8
Women Making Myth
It was strange to think that all the great women of fiction were … not only seen by the other sex, but seen only in relation to the other sex …Suppose, for instance, that men were only represented in literature as the lovers of women, and were never the friends of men, soldiers, thinkers, dreamers …
—Virginia Woolf1
It's no secret that the entertainment industry, and thus modern mythmaking, has been dominated by men. While there certainly are many males who write wonderful, dynamic, and complex women—Greg Rucka, Peter O'Donnell, and Joss Whedon to name a few—it's reasonable to assume that women making myth will color the journey of the female hero with female experience and perhaps provide an even more authentic reflection of our lives.
A consideration of how female artists, producers, writers, and actors have presented, interpreted, approached, or embodied themes that dominate the female hero's journey is in order, as women are more apt than men to write about mothers and daughters and sisterhood and women mentoring women, simply because writers tend to write what they know. Women also form organizations to help raise consciousness about gender representation in the media, and as actresses, they embody iconic characters with responsibility, complexity, and verve.
Actresses who play superwomen often have stories about women who have told them how the characters they played inspired them.
Actress and comedian Whoopi Goldberg famously told Nichelle Nichols how seeing Lt. Uhura on television as a little girl inspired her toward her own groundbreaking career—affirming Martin Luther King's prediction that the character would have a profound effect on children.2 Astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison was also inspired by Uhura, joining National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to become the first Black woman to cross the final frontier.
Lucy Lawless, Lynda Carter, and Jennifer Garner have all been told by people of various ages, and sexual preferences, what Xena, Wonder Woman, and Sydney Bristow have meant to them. Sarah Michelle Gellar takes her Kid's Choice and Teen's Choice Awards very seriously and is conscious about the public persona she reflects. Feeling a responsibility toward the young women who see the characters she plays as role models, Gellar recognizes how important it is for them to have positive inspiration.3 In her meetings with the writers of Smallville, Allison Mack has insisted that her character, Chloe Sullivan, a proto—Lois Lane introduced to the Superman mythos in the television series, remains a positive role model for young girls—who have too few visions of smart, ambitious women with integrity.
The characters these actresses have embodied have also had a heroic effect on the players themselves. Nichelle Nichols, tired of seeing all-White, all-male teams of astronauts that weren't representative of the future her friend Gene Roddenberry envisioned, used the iconic status of Lt. Uhura to help recruit women and minority persons to NASA. As she wrote in her autobiography, she
could not reconcile the term “United States space program” with an endeavor that did not involve anyone except white males. No offense to those fine, brave men, but if we in America tell our children they can be all they dream, why weren't there women and minority astronauts? Thousands of fans wrote thanking me for Uhura's inspiration. Little Black girls and boys, Latino and Asian children had a legitimate right to share in that dream. Things had to change.4
In 1977, after having undertaken a number of government contracts through her consultant firm, Women in Motion, Inc., Nichols was appointed to the board of directors of the National Space Institute and became a deputy administrator of NASA. She gave a speech in Washington D.C. called “New Opportunities for the Humanization of Space” and began a recruitment campaign as a NASA contractor—under one condition. “If I put my name and my reputation on the line for NASA,” she said,
and I find qualified women and minority people to apply, and a year from now I still see a lily-white, all-male astronaut corps, I will personally file a class-action lawsuit against NASA. I will not be used to attract publicity and then later hear you say, “Gee, we really tried, but there weren't any qualified women or minorities out there.”56
As part of her mission, Nichols made a series of Public Service Announcements, appeared in national publications including Newsweek and People, and was on television programs such as Good Morning America.She also produced a half-hour orientation film for the education director of the National Air and Space Museum and founded a youth organization called “Space Cadets of America.”7
While Uhura was the face of possibility in the final frontier and Nichols was the future of the space program, Jennifer Garner, in her role as Sydney Bristow, became the modern face of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). When the actual CIA recognized the character as the embodiment of their ideals, they procured Garner to star in a promotional video for their recruitment center.
Geena Davis—who has made a career out of playing remarkable women including an outlaw, a baseball player, a pirate, an assassin, and even the president of the USA—was struck by the alarming lack of female characters in children's television while watching cartoons with her daughter. The imbalance inspired her to create The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media—a nonprofit organization that researches and brings awareness to gender in children's entertainment. At its core, the institute believes that “Kids need to see entertainment where females are valued as much as males.”8
That these organizations, promotional campaigns, and endorsements can be as successful as they are speaks to the talent and drive of the actresses involved. When an actress can truly embody an iconic character, she becomes associated with that character's values and actions in the public mind (although, on the less fortunate flipside, she may also face typecasting as a result).
An actress can also take a sidekick character and make her an icon of female empowerment—Margot Kidder's Lois Lane being a perfect example. The tenacious Daily Planet reporter had for too long been devalued, the rationale being she was created as a secondary character and is therefore only a secondary character. Before Kidder, Lois was, as over 100 titular comic book issues proved, quite literally, Superman's girlfriend. But Kidder's feisty femme in 1978's Superman: The Movie provided a new, more empowered version of Lois. The familiar Lois is there: the one who talks to her editor-in-chief as if he were her equal, rather than her boss, and the respected writer, who though established, is still forced to hand over her beat to the new guy on his first day.
