Cecil Castelucci hijacks Barbara Gordon for her own political allusions
In this Newsarama interview, where writer Castelucci discusses the finale for Batgirl, it would seem she's exploited the moment for comparing Babs Gordon to a modern leftist politician who's done a very bad job:
Nrama: What made you want to bring a political element into Barbara Gordon's life?They certainly can affect, if you've experienced what Andrew Cuomo put New York nursing homes through. Make Babs Gordon into a Congresswoman, fine (though IIRC, after Crisis on Infinite Earths, it was thought discarded from continuity). But what Castelucci's going by is insulting to the intellect, comparing Babs to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who sabotaged Amazon's plan to open a division in NYC, and has supported anti-Israel fake news, among other troubling directions. Incidentally, Castellucci might want to rethink her use of initials to describe Ocasio-Cortez, since she took offense at Donald Trump referring to her by initials instead of her full name, all for the sake of finding an excuse to lambast the POTUS, obviously. (Yet Ocasio-Cortez didn't have an issue with computer game players using her initials, which proves it's all just an excuse for division.) Why does Castellucci think AOC is such a big deal, but not Senator Martha McSally, who's got an impressive military record as a pilot? Flying is something a lot of adventurers in comicdom have specialized in, yet Castellucci pays no attention to that.
Castellucci: Once again, this goes back to her own history as a character.
In the Bronze Age, Barbara Gordon becomes the youngest congresswoman (and one of the only ones). She was like the AOC of her time. So having her work for a congresswoman now and thinking more about politics was a very natural move for her as a character.
I think one of the strongest elements of Babs/Batgirl as a character is that she is always looking for ways to be a hero: librarian, Batgirl, Oracle, civil servant; they are all ways to be of service to the community.
I also think that right now, in this world, at this time, we have politics on our minds a lot. And I do think that the arts reflect the world. I really wanted to leave Batgirl with many different options of how she could be a hero moving forward. Who knows! Maybe she'll be Mayor of Gotham when she's older! That'd be rad.
Regardless of what she does, she's heroic. And she lives in Gotham and no matter where you live, politics affect how you can help those in need.
P.S. Everybody please go vote.
Since Babs Gordon's the daughter of a police official, one has to additionally wonder what Castellucci thinks of the premise originally conceived by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, in an era where law enforcement is being wrongfully villified. Then again, if the title is being cancelled after issue 50, maybe that says it all?
Update: on a semi-related note, see also this article at Ammo, which has more about the "squad".
Labels: dc comics, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, politics, women of dc
