JOHN: Hey, Jim, I we should make, like, a female Bat character to add to the Batman
mythos.
I think that would be really cool.
JIM: Oh, yeah, that's a great idea, I like that!
Cause, y'know, we could make her the love interest for Batman.
Y'know, Bruce Wayne's going around with Robin and people are startin' to talk; they're
startin' to say that maybe he, uh, bats for the other team and that's not okay,
we can't have that.
She'll come in and dispel those rumours.
JOHN: Yeah, but, maybe we should just not-- JIM: Ooh, and another thing we could do--this
is a great idea, I came up with this one myself--we could have her fight all the enemies that
are related to Batman's enemies.
And then, this is the greatest idea of all, this is how we end her saga.
Maybe it gets picked up again later, who fuckin' cares?
This is what we do, we cripple the bitch-- JOHN: NO!
Jim!
We should make her a strong, independent character in comics.
She doesn't have to rely on any man or anything, she's her own character, whoever this bat
girl might be.
She should be a symbol for feminism and the Women's Liberation Movement that's happening
right now, and all this stuff!
JIM: What're you, fuckin' gay?!
JOHN: Bye bye.
Bye bye.
AURAM: Hello and welcome to
the Show With Issues, I'm Auram, and it's that time again, we may have another touchy
subject, because apparently all I can talk about on this show anymore is controversy!
Regardless, today I'm going to be bringing you a character analysis of Barbara Gordon's
Batgirl, with a heavy emphasis on her status as a feminist symbol, which is to say that
she provided a fantastic portrayal of a woman being equally as powerful and important as
a man in comics.
Feminism is about equality, not women being better than men, just to clear up any confusion.
So let's jump right into it, starting with what I just mentioned, Batgirl as a feminist
symbol.
To truly explain this, we need to go all the way back to the 50's, 1954 to be more exact.
1954 was the year that Fredric Wertham published his infamous book Seduction of the Innocent,
an analysis of comic books at the time and how they were poisoning our youth, which led
to many changes in comics and the establishment of the Comics Code Authority.
One major claim Wertham made in the book was that Batman and Robin were in a relationship
with each other, writing, "Sometimes Batman ends up in bed injured and young Robin is
shown sitting next to him.
At home they lead an idyllic life.
They are Bruce Wayne and 'Dick' Grayson.
Bruce Wayne described as a 'socialite' and the official relationship is that Dick is
Bruce's ward.
They live in sumptuous quarters, with beautiful flowers in large vases...Batman is sometimes
shown in a dressing gown...It is like a wish dream of two homosexuals living together."
He continues later, touching more on Robin saying, "He is buoyant with energy, and
devoted to nothing more than Bruce Wayne.
He often stands with legs spread, the genital region discreetly evident."
Regardless of whether or not this subtext was intended by the writers or even there
to begin with, DC decided that they had to act on this claim.
Enter Kathy Kane, the Batwoman of the Silver Age.
Making her debut in 1956's Detective Comics #233, Batwoman was primarily created as a
knee-jerk reaction to be a love interest for Batman because of the "outlandish" claims
that Wertham made.
Mike Madrid wrote this about the character in his fantastic book The Supergirls, "Let
Wonder Woman keep her Herculean strength, her bulletproof armbands, and her unbreakable
lasso.
Batwoman has all she needs to clean up crime in Gotham city right in her little red handbag.
With her lipstick, powder, perfume, and hair net, Batwoman would show the Dynamic Duo a
thing or two about how a lady fights crime."
To further refute any claims of Batman and Robin being "more than friends," Batwoman's
niece, Betty Kane, joined the fray as Bat-Girl, but with a hyphen for whatever reason.
Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson had Batman and Robin while Kathy and Betty Kane had Batwoman
and Bat-Girl.
Together, with a few extras, they formed the Bat-Family and people slowly started to lose
interest in the Batman comics with these characters involved.
Sales were dropping because of the zany science-fiction tonal shift in these comics, so in 1964, with
Detective Comics #327, new editor Julius Schwartz made a change.
The Bat-Family was all gone, except Robin, and Alfred was killed off, being replaced
by Dick Grayson's Aunt Harriet.
It's also worth mentioning that this last change was probably done to dispel any lasting
rumours of Bruce and Dick having too much fun in that big mansion all by themselves,
now they had a woman to keep them in check.
Anyway, let's skip forward a bit to 1966 where Batman's TV show is about to enter
its third season.
