Barbara Gordon and Disability
There's still lots of buzz and hype and speculation going on about the new Batgirl series debuting in August.
While Oracle: The Cure's conclusion leads me to believe Barbara Gordon will thankfully not be returning to the role of Batgirl, there's a lot surrounding that possibility that raises uncomfortable issues with respect to disability.
I've seen a number of arguments for Barbara Gordon becoming the next Batgirl that go something along the lines of: "no way there's no cure for a spinal injury like hers within the DCU, when people come back from the dead all the time and there's all sorts of wacky magic and science to choose from!"
Full disclosure: I used to want to see Barbara regain the ability to walk, still be Oracle, but also get a new costume and do some field-work in addition to sitting behind a desk. Of course, if that were to happen, it would have to be realistic in terms of that kind of physical rehabilitation. Y'know, lots of regular physiotherapy, gradually going from using a wheelchair to a walker, from a walker to a cane, and then eventually losing the cane. But eventually, she'd be back to swinging from Gotham rooftops alongside her many, many friends who do the same thing.
I don't want that any more, unless perhaps it's taking place in an alternate universe, and there are lots of reasons why.
The comic book reason is that while Barbara Gordon is a DCU-wide character as well as a Bat character, Gothamites tend to be bound to a greater realism than the rest. Magic and super-science generally don't get to fix the gang wars, the dead parents, or the bullets to the spine. (When they do, you get RAWR!KILL!Jason Todd, bless him. Although really, it didn't have to be time-punching that brought him back. Maybe R'as or Talia al Ghul went grave-robbing and threw the poor boy in a Lazarus pit. *shrug* They're weird like that.)
The other reason is that it's important, in a fictional universe with as many characters as the DCU features, to have a prominent character who is disabled. Why? Because, disabled people exist, that's why.
My pal troubleinchina has a tag on her blog that she uses when writing about topics relating to disability called, " Disabled people don't exist!" It's sarcastic on her part, because she is well aware they exist, but it's also something that a lot of people seem to wish was true. For some, it's because they'd rather ignore the problems that the disabled deal with and not have to do anything. For others, maybe what they actually wish is that no one was disabled, and everyone could enjoy life the same way they do. But, that is not reality. Disabled people do exist in the world. Disabilities exist.
One of the aspects about the bat-centric parts of DC Comics which has always appealed to me is realism. Granted, by all accounts Batman would be dead twenty times over (and stay dead) if they really stuck to realism. But I've always thought Batman was twice the hero that Superman is, because he does what he does without any supernatural ability. He's just trained, skilled, practised, knowledgeable, obsessive and overly prepared. He's more plausible than a flying alien with laser eyes, x-ray vision and super-hearing.
The reality is that lots of people who use wheelchairs will not spontaneously recover from whatever put them in that chair in the first place. (Of course, certainly some people do recover.)
There could be an argument for the presence of minor characters who are disabled, but there is a vast, vast difference between Oracle and very minor, occasional supporting characters like Wendy (now) or Jason Bard. (Those are the only other recurring DC characters I can think of who have physical disabilities. Am I forgetting anyone? EDIT: Alberto Reyes! He was shot and since then walks with a cane. Thanks to azsapphire for reminding me. EDIT #2: Doctor Mid-Nite/Pieter Cross is blind. Thanks to innerbrat.)
Although I'm sure most people who want to see Barbara recover physically are not consciously thinking "Get disabled people out of my comics!", that is the effect, unfortunately. "Curing" Barbara Gordon would mean making disabled people disappear within the DCU, meaning disabled people don't exist there anymore. "Disabled people don't exist!"
The thing about Barbara Gordon is that her injury and paralysis in The Killing Joke is a perfect example of a Fridging. But John Ostrander and Kim Yale then took what happened to the character in that story, and used it to tell a new story about her. They took Barbara's pre-existing determination, areas of professional expertise, and penchant for justice and heroism, and found a new way for her to use them in stories that comics readers enjoyed. Thus, Oracle was born.