But she takes the assignments she can get, her mantra being “A good reporter doesn't get great stories. A good reporter makes them great.”9
She's a bit lonely—a skeptical city girl bemused by the small-town boy, Clark Kent, and focused on her writing career. When the mild-mannered reporter asks Lois if she'd be interested in having dinner with him, she declines his offer:
Lois: Sorry, Clark. I'm booked.
Clark: Oh.
Lois: Air Force One is landing at the airport tonight and this kid's going to be there to make sure you-know-who answers a few questions he'd rather duck.
Clark: Don't you ever let up?
Lois: For what? Oh, I've seen how the other half lives. My sister, for instance … three kids, two cats, one mortgage … I'd go bananas after a week.10
She's a modern woman, successful enough to have her own apartment in Manhattan—with a view and a private roof garden, no less. While interviewing Superman on her patio, she swoons a little, but still manages to ask the questions her readers will want answers to. And this is what makes Kidder's portrayal different from that of her filmic predecessors. Phyllis Coates and Noel Neill are remarkable actresses, and each provided a memorable embodiment of Lois Lane. But Kidder, a woman as notoriously out-spoken as Ms. Lane, never wanted to play roles that were female stereotypes, or where the female protagonist was simply someone's girlfriend.11 So rather than playing Lois as only a love interest, Kidder also made Lois Lane her own woman.
Kidder further explains that she played Lois as two distinct characters: one “Vis-à-vis Clark as an independent career woman” and the other as “Mushy in the middle around Superman.”12 Her method makes sense; Kal-El himself has two different identities, each demanding a different sort of portrayal and interaction. As a result, her Lois is more complex than the reporter of the 1940s film serials and 1950s television show, and more complicated than the love interest of the comics. She gets to be a woman and a journalist.13
While Kidder doesn't believe Lois is a feminist per se, she does note that the women's movement played into her characterization, as she came out of the last generation of women that were expected to be demure, quiet, and googly-eyed, and in the mid-1960s, “things changed in a BIG way.” Women experienced the liberation of being allowed to be themselves and there was, as Kidder notes, an idea of “I can be who I want!” Additionally, because of the relative rarity of female reporters, “You could not NOT portray [Lois] as a feisty, independent woman,” she says. But clearly, the values of the women's movement Kidder internalized, as well as what she calls the “witty and fabulous lines” Superman scripter Tom Mankiewicz wrote for her, took Lois Lane to the next possible level of independent womanhood. By portraying Lois as the feminist she can be—hardworking, talented, and dynamic—Kidder became the quintessential face of the character, just as Lynda Carter did for Wonder Woman.14
Kidder believes the time is right for an updated/modern version of Lois Lane, saying, “I'd love to see some version [of her] that represents how you young women are now.” She believes that feminism has come a long way since the 1970s, “and it should be really reflected in these new characters.”15
While actresses of film and television have managed to utilize their visibility, women have had even less of a presence and an empowered voice as both creators and characters in mainstream superhero comics.16
Stan Lee once contemplated the lack of fictional superwomen in comics thusly:
We know that there are more superheroes than superheroines in comic books today. We also know that more males than females read superhero comics. Okay then, here's the question—do less females read comics because they seem to be aimed at a male audience, or are they aimed at a male audience because less females read them? If you're expecting an answer, forget it. I've spent years waiting for someone to tell me!17
Lee may have had the best of intentions—as did (and do) many others in the comic book industry—but the truth is women have long felt alienated from superhero stories. And whether they still manage to be fangirls or not, the treatment of women in mainstream comics as cranky girlfriend, mother figure, vixen, and victim has left women frustrated. Unfortunately for fangirls (and boys), 30 years later, Lee's questions regarding comics' readership remain poignantly relevant. The likely answer to Lee's query is twofold: there have been relatively few women voices producing accessible modern myth, and there is the fallacious assumption that girls don't read comics.18 As Trina Robbins has repeatedly stated, girls will read comics when there are comics for girls to read—a fact proven by the popularity of manga in the USA.
The emergence of female writers and artists in the mainstream industry, including Devin Grayson (Batman, Nightwing), Nicola Scott (Birds of Prey), Gail Simone (Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman), and Fiona Avery (Araña) to name a few, indicates that perhaps the tide is finally starting to turn.
The recent explosion of feminist fangirl bloggers and critics on the Internet suggests this as well. Women are finding community in Cyberspace by discovering that other women enjoy superhero comics, but are also troubled by the treatment of women in the genre. Combating sexism and promoting diversity, both in the comics industry and in comics themselves, are groups like Friends of Lulu, a national organization in the USA whose goals are to increase female readership of comics, to promote the work of women in comics, and to provide support and networking opportunities. There are also Sequential Tart, a webzine founded and written by women and dedicated to exploring the comics industry, and When Fangirls Attack, a linkblog that compiles articles on gender in superhero comics, manga, and fandom from across the Net.
