Once again, I have mixed feelings!
Jun. 9th, 2011 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gryphonseggThis is shaping up to be the Summer of Mixed Feeling for me, isn't it? This time, the subject of my mixed feelings is the announcement that Barbara Gordon will be Batgirl again instead of Oracle. Actually, it's the entire DCU reboot, but Barbara-as-Batgirl sticks out from the rest because there are so many controversial issues attached to this single announcement.
The Good:
1) Barbara became Oracle as a result of misogyny in the industry. Alan Moore wanted to fridge her, and he editor famously said, "Cripple the bitch." In the story, she got a double fridging: The Joker shot her and took a picture of her paralyzed and bleeding and naked and surrounded by his henchmen and sent it to her father to upset him. Messing with Barbara's father was part of a larger project of messing with Batman, so she was maimed (and implicitly sexually assaulted) not because she was the primary target but because her attacker wished to get to a man through her and ultimately get to yet another man. The reboot seems to take all that out of continuity.
2) After being paralyzed in The Killing Joke, Barbara stayed in a wheelchair and out of direct superheroing action even though male characters with equally serious injuries have been healed and male characters with permanent disabilities have worked around them with cybernetic technology, magic, and/or the power of BECAUSE COMICS. Within the larger context of the DCU, keeping Oracle in the chair gives the appearance of making up excuses to keep a female character out of action as much as or more than attempting to deal with the fallout from TKJ in a serious way.
The Bad:
1) After TKJ, other writers took Barbara out of the refrigerator and used the physical and mental trauma she suffered in that story to tell powerful and inspiring stories about recovery and struggling on with wounds that can't be magically erased and about a woman with a disability who does amazing and valuable work for the superhero community. They've made Oracle one of the best-developed and most popular female characters in superhero comics and an icon and inspiration for real life comics fans with real disabilities who don't necessarily identify as much with the characters whose assistive devices are beyond real world capabilities. Removing TKJ from continuity takes away a fridging, but it also takes away the subsequent stories that meant so much to fans, especially women fans, fans recovering from trauma, and fans with disabilities. Plus, it costs us Oracle's status as iconic character with disabilities.
2) One of the many things that was cool about Oracle was that her role emphasized her brains. Barbara Gordon had some outlandish comics tech inventions as Batgirl, but being Oracle put her technical genius front and center. As badly outnumbered as female action heroes are, the gender gap in Western superhero comics is even worse for female science, tech, and strategist heroes. This is not necessarily the case in other genres and media, but for the cape and tights set it's a problem. If institutionalized sexism in the Western superhero genre doesn't like women being tougher than men-- and you'll never catch me arguing otherwise-- it really, really doesn't like women being smarter than men. Oracle the superhacker, information retrieval specialist, and spymaster was one of the rare exceptions, and by FAR the most prominent and widely known of the brainy women in comics. Of course, there's no reason why the rebooted Batgirl can't be a science-minded, technologically proficient action hero like Mr. Terrific (who also has his own solo title scheduled to start with the reboot) or a master tactician, detective, forensic specialist, and martial artist like her old mentor Batman. But I worry about the chances of that happening. It's all too plausible that now that Barbara has the ability to kick thugs in the face again, whoever gets the title after Gail Simone (whom I trust to do right by the character, but she can't write Batgirl forever) will forget how smart she is.
