#25 Watch an Episode of Electra Woman and Dyna Girl
#25 Watch an Episode of Electra Woman and Dyna Girl
I began working on items on the list that very same night by watching an episode of a favorite show from when I was a kid. With the wonders of Youtube it was easy to find. I curled up on the bed in our AirBnb in Cromwell, New Zealand and typed “Electra Woman and Dyna Girl” into the search engine. There were several episodes and partial episodes to choose from. I chose the pilot episode, “The Sorcerer’s Golden Trick.” Immediately I realized I recognized the actor who played the villain. It was Michael Constantine, the fellow who played the dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding! The actress who played Electra Woman was Deirdre Hall, best known from her role as Dr. Marlena Evans on Days of Our Lives. Dyna Girl was played by the actress Judy Strangis.
In 1976, like many kids my age, on Saturday mornings you could find me watching cartoons. It was the only morning cartoons were on back then and so I would wake up early to creep down the stairs and turn on the black and white TV. It was about mid-morning when Electra Woman and Dyna Girl would come on.
There weren’t many shows with women in the leads yet at that time and I remember even at that age, I liked that there was a show featuring strong women. It was around this same time that the Wonder Woman TV series with Lynda Carter and the Bionic Woman starring Lyndsay Wagner were on the air. I was a fan of all of them.
Watching Electra Woman and Dyna Girl now, I’m struck by a couple things. First, the costumes and effects look very dated. The shiny gold communication devices they wear on their wrists are the size of coffee cups!
Second, there is a male character (“Frank” played by Norman Alden), a scientist who stayed at their “Electrabase,” operating a sophisticated Crimescope computer and tells Electra Woman and Dyna Girl where to go and what to do. I had forgotten about him – but come to think about it, Wonder Woman and Bionic Woman had similar male characters on their shows. The Bionic woman was saved by Oscar Goldman after a terrible accident and he gives her bionic surgical implants which allow her to work on secret missions with the Office of Scientific Intelligence. In the Wonder Woman television show of the 1970’s, Wonder Woman receives her orders from a “Charlie’s Angels”- like male voice. Then, as the show evolved, her co-worker, Steve Trevor, becomes her boss. I never questioned these things then. It seemed very natural that there be a man somewhere behind the scenes calling the shots even though the women were supposed to be the superheroes. It never occurred to me then that you would never see a woman in the background operating the puppet strings for Batman or Superman.
I watched the episode and set my phone down. I thought about how time has gone by. 1976 was a long time ago. Day to day, one never notices it – but if you watch a show from a few decades ago, that realization slaps you right in the face. And it’s always up to each person to decide if that slap in the face is good or bad. Sure, it can feel like a rude awakening – or maybe it’s just what we need to remember to pay attention! Life is on the move! Be quick to really live! Be quick to love.
And never underestimate what God is up to.
(But I guarantee God isn’t up to staying exactly the same.)
I went to the kitchen to get a cheese scone, thinking about how much everything has changed. And probably because I was on sabbatical from my work, I thought about how much the church had changed since I was ordained in 1999. So, I scribbled in my journal:
I’ll take the sparkly eyeshadow
I like how it matches my communion kit
And shimmers in the candlelight from the altar
I’ll wear the green nail polish
It’s the season after Pentecost after all!
And yes, that’s lace on my robe
And no, my husband isn’t a pastor, too.
And you can call me Dr.
Or Reverend.
Not Honey, or Sweetie
I once had a internship supervising pastor tell me I was too gentle to be a pastor
Too feminine
That I cried too easily
So I drove far away from him
Smoking Marlboros
And listening to Liz Phair all the way across North Dakota
And found a new internship supervisor
She knew how to take up space
To use her voice
Her intellect
She armed me with all those things
And blessed me
To go and use those superpowers
And others, too –
Of compassion
Of gentleness
Of wisdom grown slow
Like in a garden
Simmered
Like in a crockpot
So yes, I’m the pastor here
And no, you don’t get to comment
On whether or not you like
My shoes
My hair
My size
My family
My Clothes
My tattoos
None of it is to please you
I’m not here to please you
I’m here to serve God
and she wove me together in my mother’s womb
and loves me
just
like
this.
For the Next Fifty: I plan to show up just as I am. Now the world gets me “as is” and that is the only option. I spent too much of the last decades trying to please others and stuff myself into the expectations I thought others had for me. What I have come to realize is that most of the time, people are so busy thinking about their own lives that they aren’t paying attention to you anyway – so you might as well do as you please. Be you – everyone else is taken.
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