100 Kick-Ass Female Characters: #83
83. Selina "Catwoman" Kyle, as seen in the Batman comics, the television series Batman portrayed by Julie Newmar, Lee Merryweather, and Eartha Kitt, the film Batman Returns portrayed by Michelle Pfeiffer, the film Catwoman portrayed by Halle Berry, and the film The Dark Knight Rises portrayed by Anne Hathaway
I've mentioned before that I really love comics. Of course, for anyone who is even minimally interested in comics, you know it's hard to come by awesome female characters who aren't damsels in distress or featured in every panel with their tits out. For a genre that does a great job in so respects, it's treatment of women isn't always top notch. And while Catwoman often gets written off as a catsuit wearing sexpot, I think there's so much more to her than that.
Part of what's great about comics is that, depending on the writer, canon is always changing. Usually Catwoman is depicted as a cat burglar villain who has a love/hate relationship with Batman. In later canon, she has transitioned from villain to anti-heroine, but the bones of the story are usually the same. However, I'm a big fan of Frank Miller's Batman: Year One which revises Selina's origin story. In Miller's retelling, Selina is a prostitute who wants to get away from her pimp and begins to study martial arts. She wears the catsuit her former pimp gave her to keep her hidden when she begins to perform Robin Hood-esque robberies, which is when she encounters Batman. It is then she decides to keep wearing the suit because, if Gotham can have a Batman, it can also have a Catwoman.
What I love about Catwoman is there is nothing magical about her; she is just a woman in a catsuit, albeit one trained to fight. Unlike Batman, she doesn't have any grand ideals about changing the world; she does what she wants when she wants it, and she never feels the need to justify herself to anyone. She loves Batman but never at the expense of herself, and, while there are many alternate canons for her, the one thing Selina Kyle never is, is the eyecandy who stands around, looks pretty, and lets the boys do the fighting.
And that's a great kind of kick-ass.
I've mentioned before that I really love comics. Of course, for anyone who is even minimally interested in comics, you know it's hard to come by awesome female characters who aren't damsels in distress or featured in every panel with their tits out. For a genre that does a great job in so respects, it's treatment of women isn't always top notch. And while Catwoman often gets written off as a catsuit wearing sexpot, I think there's so much more to her than that.
Part of what's great about comics is that, depending on the writer, canon is always changing. Usually Catwoman is depicted as a cat burglar villain who has a love/hate relationship with Batman. In later canon, she has transitioned from villain to anti-heroine, but the bones of the story are usually the same. However, I'm a big fan of Frank Miller's Batman: Year One which revises Selina's origin story. In Miller's retelling, Selina is a prostitute who wants to get away from her pimp and begins to study martial arts. She wears the catsuit her former pimp gave her to keep her hidden when she begins to perform Robin Hood-esque robberies, which is when she encounters Batman. It is then she decides to keep wearing the suit because, if Gotham can have a Batman, it can also have a Catwoman.
What I love about Catwoman is there is nothing magical about her; she is just a woman in a catsuit, albeit one trained to fight. Unlike Batman, she doesn't have any grand ideals about changing the world; she does what she wants when she wants it, and she never feels the need to justify herself to anyone. She loves Batman but never at the expense of herself, and, while there are many alternate canons for her, the one thing Selina Kyle never is, is the eyecandy who stands around, looks pretty, and lets the boys do the fighting.
And that's a great kind of kick-ass.