Catwoman

Catwoman

Catwoman was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane in 1940 in Batman #1. Her and The Joker were Batman’s first two enemies. Today Catwoman has come to be a close friend and ally of The Bat. Catwoman has always been a popular character. During the 50s she wore several different looks and attitudes while the Comics Code Authority was going down. Catwoman is commonly known for being a cat burglar and thief but in one issue she was labeled to be a consistent murderer and moved to Earth-B, a place that contained characters and stories that were out of place and disturbed the classic stories grew to love. Catwoman is a flirt. She is such a flirt that she is often found toying with Batman. In many stories, movies, video games and especially in the Adam West show, Batman and Catwoman crush on each other and feed into one another’s emotions. In the Christian Bale Batman series, Batman ends up running away with Catwoman and viewers are left with the impression that they will spend the rest of their lives together. With all of this sexual tension surrounding Catwoman and Batman, viewers sometimes become uncomfortable with the small amount of boundaries on the sexual comments that are loosely tossed around. Even in the show Gotham, young Bruce Wayne and Cat share a romance too advanced for their ages. Cat often dares Bruce to kiss her or uses kissing as a reward for doing what she wants.

Catwoman back-story: Catwoman, formally named Selina Kyle was born in the slums of Gotham. Her mother paid no attention to her and her sister Maggie and her dad was an abusive drunk. Selina took gymnastics in order to get away from the chaos at home. Her mother committed suicide and her father drank himself to death shortly after. Selina ran away from home, leaving her sister to be taken to an orphanage. She lived off of the streets where she was forced to steal in order to survive. However, she later started to like stealing, and became rather good at it. When she grew older she became a prostitute by day and a cat burglar by night. She stole a totem from a museum, where she was quickly caught by a ninja. She followed the ninja to a warehouse that was actually a secret martial arts academy. The Sensei there saw her fast moves and decided to take her in as a student. One night she heard on the news that Batman was seen at Robinsons Park. When she went to go have a look, she saw Batman, who was bleeding, and thought about his costume and how it could either make people happy or terrified. She soon got a costume to do all her thieving in. At one robbery, a guard call her “Catwoman” and the name stuck.

Catwoman showcases her sexuality to a point where there is both fan fiction about her and controversy. There have been several comics and stories written about Catwoman, her sexual presence, and her relationship with Batman over the years that went to extreme measures as far as fan fiction goes. The article found at http://comicsalliance.com/starfire-catwoman-sex-superheroine/ goes in to depth about some stories that have been released in the past couple of years. The writer expresses her outrage of the matter that Catwoman is showcased as wearing less and doing more…. to Batman… think dirty and then think dirtier. So brace yourself when you read her piece. She does make some good points though that go along with the Catwoman character in general. She says “these scenes don’t support sexually liberated women; they undermine them." She is right. Catwoman has always been an idol for me in the sense that she is a strong, classy, beautiful woman who doesn’t take any non sense what so ever. However, maybe she is over played as far as her tight outfits and sexually comments towards Batman. In fact, in the show Gotham, I was taken back for a second when Barbara, Jim Gordon’s girlfriend, told 14-year-old Selina Kyle that her beauty and sexuality would be used as a weapon. What? If anyone said that to me when I was 14 I would have either died of laughter right on the spot because of how stereotypical it is. It suggests that as strong as woman may be in the world, they will only beat men with their sexuality. Yes, sexuality can be used as a weapon, but it should not be showcased as the most powerful one. Let's not forget how every woman wants to be Catwoman for Halloween because they want to be something "sexy" and costume makers definitely do make the Cat costumes as "sexy" as possible.