress like that character I like so much.”
Amaya said that in the movie Wonder Woman, she is portrayed as a strong person, not a strong woman. Without putting too much power on gender, the director has nor
Wonder Woman v cyber bullies malize the fact that there are girls who are strong. She is not depicted to be the perfect girl, but as someone you can relate to, focusing on the good in a world that has gone bad, she copes up negativity in such a way that gives hope to all.
They both enjoyed somewhat celebrity status at the Comic Con, taking pictures with the fans of Wonder Woman, and receiving the over pouring admiration of kids. “Especially little girls came to me and asked to take photos, saying they love Wonder Woman,” said Amaya.
Bullying
The end of the first day of Comic Con marked the rise of the dark forces. A few of the organisers of Comic Con had found out that there were memes (mostly captioned photos) circulated on facebook, bullying, ridiculing and belittling the two girls for dressing like Wonder Woman. Amaya said that she later found out that her friends and colleagues tried their best to hide it from her and attempted to remove those posts from facebook as it was her birthday. But Amaya said that the following day, a friends mentioned her on one such facebook post, and she was shocked. But once the organizers realized that I had found out, they spoke to me, and said they are reporting those memes and facebook page admins who have posted them. I was touched. And I was able to focus on the good in my life.
Both Amaya and Seshani were confused by the effort bullies have put into, to harass them, two girls they don’t even know. “Why the bother?” they asked.
Seshani said that girls experience cyber bullying on social media all the time where people post nasty comments on girls, especially body-shaming them, though not in a significant way that they get reported. “But in this situation, what really upset me was that these bullies had no idea about cosplayers and Comic Con and yet they went ahead and made fun of cosplayers,” bullies know no limits.
The Tweet
But as former First Lady of the United States said in one of her speeches, “the lower they go, the higher we go.”
A visitor at the Comic Con took a photo of the two girls in Wonder Woman and posted their photograph on twitter admiring them as cosplayers, and that one tweet caught attention of many and went around the world within days, and it has currently being retweeted 45,000 times, and liked 65,000 times.
Among those who saw this photo are the Director of Wonder Woman Patty Jenkins and the Wonder Woman herself, actress Gal Gadot. Both Amaya and Sheshani are over the moon with the response from the celebrities.
The first retweet came from Patty Jenkins and already delighted Amaya was woken up around 3.00am with her friends calling to tell her that the actress Gal Gadot has also responded to their photograph. Further, two illustrators from DC have also commented on their photo commending their effort.
It was the ultimate response to the bullies, the duo think. The celebrity backing supported them, gave them moral support, to face the bullies.
Response to Bullies
Unfortunately, cyber bullying is catching up as a trend in Sri Lanka, where people hide behind social media to ridicule others. This unethical behaviour goes unnoticed often though they get reported, as facebook Headquarters doesn’t have Sinhala speaking moderators to monitor cyber bullying. With the wide spread of facebook, these incidents have made it clear that minority languages too should be monitored at the facebook Head Office to fight cyber bullying.
Other than reporting the culprits, both Amaya and Seshani who greatly suffered due to bullies on social media said that they are focusing on moving forward, because they do not think it is possible to educate the bullies into civilize human beings. “Cyber bullying occurs everywhere: targeting school children, politicians, and so forth. The only way I’ve seen us winning is through reporting those images and comments, reporting those pages and especially ignoring all of them and move forward,” said Seshani.
Amaya agreed. “The only thing that can be done is to set up a system to monitor them and establish a proper procedure to report them, locally and with the Facebook administrators.
Amaya said that one of her photographs bullies had posted was taken down not because of the ridiculing statements on the photo but because the photographer of the original photograph complained to Facebook Head Office on copyright infringement. “The photographers too have a responsibility, and they can come forward and stand up against cyber bullying,” Amaya said.