Girl Wonder is a collection of websites dedicated to female creators, as well as characters in mainstream comics. Their mascot is Stephanie Brown, who spent a short time as a largely unknown and greatly underappreciated “Robin” to Batman.19 She was introduced to the mythos in 1992 and began fighting crime as a means to spoil the misdeeds of her father, Arthur Brown, a.k.a. Cluemaster. She did so under the secret identity of “Spoiler,” leaving behind clues for Batman that would enable him to foil and imprison her dad. She later works with the then current Robin, Tim Drake, and the pair become romantically involved.
When Tim Drake is asked by his family to give up crime fighting, Stephanie sews herself a “Robin” costume in the trademark red, yellow, and green of the sidekick. She breaks into the Batcave, and when a surprised Batman asks, “Stephanie?,” she replies, “No. Not Stephanie. Not even Spoiler. From now on, you can call me Robin.”20
Batman, believing Stephanie lacks skill and discipline, has never truly accepted her into the crime-fighting community (though she'd been a part of it for over 12 years of continuity). Yet impressed with her determination, he concedes to honor her with the title Robin and takes her on as a protégée. Whether he does so because he wants to give her a chance or because he's using her as a means to manipulate Tim back into his fold is unclear.
Stephanie undergoes intense training with Batman and the Birds of Prey, and patrols with the Cassandra Cain version of Batgirl.21 In her short career as Robin, Batman alternately praises Stephanie for “innovating on the fly” and then punishes her for disobeying a direct order—the latter leading to her abrupt professional dismissal. Desperate to regain Batman's approval, Stephanie steals and attempts to implement one of his crime-fighting plans. It ultimately backfires; many people end up killed as a result, and Stephanie herself is taken captive by the villain Black Mask who brutally tortures her with a power drill in gratuitous and highly sexualized images—an assault that is depicted over several issues of the “War Games” storyline. Stephanie manages to escape, only to die as a result of her injuries.
Female comic book fans felt slapped in the face.
One fan, named Mary Borsellino, had seen an interview with Dan DiDio, the senior vice president and executive editor of DC Comics, in which he said that Stephanie's death would have an ongoing impact on “our heroes and their lives” throughout the forthcoming year.22 Borsellino told Sequential Tart that she responded by making “a snotty comment in … [her] online journal about how … [she] would believe that only when Stephanie had her own memorial case. The statement discounted everyone who'd had Stephanie as their hero, and that really bothered … [her].” She adds, “The journal entry got one hundred comments, expressing the same rage and frustration and sadness that I was feeling. That same day, I registered the domain girl-wonder.org.”23
The site became a resource for empowered feminist fangirls to come together as an organized community. Project Girl Wonder was launched— a campaign that demanded DC Comics honor Stephanie Brown's contribution to the Bat-mythos by acknowledging her in the way Batman had honored another Robin lost to tragedy—with a glass memorial case in the Batcave. Project Girl Wonder included a letter-writing campaign as well as orchestrated activism at comic conventions to ask the powers that be at DC when Steph would get her due. Dismissive answers included: “She's not getting one.” “She's never getting one.” And the cruelest of all, “It was her fault”—a sentiment echoed in an edition of the Batgirl comic; Cassandra Cain is drowning, and a hallucination of Stephanie appears to guide her back to consciousness. Stephanie, who is illustrated as decaying, tells her friend that she takes responsibility for her own torture and death at the hands of Black Mask. She says, actually says: “I screwed up. I paid the price. Simple.”24
But it's not so simple. Her statement recalls not only Wonder Woman's comment about not liking women in the “Women's Liberation Issue” of Wonder Woman—a snarky response to feminist activists of the 1970s era who had protested that character's treatment—but it also speaks to other, more sexist thinking and insidious misogyny such as blaming a woman's sexual assault on her attire or on her being out alone after dark. It recalls a woman being beaten, maybe even to death, by her husband because—as he says—she made him angry.
Another response as to why the Girl Wonder did not deserve a memorial was that “Stephanie was never really a Robin,” to which Katherine Keller, the editrix-in-chief of Sequential Tart, responded in an open letter to Dan DiDio,
Because Steph's a girl and didn't happen to have the Robin costume on at the time she died her time as Robin doesn't count? Is that the message you want DC male and female fans to be receiving? Because, sir, it's the one you're delivering: the female doesn't count…. It's the absence of the memorial that speaks the loudest, and what that absence says is profound.25
Keller goes on to note that while Stephanie may not have been the best, the brightest, or even the most loved superhero in comics, she rose above her short stint as Robin to become a symbol to many women:
See, Steph became Robin, not Batgirl. Robin is the icon. Robin is Batman's closest, most intimate relationship. Robin is the heir apparent. Robin (whether adopted or not) is Batman's child. And I was interested in how the dynamics would change now that a father-son relationship had become a father-daughter relationship. But, alas, it was not to be. However, stunt casting doesn't change the fact that a girl had become Robin.
