Catwoman – Bitch Flicks

Superheroines Week: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts from our Superheroines Theme Week here.

How the X-Men Films Failed Iconic Black Female Superhero Storm by Sara Century

To me, this is where the X-Men films utterly fail Storm as a character. While her comic form is definitely a sympathetic and understanding person, more importantly, she is a warrior trained in hand-to-hand combat, an orphan, a divorcee, a Black woman in a leadership role on a team of mostly white men, a wife, a mentor, and an activist.

‘Supergirl’ and Room for the Non-Brooding Superhero by Allyson Johnson

There is an indisputable charm to Kara’s strong will that can go toe to toe with the might of her fist. Here is a young woman that believes so strongly in her fellow being that she tries talking to many of the baddies of the week rather than immediately resorting to fighting. Her kindhearted and giving spirit is ultimately what sets her apart from the other heroes that have populated television and movies for the last few years…

Catwoman, Elektra, and the Death of the Cinema Superheroine by Heather Davidson

Now, don’t get me wrong – neither Catwoman nor Elektra are by any means good movies. The first is silly, the second dull, and both are confusing and ugly, with little interest in their source material and an odd propensity to give characters magical powers. They deserved to fail – but they didn’t deserve to take an entire gender down with them.

Top 10 Superheroines Who Deserve Their Own Movies by Amanda Rodriguez

So few superheroines are given their own movies. I’m officially declaring that it’s high time we had more superhero movies starring women. The first in a series of posts, I’m starting with a list of my top 10 picks for super babes who deserve their own flicks.

Why Scarlet Witch May Be the Future of Women in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by Maddie Webb

Having a superhero grapple with the right use of their power is hardly a new theme and it’s central to the broader narrative of Captain America: Civil War. But allowing a female superhero to tackle the same dilemma on a deeply personal level feels quietly subversive. …Women superheroes can be inhumanly powerful without being reduced to a boringly infallible female badass caricature.

Elektra in Daredevil: Violence, White Masculinity, and Asian Stereotypes by Kelly Kanayama

And then there’s Elektra Natchios, half-Asian, half-white, sexual, violent, dangerous, and in some ways, the most problematic character on the show. … Yet there is something strangely compelling about Elektra, not as an extension of the show’s tired prejudices against Asian people, but as a woman who despite her questionable origins transcends the limiting Strong Female Character trope. …Her presence in and of itself disrupts the masculine hegemony of violence in the show.

Daisy Johnson, Superheroine of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — And Why She Matters by Lee Jutton

What makes Daisy special among superheroes is that she embodies all of these tropes as the centerpiece of a network television series — and is also a woman. Not only that, she is a mixed-race woman — and not a token one, but one surrounded by other women, of various ages, races and backgrounds.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Humanization of the Superheroine by Kaitlyn Soligan

Often carrying the burden of representation in a genre overrun with male characters, superheroines were strong or weak, clear-headed or in constant need of saving, but rarely complex or allowed complicated internal lives, and even more rarely truly relatable. Buffy changed all that.

Supergirl’s Feminism and Why the Series Works by Dennis R. Upkins

Even with her powers, Kara is the underdog who has to evolve to overcome insurmountable odds, thus making her relatable to viewers. With the series being entitled Supergirl, it shouldn’t be a surprise that feminism is a prevalent theme. What is a pleasant surprise is how well the series tackles it.

Barbarella and the “Savagery” of Futuristic Sexual Politics by Olga Tchepikova

One version of Barbarella draws her as a progressive, sex-positive, and role model-worthy character that saves the universe. … Barbarella the character might be the worst example of a superheroine by many of our contemporary expectations for a female lead not least because of the ambiguous dynamics of her (sexual) agency. … ‘Barbarella’ as a film remains a superheroine movie with a mission: save the future of sexual politics.

How Hawkgirl Saved Me by Maggie Slutzker

This is about my favorite chess-playing, mace-wielding, war-crying, winged superheroine role model: Shayera Hol. … Hawkgirl taught me to be observant. She taught me that it’s possible to come through trying times. She taught me that being able to think was just as important as being able to fight, and that good and evil aren’t always absolutes.

Why Black Widow Is the “Realest” Superheroine of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Yes, Even After All Those Tropes) by Kayleigh Watson

It is this factor alone why Black Widow is so important. She is the longest standing female protagonist within the Marvel film franchise, having starred in Iron Man 2, The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Age of Ultron and most recently, Captain America: Civil War. She was the only female Avenger in both Avengers films (until Scarlet Witch switched sides at the end of Age of Ultron), and as such was subject to being the onscreen vessel of female representation in a superhero super-team otherwise occupied by straight white men.

