Catwoman #1: A Defense, a Klusterfluffle

Catwoman and Red Hood caused a good deal of hullabaloo the previous week. We've seen many readers and critics react very strongly against these two comics. The fuss lead to discussions about how women are represented not just in comics but in all media. Men and women alike are disappointed that we are still in a culture that objectifies women as a matter of course.

These conversations are great. I'm thrilled that we are reconsidering what we will accept as the representation of women in comics and further that we have expectations at all for this reboot to change things. Our expectation that comics will consciously consider how they depict women, and that this new DCnU is an effort to make changes for the better should push publishers to meet those expectations.

Really though, I'm really surprised that the disappointment and outrage happened this week in particular, and that everyone is so pissed off at Catwoman.

I'll start off by saying that I haven't read Red Hood, but I have seen the pictures of Starfire in a bikini. These pictures alone seems like the fucking definition of damning evidence. I haven't read the book myself, but from what I've heard it really isn't worth my time. I may still pick it up though, just to see the context of what appears to be a pretty disgusting case of objectification.

What I want to do in this post is discuss Catwoman and why people are upset about it, but then explain why this comic, while complicated in terms of its representation of a woman, is still a strong comic with a strong female character.

The two aspects that offend some critics about Catwoman #1 are the beginning few pages, and the last pages. I'll start with the first.

You might have already seen the first few pages of Catwoman online as they are fairly prevalent. In these pages, Catwoman is not fully clothed. As she escapes from her apartment Catwoman style, she progressively dresses herself. She is drawn flipping and contorting eventually leaping from her apartment window. There are a lot of full shots of her body, and we see her breasts in most of them. There's also a panel of her bum.

I am not going to defend these images as not objectification. I can see a sort of movement from our expected representation of Catwoman to who she will be in the book, but I am not prepared to defend this argument. The creators seem to have chosen to present Catwoman's body in these panels as something to gawk at, and made sure to include her bra in many of the shots. Maybe if gender politics were different in comics and media this would be less ridiculous, but as they aren't, these images are problematic.

But what is so strange about these images? Looking at how women are depicted across the DCnU lineup, these images are not too far out of the norm. Shall we consider:

• We meet Wonderwoman for the first time naked in bed. She gets out of bed, naked, protecting her body with a sheet, which she drops. When she is sans blanket, the images are constructed to obscure her naughty bits. But, you know, only the naughty bits. Also, the artists/DC have decided that once again Wonderwoman will fight baddies in her bikini bottom. Comfy.
• Harley Quinn, once a character that showed no skin whatsoever, now has a corset with a seem that redefines the word loose. She also has a bikini bottom too, but with like a belt or something.
• Batwoman has two scenes where women strip down and to put on their costumes or take them off. Again it is framing that keeps nipples hidden.

Both Wonderwoman and Batwoman received a great deal of praise in the critical comic community. They should receive praise too, they are great books; however, I don't remember outcry about the multiple pages of nudity. After all, they are being presented as sexy naked bodies for the audience just as Catwoman is presented as a half clothed sexy body. I heard some tsk-tsking about Suicide Squad, and rightly so, but I didn't see much traffic on the issue. 

So I ask, without acquiescing the point that these depictions are shitty, why Catwoman?

And I think it's because she fucks Batman.

I can't say for sure, but are Catwoman and Redhood the first comics to deal with sex? Or specifically women initiating sex? This just seems like a coincidence.

If I hadn't read the entire Catwoman #1, or maybe if I only saw the last few pages, I would be offended too. I can't tell the hypothetical past. But I've read the book and I do not find the sex scene at the end offensive to women for two reasons, because of how Catwoman is written throughout the book and because I don't think that the sex scene is pandering to the audience.

Laura Hudson wrote a very thoughtful post about Catwoman and Red Hood. She took issue with the representation of women in both books. The idea that these characters only want to have sex because the audience wants them to have sex, to see them as sexual bodies first and women/characters second.

I can't speak for Starfire, mainly because I don't know anything about her. But when it comes to Catwoman, I don't think I ever wanted to see her have sex with Batman. Like ever. And certainly not like this.

The obvious rebuttal to my rebuttal, is that of course I didn't want to see her have sex, but they did. From Hudson's article:

This is not about these women wanting things; it's about men wanting to see them do things, and that takes something that really should be empowering -- the idea that women can own their sexuality -- and transforms it into yet another male fantasy. It takes away the actual power of the women and turns their "sexual liberation" into just another way for dudes to get off. And that is at least ten times as gross as regular cheesecake, minimum.