So, Steph doesn't matter to me that much a character, but she matters to me as a very powerful symbol. And unfortunately, that symbol is now one of how the contributions of women are systematically denied, ignored, explained away, and undercut in every way. Of how one standard exists for males (Jason Todd) and how another standard exists for women (Stephanie Brown).26
Stephanie's death was finally retconned in 2008. She appeared in a one-shot comic Robin/Spoiler that explained that Dr. Leslie Thompkins— the woman who had supposedly let Stephanie die to teach Batman a lesson about involving children in his vigilantism—had actually taken her to Africa. Stephanie has also appeared in at least two additional issues of Robin.
Girl Wonder continues to host message boards, webcomics, and blogs as well as posts scholarly papers, recommended sites, and a map of female-friendly comic book stores.
Stephanie Brown was not the first woman in comics to be sexually assaulted, and indeed, the rape, torture, kidnapping, and disempowerment of women in superhero comics is abhorrent and persistent. It's generally used for one of three narrative purposes: shock value, as the initial motivation for a superheroine's quest and/or vigilantism (i.e., Red Sonja's rape), or more commonly, as the driving force of a superman's rage. In two memorable examples, Spider-Man's girlfriend, Gwen Stacey, was tossed off the Brooklyn Bridge by his villainous nemesis, the Green Goblin, and Matt Murdock's former flame, Elektra, was stabbed through the heart by Bullseye with her own weapon. In one particularly gruesome case, the Green Lantern's girlfriend, Alexandra DeWitt, was strangled and stuffed in a refrigerator by Major Force.27
But it's not just wives and girlfriends who are victims. In 1999, roughly five years before the assault and death of Stephanie Brown, Gail Simone, a hairdresser and comics fan in Oregon, compiled a list of superheroines who had been raped, crippled, depowered, magically impregnated (without consent and therefore a form of rape), turned evil, given a life-threatening disease, or murdered. Because of extended continuity—made necessary by the longevity of medium—characters were often subject to a combination of the above atrocities. Black Canary has, for example, been tortured, made infertile, and depowered.
The trend Simone observed became known as “Women in Refrigerators”—after Alexandra DeWitt's demise—and the list was sent to several comics creators, along with a letter, asking what they thought about it. Cautious not to blame anyone, or otherwise appear antagonistic, Simone emphasized her genuine curiosity, noting that when she “realized that it was actually harder to list major female heroes who HADN'T been sliced up somehow,” she felt she “might be on to something a bit …well, creepy.”28
The responses she received (catalogued online along with the original list) were naturally mixed. Some creators were defensive, while others were genuinely embarrassed once faced with how often these narrative devices were used. Some were convinced that this trend was indicative of larger issues of sexism and misogyny in our culture. Others pointed out that men in superhero comics suffer too. Simone responded that the issue isn't with the violence women would necessarily be expected to face as protagonists in an action/adventure story, but in the ways this violence was depicted; the issues arise when women are shown as only victims or hostages, when they are raped or murdered for cheap shock value, or for the effect their assault will have on the male character's story.
Overwhelmingly, women were generally humiliated and/or canonically tossed aside in ways that male superheroes weren't; male heroes tended to come back to life or be healed more often and more quickly, and the deaths of females were usually perverted or sexualized in some way. As Simone told Shaenon K. Garrity for The Comics Journal, “You rarely have guy heroes killed in ways that thrust their crotches forward and expose their asses through strategic rips in their super-undies.”29 Additionally, the disproportionate number of male superheroes to female characters makes what happens to women much more noticeable.
As a result of the attention the Women-in-Refrigerators list received, Simone went on to write a column called “You'll All Be Sorry” for the website Comic Book Resources. She later ventured into scripting comics, becoming one of the best-loved writers at DC. She took over duties on Birds of Prey and later Wonder Woman.30
BirdsofPrey was conceived for DC by Jordan B. Gorfinkel and scripted by Chuck Dixon. Though the title started as a one shot in 1996, called Black Canary/Oracle: Birds of Prey, the series is still running over a decade later.31 It featured Barbara Gordon, formerly known as Batgirl in her new secret identity as “Oracle”—an alias adopted after she was shot in the spine by the Joker and paralyzed from the waist down in 1988's The Killing Joke.32 Barbara, refusing to be limited by her wheelchair, continues to fight crime and injustice by providing intelligence to others in the superhero community with her mad computer-hacking skills. Few know Oracle's true identity, and Barbara remains one of the few superheroes in comics to have a disability. In BirdsofPrey she befriends and teams up with the Black Canary, also known as Dinah Lance.
Riding the wave of television superwomen inspired by the success of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a short-lived live action series loosely based on Dixon's Birds of Prey premiered in 2002.
Developed by Laeta Kalogridis, the series featured Ashley Scott as the Earth Two version of the Huntress, also known as Helena Wayne, and the daughter of Catwoman and Batman. Dina Meyer starred as Barbara Gordon/Oracle, and Rachel Skarsten played a modified version of Dinah Lance. Instead of being the adult Dinah was in the comics, she was reimagined as a teenage runaway in need of a mentor to avoid conflicting with Kalogridis's favored version of Huntress. A female villain was added in Mia Sara's wild-eyed take on Harley Quinn.
