*hisses*
I woke up this morning to find that Catwoman is now canonically bisexual, and my first reaction was "What! No!" Actually, I think I said something like, "Dammit! Why must they do this to all the badass ladies?" which made me pause and consider whether or not my reaction was being influenced by my existance as a straight woman.
Nope.
Catwoman being bi pisses me off because it's cheap. It's DC grabbing the low-hanging fruit. After all, they've spent decades portraying Selina as a hypersexualized female object. They made her into a former dominatrix/street prostitute in the 1980s. Then she spent the 1990s in skintight purple spandex with zero-G bubble boobs (with and without a tail). They did two movies where her costume occasionally looks like it's staying on only through the grace of God. She was created as a sexy thief who could parade around in sexy outfits and sexily taunt Batman, and that's where her character development stopped. Even the esteemed Timm & Dini couldn't rehabilitate her - she begins her run on B:TAS as a crusading animal rights activist, but ends it seducing Nightwing and stealing from homicidal cat cultists just for the lulz.
So now, instead of doing something new with Selina, like giving her a backstory with dignity, or a life with a goal beyond "steal that!", or a costume that isn't 98% T&A, DC has found a fresh way to exploit her. Ten bucks says that within the year she'll be on a cover making out with Poison Ivy or Harley Quinn or another scantily-clad sex object, and when it's decried as fanservice, DC will be all wide-eyed and going, "But they're just exploring their relationship! We're being relevant!"
No. It's BS. They don't mean it. It's crass and dishonest and misogynistic. It's not about diversity and representation. If it was, if DC really wanted to make a statement about how hip they are to the times, they would have let Batwoman marry Maggie Sawyer.
Better yet: they would have made Batman bisexual.
But I don't think I can put it any better than this FB comment from a diehard Catwoman fan - who happens to be LGBT herself - which said in part:
"But I just liked the thought of Catwoman being straight. I liked the thought of her having limits or reservations about something. And I always liked the side of her that was non-committal .... the core of her character is supposed to be this independent, no-strings-attached thief who likes Batman (or whoever) when he is there and does not miss him when he's gone. I mean she's CATwoman, right? And in this new plot she's apparently not even that."
Nope.
Catwoman being bi pisses me off because it's cheap. It's DC grabbing the low-hanging fruit. After all, they've spent decades portraying Selina as a hypersexualized female object. They made her into a former dominatrix/street prostitute in the 1980s. Then she spent the 1990s in skintight purple spandex with zero-G bubble boobs (with and without a tail). They did two movies where her costume occasionally looks like it's staying on only through the grace of God. She was created as a sexy thief who could parade around in sexy outfits and sexily taunt Batman, and that's where her character development stopped. Even the esteemed Timm & Dini couldn't rehabilitate her - she begins her run on B:TAS as a crusading animal rights activist, but ends it seducing Nightwing and stealing from homicidal cat cultists just for the lulz.
So now, instead of doing something new with Selina, like giving her a backstory with dignity, or a life with a goal beyond "steal that!", or a costume that isn't 98% T&A, DC has found a fresh way to exploit her. Ten bucks says that within the year she'll be on a cover making out with Poison Ivy or Harley Quinn or another scantily-clad sex object, and when it's decried as fanservice, DC will be all wide-eyed and going, "But they're just exploring their relationship! We're being relevant!"
No. It's BS. They don't mean it. It's crass and dishonest and misogynistic. It's not about diversity and representation. If it was, if DC really wanted to make a statement about how hip they are to the times, they would have let Batwoman marry Maggie Sawyer.
Better yet: they would have made Batman bisexual.
But I don't think I can put it any better than this FB comment from a diehard Catwoman fan - who happens to be LGBT herself - which said in part:
"But I just liked the thought of Catwoman being straight. I liked the thought of her having limits or reservations about something. And I always liked the side of her that was non-committal .... the core of her character is supposed to be this independent, no-strings-attached thief who likes Batman (or whoever) when he is there and does not miss him when he's gone. I mean she's CATwoman, right? And in this new plot she's apparently not even that."