Editor Schwartz was asked by the producers of the show to create a new female character
to boost ratings and attract a new female audience to the show, so he did.
Nearly simultaneously, in 1966, Barbara Gordon was introduced to the comics and the silver
screen with Detective Comics #359 and Batman's third season!
In that fateful first comic appearance, Barbara Gordon, daughter of the Gotham police commissioner,
was planning to crash the Policeman's Masquerade ball, dressed in a Bat costume, "The whole
world thinks I'm just a Plain Jane -- a colorless female 'brain'!
I'll show them a far more imposing girl tonight!"
On the way, however, Babs stumbled upon some action and acquired a genuine thirst for crime
fighting, leaving behind her childish impulse to intrude on her father's event.
This new Batgirl wasn't seen as a companion piece to Batman of any kind, although she
did initially come to blows with him for being a female crimefighter.
In her debut issue, Batman said, "This is a case for Batman and Robin!
I'm sorry--but you must understand that we can't worry ourselves about a girl…"
Barbara ignored this and continued operating as Batgirl, breaking the status quo.
Female superheroes at the time were written very differently than male superheroes.
For example, Bruce Wayne devoted his entire life to crime fighting and being the Batman,
while Kathy Kane quit her vigilante days as Batwoman almost immediately at Batman's
request without any argument.
This difference quickly made Batgirl become a symbol for feminism, especially since her
inception was at the height of the women's liberation movement which came to a head in
the 60's and 70's.
Another huge proponent of this was that Batgirl was her own character, not stuck in the shadow
of her male counterpart.
Mike Madrid explained this more eloquently than I could ever dream of describing it,
so take it away me reading from his book!
"Batgirl goes on a personal campaign to rid her home, Gotham City, of crime.
Plain and simple, and as pure a motive as any man might have.
She doesn't don a costume and throw herself into danger to prove her love for Batman.
Yes, she wears his symbol on her chest, but she is not his girlfriend or her faithful
handmaiden.
Certainly Batgirl wants Batman to respect her as a detective and an agent of justice,
but she doesn't require his validation or protection.
She is a creature of more enlightened times, and there was no way that Batman could have
belittled or controlled Batgirl the way he had Batwoman a few years earlier.
...Batgirl is a female who Batman can actually regard as a brilliant peer and a partner in
the war on crime, the same way he would a male."
And, hey, if you don't entirely agree with Madrid's or my analysis, take DC's word
for it.
When readers complained about the lack of Kathy Kane's Batwoman, a weak character,
DC themselves wrote this in the letters page of 1971's Detective Comics #417, "[We'd]
like to say a few words about the reaction some readers have to Batgirl.
These are readers who remember Batwoman and the other Bat-girls from year's back.
These characters were invented when the time was right for Bats.
They were there because romance seemed to be needed in Batman's life."
This sentiment, of course referring to them needing to save face from Wertham's claims
by introducing two female characters.
Continuing, DC said, "...thanks to the big change and a foresighted editor, these hapless
females are gone for good.
In their place stands a girl who is a capable crime-fighter, a far cry from Batwoman who
constantly had to be rescued from Batman."
That is a very feminist idea.
DC themselves stated that Batgirl was created as a counter to, "hapless females [...] who
constantly needed to be rescued [by] Batman."
Barbara Gordon continued with this trend as a strong independent bat who needs no man
for decades up until 1988 with Batgirl Special #1 written by Barbara Kesel.
In this issue, Babs finally hung up the cape and cowl and retired for good, returning to
her life as a bookish librarian.
She was stuck as a background character for a brief period until one fateful night depicted
in Alan Moore's The Killing Joke.
In the story, Barbara is essentially used as nothing more than a plot device, being
shot and paralyzed from the waist down by Joker to make her father go crazy so that
Joker could prove a point to Batman.
This was given next-to-no thought by Moore who said this on the subject, "I asked DC
if they had any problem with me crippling Barbara Gordon—who was Batgirl at the time—and
if I remember, I spoke to Len Wein, who…[got] back onto the phone and said, 'Yeah, okay,
cripple the bitch.'"
To be fair to Moore, he did later express regret on treating Babs so poorly in his story,
saying it was, "shallow and ill-conceived," but this did raise some rather concerning
contradictions with Batgirl's status as a feminist symbol and the path that this story
led her down.