While BirdsofPrey contained elements of Dixon's interpretation of the Batman mythos, it lacked the mythic resonance of the similarly superherothemed live-action show, Smallville (based on the teenage Clark Kent), and so only one season was produced. But regardless of its distortion of canon, as well as its sub-par scripting and production, Birds of Prey still managed to explore themes relevant to the female hero, namely, the importance of female friend and mentorship (also discussed in Chapters 5 and 7). When Helena tells Barbara in frustration, “I can't be what you were,” referring to the latter's tenure as Batgirl, Barbara replies, “Good. Just be yourself instead.” She honors and nurtures her friend's particular skills instead of making her a clone or relegating her to sidekick. Barbara also expects that Dinah will be more that a mini-Babs, though she does encourage her young ward's unique potential by setting some household ground rules. Dinah is required to go to school and to work on her skills both mental and physical. Even the voice-over to the series emphasizes the theme of women mentoring women, calling Barbara “a mentor and trainer to heroes” and adds that “Together,” these three women, the Birds of Prey, “are protectors of New Gotham.”
The television series was an unfortunate failure, but the very fact that it focused on three female leads, one of which is in a wheelchair, and had a female villain is in itself revolutionary. Birds of Prey, the comic, on the other hand, fared much better—particularly under the direction of Gail Simone. When she took over writing duties in 2003, Simone asked if she could add the Huntress toBirds of Prey. She received some resistance, as DC was attempting to distance themselves from the recently canceled television series.33 They eventually relented, however, and other characters were added too: Savant, an occasional villain and sometimes ally of the Birds of Prey, and his sidekick Creote, a ginormous, Russian muscleman (who is in love with a clueless Savant).
Simone also incorporated a plethora of bad-ass females to the narrative who frequently collaborate with the original core team of Barbara, Dinah, and Helena; a list that includes: Lady Blackhawk, Lady Shiva, Big Barda, Misfit, Judomaster, Gypsy, and Manhunter. Icons Lois Lane and Wonder Woman have made appearances, and Dinah adopted a child prodigy named Sin—a girl who was being trained as the next Lady Shiva but who may now enjoy a healthy and loving upbringing with a strong and positive mother. Of the superwomen, Simone told Newsarama:
I'm extremely proud of the fact that this book often had an almost exclusively female cast, and yet, no two characters are the same. They all had distinctive voices and characters, from Misfit to Huntress to Barda to Oracle and on and on. It put the lie to the idea that male readers wouldn't read a book with a female cast, and it stayed one of DC's steadiest selling and most critically acclaimed books. It's drawn the attention of the national media many, many times, without a single a-list star in it, and almost no big stunt events. I think, if you look at how many supposedly girl-friendly superhero books have come and gone while BirdsofPrey keeps going, it's pretty impressive.34
She's also noted that the women of Birds of Prey “don't apologize for being asskickers, nor for being smart, nor for being sexy, nor for being sexual, for that matter.”35 And they are fabulously fun females indeed. Simone's female characters talk about things that are important to women, but also about girly things, without being defined by, or confined to, their femininity: the joy of really good food, that a new flattering costume is the result of 700 sit-ups a day, and the difficulty of coming to terms with your mother's flaws. There is an emphasis on deep and meaningful female friendships and on how an act of compassion can have as much positive and life-enriching effect on ourselves as on others.
For example, when Dinah returns from Asia with Sin, Barbara is worried that their crime-fighting lifestyle will put the child in danger. Dinah reminds her friend: “Sometimes we have to take the family we're given, Babs. She has no one … She's my responsibility. And more than that, I think I could be a good, you know—mother-type thing.”36 While out at brunch with the Birds and Sin, Dinah contemplates her family:
I thought it'd be awkward. Coming back, I mean. After what I experienced in Asia. But like it or not, this is home, and these are my she-peeps. And god help me, I simply straight up adore them. While I was away, in between being beaten to a pulp and crippling a small army in the mud and filth …I acquired two of the best things ever to happen to me in my impulsive and inelegant life. First, I figured out who I AM, and who I want to BE. Or more accurately, maybe, who I do NOT want to be. And the other's sitting next to me having her first restaurant meal, wearing her first formal dress shoes. I know she's not really my daughter. The word ‘Mother' means terrible things to her. But good LORD, she's captured me already. She had nothing, no family, no one. Not even a pair of underwear to her name. But now, she's got me.37
Barbara too will take responsibility for a daughter—though one slightly older than Sin. The teenage Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe has the ability to tele-port and attempts to adopt the mantle of Batgirl by appearing in Barbara's secret location dressed in a makeshift cape and cowl. Babs convinces the girl not to pursue a career as Batgirl—that it's too dangerous—and uses herself and Stephanie Brown as examples. The girl agrees, but later returns in her new identity, “Misfit.”