On top of that, it gave DC the opportunity to diversify their set of characters. If there were absolutely no women, if there was absolutely no ethnic/racial diversity among characters in DC comics, that would be a gigantic problem, too. (And even there, there's room for improvement.) In my day-to-day life-and I'm willing to bet it's the same in yours, wherever you are, given the globalized world we live in today-the people I encounter are not all white men, with the occasional woman who looks like a supermodel. No, there is much more variety than that, because human life itself is extremely diverse. It makes sense for a fictional universe as big as DC's to reflect some of that diversity.
Don't you hate it when people walk really slowly right in front of you? Annoying slow-walkers, that's what they are. That's something I've often thought and said under my breath. Then a week or two ago I was walking down a flight of stairs in the subway right next to my father, who suffered from a stroke almost four years ago and has to walk with a cane because his left leg doesn't fully work anymore. There may have been escalators to get down to the station but walking to their out-of-the-way location would've required more effort on his part than walking down the stairs. I try to walk next to him when descending steep stairs and have an arm ready to catch just in case he trips or needs balance. Problem is, the two of us take up most of width of the narrow staircase. In this particular instance, there were two girls (they looked like teenagers to me) who I heard making "slow-walker" comments about us as we reached the bottom of the stairs. Either disability didn't occur to them or they didn't care.
I've seen the way people will shove past my disabled father, who has to walk with a cane, as if either he or his disability didn't exist. If I could make his disability go away, I sure as hell would, but the reality is he has to walk with a cane, and someone else's impatience with the pace at which he walks will not make him go any faster.
Silver lining, though? He no longer works in a job where the stress is killing him, and he's gone back to university with the intention of finishing the undergraduate degree he started years before I was even born. And Barbara Gordon? By being forced to change her methods in superheroing, I'd argue she discovered where her strengths lie, what she's best at and where she can make the biggest difference. She's more prominent, relevant and useful to her colleagues and in the DCU in general than she was as Batgirl. One doesn't just sit around going "ho hum, I am disabled now, my life is no longer eventful or interesting," and Barbara Gordon as Oracle reflects that.
The point is, life goes on. Disability doesn't have to be a perpetual tragedy. Especially if people take the reality of people with disabilities seriously, make things accessible by default, and refrain from ableist language.
Turning Barbara into Batgirl again and having Wendy become Oracle doesn't cut it, either. I was going to say "that would be like Clark Kent's Kryptonianness being transferred to Jimmy Olsen, and Jimmy becoming Superman," but at least Jimmy Olsen has bigger name-recognition and IIRC has already had a few solo books. (And for all I know, that's probably happened a dozen times already.) If DC actually had long-term plans for Wendy to carve out a larger role for herself within the DCU, to develop the character and makes us give a crap more than just recalling her from Superfriends, being attacked by Wonder-Dog and being paralysed, maybe it would be acceptable. But I don't see that happening.
The reality is that many people are disabled in our world, and I don't think it should be that much of a burden for DC comics to have one big name character who is disabled, to have one superhero in a wheelchair. Especially one for whom it makes sense at this point. If there was a time for Barbara Gordon to better recover from her injury, the time was probably shortly after The Killing Joke, or in the next couple of years that followed. It's too late to right that wrong.
I think we're at the point where the result of The Killing Joke should be embraced, rather than continually viewed as something that needs to be "fixed." One may say it's tokenism, but I would say that's bullshit. Barbara being given a disability was an arbitrary decision for the benefit of a story that wasn't about her. But in text and out of it, the pieces were picked up, and good stories and interesting character development were the result.
Kim Yale and John Ostrander made it "right" by not letting one of DC's heroes fall into obscurity or remain what we now call a Woman in a Refrigerator. And if the successful work with the character done by people like Chuck Dixon and Gail Simone is any indication*, Barbara Gordon certainly did not fall into obscurity. She's important, valuable, admired and loved as a character.
What needs to be "fixed" is DC editorial letting crap writing like this and this get through (to be fair, the art is pretty good for the most part).
