I Heart The Birds of Prey Part 2: The High School Teacher I Always Wanted
One of the things about BoP that makes me the happiest is the fact that despite being at least a moderately successful superhero, Huntress continues to harbor secret hopes of fulfilling her lifelong dream: to be a teacher.
I think this is an important distinction between the two professions, plus, Huntress is just a good old-fashioned amazing role model for those of us that are in the biz. Honestly, she might just be the BEST role model that any teacher-candidate could ask for.
Let's break this down:
-The idea that teaching can serve a positive societal purpose above and beyond the purpose served by righteously punching criminals in the face--a purpose that is absolutely worth never-ever sleeping a wink in order to accomplish--may be subject to a hefty dose of over-romanticizing the role of the teacher, but is a breath of fresh air in the face of burnt out and jaded public school teachers. Sometimes when the ugly truth about (And let's face it, with a teacher's hours AND a superhero's hours, there is just no way that Huntress gets more than an hour or two of sleep a night--and she is so okay with that.) Huntress is living out every teacher's vigilante fantasies--that there's a way to get beyond the red tape and the obligated reporting and the inability to interfere directly in the lives of your students--and best of all, she came at it from the other direction. International espionage first, teaching second. It's that final twist that lends so much weight to Huntress as a role model.
-Huntress is an unapologetically sexual person. Some of the other characters in the series engage in some time-honored slut-slamming because of it, but really, Huntress is up front about how she rolls despite it, and that's a depiction to be admired. The fact that her sex-life is not shown as a defining factor in whether or not she is a competent teacher is highly encouraging--teachers aren't saints, and they shouldn't have to be. The world that Huntress inhabits--the one in which she controls her own sexuality, but is not defined by it--stands in stark contrast to the current demands for abstinence-only education in public schools. The overwhelming view that teaching below the university level is women's work* creates a similar, overwhelming view that teachers must correspond especially to the virgin half of the virgin/whore dichotomy. How else could a parent be expected to trust their property child with a complete stranger?
-Black Alice is in Ms. Bertinelli's class. There is nothing about this that is not fantastic--especially since I read the stand alone comic detailing Black Alice and the Helmet of Fate before I read the issue of BoP in which Alice appears. This made the moment where I put it all together even sweeter.
I want to be the teacher that Helena Bertinelli is. I want to rescue my students' older brothers from the mob, and be there to answer Black Alice's questions about heroes.
*Thanks to the iron-clad association between women and children. However, as the students get older, participation from men becomes more and more permissible.