So an assumption here is that the comic reading audience wants to see female characters have sex, or see them portrayed as fetish. This assumption does not need to be true (I don't think it is) for Hudon's point to stand, because DC might believe this assumption to some degree.

I do not think that Catwoman's creators are trying to give the audience what it wants in the last few dirty pages, rather they are trying to shock them with the "reality" of Batman and Catwoman's relationship.

As far back as I can remember, there has always been sexual tension between Batman and Catwoman. It's one of the major ways in which Catwoman fits in the Batman oeuvre. She challenges Batman not just with her ability and smarts, but also with the feelings he has for her, and especially in the ways that she uses these feelings to manipulate him. And when I say feelings, I mean love, not hardons. Batman fights a lot of sexy ladies, but Catwoman is the only woman (or man for that matter) that he can be manipulated by because he loves her.

Catwoman is a strong character because she is quite often the one with the power in the Batman-Catwoman relationship. She is strong and independent, has great affection for Batman, but isn't above leveraging his feelings to get something. This version of Catwoman in #1 doesn't appear to be any different.

Indeed, I love this Catwoman.

The point at which I started to see Catwoman as depicted as more than just a sexualized body happens immediately after the first few pages I denounced earlier. Yes, the first pages show boobs and butts, but as parts are on display, Catwoman is also narrating. You might have missed it altogether so I'll recount it. She explains that some bad dudes have broken into her house, that this isn't all that out of the ordinary, and that she just needs to get out of the apartment because they'll just smash the place up a little and then she can go back in a few days. Then her apartment explodes.

Her bemused expression as she pauses her narration to watch her apartment explode made me laugh out loud. This is the stand out page of the book for me/ This is the part of the book I remember when I think of the book, not the objectifying depictions of Catwoman's body, or her and Batman's grab-a-thon, but this pause in the action to comically reveal a lot about this protagonist's character.

And if you want to talk about comedy, why not her dash and leap from her apartment while trying to put her clothes on, round up her cats, and then keep the cats in the carrier. Every panel has a picture of a cat tumbling from that carrier. That sort of humorous detail juxtaposes her exploitation as a sexualized body.

After this page we jump to Catwoman at a friend's/her fence's house where she proceeds to have an actual meaningful conversation with another woman. And one that is not about a man. Please see the following video for a list of movies that do not feature this simple sort of scene.

In addition to their conversation, Catwoman's friend also looks like an honest to goodness normal woman. This might be one of the few normal looking women to appear in the DCnU's new line up. I'm looking at you Amanda Waller.

The entire book showcases Catwoman as a smart, adaptive, confident, and funny woman. She is, in earnest, my favourite new character of the new launch so far. I like reading her conversations and monologues. The writer was able to give her more character than any of the dude comics I've read so far.

So the question I have has there been so much discussion of this book because of how offensive it is, or because it lays the off-panel reality Batman and Catwoman's relationship bare. Their sexual attraction has always been implied in the mainstream representations of these characters, but suddenly in this first issue it just happens, and real goddamn graphically.

Their act is depicted in detail, showing where hands go, and what mouths are doing. The pages obviously don't keep this off shelves, but in terms of content, it might be more graphic than actually showing a naked body. Hell, both bodies here are highly sexualized. This is about more than just showing Catwoman's body off, or making her sexually accessible.

This sex scene is not meant to be arousing, but rather purposefully explicit so to be unsettling and shocking. We are confronted with the actual and graphic sex scene that is typically relegated to titillating fantasies.

I don't think the creators chose to show Batman and Catwoman "doing it" to pander to an imagined pubescent audience, but rather to ask the audience (especially those who might resemble the imagined pubescent audience) to grow up and deal with a complicated sexual and romantic relationship. This is big-boy stuff now, where people fuck because people like to fuck, and that fucking has consequences for characters and the narrative beyond super hero kids that show up years later. This is not for the audience to get its jollies off on.

Catwoman is one of my favourite books this month. It's not as good a comic as Batwoman or Animal Man in terms of how they fuse images and words, but Catwoman is a well defined and interesting character. Really, her characterization is at odds with her depiction as a fetishized body. This Catwoman might (and does) use her sexuality as a tool, but would never let herself be exploited. The DCnU is lacking in strong female characters, it would be a shame if Catwoman gets dismissed because of some very poor decisions on how to depict her body.