I own some 90s Catwoman comics. Because I'm a total nerdo, obviously. Despite the overtly pinup design, I always liked anti-hero(ine)s and it was nice to read a graphic novel about someone non-male that wasn't a total goody-goody. Though I cringed at exploitative close-up pictures of her T&A, I liked that she was someone seemingly strong, dark, and a subverter of Batman's plans to restore stolen artifacts to other rich thieves that happened to have a title on them. But, alas, Catwoman turned out to be not only a foil to the main hero, Batman, but also a fantasy figure that is altered, primped and corseted to change not for the purpose of character development but in order to appease the ever-changing desires and sexual fulfillment of the men who write her. And the men who don't read her, as I doubt very much that she has a striking male fan base.
In my 90s stories, she is Selina Kyle, former-Juvie, daughter of a drunken abuser and international cat burglar, enjoying massive stolen wealth "earned" by her acrobatic techniques and sleight of hand talent. In the movie Batman Returns, she is Selina Kyle, again, only now she is the lonely and oft-tortured secretary of a vicious businessman. He throws her out of a window, she is reborn in vengeance. In newer versions of the graphic novels, she's an ex-prostitute, looking to escape an asshole pimp, and in the movie they made with Halle Berry, which was beyond suck, she was renamed Patience Phillips and her powers were explained through some Egyptian convoluted story arc that made no sense.
But Batman hasn't been changed or re-written. He has always been and always will be Bruce Wayne, wealthy orphan. Genius. Crime fighter with a dark side. His name is never changed, he's never needed to be "revamped" or "redone" to keep sales flowing and interest piqued. He doesn't need to suddenly be rewritten as a gigolo trying to make peace with his situation, or a former junkie dealing with extended desires for a fix. And everyone knows Superman is Clark Kent/Kal El, the last son of Krypton, and so on and so forth. There is no constant makeover and change.
First of all, I think Frank Miller (he who felt she must now be a hooker) is a douche. I wouldn't care as much if she started out that way (hey, hookers should have their stories told, too), but she didn't, and he did it for titillation purposes, which is gross. Despite the fact that every woman in his Sin City graphic novels who have agency are prostitutes or strippers, he is clearly feeding into Porno America's consumption of women: Up the Stakes, Make it Kinkier, Normalize Subjugation. And that's annoying anyway, but when it happens to a character I kind of like, it's even more of a bitch slap. I shudder to see what happens to Buffy in the movie they're putting out.
The interchangeability of her race was interesting to me, I have to say. The lack of representation for African-Americans in all forms of media is despicable, but to not even take the time or effort to write or create a new character for the likes of someone with a draw like Halle Berry is both lazy and offensive. I'm assuming that to be either black or a woman is so tokenized that they think they're throwing a bone to both by rewriting her as a black woman...and black women themselves--forget it. The reworking seems akin to the Hillary Clinton/Sarah Palin motive during the last election. I truly believe that the McCain Klan saw the success of Hillary Clinton's campaign as indicative that "Women are IN this year" so he went and snagged one, any one, to jump on his bandwagon because, obviously, one is the same as the next.