How Does Vixen Collide with Race, Gender, a Black Sense of Home, and the Video Vixen? by Tara Betts

…There is more to be said about how essentializing African identities around myth, folklore, the continent, and animals can impose limits on how Black people, particularly Black women, can be written, and how those Black characters are experienced in a more accessible, mainstream outlet. In other words, even Black superhero characters, carry the burden of limitations if the racial stereotypes outweigh the plot and character development. In this case, Vixen has room for more episodes, a potential live-action series, and delving deeper into a host of issues on identity, power, and defining home.

Brown Girls Can Be Heroes Too: Why We Need a Ms. Marvel Movie by Bhavna Vasnani

I’d internalized the rather damaging notion that only white girls deserve to have their stories told. Only white girls can slay the patriarchy without breaking a nail. Only white girls get to be the heroes, and get to be heroes of their own stories. And the rest of us? We don’t matter. … It’s important for young South Asian girls to see that just because they’re South Asian doesn’t mean that they have to be relegated to the sidelines, to being the sidekick, to being the brainy Indian doctor, and so on. They can be superheroes too.

Stop the Fridging: The Invisible Feminism of Arrow by Becky Kukla

So while Arrow seems pretty reluctant to move away from the traditional stance on women existing to be love interests and to be rescued, the individual female characters themselves sometimes show some hints of progressiveness… if only they’d be allowed to live long enough!

Show Me a (Woman) Villain by Mary Iannone

We all recognize the gross disparity of women superheroes, in the Marvel canon and beyond. But I would argue that the cinematic landscape is even less primed to allow women supervillains. … Women are generally presented as easily manipulated and too emotional to be true villains. It is yet another characterization of the “soft” woman, dictated by her emotions, propelled by a propensity to nurture rather than destroy. But we need stories of women who hunger for power, who are willingly selfish, and who stick to their principles, no matter the cost. … No more scenes of men talking women into saving the world. Let them try their best to destroy it.

Batgirl / Oracle: A Superheroine with a Disability and Representation by Adam Sherman

There aren’t a lot of superheroes with disabilities; many of the ones who do gain powers from their disabilities. … Barbara Gordon as Oracle is a more accurate and positive representation of people with disabilities. She’s way more real because despite the fact that she sometimes needs the help of more able-bodied people, like a real person living with paralysis from the waist down, she still lives a positive and active life.

Where Are All the Superheroines Who Are Getting Too Old For This Shit? Ageism and Superhero Movies by Celey Schumer

Even in the rare superhero films with more gender-balanced casts, the age gap between male and female performers can be seen time and time again. Men are allowed to age, to become grizzled, world-weary with experience, or stew for years on a plot of vengeance. … Their women counterparts, however, must remain lithe, “hot,” and never over the age of 40.

Go ahead, try and find a superheroine or female supervillain over 40. I’ll wait. Great. Now that we’re all done pointing at Halle Berry as Storm — who was 46 at the release of X-Men: Days of Future Past — and Famke Janssen as Jean Grey/Phoenix — who was 41 at the release of X-Men: The Last Stand — let’s look at the bigger picture.

Scarlet Witch and Kitty Pryde: Erased Jewish Superheroines by Sophie Hall

While Black Widow’s portrayal remains true to her comic book origin, Scarlet Witch’s does not, as her comic book counterpart is Romani and Jewish. … Not only is erasing Judaism a disservice to both Scarlet Witch and Captain America, it’s also disrespectful to the Jewish writers who invested so much in making a statement about Jewish resistance in their artistic expression. …

In the comics, Kitty Pryde is a feisty, spirited, and proudly Jewish member of the X-Men. …The filmmakers missed out on a more poignant story. Kitty Pryde would have faced what her ancestors faced generations ago; where they were targeted for their religion, Kitty was now being targeted for her mutation.

Superheroines of Color and Empowerment in Fantasy on TV by Constance Gibbs

It’s a rare sight to see women of color as superheroes, but rarest, probably, on television. … Superheroines are important. The desire for women to be seen as heroes, as strong, as capable, as desired, as everything transcends race. But when women of color are constantly told they have to wait or aren’t given the same chances, it does the same thing as when it’s men vs. women. …

Why can’t we have a Black or Asian or Latina or Arab or Native heroine acting as a universal hero for all girls of all races? Why must white continue to be the universal standard and everyone else is relegated to a niche audience? People of color want the empowerment fantasy too.