*Tony Bedard wasn't that bad, and if BoP had continued I think he may have done quite well in the long-term.
While Oracle: The Cure's conclusion leads me to believe Barbara Gordon will thankfully not be returning to the role of Batgirl, there's a lot surrounding that possibility that raises uncomfortable issues with respect to disability.
I've seen a number of arguments for Barbara Gordon becoming the next Batgirl that go something along the lines of: "no way there's no cure for a spinal injury like hers within the DCU, when people come back from the dead all the time and there's all sorts of wacky magic and science to choose from!"
Full disclosure: I used to want to see Barbara regain the ability to walk, still be Oracle, but also get a new costume and do some field-work in addition to sitting behind a desk. Of course, if that were to happen, it would have to be realistic in terms of that kind of physical rehabilitation. Y'know, lots of regular physiotherapy, gradually going from using a wheelchair to a walker, from a walker to a cane, and then eventually losing the cane. But eventually, she'd be back to swinging from Gotham rooftops alongside her many, many friends who do the same thing.
I don't want that any more, unless perhaps it's taking place in an alternate universe, and there are lots of reasons why.
The comic book reason is that while Barbara Gordon is a DCU-wide character as well as a Bat character, Gothamites tend to be bound to a greater realism than the rest. Magic and super-science generally don't get to fix the gang wars, the dead parents, or the bullets to the spine. (When they do, you get RAWR!KILL!Jason Todd, bless him. Although really, it didn't have to be time-punching that brought him back. Maybe R'as or Talia al Ghul went grave-robbing and threw the poor boy in a Lazarus pit. *shrug* They're weird like that.)
The other reason is that it's important, in a fictional universe with as many characters as the DCU features, to have a prominent character who is disabled. Why? Because, disabled people exist, that's why.
My pal troubleinchina has a tag on her blog that she uses when writing about topics relating to disability called, " Disabled people don't exist!" It's sarcastic on her part, because she is well aware they exist, but it's also something that a lot of people seem to wish was true. For some, it's because they'd rather ignore the problems that the disabled deal with and not have to do anything. For others, maybe what they actually wish is that no one was disabled, and everyone could enjoy life the same way they do. But, that is not reality. Disabled people do exist in the world. Disabilities exist.
One of the aspects about the bat-centric parts of DC Comics which has always appealed to me is realism. Granted, by all accounts Batman would be dead twenty times over (and stay dead) if they really stuck to realism. But I've always thought Batman was twice the hero that Superman is, because he does what he does without any supernatural ability. He's just trained, skilled, practised, knowledgeable, obsessive and overly prepared. He's more plausible than a flying alien with laser eyes, x-ray vision and super-hearing.
The reality is that lots of people who use wheelchairs will not spontaneously recover from whatever put them in that chair in the first place. (Of course, certainly some people do recover.)
There could be an argument for the presence of minor characters who are disabled, but there is a vast, vast difference between Oracle and very minor, occasional supporting characters like Wendy (now) or Jason Bard. (Those are the only other recurring DC characters I can think of who have physical disabilities. Am I forgetting anyone? EDIT: Alberto Reyes! He was shot and since then walks with a cane. Thanks to azsapphire for reminding me. EDIT #2: Doctor Mid-Nite/Pieter Cross is blind. Thanks to innerbrat.)
Although I'm sure most people who want to see Barbara recover physically are not consciously thinking "Get disabled people out of my comics!", that is the effect, unfortunately. "Curing" Barbara Gordon would mean making disabled people disappear within the DCU, meaning disabled people don't exist there anymore. "Disabled people don't exist!"
The thing about Barbara Gordon is that her injury and paralysis in The Killing Joke is a perfect example of a Fridging. But John Ostrander and Kim Yale then took what happened to the character in that story, and used it to tell a new story about her. They took Barbara's pre-existing determination, areas of professional expertise, and penchant for justice and heroism, and found a new way for her to use them in stories that comics readers enjoyed. Thus, Oracle was born.