3) If Barbara is Batgirl, what happens to the two subsequent Batgirls, Cassandra and Stephanie? They have their own fans and their own inspiring stories. I am especially worried about Cassandra, not only because I love her as a character (which I do) but also because she's one of DC's most popular and recognizable Asian characters and one of its most beloved characters of color. The company line on the new reboot is that it's supposed to make DC's lineup more diverse. I have noticed some real movement toward greater racial diversity in the announcements so far, but I have not noticed any movement toward greater gender diversity, and the racial diversity seems to focus mostly on giving promotional pushes to black male characters, leaving Asian characters and female characters of all colors in the background at pretty much the same level of representation they had before. Don't get me wrong, I think DC made some good choices with the characters of color they have started promoting: Mr. Terrific, as I said, is getting his own book, Static Shock is back (I <3 Static!), and I'm glad that Cyborg is getting a push because he should have been more prominent in the Justice League already. If anything, I don't think DC is doing enough to promote John Stewart, who is, after all, THE Green Lantern to the fans who came to comics through the Justice League cartoons (I have Feelings about Green Lanterns, which include feeling that Hal Jordan is the least interesting of them all and John is my favorite Earth-based GL, but I'm making a point about Barbara and Cass right now, so I'll save that for later). Batwing has the potential to be a great character, it's good that DC is promoting a character who is African in addition to its pre-existing African-American characters. But he's new to the Batman franchise, and Cass, who has been around longer, should get the same kind of push. If Barbara is still Batgirl, does that mean Cass is active in Hong Kong or elsewhere as a version Blackbat who didn't go through a rookie phase as Batgirl? Will she be a future Batgirl mentored by Barbara? Or has she simply been erased from existence? The fact that DC hasn't bothered to tell us yet seems insulting to a character with her history and devoted fan following.
4) It seems like it's going backwards to turn Barbara back into BatGIRL. Her time as Oracle wasn't just about her overcoming what the Joker did to her and developing her formidable tech skills to help her friends when she could no longer fight beside them. During that time, she also grew up in general. Oracle came out from under Batman's shadow and became a major player in her own right. She forged strong friendships with characters who were not under Batman's thumb, learned to be a leader, mentored new superheroes, even adopted children (okay, superpowered teenagers, but still). Barbara outgrew the Batgirl mantle and passed it on to a younger woman. Oh, but there's a time re-set, right? Doesn't that mean Barbara's not going back to Batgirl after being Oracle, she just hasn't outgrown being Batgirl in this universe? Well, not exactly. I'd feel a lot better about Barbara being Batgirl again if Dick Grayson were going back to being Robin. But he's not. He outgrew being Robin and became Nightwing, and he'll be Nightwing when the reboot starts. Roy Harper isn't going back to being Speedy either. It seems awfully suspect that Barbara's adulthood might be on the chopping block.
The Good:
1) Barbara became Oracle as a result of misogyny in the industry. Alan Moore wanted to fridge her, and he editor famously said, "Cripple the bitch." In the story, she got a double fridging: The Joker shot her and took a picture of her paralyzed and bleeding and naked and surrounded by his henchmen and sent it to her father to upset him. Messing with Barbara's father was part of a larger project of messing with Batman, so she was maimed (and implicitly sexually assaulted) not because she was the primary target but because her attacker wished to get to a man through her and ultimately get to yet another man. The reboot seems to take all that out of continuity.
2) After being paralyzed in The Killing Joke, Barbara stayed in a wheelchair and out of direct superheroing action even though male characters with equally serious injuries have been healed and male characters with permanent disabilities have worked around them with cybernetic technology, magic, and/or the power of BECAUSE COMICS. Within the larger context of the DCU, keeping Oracle in the chair gives the appearance of making up excuses to keep a female character out of action as much as or more than attempting to deal with the fallout from TKJ in a serious way.
The Bad:
1) After TKJ, other writers took Barbara out of the refrigerator and used the physical and mental trauma she suffered in that story to tell powerful and inspiring stories about recovery and struggling on with wounds that can't be magically erased and about a woman with a disability who does amazing and valuable work for the superhero community. They've made Oracle one of the best-developed and most popular female characters in superhero comics and an icon and inspiration for real life comics fans with real disabilities who don't necessarily identify as much with the characters whose assistive devices are beyond real world capabilities. Removing TKJ from continuity takes away a fridging, but it also takes away the subsequent stories that meant so much to fans, especially women fans, fans recovering from trauma, and fans with disabilities. Plus, it costs us Oracle's status as iconic character with disabilities.