‘Catwoman,’ ‘Elektra,’ and the Death of the Cinema Superheroine

Now, don’t get me wrong – neither ‘Catwoman’ nor ‘Elektra’ are by any means good movies. The first is silly, the second dull, and both are confusing and ugly, with little interest in their source material and an odd propensity to give characters magical powers. They deserved to fail – but they didn’t deserve to take an entire gender down with them.

This guest post written by Heather Davidson appears as part of our theme week on Superheroines.

Cast your mind back, if you can, to a time before superhero films dominated the box office. A time before the one-two punch of Iron Man and The Dark Knight revolutionized the genre and made no summer complete without half a dozen comic book adaptions hitting screens. This was the world Catwoman and Elektra premiered in. The latter a spin-off from 2003’s Daredevil, the former inexplicably completely unconnected to the following year’s Batman Begins, both were complete flops. Catwoman failed to make back its budget, Elektra barely did, and they both received a critical mauling.

When movies fail, studios go looking for explanations. In this case, they looked at the failure of Elektra and Catwoman, as well as the failure of the film Supergirl back in 1984, and they came to a conclusion: superheroines don’t sell. It’s a conclusion that Hollywood seems to have adopted as gospel; last year, Wikileaks published a 2014 email exchange between the CEOs of Marvel and Sony with the subject line “Female Movies,” in which Elektra, Catwoman, and Supergirl were cited as “disasters.” The reluctance among the big studios to greenlight any more “female movies” is obvious – when Wonder Woman premieres next year, it will have been twelve years since we last saw a movie with a woman superhero in the lead role.

All the complaints you can make about Catwoman and Elektra can be levelled against so many other superhero movies (with the possible exception of the whole magical powers thing): Green Lantern, Daredevil, Superman Returns, and Jonah Hex. Like Catwoman, Elektra, and Supergirl, the protagonists of these flops shared a gender – yet you would never see them in a list entitled “Male Movies.” The reasons given for their failure are many and varied: they had poor scripts, dull action scenes, bad special effects. This isn’t a privilege afforded to women-led movies; everything comes back to the gender of their protagonist.

However, calling Catwoman and Elektra “female movies” is disingenuous. Both movies were directed by men, with male screenwriters and an almost all-male team of producers (Catwoman does give a producer credit to Denise Di Novi). The lack of women’s voices on the production teams is blatant. Elektra is interested in its protagonist’s gender only so far as it creates the opportunity to put Jennifer Garner in a revealing outfit and have her kiss another woman. Meanwhile, Catwoman’s idea of womanhood is that of a boardroom full of men desperately trying to appeal to women aged 18-39, complete with a ‘sassy’ best friend and plot revolving around face cream.

We’ve never had a superheroine movie engage with gender and womanhood in the way TV series like Jessica Jones or Supergirl have in recent years; all it takes is a woman in a visible role (outside the male protagonist’s love interest, of course) for a film to become a “female movie.” For Hollywood, the experience of the white, straight, man is universal, but he can’t empathize with anyone else. As such, even in ensemble pictures like the X-Men or Avengers franchises, the superheroines are marginalized in the movies and their marketing in favor of their male co-stars. Of the 60 items produced to tie-in to the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron last year, Scarlet Johansson’s Black Widow featured on just 3. The issue was obvious enough for Mark Ruffalo, who played her love interest in the film, to publicly demand Marvel produce more.

This marginalization extends to women behind the camera as well, as Anne Hathaway noted in an interview with the Los Angeles Times’ Rebecca Keegan in 2014:

“A male director can have a series of failures and still get hired. Sometimes movies don’t work, and I feel like if it stars a woman or is directed by a woman, the wheels can’t fall off the train. If this movie directed by a woman does well and this movie directed by a woman does well and then one doesn’t, it’s ‘oh, people don’t like movies directed by women.'”