On top of that, it gave DC the opportunity to diversify their set of characters. If there were absolutely no women, if there was absolutely no ethnic/racial diversity among characters in DC comics, that would be a gigantic problem, too. (And even there, there's room for improvement.) In my day-to-day life-and I'm willing to bet it's the same in yours, wherever you are, given the globalized world we live in today-the people I encounter are not all white men, with the occasional woman who looks like a supermodel. No, there is much more variety than that, because human life itself is extremely diverse. It makes sense for a fictional universe as big as DC's to reflect some of that diversity.
Don't you hate it when people walk really slowly right in front of you? Annoying slow-walkers, that's what they are. That's something I've often thought and said under my breath. Then a week or two ago I was walking down a flight of stairs in the subway right next to my father, who suffered from a stroke almost four years ago and has to walk with a cane because his left leg doesn't fully work anymore. There may have been escalators to get down to the station but walking to their out-of-the-way location would've required more effort on his part than walking down the stairs. I try to walk next to him when descending steep stairs and have an arm ready to catch just in case he trips or needs balance. Problem is, the two of us take up most of width of the narrow staircase. In this particular instance, there were two girls (they looked like teenagers to me) who I heard making "slow-walker" comments about us as we reached the bottom of the stairs. Either disability didn't occur to them or they didn't care.
I've seen the way people will shove past my disabled father, who has to walk with a cane, as if either he or his disability didn't exist. If I could make his disability go away, I sure as hell would, but the reality is he has to walk with a cane, and someone else's impatience with the pace at which he walks will not make him go any faster.
Silver lining, though? He no longer works in a job where the stress is killing him, and he's gone back to university with the intention of finishing the undergraduate degree he started years before I was even born. And Barbara Gordon? By being forced to change her methods in superheroing, I'd argue she discovered where her strengths lie, what she's best at and where she can make the biggest difference. She's more prominent, relevant and useful to her colleagues and in the DCU in general than she was as Batgirl. One doesn't just sit around going "ho hum, I am disabled now, my life is no longer eventful or interesting," and Barbara Gordon as Oracle reflects that.
The point is, life goes on. Disability doesn't have to be a perpetual tragedy. Especially if people take the reality of people with disabilities seriously, make things accessible by default, and refrain from ableist language.
Turning Barbara into Batgirl again and having Wendy become Oracle doesn't cut it, either. I was going to say "that would be like Clark Kent's Kryptonianness being transferred to Jimmy Olsen, and Jimmy becoming Superman," but at least Jimmy Olsen has bigger name-recognition and IIRC has already had a few solo books. (And for all I know, that's probably happened a dozen times already.) If DC actually had long-term plans for Wendy to carve out a larger role for herself within the DCU, to develop the character and makes us give a crap more than just recalling her from Superfriends, being attacked by Wonder-Dog and being paralysed, maybe it would be acceptable. But I don't see that happening.
The reality is that many people are disabled in our world, and I don't think it should be that much of a burden for DC comics to have one big name character who is disabled, to have one superhero in a wheelchair. Especially one for whom it makes sense at this point. If there was a time for Barbara Gordon to better recover from her injury, the time was probably shortly after The Killing Joke, or in the next couple of years that followed. It's too late to right that wrong.
I think we're at the point where the result of The Killing Joke should be embraced, rather than continually viewed as something that needs to be "fixed." One may say it's tokenism, but I would say that's bullshit. Barbara being given a disability was an arbitrary decision for the benefit of a story that wasn't about her. But in text and out of it, the pieces were picked up, and good stories and interesting character development were the result.
Kim Yale and John Ostrander made it "right" by not letting one of DC's heroes fall into obscurity or remain what we now call a Woman in a Refrigerator. And if the successful work with the character done by people like Chuck Dixon and Gail Simone is any indication*, Barbara Gordon certainly did not fall into obscurity. She's important, valuable, admired and loved as a character.
What needs to be "fixed" is DC editorial letting crap writing like this and this get through (to be fair, the art is pretty good for the most part).
*Tony Bedard wasn't that bad, and if BoP had continued I think he may have done quite well in the long-term.