I hope she crashes and burns as a character. In fact, I hope the Joker has the pleasure of shooting her and then raping her corpse. Truly, that right there would be justice. A friend even gave that storyline idea a name: "The Killing Poke."
Saturday, June 10, 2006
*Sigh*
So, I keep hearing they introduced a lesbian Batwoman to feed fanboy fantasies...
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One of the unintended consequences of this whole Batwoman thing is that maybe, just maybe, people will stop looking at me as if I'm insane when I try to tell them that comic book fan culture is deeply homophobic.
ReplyDeleteOf course, given that the racism and misogyny is even more blatant, and people still insist that those don't exist in fan culture, I don't hold out much hope.
I don't know, I figured the homophobia was even more blatant. Have you seen the reactions to slash fiction?
ReplyDeleteI hope the joker has the pleasure of shooting her and then raping her corpse
ReplyDeletegood heavens....*shudder*
And later on in the thread is another poster who laughs at the storyline name.
ReplyDeleteAs long as women superhero's have an exposed tummy as part of their costume, fanboys will be happy.
ReplyDeleteBatwoman does not expose her midriff. That's why she will fail.
Sad.
I think the DC boards are a magnet for that part of fan culture. And it's not just in regards to females. Gay characters, especially if written by Judd Winick, have come under similar fire there for years. It was the aura of negativity and bigotry of the boards that made me stop going there on a regular basis.
ReplyDeleteThose boards are just... words fail me.
ReplyDeleteEw.
I LOVE THE DC BOARDS!
ReplyDeleteThey bring me such joy.
I think the whole concept around this new Batwoman is so misguided in the first place that adding "token lesbian" to the mix just completes the travesty and gives fans an easy target for their overall scorn. Neither Marvel nor DC seem to be able to handle homosexuality in anything approaching tact, which makes it all seem like a desperate cry for mainstream attention and a gay readership that probably looks on it about as favorably as women did back when Kathy was beating up criminals with a Bat-purse.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I have bigger problems with her, the first being that name. "Batgirl" isn't so bad now that it is established as Dick's mildly-derisive jokey nickname for Barbara "dressing up as a bat is ridiculous and I'm a woman not a girl" Gordon that endured, probably because it rolls off the tongue so easily. "Batwoman," besides being a mouthful, is the kind of name that someone would have to work to make stick--a purposefully-crafted identity that I can't possibly see even Happy!Batman entertaining.
Secondly, I see this as yet another example of the current Bat-editors having absolutely no idea how the post-Crisis mythos works. Miller and O'Neill (and their collaborators) spent 15 years crafting a carefully balanced Bat-family that primarily centered around the idea that "The Bat" is a mantle that only Bruce could possibly endure. Jean-Paul couldn't handle it, Dick couldn't embody it, Tim didn't want it, Helena couldn't live up to it, and Shiva didn't understand it. The fact that Barbara is the only person to do so means a hell of a lot and speaks toward her character profoundly. Now, Bruce apparently hands out bat-masks and "Protector of Gotham" titles to anyone with more than half a face or who can punch someone with only a middling desire to kill them.
In the same vein, Batwoman is a further deterioration of the Bat-family as a whole. The 80s and 90s operated on a specific family-unit model: Bruce as Father, Dick as Prodigal Elder Son, Barbara as Dutiful Elder Daughter, Tim as Dedicated Younger Son/Worshipful Little Brother, Stephanie as Novice Younger Daughter, Helena as Rebellious Middle Daughter, Jean-Paul as Aimless Middle Son, and Jim Gordon as Best Friend. Adding Cassie to the mix wasn't so bad because she essentially split Novice Daughter with Stephanie, but then the wheels came off. Dick becomes the Aimless Son, Tim becomes Prodigal Son, Orpheus, Onyx, Sasha, Tarantula, and Jason Todd are brought in, Barbara, Jim, Helena, Jean-Paul, Alfred, Jack Drake, Cassie, and Stephanie leave/die, and Gotham becomes overrun with impersonators, shape-shifters, and plastic surgeons. So now it's not so much a Bat-family as it is a shifting Bat-horde, to which DC decides "hey, why don't we blow up Bludhaven so everyone has to crowd into Gotham, and then bring back all the pre-Crisis people, too?" Add on top of that the fact that now there are only four major female characters in Gotham, of which 3 are lesbians (Batwoman, Renee Montoya, and Maggie Sawyer) and the other seems to be producing a litter of kittens, and it's all just too much.
Damn. Thanks for the reminder of just how low the DC MB, or rather its' members, can be.
ReplyDeleteIt's the usual misogyny, with added homophobia and sadistic fantasy mixed in.
Do those guys really like to hear themselves talk THAT much?
I shouldn't be too surprised though, back in the lurking days (when I briefly considered joining), there was some man spouting off about how he masturbated over Steph Brown's torture and demise because she was such a "dumb blonde b*tch" (and went on about there needing to be MORE torture for such a 'stupid' girl..).
What gets me more than the character-related sexist insults is when the same people direct the same (or even worse) diatribe to the fanbases of them. Because what would us fans of them know, we're 'stupid whores' with no taste.
It's a reason why I don't get out into the fandom culture much. Attempting to throw the words back (or even ignore) isn't good enough at times.