The UN has dropped the superhero Wonder Woman as an ambassador for empowering girls and women after a brief stint that drew widespread criticism.
The campaign around the comic book character, who turned 75 this autumn, lasted for less than two months. Among its key aims were challenging female stereotypes and fighting discrimination and violence against women and girls.
But the appointment prompted an angry backlash from some quarters. More than 44,000 people signed a petition that claimed to have been started by “concerned United Nations staff members” which called on the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, to appoint a non-fictional woman to the role.
“It is alarming that the United Nations would consider using a character with an overtly sexualised image at a time when the headline news in United States and the world is the objectification of women and girls,” the petition’s authors wrote.
Her scanty clothing – “a shimmery, thigh-baring bodysuit with an American flag motif and knee-high boots” – meant that deploying her as a role model for the UN was culturally insensitive in many parts of the world, the petition added.
Wonder Woman’s tenure as an honorary ambassador was launched on 21 October with an event that saw a silent protest by audience members who turned their backs on the panel, which included current and former Wonder Woman actors Gal Gadot and Lynda Carter.
Others protested in the lobby, holding up signs that said “I’m not a mascot” and “Let’s get real”.
Diane Nelson, president of DC Entertainment, the Warner Bros subsidiary behind Wonder Woman, told the event the campaign would feature various initiatives “over the course of the next year”, suggesting that the partnership was envisaged to last into 2017.
But now the UN has confirmed Wonder Woman’s time as an honorary ambassador will end this week. “From the UN’s side, there was no plan for it to be much longer than this,” said Jeffrey Brez, the UN’s chief of NGO relations and advocacy.
DC Entertainment had approached the UN to explore a joint project to mark the character’s 75th birthday, Brez said. The campaign aimed to harness Wonder Woman’s popularity to allow the UN to target new audiences with its messages on equality for women and girls.
The angry response in some quarters prompted the UN to make celebrating the achievements of “real-life Wonder Women” one of the campaign’s core goals.
The collaboration had lasted longer than previous UN roles given to fictional characters, Brez added, pointing out that a character from the video game Angry Birds served as climate change ambassador for a single day in March.