It’s been sixteen years since X-Men kicked off the superhero boom of the 2000s, and we have yet to see a comic book blockbuster directed by a woman. That’s not to say women have been entirely absent from the director’s chair – Lexi Alexander (who repeatedly advocates for women filmmakers in Hollywood) directed the low budget Punisher: War Zone in 2008, and Patty Jenkins was hired to direct Thor: The Dark World, but left during pre-production. Marvel Studios, at least, gained a reputation for being willing to take risks on unproven directors, like Marc Webb and the Russo brothers, or those whose previous projects had lost money, like Joss Whedon, and James Gunn. However, this approach evidently only extends to male filmmakers. While Marvel claims to be in talks with women directors about the upcoming Captain Marvel movie, and Jenkins is currently overseeing post-production on Wonder Woman, we’ve spent a decade and a half without female representation in a genre that has come to dominate Hollywood. The failure of Catwoman and Elektra may have erased women’s faces from the superhero film, but they never even gave our voices a chance.

With the first female lead in over a decade and first female director ever, the pressure is high on Wonder Woman to succeed. Protest over the lack of representation for marginalized groups in Hollywood has, thankfully, gained enough mainstream prominence in the last few years that, even if the movie crashes and burns, it’s untenable for the studios to continue excluding women as they have. However, you can be sure that if the film does flop, fingers won’t be pointed at its bizarre scripting system, its troubled production, or its ties to an equally unsettled cinematic universe. The reasons for its failure will begin and end with the gender of its star and director.

In linguistics, there’s a concept known as ‘markedness.’ Out of two paired terms, one will be ‘unmarked’ and other ‘marked.’ The unmarked term is the norm – walk, host, lion. In contrast, its marked equivalent stands out – walked, hostess, lioness. ‘Superheroine’ is a marked term. The actresses who play them are marked, as are the “female movies” they star in. For the past decade, they’ve been marked for failure, by a studio system dominated by short-sighted male executives who can’t see past previous failures. We’re entering a new era for superheroes on-screen, where women again have a seat at the table. We can’t let them take it away again.

Heather Davidson is a web developer-cum-graphic designer-cum writer, with as much of an attention span as that implies. She writes about tech, the niche corners of pop culture and radical activism – preferably all at the same time. Follow her on Twitter @heatherlauren.

The Many Faces of Catwoman

Who doesn’t love Catwoman? She’s smart, sassy, independent, has her own moral code, and often outfoxes (or maybe outcats) Batman, one of the greatest superheroes of all time. Though I’d be hard-pressed to label her skin-tight, uber-revealing outfit as feminist, Catwoman is a famous sex symbol who uses her sexuality to her own advantage. The figure of Catwoman has gone through dozens of iterations over the years, which goes to show that this iconic figure is a potent anti-heroine or villainess who continues to appeal to audiences throughout the generations. Now I’m answering the question: which of is the most feminist representation?

Spoiler Alert

Who doesn’t love Catwoman? She’s smart, sassy, independent, has her own moral code, and often outfoxes (or maybe outcats) Batman, one of the greatest superheroes of all time. Though I’d be hard-pressed to label her skin-tight, uber-revealing outfit as feminist, Catwoman is a famous sex symbol who uses her sexuality to her own advantage. The figure of Catwoman has gone through dozens of iterations over the years, which goes to show that this iconic figure is a potent anti-heroine or villainess who continues to appeal to audiences throughout the generations. I’ve done a bit of meditating on these incarnations and questioned which of them is the most feminist representation.

Illustrated

First, we’ve got her comic book origin as The Cat in 1940’s Batman #1.

That’s right. Catwoman was birthed alongside the legend of Batman himself. Unfortunately, her creator Bob Kane was a misogynist and sought to portray traits that he coded as feminine:

“I felt that women were more feline creatures and…cats are cool, detached, and unreliable…You always need to keep women at arm’s length. We don’t want anyone taking over our souls, and women have a habit of doing that. So there’s a love-resentment thing with women. I guess women will feel that I’m being chauvinistic to speak this way…”

All I have to say is, “You’re right, Bob: you are a chauvenist,” and, “ew.” That said, Catwoman was designed as an unattainable love interest that personified the aloof and perhaps vindictive qualities her creators saw within female sexuality. Her depiction is more about drumming up some sexual interest and excitement for Batman than creating a nuanced character.

"Honey, if I went straight, you'd never pay any more attention to me." - Catwoman — In her earliest incarnations, Catwoman is an attention-seeking naughty girl type.

Though I’m a bit of a comic book nerd who’s absolutely drawn to strong female characters, I’ve never been interested in reading any graphic novel Catwoman series. Her later depictions always struck me as a lot of tits and ass without substance, which I’m primarily basing on the cover art. Her sexuality is showcased to the extreme where it’s hard to imagine anything else beneath it. (If you’re a reader of Catwoman comics and feel differently, please set me straight in the comments!)

