The Current

Advocacy News + Updates

Have you seen the new Wonder Woman movie?

If not, (finish reading this blog first) I’d recommend looking into that ASAP.* I add my two thumbs up to those of thousands of other movie-goers and critics alike—it gets a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes.

In addition to a good storyline, fantastic production quality, and a strong female lead, I think what audiences across America really resonate with is the call to do something—even if you can’t do everything. In the movie, Wonder Woman’s first exposure to our world is by dropping right into the front lines of World War I. It’s a vast, devastated—and devastating—scene of a world fraught with violence.

Her character struggles with the tension that even as Wonder Woman, you can’t win every round and rescue everyone from evil.

Wonder Woman faces despair: in the face of such seemingly overwhelming evil, what good does it do to stand up? It’s a theme that is explored by most heroes in most stories (true and fictional).

It’s also a question that most of us have asked ourselves when confronting the problems of our world today, like modern day slavery. We’re not super heroes, and there are 45 million people who are trapped in slavery today. What good does one advocacy petition signed do? One gift of $24 per month? One volunteer event hosted? The road toward justice is long and, sadly, doesn’t reach the tidy satisfying conclusion that super hero movies do.

In her trench of discouragement, Wonder Woman’s friend, Steve, agrees with her about the heaviness and darkness all around them, having experienced much of the War’s horrors himself. But then he says:

“My father said, ‘If you see something happening in the world, you can either do nothing or you can do something. And I already tried nothing.’”

That’s an encouragement for you and me, too. It’s true that we can’t do everything. But we can do something. And over my four years working at IJM, I can attest to the good fruit of the actions that you and all of us in this movement to end slavery have taken. Like Steve said, we can either do nothing or we can do something.

For my part, I say let’s go with Wonder Woman: let’s keep doing what we can—Until All Are Free.


Image Sources: The Guardian and Digital Spy UK.

*Note: this blog is in no way an endorsement by IJM of the film Wonder Woman (2017), simply a shared observation of one individual.

My father said, ‘If you see something happening in the world, you can either do nothing or you can do something. And I already tried nothing.’