Holy misogyny, Batman!
August 8th, 2012

Holy misogyny, Batman!

^ 18 Comments...

  1. Linkara

    If you want to be TECHNICAL about it, Talia was ALWAYS in direct control of everything.

  2. nicky

    Funny strip. Man, that usual feminist interpretation jargon always drives me crazy. @_@

  3. Paul

    Still not as bad as X-Men First Class in this specific regard.

  4. Algeya

    Give it a rest will ya , they is an old saying in my country “if you look for it you will find it”

  5. Alegretto

    Similarly, “when all you have is a hammer, every problem seems like a nail”.

    Still, good strip.

  6. Guest

    All of Catwoman’s actions were initiated by her internal desire to get the Clean Slate program so she could reset her life. Men in the movie used this motivation to manipulate her to do what they wanted, but I still feel that Catwoman was the “initiator” of her actions by the fact that she was always actively pursuing the Clean Slate.

    As Linkara pointed out, Talia was always in direct control, even if she wasn’t always on the front lines. All that changed in the last 5 minutes was that her muscle was defeated (where she took advantage to stab Batman), and it is understandable that her plan would start to crumble once her heavy hitter fell.

    Though I do agree about her weird relationship with Bane and sleeping with Bruce to get the bomb (the fact that they had a romantic relationship in the comics doesn’t change how she was portrayed in the movie).

  7. Travis J

    Actually Algeya has a point. I wasn’t looking for sexism, and I didn’t see it. Some people actively look for sexism in media, and they can see it everywhere they look. I’m not saying it isn’t there, I’m just saying that people who DO NOT CARE will not see it there. That fact seems to be elusive for many of feminist and feminist supporters.

  8. MrGBH

    @Wally East.
    Stating that Algeya is dumb is an unfair statement. We don’t have anywhere near enough evidence to form an opinion of that magnitude.
    We can, however, surmise that Algeya is rude and says dumb things.

  9. Neil S

    Travis J wrote: “people who DO NOT CARE will not see it there.”

    You make it sound like that’s a strike against the people who recognize and fight against sexism, and it’s not. There are actually good reasons for this.

    The only people who can afford to ‘not care’ about sexism are people who aren’t hurt by it. (Or who benefit from it.) This is why guys like Jay-Z admit to realizing sexism is a ‘problem’ only after his daughter was born – it had to affect him negatively on a personal level.

    Unsurprisingly, it’s the people who are made to feel like crap by sexism who see it and care about it. And that makes perfect sense.

  10. Brandon Hanvey

    We’re all for discussion and even disagreement on things here. But we like to keep things civil. Please refrain from insults.

  11. RaijinK

    Welp, can’t really expect the internet to refrain from explosive gender politics debates just because it’s about a comic making fun of the internet’s explosive gender politics debates.

    Marissa’s points are all true, really, but also pretty selective and rhetorical. At the very least, Catwoman’s portrayal in the movie was extremely positive compared to some of her other recent exposure. That’s kinda damning with faint praise though. Let’s at least say it was a step in the right direction.

    But to “How can you say there’s a gender imbalance when two of the most important characters were Catwoman and Talia?” all that needs to be said is “There were a lot more than two important male characters.”

  12. Journ-O-LST-3

    Neil S said everything I was going to so there’s that. Though for Algeya, it might also work as “Open a comic book and you will find it.” Though that’s a tiny overstatment.

  13. Carl

    Gender imbalance in a movie based on a comic book superhero? Who could have imagined such a thing could happen? For that matter: gender imbalance in an action/adventure movie?

    Was gender imbalance brought up about Harry Potter? It had two male leads and one female. The male teachers are far more heavily involved in the plot than the female ones. For every female character who plays a significant part, there’s at least one male who’s more important and IT WAS WRITTEN BY A WOMAN!!

    What’s the real point of even bringing it up it this type of movie. The target audience is primarily male as is the target of most of the merchandise. Do people care about imbalance when every sitcom is about some fat idiot married to his much more intelligent, long suffering wife? What about the typical romantic comedy where the commitment-phobic male (also usually portrayed as an idiot) wrecks the good thing he has with his saint of a girlfriend and then has to win her back from some douche?

  14. Wally East

    Apologies 🙂

    1. Marissa is right.

    2. There is no 2.

  15. Dreadjaws

    OK, Marissa is starting to be ridiculous. It’s a Batman movie. It’s titled “The Dark Knight Rises” not “The Dark Knight plus Catwoman Rise” or anything like that. Why the hell should it have a huge female prominence? I’m no sexist, and I think there should be more female superhero movies (or at least a good one, for a start), and those should also have gender imbalance, focusing more on women than men. There’s a place for everything, and a Batman movie isn’t the right place for female prominence.

  16. MrGBH

    Did people complain about the gender imbalance in Avengers? There were only three women of note in the entire thing, one of which was Pepper Potts who didn’t do much except argue with Stark (or worry about him).
    The second was Maria Hill, who did something badass and then stayed in Fury’s shadow for the rest of the movie.
    The third was Black Widow, whose entire motivation was saving a man (Hawkeye).

    But it was still an awesome movie and, because of Whedon’s rep with female characters, nobody thought it was sexist.

    My point is that just because a movie has a gender imbalance, it doesn’t mean it’s sexist.
    Of course, Batman 3 could be a sexist movie. I don’t know. Don’t wanna see it.
    That’s my entire two pennies worth.

  17. benfromcanada

    As far as gender imbalance in the Avengers goes, Black Widow at least had real characterization. Yes, it was unbalanced as a movie, but the quality made up for it. The Dark Knight Rises was not anywhere near as good as Avengers. Also, yeah, Whedon has a better reputation for decent female characters, as Nolan barely even lets women speak in most of his movies, it seems.

  18. Vic Sage

    For the record, I think “this” is probably the most gender unbalanced sexist mainstream topic ever:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2uNKqcsAeg

    Now in my opinion on the DKR imbalance/sexist argument here’s the rub: I believe that Catwoman and Talia’s portrayal were not indicative of every woman in the universe. That being said: do those characters and portrayal exist in other forms of media that are widely accepted and not scrutinized? I’d say yes.

    The argument that Catwoman didn’t initiate any of her actions is a bit harsh, she chose to become the best cat burglar in the world. Her tenacity in achieving her goals and her ability is never dependant upon a man. And when Batman swoops in to “save” her in the obligatory action sequence, which I enjoyed, she firmly asserts that she did not need any help and had everything under control.

    And any argument framed around the fact that her character change is facilitated by a man, i.e. Batman/Bruce, is a double standard. Think how many films have the male character change facilitated by a woman? Off the top of my head the unholy train wreck that was Green Lantern last summer. Hal Jordan wasn’t really a hero until Carol told him she believed in him. Casablanca. Rick just sits around moping until he makes a stand based around his feelings of love for Ilsa. We’ve seen this pattern repeated time and again in story after story and the reason why is that it works. Now you’re saying that if you reverse the gender roles its sexist? I just don’t buy that.

    When a male character is portrayed as a sexist chauvinistic character in a film, and there is lack of other male characters I don’t think: “Oh wow this film is attacking men’s inablility to sympathize and portaying them as only a callous caricature”. Instead I think: “Well that guy’s a jerk.”

    Same thing in DKR. I thought that Talia and Selina were characters in a movie, telling a story as an attempt to entertain without making broad general statements about gender roles.

    Maybe that’s why I enjoyed it.

    As for @Give it a rest will ya , they is an old saying in my country “if you look for it you will find it”

    Exhibit A: http://www.the-gutters.com/comic/322-greg-cravens

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