Those are some ridiculously large boobies.

I am, however, intrigued by her more recent, vicious comic book portrayals. Those have grit and make me curious about her.

There are also multiple cartoon renderings of Catwoman that are more or less underwhelming. In Batman: The Animated Series, Catwoman does get to have layers in that she’s a jewel thief, an animal rights activist, and has her alter-ego as Selina Kyle, but her main role continues to be an elusive love interest for Batman as opposed to a compelling character.

Television

Catwoman made her television debut on the Batman series in 1966. Julie Newmar performed perhaps the most memorable version of Catwoman. I was certainly smitten with her. She was lovely, imposing, and “diabolical” (as Batman would say). She was a lone woman who commanded a group of male thugs. Among the great supervillains of the TV Batman mythology, she was the only woman, and she certainly held her own.

Julie Newmar Catwoman alt — The (in)famous Julie Newmar Catwoman

Lee Meriwether was chosen for the film version of the Batman TV show. She, too, was stunning and very similar in appearance to Julie Newmar. Meriwether’s Catwoman also had a faux-alter ego as Miss Kitka, Russian journalist designed to seduce and lure “Comrade Wayne” into supervillain coalition custody to elicit Batman’s rescue attempts. This may have been the first sustained disguise Catwoman ever put on. She was never Selina Kyle in the TV show, which left her somewhat one-dimensional, but none of the other supervillains really had alter egos either.

The last Batman TV show Catwoman is the late, great Eartha Kitt. A magnetic personality who brought more flare to the role than any before, Kitt was the first Black woman to play Catwoman…and, I believe, the first Black woman to prominently feature on the show. Race and inclusivity were and continue to be issues that most media fail to properly address. Eartha Kitt’s Catwoman was much like Nichelle Nichols‘ Uhura on Star Trek: a pioneer, a weather vane showing that times were changing, and a kickass character to boot. If it had been gratifying in Season 1 & 2 to see a solitary woman ordering around a gang of male minions, then it was even more so in Season 3 to see a Black woman calling the shots.

No other Catwoman purred quite like Eartha Kitt

Film

We got to see another talented Black woman, Halle Berry, reprise the role in 2004’s Catwoman. Unfortunately, the flick was universally considered a turd that was really a vehicle to showcase/exploit an Academy Award winning actress’s body with the most revealing catsuit of all time (and that’s saying something). I could really push the envelope to suggest a feminist reading of the film’s beauty industry critique, as Berry’s Patience Phillips struggles to destroy the anti-aging cosmetic corporation that employs her because it is selling a faulty and harmful product, but the fact that her boss (the one who kills her thus turning her into Catwoman) is a woman (Sharon Stone, no less) takes a lot of the steam out of that argument.

Halle Berry's uber-revealing Catwoman costume — Halle Berry’s uber-revealing Catwoman costume

We also have the most recent depiction of Catwoman in Christopher Nolan‘s third installment of his Batman trilogy: The Dark Knight Rises in 2012. Though I’ve never been a fan of Anne Hathaway, I was nonetheless generally impressed with her Catwoman performance. Hathaway’s Selina Kyle was strong, independent, clever, and had a righteous sense of class justice, and in spite of the catsuit, she wasn’t quite as sexualized as earlier film incarnations.

Anne Hathaway's tech-heavy Catwoman — Anne Hathaway’s tech-heavy Catwoman

That said, Hathaway technically isn’t Catwoman. She doesn’t give herself that name nor is she dubbed with it by an opponent or ally. Contrary to the opinion of fellow reviewer Kelsea Stahler, I think taking the title away from her divests her of some of the power, prestige, and legacy that is inherent in her name. Though I did admire Anne Hathaway’s smart-and-ruthless-with-a-smattering-of-conscience characterization, this version of Catwoman ultimately fails my feminist expectations because she ends up with Bruce Wayne in the end. She runs away to France and allows him to domesticate her. Stripping Catwoman of her counter-culture independence and settling her down with a man is tantamount to de-clawing her.

I bet Bruce Wayne will have a hard time housebreaking her

No, in this reviewer’s humble-ish opinion, the most feminist depiction of Catwoman is Michelle Pfeiffer from Tim Burton’s 1992 Batman Returns. Though this Catwoman is oozing sex, she always has her own agenda and is crafty enough to DIY-style make her own iconic cat costume. Pfeiffer’s Selina Kyle is mentally unstable and has periodic breaks with reality, which is a realistic rendering of a woman suffering post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after being attacked and murdered by her boss.