When Barbara finds out that Misfit is without a family or a home, having lost both to an apartment fire, she reaches out to the teen. Perhaps the influence of her most compassionate friend, Dinah. As Barbara narrates:
I started this operation for a reason. It's not something I talk about—I almost lost Helena over it. I wanted to help people, people who needed the help. Starting with me. She hasn't asked for anything, but she has the look of someone who's gotten all too used to disappointment. If I can't help someone like her …. If I won't help someone like her …. then what, really, is the point? I'm not Spy Smasher. I never meant to be anything like her. I'm not Spy Smasher. I'm not Batman. It's not about fear. It's not about control. I'm Oracle. I help people. People who have no one. People in need. And that's good enough.38
Birds of Prey presents sisterhood without getting bogged down in rhetoric about sisterhood—which has the potential to come off as insincere. As Gail Simone has repeatedly said at panel question and answer sessions, as well as in interviews, she doesn't write female characters, just characters. But her femaleness, her femininity, compassion, motherhood, sisterhood, intellect, humor, and bravery, shines through her characters nevertheless.
Trina Robbins created a healthy, functioning, and supportive relationship in her and Anne Timmons's female positive comic book series GoGirl! The title character is the teenage daughter of Go-Go Girl—a famous super-heroine back in the 1970s who had retired because her husband “was kinda threatened by having a wife who could fly” (though they eventually divorced anyway).39 Mrs. Goldman doesn't like to talk about the past, but when she discovers that her daughter, Lindsay, inherited her ability to fly, she tells the young girl that if she wants to be a hero, she's going to have to learn how to protect herself. Mother and daughter hit the gym for lessons in self-defense and kick-boxing because, as the wise Mrs. Goldman says, “Being a superheroine takes more than just the ability to fly.”40
GoGirl! was conceived out of an act of sisterhood and female empowerment. Artist Timmons had approached Robbins at a comic book convention where Robbins was doing a portfolio review. Robbins was immediately impressed. “This woman shows up, and she's so talented, she can draw anything, but she's not selling to Marvel or DC. They won't buy her stuff. Well, to me it was obvious …,” she says. Robbins' conclusion? Timmons draws like a girl.
“There's definitely a boy's style and a girl's style,” says Robbins, who adds that she knows people will tell her differently.41 But Timmons agrees, noting that “You know, there really is. There's a different way of how I think girls and guys view life.”42
Timmons says the two women became friends and email pen pals when they found out they “both like comics about girls.”43 They decided to collaborate on a project together—though were convinced that in an era of Women in Refrigerators and “Bad Girl” comics, it would never sell. “At that point, what was going on in comics were bad girl comics. Giant breasts. Things like ‘Lady Death,' or whatever the hell her name was. That's what they did,” says Robbins, who adds
And I've always had so many different ideas floating around in my head, many of which I've suggested over the past 30 years to various mainstream editors, and they've said, well this is a very nice idea, but it's for girls, and girls don't read comics. You know the story. And of course they can't say it anymore because of Manga, but they sure used to say it a lot.44
Through previous work as an associate at a studio based in Portland, Oregon, Timmons had made several local connections, including at Image Comics, which publishes creator-owned material. She asked Robbins if they wanted to submit something together, and they did. While Image was very supportive of GoGirl!, sales were low.
Robbins explains the issue was problems with distribution:
Comic book stores wouldn't carry girls' comics. So girls couldn't find the comics, so of course the sales were low. You know, if you're not going to order the book, the sales are gonna be low. So we figured, the only way to get around this, was to do a graphic novel. Because then we could get it into libraries and bookstores.45
Dark Horse took up the chance, and the books sold very well indeed. “Librarians in particular love us,” says Robbins, who adds, “They're always looking for graphic novels for girls.”46 And GoGirl! is great for girls. There is a strong mother–daughter relationship inspired by Robbins' close relationship with her own daughter. She says, “I am a mother, and I have a great relationship. I love my daughter so much,” and adds that she didn't realize when she created GoGirl!, how much of that bond had been reflected in Lindsay and her mother:
It was all subconscious—but one of the things that had been important to me in the original Wonder Woman is the relationship with Wonder Woman and her mother. She has a strong mother, who is completely supportive of her daughter going out to Man's world, even though at the beginning she doesn't want her to do it. Just like GoGirl!'s mother, at the beginning, didn't want to talk about her being a superheroine because it had kind of disappointed her. But when she found out her daughter was doing it, she became supportive.47
Unlike most of the male-drawn, mainstream female superheroes, GoGirl! is always modestly dressed—a result of all the portfolios Robbins had seen at conventions that claimed to have strong female leads she'd appreciate; “And,” she says, “the ‘strong female lead' has giant breasts bigger than her head, and [she's] wearing a tiny little outfit, and a thong bikini…. And of course, here's librarians looking for books for girls, and obviously they're not going to want to carry those books. So GoGirl! was always decently dressed.”48
GoGirl! also features a diverse cast. Lindsay has friends that are Asian, African American, smart, and preppy, and it teaches valuable lessons about bravery, loyalty, and friendship. One of its strengths is that Robbins' and Timmons' affection for the characters shines through. “I love writing GoGirl!,” says Robbins,
