Heidi MacDonald at the indispensible comics news blog The Beat reports on a petition to unseat Wonder Woman as an honorary ambassador at the United Nations. The petition blasts Wonder Woman's "overtly sexualized image" for "not [being] culturally encompassing or sensitive." It seems that the petition was successful — Wonder Woman is no longer considered to be a UN ambassador, though it's unclear how any fictional character can serve as an ambassador in the first place.

One issue the petition did not cite that seems relevant: it's highly squicky that the United Nation decided to privilege a corporate intellectual property with this kind of platform. MacDonald says that DC Comics had plans for the ambassadorship leading up to the launch of the Wonder Woman film next year. I'm all for Wonder Woman as a symbol — the fact that she was on the cover of the first issue of Ms. Magazine was a huge moment in feminist pop cultural history — but there's a difference between celebrating a superhero's folk status and promoting brand awareness for a multinational entertainment conglomerate. The idea of an international leadership role for women serving as synergy for a blockbuster movie is more than a little distasteful.