Catwoman mounts Batman and licks his face

The end of Batman Returns has Batman stripping off his mask and asking Catwoman not to kill her boss, but to leave town and come away with him instead. This is the inverse of what happens in The Dark Knight Rises as Hathaway’s Kyle begs Batman to abandon Gotham and run away with her. Pfeiffer’s response as Catwoman is, “Bruce, I would love to live with you in your castle forever just like in a fairy tale. I just couldn’t live with myself, so don’t pretend this is a happy ending!” She then claws Batman’s face and kills her boss, using up all but one of her nine lives to do so. Now, I’m not all about killing or anything, but the point is that Selina Kyle rejects Batman’s idea of who she should be, what her moral code should be, and how she should heal. She acknowledges the appeal of the traditional “fairy tale” conclusion that ends her story with a man and love, but her need for independence and for self-actualization becomes too important for her to sacrifice by relying on romantic love to save her as she once would have before her transformation into Catwoman. Instead, her story continues on, and we can imagine all the possible paths she may have chosen for her life.

All the Catwomen are hyper-sexualized and mysterious. All of them wield power over Batman and Gotham’s underworld. Though Pfeiffer’s Catwoman is my pick as the most feminist of all the iterations I’ve seen, she’s still problematic as are all her Cat sisters. I see the feminist strength and independence in her, but I also see the way sex is her weapon and that she mostly exists as a foil for Batman, a temptation and a lesson on what rampant desires can lead to. Maybe I’m more like Batman than I’d care to admit in that I, too, recognize the appeal of Catwoman as a mixed bag, and I, too, am drawn to her against my better judgement.

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Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

The Dark Side of ‘The Dark Knight Rises’

Warning: Spoilers ahead!!

So I’m writing this movie review with a lot of spoilers, because well, according to my Facebook newsfeed, everyone’s already seen it. But even if you have seen it already, you’re probably desperately longing for my insightful commentary of the film; I mean, how else will you know what to think of it?

No one here is going to deny that Christopher Nolan has managed to take the superhero movie to a whole other level: the characters have far more complexity, a hell of a lot less campy lines, and a darker, grittier setting than the more upbeat Marvel comics. Even the fight scenes in this Batman film had a visceral heaviness to them, with each punch sounding so thick and weighty, you could just feel the epic-ness pounding you from the screen.

My praise for Nolan as a filmmaker however comes mostly from his dealings with evil. Most directors have laughable Lokis (The Avengers) and shapeless Sinestros (The Green Lantern) whose overwrought motivations and plans for world domination just get more tiresome with every rendition. The genius behind Nolan’s villains is in how he makes them insidious by how fascinating we find them, exploring that ever-present possibility of the darker side of humanity is so psychologically interesting that we can’t turn away. For example, Heath Ledger’s Joker was infamously brilliant and is, I think, the best superhero villian, given that his motivation was just “wanting to watch the world burn,” and it felt so…seductive.

In a similar vein, Bane was inscrutable and intense; it wasn’t about some in-your-face world domination or strawman plot of blowing up the moon. Bane’s motivations are completely hidden until the last ten minutes of the movie. And that’s the draw. That’s why we keep watching. And in the last few minutes, when we learn that motivation, it was so simple, so seemingly counter to his character, that you couldn’t help but pity him. That motivation was of course love, and it was humanizing, equalizing even.

I feel a little bad bringing up the human fascination with darkness and villains in the aftermath of the tragic shootings in Aurora, Colorado, but as with anything, it has become a media event, one where we desperately want to know the motivation of the killer. As humans we seek that casualty in those we consider perverted and ill in an attempt to validate our own humanity.

Besides the characters, the plot eerily parallels the current economic climate in the United States, looking basically like the occupy movement on crack. Even the scene of Bane breaking into Wall Street (which felt evocative of Rage Against the Machines, “Sleep Now in the Fire” video) was a reminder of our economic vulnerabilities in the West. There is a sort of palpable fear that has started to seep into the world’s economic consciousness, asking “how long can this continue?” This fear, of course, fed by the constant bank scandals that I hear about on the news every morning, the lack of any kind of new budget, and the general disillusionment with the viability of our political leaders (in both parties). Nolan did an excellent job of tapping into that fear, highlighting the destruction that can come from one good hack job on Wall Street.

