Batgirl : continuity, crisis and feminism
- Submitting institution
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Kingston University
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 33-38-1457
- Type
- C - Chapter in book
- DOI
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10.5040/9781838711535.ch-010
- Book title
- Many more lives of the Batman
- Publisher
- British Film Institute
- ISBN
- 9781844577651
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2015
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
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-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Batgirl: Continuity, Crisis and Feminism’ appears in the collection, The Many More Lives of the Batman (2015), which I co-edited with Roberta Pearson and William Uricchio. This was a revised and expanded edition of the influential anthology The Many Lives of the Batman (1991). As co-editor of Many More Lives of the Batman, my contribution focused on recent developments, and it was my overall responsibility to ensure that the new volume engaged with current media texts, updating the scope of the 1991 edition. I was jointly responsible for deciding which chapters from the 1991 edition remained relevant and should be republished, and had sole responsibility for commissioning and editing a new chapter (Bevin, chapter 9) and arranging and conducting an interview with a leading Batman writer (Morrison, chapter 4).
My own essay foregrounds one of the key secondary characters in the fictional Batman mythos, Batgirl (aka Barbara Gordon), and examines her critically-neglected narrative and representation. It takes a feminist approach to the cultural history of this character, contextualizing it within the broader history of the women’s movement. Through a textual analysis of television episodes and selected comic book stories, the chapter explores the origins of Batgirl in the late 1960s as a figure who gently subverted gender roles. It traces her evolution into a more politicized heroine who ran successfully for Congress in the 1970s, and enjoyed a sense of sisterhood and solidarity with other female characters. This eventually leads to a close examination of The Killing Joke (1988), an acclaimed but controversial story that subjected Batgirl to sexual assault and an injury to her spine, which left her in a wheelchair. Ultimately, the chapter argues that the narratives and representation of heroines like Batgirl have a broader importance as public, popular articulations of gender roles and identities.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