I mean, I love it. I think as a writer you really have to love your characters, and you really have to know your characters. And I mean, I look at some of these mainstream comics, and they don't love their characters—or know them. I think that most of the guys who have written Wonder Woman don't love her.49, 50
Fortunately, Gail Simone, who is currently writing Wonder Woman, is similarly endeared to her characters. Even though her industry friends have told her not to get too attached to company-owned characters, as writers and artists are shifted from title to title according to editorial needs, she finds no other way of writing works for her at all.51
Simone took over writing duties on Wonder Woman in 2007 with Issue 14. Her first story arc titled, “The Circle,” is an intriguing elaboration on the birth of Diana.52
In “The Circle” we are taken centuries back in time to when Queen Hippolyta asks the gods for a child. The queen's four closest and most trusted bodyguards, Alkyone, Myrto, Charis, and Philomela, are against this, fearing that for one woman to have a child and the rest to not will wreak havoc on Themyscira and break the bonds of Amazonian sisterhood rather than reinforce them. Captain of the guards, Alkyone, explains:
We'd been on this island, our homeland, for ages beyond memory. And still, the ache of an eternally empty womb was almost unbearable for some. Many of our sisters carved infant-shaped totems out of sandalwood, and carried them about our person. “Whittle-babies,” we named them. A bit of pretend hope, the foolish dream of a sterile race, perhaps. But for some, it was a receptacle, a forum for thoughts we no longer had any capacity to express, for a kind of love we had no space to fit. I put the thoughts aside. One child amongst an island of women who could never experience … it was inconceivable.53
When these four royal guards hear that a woman on the island has a daughter, they investigate, but what they find instead is a heartbreaking and frightening scene. The poor woman is not a new mother; rather she has gone mad, singing lullabies while cradling a doll she has convinced herself was a real child. Alkyone, fearing that such a madness could spread, orders that no dolls resembling children can ever be crafted on the island again and has the woman discretely executed.54
But when Hippolyta, the one woman they cannot control or intimidate, is determined to craft a child for all the sister Amazons to share, Alkyone instead begs her queen not to, believing that the others' initial joy would quickly turn to envy and hatred if their queen had a daughter while they remained barren. But when Hippolyta returns from the ritual that created Diana and presents her to her beloved sisters with a hearty, “I give you your Princess. I give you our Daughter!,” they respond with sincere cheers.55
Unconvinced, Alkyone, Myrto, Charis, and Philomela enter the queen's bedchamber that night, intending to kill the child. They are stopped for a moment by the beauty of the sleeping princess, just long enough for Hippolyta to awake and see her betrayal. The four women are imprisoned in solitary confinement on opposite ends of Themyscira. One night a year, Hippolyta offers them the chance to repent. They always refuse, still filled with personal envy that did not, in fact, extend to their sisters.
In an-all female society, women would think about children. Not every sister on the island would necessarily feel either an intellectual desire or a biological urge to raise a child, but certainly some would, perhaps even many. Yet this aspect of a woman's life hadn't been explored in the Wonder Woman comic before Simone.56
Additionally, even with a societal emphasis on sisterhood, it's reasonable to assume there would remain the possibility that other Amazons might feel it's unjust for their queen to have a daughter when such a privilege is denied to them. For Alkyone, this is precisely the problem, for the Amazons are supposed to be a “race of equals, of sisters.”57
But Diana, as we know, did not cause a rift. Rather, she is a child of Themyscira—a daughter of Amazons. As Hippolyta later explains, “All the Amazons became her mother, as one. She brought us hope and love. She saved us … She saved us all.”58
Simone has made an effort to tap into what's great about Wonder Woman—Wonder Woman the Amazon, the Princess, the Ambassador, the Human, the Ass-Kicker, the Empathizer, the Goddess, the Friend, and the Daughter—and expanded on all of these by considering that Diana's future identity may be even further fleshed out by the roles of Mother and Lover.
For example, when Wonder Woman begins courting a man named Thomas Tresser (the partner of her alter ego Diana Prince), she takes him to Themyscira to meet her mother. The queen intimidates the hell out of the man before giving her approval. She also gives him a spear crafted by her own hand, a title (Guardsman, Sir Thomas of Cleveland), and her allegiance: “You are an Amazon now, Thomas. No matter what happens from now on, you must never forget that. You must be true to your sisters. For any of us would give our life for you without a moment's hesitation.” As Diana and Thomas prepare to leave the island, Hippolyta adds, “I only want one more thing from you…. Babies … As many as you can provide for, as quickly as you may produce them. Babies, babies, babies.”59
Hippolyta is a warrior and a queen, but she is also a mother, longing for grandchildren. The issue is not belabored; there is no pressure placed on Diana, and no concern that she would ever be forced to choose between motherhood and heroism.
Just one issue later, Diana, after spending time with two young sisters, thinks to herself: “Children. Their joy is so infectious, they laugh completely and without reserve. My life is changing so much lately. I can imagine things duty would not allow, previously. Children. I wonder.”60
Influenced by the Charlie's Angels redux, and therefore a spoof of a spoof, D.E.B.S. (2004) is a silly, spy-fi gem clothed in a teenage love story. Or perhaps, it's the other way around.