The class warfare depicted in the film, with it’s disturbing scenes of makeshift courts to punish the wealthy and French Revolution style executions, brought home the problematic images of what happens when poverty reaches it’s breaking point. I especially found the violence that was present to be very familiar, reminding me of A Tale of Two Cities or Les Miserable, both stories that demonstrate the intense hatred that was turned onto the ruling classes during the French Revolution.

The revolutionaries of this film literally destroyed the vestiges of wealth as they smashed pictures and pulled scared socialites out of their homes and yanked the fur coats off their backs. However, the film did have some subtler points on economy, most notably offered by the reluctant billionaire Bruce Wayne (who admittedly has experienced poverty in his travels) when he critiques the charity functions where thousands are spent on venues and food. A valid point, since the money spent on the charity function could probably just have been given to the charity in the first place. Similarly, Catwoman states that the “rich don’t even go broke like the rest of us,” disgusted that even without money, Wayne will be able to maintain his lifestyle.

The two women in the movie actually play an important role in the economics portrayed: Catwoman as a sort of liaison between the wealthy do-gooders and poor revolutionaries. She pretends wealth in order to achieve her thieving, but claims herself to be a woman of the people. Miranda as well comes from nothing and has managed to rise up in the ranks of the world, only intending to tear it down again. I found it interesting though, that both women seem to at first be a part of the upper classes, but instead, stand as symbols for those who are struggling (though neither seems to have a very positive way of dealing with their financial difficulties).

Ironically enough though, the movie seemed almost an affirmation of class status quo, since these revolutionaries were the bad guys, and the billionaire (granted now broke billionaire) was the one who had to save the day and reassert order. On the one hand, at the end, there were scenes of the orphan boys heading off to stay in mansions and the bravery of the policemen, working class heroes if you will. However, I felt that the film had a lot of potential to address economic disparity, but didn’t seem to come to any new resolution, just reasserted whatever economic platforms existed in the first place.

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Rachel Redfern has an MA in English literature, where she conducted research on modern American literature and film and it’s intersection, however she spends most of her time watching HBO shows, traveling, and blogging and reading about feminism.

‘The Dark Knight Rises’s Catwoman: a (Shhh!) with a Heart of Gold

Anne Hathaway as Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises [source]

While The Dark Knight Rises has had a more mixed reception than Christopher Nolan’s previous two entries in his Batman trilogy, everyone, even President Obama, can agree that Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman was the best thing about the movie. Slate’s Alyssa Rosenberg calls her, “the best Catwoman ever to grace the big screen.”

And I loved her too. The Dark Knight Rises‘s Selina Kyle is smart, sexy, and complex in her morality: the trinity of characteristics that unites all incarnations of Catwoman. The other details of Selina and her alter-ego Catwoman shift constantly (a fate common to comic book characters). She’s been an amnesiac flight attendant abuse victim (in the Gold and Silver Age comics in which she first appeared), a wealthy socialite who burgles for the thrill of the hunt (how she was portrayed in my introduction to the character, Batman: The Animated Series), a meek secretary transformed into a badass vigilante after her apparent murder by her powerful boss (in Batman Returns), and, well, whatever Halle Berry was reduced to doing with the character (who, just to be clear, was not Selina Kyle, but rather Patience Phillips, and I will waste no more words on a character and film that is best forgotten). As Rosenberg puts it in her Slate piece, “Catwoman has, in the past, been a rich well for explorations of female trauma.”

So it was inevitable that Selina Kyle be portrayed as a sex worker, at least once Frank Miller got his hands on her. Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy has always been transparently inspired by Miller’s seminal comics Batman: Year One and The Dark Knight Returns. The former series first introduced Selina Kyle as prostitute:

Sex worker Selina Kyle in panels from Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One [source]

And over the next twenty years or so of DC comics, the prostitute origin story would be hinted at, overtly dropped, slyly repackaged, forgotten, and popped back in at the whims of various comic book writers. Brian Cronin provides a thorough overview of the waxing and waning of this storyline in his Abandoned An’ Forsaked column. When it was announced that Hathaway had been cast as Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises, speculation went wild regarding which Catwoman we’d get.

As it should be, The Dark Knight Rises offers a unique take on the character. And it stays cagey about her life’s details and origin story. But watching the film, I inferred that they were incorporating the sex worker background for the character. On the ride home from the theater I mentioned it to my husband, who is not a comic book reader, and he was bewildered how I had gotten that impression.

