Double Life – The War of the Beauties

By Daniela Fubini
 
No, the war of the beauties in Israel did not happen or not yet at least. Blondie Bar Refaeli is covering all possible ads on TV and street posters and has one baby, one on his/her way and a quiet husband. Brunette Gal Gadot is raging on screen as Wonder Woman and holds two babies and a quiet husband. So perhaps, the trick is, ladies of Israel, get a quiet partner and you can conquer the world.

The war never unfolded probably only because Gal Gadot is an actress and Bar Refaeli a model, but since cinema and fashion shows are not always so linear, also Bar starred in a few small productions and I personally have quite a nice memory of “Kidon”, a comedy where she blondly plays as team member of the most feared unit in the Mossad, responsible (well, allegedly) of many under-the-radar assassinations and other non-reported activities who may or may not have saved the same existence of Israel as a nation.

“Kidon” was fun just as much as “Wonder Woman” is powerful, in a rather frightening way. And there we go again: gentlemen prefer blondes but marry the brunette. So it is for the movie industry as well, where despite the overwhelming lack of light blue eyes, Gadot was casted as the goddess of a lost perfect island where men are not allowed who raises to save our decadent and violent men–owned world.

The whole movie is populated of Amazons and soldiers only, besides the random civilian caught by the bad guys (Germans, obviously) and in desperate need of help. Watching Wonder Woman in Israel, a society still largely based on the military on every level including the civilian life is a spark of hope. Although in order to beat the manly god of war she needs to fight like a man (and that’s a sadly known loop sociologically speaking), we simple-minded women go home feeling reassured: we can lead, we can fight, we can win. And we don’t even need to be blue eyed or blond. That’s progress. 

*Daniela Fubini (Twitter @d_fubini) lives and writes in Tel Aviv, where she arrived in 2008 from Turin via New York.