The Four Color Media Monitor

According to this item, there's SJWs who don't want a cartoon based on Batman: The Killing Joke to feature the crippling of Barbara Gordon by the Clown Prince of Crime:

There are some social justice warriors who think that this new animated film should take an opportunity to change course and self-censor. What does this mean? Well, it stems from a long running controversy about the graphic novel from our favorite people… feminists. See, feminists feel that in the fictional world of Gotham where men are constantly destroyed, mutilated and traumatized by the Joker that females deserve to be treated better.

Okay, I'll admit, it's odd that they're allegedly concerned about this particular story, seeing how uninterested they were in protesting the murder and rape-in-flashback of Sue Dibny in Identity Crisis back in 2004. After all, in Batman's world proper, this kind of stuff is usually to be expected, and for its time, the Killing Joke did seem to offer better human perspective than what you'd see post-2000.

All the same, if the writer took a closer look under the microscope, he'd see how women in mainstream superhero comics, both heroines and co-stars, have been turned into plot devices for forced, sensationalized violence. And he'd learn that, whatever we think of this case involving the Killing Joke, that there is a valid argument superhero comics have become far too repellent in terms of violence against women, where it's done deliberately for shock's sake.

Interestingly, they also bring up something spoken by a certain editor at the time:

There is a precedent to change the comic. The writer Alan Moore has stated on several occasions that he wasn’t happy with how the comic turned out. Moore felt that he may have gone too far with the storyline. One thing in particular that seemed to disturb him was how it was made canon instead of confined to a one-shot. According to Moore, when he went to DC Comics Editor Len Wein about being allowed to paralyze Barbara, his response was “Yeah, okay, cripple the bitch.”

Much as I admire Wein's career, I think that was in very poor taste, no matter how imaginary Barbara happens to be. It's like he disrespected Gardner Fox for developing one of the best additions to the Bat-family back in the day, and when you create heroes and heroines, aren't you supposed to care about them as characters and storytelling vehicles? What was Wein thinking? His answer was a thinly-veiled way of saying he didn't have much faith in Barbara, even though soon after, writers like John Ostrander set the path for her new role as Oracle, recalling an appearance she made in Suicide Squad.

As for the would-be feminists, if they really cared about violence in superhero comics, they'd do us all a favor and focus on real monstrosities like Identity Crisis. The Killing Joke is too easy, and as a Batbook, the violence you see there is usually more expected and more suited to the Bat-line too. It's in books featuring characters whose worlds are more optimistic where they should be objecting.

Labels: animation, Batman, dc comics, misogyny and racism, violence, women of dc