Originally an independent short film written and directed by Angela Robinson, and funded by a grant from Power Up—an organization that promotes the visibility and integration of gay women in entertainment, the arts, and all forms of media,61 Robinson described the short as “a story about a trio of super spies who are all chicks.” It was based on a comic book she'd written, as she says, “I love all the comic book characters: Charlie's Angels, Batman, Josie & the Pussycats…. But I always wanted them to be gay and they never were, so I wrote my own.”62
After winning several film festival awards for D.E.B.S., Robinson was approached by Sony's Screen Gems Pictures to turn the short into a feature-length film. The movie, also called D.E.B.S., centers on the mysterious return of one Lucy Diamond (Jordana Brewster), a criminal mastermind who once tried to sink Australia. The D.E.B.S. (an acronym for discipline, energy, beauty, and strength) are an elite group of spies in training chosen for admission to their academy through secret questions on the scholastic aptitude tests (SATs)—sort of a test within a test.63 D.E.B.S., Amy (Sara Foster), Max (Meagan Good), Janet (Jill Ritchie), and Dominique (Devon Aoki), are sent to surveil Lucy at a local restaurant, where she appears to be meeting with the Russian assassin Ninotchka (Jessica Cauffiel).
The girls are surprised to discover that Lucy is not planning something nefarious, but rather is attempting to excuse herself from a painfully bad blind date. (Lucy's sidekick Scud (Jimmi Simpson) had set up the date to try and get her back into the dating game after having been dumped by her girlfriend.) A firefight breaks out, and while in pursuit of Lucy, Amy literally runs into her. The two are instantly smitten. In fact, as it turns out, Amy is writing a paper on Lucy, “It's a Man's World: Lucy Diamond and the Psychology of Cultural Criminality” for her class Capes and Capers: Gender Reconstruction and the Criminal Mastermind. Apparently the discovery of Lucy's sexual preference blows Amy's whole thesis.
The film is full of goofy spy gadgets; Lucy uses suction cups to scale a building, and the D.E.B.S's house is secured by a plaid force field that matches the girls' pseudo–Catholic School Girl microminis. Innuendo and entendre are clever and abundant. According to the secret test, Amy is the perfect spy, and is thus referred to as The Perfect Score, evoking themes of theft and sex. And a “deb” is of course short for a “Debutante”—a young woman who of a certain age has a “coming-out” party. Yet while lesbianism is present in the movie, it's truly a minor theme. When Amy and Lucy are discovered in the midst of an intimate encounter, the disappointment, betrayal, and anger of Amy's peers come not from the discovery that their friend is a lesbian, but from the fact that she was literally sleeping with the enemy.
D.E.B.S. is cheery-good fun—a sweet and endearing, playful movie about young love and self-discovery. Just because Lucy has always been a villain doesn't mean she can't change her ways. And just because Amy is The Perfect Score doesn't mean she is destined to be a spy.
At the end of the film, the couple drives off into the sunset together, but many mainstream reviewers did not give the movie the credit it deserves, and so it remains obscure. Owen Gleiberman wrote in Entertainment Weekly, “Hottie crime fighters in short skirts. How not exciting,” and, “Did the director, Angela Robinson, realize that it's a fool's game to try and parody the Charlie's Angels movies, since they're cheeky parodies to begin with, or did she hoodwink herself into thinking she was doing something original?”64 Peter Travers of Rolling Stone reduced the plot to “a thief who recruits D.E.B.S. star Amy for some hot lesbo action … You might think there's no downside to a movie that peeks up the skirts of babes in microminis, but writer-director Angela Robinson's dimwitted satire is libido-killing proof to the contrary.”65 Stephen Holden of the New York Times called it a “heat-free pseudo-lesbian spoof of ‘Charlie's Angels' by way of ‘Heathers,' [that] offers an hour and a half of [an] empty tease” unjustly adding that “the love scenes are as erotically charged as a home movie of a little girl hugging her Barbie doll.”66
The conceit of Gleiberman, Travers, and Holden is that lesbians in mainstream films (or porn) are meant to provide titillation to a heterosexual male audience—especially when they are dressed as schoolgirls. Not only are they completely blind to their sexist bias, but they forget that they aren't likely to know what may be appealing to a lesbian, and/or feminist, audience. Lastly forgotten is the fact that D.E.B.S. is a teenage love story, not an adult-centric erotic film such as Bound (1996) or Basic Instinct (1992).67
Women don't automatically approach the journey of the female hero better or worse than men do simply because they are women. But they may approach it differently, perhaps even more authentically, because of the unique and specific experiences women encounter because they are women.
The women of Ms. magazine and Girl Wonder reclaimed the female symbols that were important to them, and Nichelle Nichols used her experience of sexism and racism to change the face of NASA. Trina Robbins's bond with her daughter was echoed in the pages of GoGirl! Angela Robinson, an African American lesbian, made a movie with lesbian teenagers and an ethnically diverse cast. And Gail Simone works to write inclusive comics by “actively not trying to exclude people, as so many comics do,”68 because “It's not just more good female characters we need—it's more good gay characters, more good Asian characters, more good African-American characters, and on and on.”69
Sex and gender do not and should not define us or what we do, but a combination of nature and nurture colors our lives, regardless. Who we are influences the stories we tell and the stories we want to hear.