2) One of the many things that was cool about Oracle was that her role emphasized her brains. Barbara Gordon had some outlandish comics tech inventions as Batgirl, but being Oracle put her technical genius front and center. As badly outnumbered as female action heroes are, the gender gap in Western superhero comics is even worse for female science, tech, and strategist heroes. This is not necessarily the case in other genres and media, but for the cape and tights set it's a problem. If institutionalized sexism in the Western superhero genre doesn't like women being tougher than men-- and you'll never catch me arguing otherwise-- it really, really doesn't like women being smarter than men. Oracle the superhacker, information retrieval specialist, and spymaster was one of the rare exceptions, and by FAR the most prominent and widely known of the brainy women in comics. Of course, there's no reason why the rebooted Batgirl can't be a science-minded, technologically proficient action hero like Mr. Terrific (who also has his own solo title scheduled to start with the reboot) or a master tactician, detective, forensic specialist, and martial artist like her old mentor Batman. But I worry about the chances of that happening. It's all too plausible that now that Barbara has the ability to kick thugs in the face again, whoever gets the title after Gail Simone (whom I trust to do right by the character, but she can't write Batgirl forever) will forget how smart she is.
3) If Barbara is Batgirl, what happens to the two subsequent Batgirls, Cassandra and Stephanie? They have their own fans and their own inspiring stories. I am especially worried about Cassandra, not only because I love her as a character (which I do) but also because she's one of DC's most popular and recognizable Asian characters and one of its most beloved characters of color. The company line on the new reboot is that it's supposed to make DC's lineup more diverse. I have noticed some real movement toward greater racial diversity in the announcements so far, but I have not noticed any movement toward greater gender diversity, and the racial diversity seems to focus mostly on giving promotional pushes to black male characters, leaving Asian characters and female characters of all colors in the background at pretty much the same level of representation they had before. Don't get me wrong, I think DC made some good choices with the characters of color they have started promoting: Mr. Terrific, as I said, is getting his own book, Static Shock is back (I <3 Static!), and I'm glad that Cyborg is getting a push because he should have been more prominent in the Justice League already. If anything, I don't think DC is doing enough to promote John Stewart, who is, after all, THE Green Lantern to the fans who came to comics through the Justice League cartoons (I have Feelings about Green Lanterns, which include feeling that Hal Jordan is the least interesting of them all and John is my favorite Earth-based GL, but I'm making a point about Barbara and Cass right now, so I'll save that for later). Batwing has the potential to be a great character, it's good that DC is promoting a character who is African in addition to its pre-existing African-American characters. But he's new to the Batman franchise, and Cass, who has been around longer, should get the same kind of push. If Barbara is still Batgirl, does that mean Cass is active in Hong Kong or elsewhere as a version Blackbat who didn't go through a rookie phase as Batgirl? Will she be a future Batgirl mentored by Barbara? Or has she simply been erased from existence? The fact that DC hasn't bothered to tell us yet seems insulting to a character with her history and devoted fan following.
4) It seems like it's going backwards to turn Barbara back into BatGIRL. Her time as Oracle wasn't just about her overcoming what the Joker did to her and developing her formidable tech skills to help her friends when she could no longer fight beside them. During that time, she also grew up in general. Oracle came out from under Batman's shadow and became a major player in her own right. She forged strong friendships with characters who were not under Batman's thumb, learned to be a leader, mentored new superheroes, even adopted children (okay, superpowered teenagers, but still). Barbara outgrew the Batgirl mantle and passed it on to a younger woman. Oh, but there's a time re-set, right? Doesn't that mean Barbara's not going back to Batgirl after being Oracle, she just hasn't outgrown being Batgirl in this universe? Well, not exactly. I'd feel a lot better about Barbara being Batgirl again if Dick Grayson were going back to being Robin. But he's not. He outgrew being Robin and became Nightwing, and he'll be Nightwing when the reboot starts. Roy Harper isn't going back to being Speedy either. It seems awfully suspect that Barbara's adulthood might be on the chopping block.