[SPOILERS for The Dark Knight Rises FORTHWITH]

As a comic book fan, I came in with the expectation that this movie’s version of Selina Kyle might be a sex worker. Because I knew Selina Kyle had been portrayed as one, most notably by Frank Miller, whose work has been so influential on the trilogy. So when Anne Hathaway’s Kyle seduces and absconds with a Congressperson (to provide herself with cover when she makes an illicit exchange, we discover) I figured she was doing this in the course of her business.

As that deal goes down, another character is introduced: Selina’s friend, played by Juno Temple, and according to IMDb named “Jen.” I don’t recall her being addressed by name in the film, but as soon as I saw her I thought to myself, “Oh, hey, it’s Holly Robinson!”

Holly Robinson as drawn by Cameron Stewart in Catwoman Secret Files [source]

Holly Robinson was created by Frank Miller in Batman: Year One, a fellow sex worker living with Selina Kyle. The appearance of that character, even though they’ve given her another name, signaled to me this character was meant to be in line with Miller’s Selina Kyle, a sex worker.

There’s also an offhand reference to Kyle living in “Old Town,” which I’ve never encountered in Batman comics (although there are many thousands I’ve never read, so maybe I am missing something) but which instantly called to mind the prostitute-run red light district of another Frank Miller comic, Sin City.

Selina Kyle’s primary motivation throughout The Dark Knight Rises is acquisition of the “Clean Slate,” a bit of technology that will erase her record, even her very existence, from the world’s databases, allowing her to escape an unspecified past where “she did what she had to do to survive.” Her past could be anything. It could merely be the thieving she’s clearly so adept at. But Kyle very pointedly shows no shame about her burgling, wearing Martha Wayne’s stolen string of pearls while dancing with Bruce at a gala, for example. It stands to reason there is something else she is running away from.

If you accept that The Dark Knight Rises‘s Kyle has a past or present as a sex worker, unfortunately the dynamic character seems much less innovative and much more like yet another iteration of the trope of the Hooker with the Heart of Gold.

The stock character of the Hooker with a Heart of Gold is problematic, even from a sex-work-positive feminist perspective, because the trope itself is not sex work positive. These characters are meant to be interesting because they are good “inside” even though they do “bad” things. The viewer is allowed to be titillated by the character’s occupation without needing to feel as though they condone it. And because hookers with hearts of gold are so often “saved” by men, it plays to a variety of male fantasies beyond women as commodities: that women need them; that women are “correctable.” The trope also reinforces traditional gender roles by masculinizing work for pay, often giving the hookers with hearts of gold tough, emotionally cool exteriors on the job (like men!) that when cracked (by a man!) show their soft, compassionate, womanly true self.

As we have with Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises, who steals and betrays and displays a general disdain for everyone she speaks with in the first half of the movie (other than Holly Robinson’s stand-in). But somehow Batman cracks that ice, first getting Selina Kyle to display emotional vulnerability, and finally inspiring Catwoman to heroically help save the same Gotham she’d been keen to abandon after helping it fall to anarchy. When we spot her casually dining with Bruce Wayne in Florence at film’s end, it’s easy to imagine she’s given up her criminal ways: another soiled dove lifted to grace by a good man.

Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, in hero-mode on the Bat Pod. [source]

Even though I just wrote it, I find this summary of The Dark Knight Rises‘s arc for Selina Kyle overly reductive, and Anne Hathaway’s phenomenal performance in the role nuanced and charismatic enough that it elevates the material. Which is why I don’t so much object that The Dark Knight Rises invokes the trope of the Hooker with a Heart of Gold, I just mind that it does so covertly. It weakens the film’s ability to twist the trope and present a feminist take on it, and wastes an opportunity to give the world an iconic, heroic, feminist character who does or did sex work.

So it doesn’t bother me that The Dark Knight Rises possibly included sex work in the character background of its Catwoman, but it bothers me that they didn’t commit to it. The film signals dog whistles to comic book fans and enable the character and movie to enjoy all the male-id-pleasing benefits of the Hooker With a Heart of Gold trope, without actually having to go to all the trouble of crafting a modern and respectable portrayal of the sex industry in a major summer blockbuster. It’s lazy, even cowardly, and Catwoman, Anne Hathaway, and us movie-watchers all deserved better.

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Robin Hitchcock is an American writer currently living in Cape Town, South Africa. She had to take the long way home for weeks while The Dark Knight Rises filmed in her neighborhood in Pittsburgh.