I found this amusing video on Dorkly Bits under the title “Batman is the 1% - Why so seriously wealthy?”. It seems that since the release of the official Dark Knight Rises trailer, I’m not the only one now making transformative works critical of Batman’s socioeconomic status.
Gotham City is really not a very good place to be a woman. Gothamites who happen to be female have very few options beyond being a damsel in distress, a sex object and/or dead. With the possible exception of Batgirl and officer Anna Ramirez all the women on this list fit into one (or more) of these narrow categories. Plus, of course, Ramirez ends up as a traitor whose life is only spared via a random coin toss.
There are a few other women who briefly appear in the Batman movies (including the five unnamed women who hang on Bruce Wayne’s arms in the Nolan films) however since their roles are so minor and unimportant to the plot I’ve elected not to included them on this chart.
As Elisa Kreisinger recently pointed out on her blog the stereotypical Hollywood roles for women coupled with the male gaze behind the camera poses a big problem for video remixers wishing to create alternative visual stories. Because there is so little to work with in the original source its extremely difficult to re-imagine stronger or more complete female characters in a Batman Universe remix. That said I’m carefully searching the filmographies of both Uma Thurman and Michelle Pfeiffer looking for creative ways to include them in this project without all the sexist tropes.
Gotham Cities villains, or are they? Stay tuned to find out how each fits into my remixed alternative universe!