She became Oracle after The Killing Joke, a superhero in her own right, sure, but was
mostly confined to working for Batman and his friends, in their shadows.
And here's another issue with Batgirl's status as a feminist symbol.
She totes herself as being her own vigilante, fighting her own battles against crime in
Gotham, Burnside, or wherever she may be, but at the same time a lot of her rogues gallery
and stories are borrowed from the Batman mythos.
Just look back at The Killing Joke and her paralysis; this is a monumental moment in
Batgirl's history, a moment where she was used as nothing more than a small part of
Batman's greatest enemy's plan.
Barbara was definitely a strong female character in comics, but the lack of a breakout Batgirl
solo title and very few Batgirl-lead stories in other books is definitely concerning.
In fact, it wasn't until 2000 that the first Batgirl solo title was launched and it wasn't
even Barbara Gordon, it was Cassandra Cain!
The following decade, Batgirl, now Oracle's romps were mostly confined to assisting Batman
and being the tech girl for the Birds of Prey.
She was in this weird fugue state of being a character that just kind of existed.
In 2011, however, DC's New 52 initiative was launched, breathing new life into their
lineup and putting Barbara Gordon back into the Batgirl uniform!
Gail Simone brought Barbara into a whole new era.
DC's continuity had been stripped down and condensed, with Babs being around five years
into her career at the time of Batgirl #1.
She was working under Batman as Batgirl for a full year before retiring, Killing Joke
happening, and her becoming Oracle.
Three years and an experimental surgery later and she's back as Batgirl, but with a whole
host of non-superhero-traditional issues.
"One thing the book is truly about, is that the after-effects of something like PTSD (post-traumatic
stress disorder) or other trauma-related syndromes, can strike even very smart, very intellectually
tough people, even soldiers and cops.
We have seen very little about this in superhero comics, really.
People return from the dead, people are tortured, the world is threatened, and the next day,
it's as if it was all forgotten."
This was Simone's mission statement with her take on Batgirl.
She's not just the "girl Batman," she's her own crimefighter with her own villains
and mental issues to combat.
But, at the same time, all of her mental issues -- the Survivor's guilt, PTSD -- stem from,
once again, the Joker, Batman's greatest enemy.
And this isn't to say this is a bad thing.
Simone took Alan Moore's careless use of Babs in The Killing Joke and turned it into
a catalyst for some really amazing stories with the character.
But, it's when some writers pit her against some of Batman's villains (or villains related
to Batman's villains) that this becomes a problem.
It weakens Batgirl's independence from her inspiration.
Even from a basic storytelling perspective, it's just not great writing.
Take these couple issues from her current Rebirth run.
Babs is on her way back from China on a plane where she runs into Poison Ivy, trying to
transport a rare plant.
This is just highly convenient timing.
Not only did Babs happen to run into a villain on her plane back to America, but it also
ended up being Poison Ivy, one of Batman's villains, not one of her own.
To play devil's advocate even further, we should talk about her namesake.
She is BATgirl, part of the Bat-family, so shouldn't she be fighting Bat-villains and
being part of Bat-events all the time?
Well, yes and no.
In Simone's run on the character, Babs is in Gotham, she's in the thick of it.
Here it makes sense that she would run into Batman's rogues gallery or be tied into
Bat-events, but when she's literally anywhere else, it gets awfully convenient.
And besides, at the end of the day, Batgirl herself has expressed the aspirations to be
her own hero.
She's not the hapless women that the Kanes were, she wants to show people that she's
not just another "colorless female brain."
In Barbara's own words, written by Gail Simone in Batgirl #6, "Similar name and
wardrobe, sure.
But, [she] stood apart.
[She] was Batgirl."
I hope something I said here today resonated.
I tried with this video to get a couple ideas in your head; Batgirl is a strong feminist
character and that, at the same time, she's not perfect in this regard, much like the
state of women in comics as a whole.
Huge shout out to Mike Madrid's The Supergirls and Gail Simone's Batgirl for serving as
inspiration for this video.
Both are incredible works that you guys should all check out.
If you want some more Bat-goodness without all this feminism analysis stuff, my buddy
Jay over at FT Productions has a whole playlist filled with just that!
You'll also see a familiar face over there seeing as I did a review of Tom King's Batman
that will not go up on this channel!
You can only see it there!
So go watch it!
Anyway, thanks so much for watching!
Next time I use my hidden laser spatula to defeat my enemies!
Because that makes sense...
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