My Thoughts on Batwoman

While doing my usual graceless stumble about the internet, I came across this post by Kevin Huxford wherein he, mostly tangentially, refers to Batwoman as a copy of a straight character with no defining characteristics other than being rich and gay.

This got me thinking and honestly, while I see where he's coming from, I completely disagree. I personally think that Batwoman has displayed quite a lot of character in the relatively few panels we actually saw her in. In fact, I quite adored her at first glance.

She was very spirited, and from their first scene together, we could see the passion, anger and left over issues between Renee and Kate. While I know that the punch she greeted Renee with bothered some folk (with fair reason I think), I liked how it added to the overall impression of the character. We've seen her be concerned, violent, petty and confident. We could extrapolate more of her personality based on the facets of her history and traits we already know. She makes a very good supporting character for Renee.

The problem, I think, really revolves around all the hype. I'm not sure how much of that was DC's doing and how much was the press leaping on the coattails of Batman Begins's popularity by latching onto a lesbian female counterpart to Bruce. But I think it led us to expect something very different.

I think the hype is behind the criticism that Batwoman has no real character aside from being gay. That's something that I don't think ever played out in the comics. While it's true that Kate's orientation was fairly front and center, it kind of had to be. She was introduced as the ex-lover of a female hero. It's fairly impossible to introduce someone as an ex-lover and then have that relationship not be the main thrust of their interaction.

It's kind of like whenever we see Superman interacting with Lori Lemaris or Lana Lang. Of COURSE the whole ex-love interest thing is going to be brought up pretty much every time, but no one criticizes those two ladies as being solely characterized as being straight even though their obvious straightness is being shoved down our throats pretty much every time they appear.

I remember one admittedly funny person dismissing Batwoman with the fictional exchange of "What's your favorite color?" "...Lesbian." But, I think that's ultimately unfair. What's Lori Lemaris's favorite color? Superman? But I suppose being straight is "normal" so it's unremarkable. Being a lesbian however, that has to be an overly flaunted plot point. Even when the treatment is exactly the same.

To be fair, I don't think the person making that critique was homophobic or in favor of downplaying alternate sexuality. I think it's more that all the hype had all of us over-sensitized to any mention of Kate's sexuality. We were already so jaded by the whole thing "Okay, we get it, she's a lesbian Batman" that any mention in the actual comics seemed like overkill. Or not enough.

I also don't think it helped that this happened simultaneously with the whole Cass Cain mess. (And I really never noticed that "Cassie Cain" was derived from "Kathy Kane". I'm so oblivious.) I'm not really a Batgirl fan, though I'm admittedly warming to her, so the notion that Kate was theoretically replacing Cass didn't bother me as much. ("what's your favorite color?" "...silent ninja girl." Heh, sorry. I couldn't resist.) I don't think DC was intentionally replacing one minority female Gotham character with another, but that's certainly what it SEEMED like. Which ultimately annoyed a lot of fans of Batgirl in particular and feminist fans in general (way to imply that female counterparts are interchangeable). It was a shame too, because I think Kate and Cass were so markedly different that they could easily co-exist.

I'd like to see how the two interact, actually. It seems like that could be a really interesting team-up.

I think basically the character just couldn't win, not with all the hype and issues surrounding her. Still, she really does have interesting chemistry with Renee, and there are clearly a lot of unresolved issues there. Renee's proven that she, at least, can sell a comic, even if the jury's out on Kate herself. So maybe there's still some hope for the character. I'd like to think so anyway. She's got a lot of unrealized potential.