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beccaelizabethI just read that Oracle is going to be turned back into Batgirl. They will take Babs, the adult woman who coordinates information and superheroes all over the world, who is in a wheelchair but can still escrima stick your arse, and they will stuff her back into who she was ... I don't know how long ago, I was born 1977 and I've never read a comic where she was actually currently Batgirl.
I have rage. I have the kind of rage where it's difficult to breathe.
When I read Birds of Prey the story I thought I was reading, the story that connected with me, was one about women who had been textually and in our world defined by their relationships to men, who had their whole identity shaped by their men, and who decide, for assorted reasons, sod that, we're our own women.
Babs was Batgirl, her identity defined by the Bats, both echo-of-Batman and a girl, not a woman.
Was. She was defined by her body, the work of her body, and in comics style the look of it too. Past tense. When she was injured, shot and paralysed, it wasn't even about her, it was about her relation to men a man wanted to hurt. But she took all that, all that pain and all that weight of expectation, and she turned it into something uniquely her own.
She became Oracle. Not a legacy, not a copy, not a version 2 now with tits. The public face was determinedly gender neutral. Her work, her worth, wasn't about the body any more, nor was it limited by the body. She uses her mind to design defences, uses technology to make herself secure, in a way that shouldn't be gendered but (take a look at the smith superheroes) usually is. She did information work, intelligence work in several senses, and she did it better than anybody.
And she did the work of social and professional connection, the potential of the internet brought into practical use in protecting the world. She formed community, reaching out to other women. And she became management in a world where that's herding cats, she became the one who can call and get things done.
She is completely bloody awesome, and it has nothing to do with being a girl (in skintights, stared at), while using values usually called feminine; connecting, reaching out, teaching and supporting, and using it to protect and kick arse. And it's not because of what she can't do alone, it's combining the strengths of people already individually powerful.
The weakness of her body? Forget it. She retrains. She might have wheels, but nobody pushes her around. She is not limited by her disability, whatever she sets out to do she gets done. I've read someone trying to talk about how her simple existence combats disablism, but they kept talking about 'confined to a wheelchair' and 'the plight of the disabled', and that's missing the point. Babs isn't confined - she flies, swings through the air still, gets where she needs to go with her arms. And 'plight'? Please. I'm not saying she doesn't face problems, I'm not saying she wouldn't like full use of all her parts again, but her story is all about finding your strength even when the world tells you you're broken. People can focus on the wheels and see weakness, but what you have, you use. Better than anyone.
And what has any of that had to do with being Batgirl? That's just what she grew out of.
Sending her back to being Batgirl feels like putting her back in school uniform and erasing her adult career. She made a lot of choices since she last dressed like that, she grew into her own identity, chose her own name. This feels like shoving her back into a father-name and putting her on display frozen in time. No growing up for you, stay bouncy forever.
And erasing her disability... do we not get any heroes? Is the hero's journey, to be triumphant, necessarily to be not one of us? I'm not in a wheelchair but it still feels pretty damn personal from here. But more than that, it's like saying strength wasn't what she already had, that the strength that matters is the standing up and kicking kind, that all that mind work didn't count and she needs to be defined by her body again.
I have such rage.
And I haven't even read the story.
God knows what they'll do with it.
But how could they do anything that doesn't say all this?
The only story I'd want to see is one where she gets the suit back for a little while, then realises all the ways it doesn't fit, and goes back to using all of herself in her own way again.
And even then, if it erases her disability? What does that say?
*sigh*
I know I'm not their audience any more. I've stopped reading, I'm not who they're writing this for. But that's because I wasn't who they were writing for anyway. They keep on diversifying for just long enough to 'prove' they couldn't cut it and kill them off, or doing the same old garbage to women, and there's only so long a story can kick you around before you get the message.
If all these #1 comics are supposed to be a new starting point, supposed to get a whole lot more new readers, which are the titles for me? I gave up reading when Birds of Prey went. I might have read Oracle.
(I also gave up because of all the uber xovers messing around every individual title, and the thing where they killed off all the Justice League International and had long since abandoned the International and Authorised = Good thing that I'd rather liked about JLI. But that doesn't fit with this particular point.)
I have rage. I have the kind of rage where it's difficult to breathe.
When I read Birds of Prey the story I thought I was reading, the story that connected with me, was one about women who had been textually and in our world defined by their relationships to men, who had their whole identity shaped by their men, and who decide, for assorted reasons, sod that, we're our own women.
Babs was Batgirl, her identity defined by the Bats, both echo-of-Batman and a girl, not a woman.
Was. She was defined by her body, the work of her body, and in comics style the look of it too. Past tense. When she was injured, shot and paralysed, it wasn't even about her, it was about her relation to men a man wanted to hurt. But she took all that, all that pain and all that weight of expectation, and she turned it into something uniquely her own.
She became Oracle. Not a legacy, not a copy, not a version 2 now with tits. The public face was determinedly gender neutral. Her work, her worth, wasn't about the body any more, nor was it limited by the body. She uses her mind to design defences, uses technology to make herself secure, in a way that shouldn't be gendered but (take a look at the smith superheroes) usually is. She did information work, intelligence work in several senses, and she did it better than anybody.
And she did the work of social and professional connection, the potential of the internet brought into practical use in protecting the world. She formed community, reaching out to other women. And she became management in a world where that's herding cats, she became the one who can call and get things done.
She is completely bloody awesome, and it has nothing to do with being a girl (in skintights, stared at), while using values usually called feminine; connecting, reaching out, teaching and supporting, and using it to protect and kick arse. And it's not because of what she can't do alone, it's combining the strengths of people already individually powerful.
The weakness of her body? Forget it. She retrains. She might have wheels, but nobody pushes her around. She is not limited by her disability, whatever she sets out to do she gets done. I've read someone trying to talk about how her simple existence combats disablism, but they kept talking about 'confined to a wheelchair' and 'the plight of the disabled', and that's missing the point. Babs isn't confined - she flies, swings through the air still, gets where she needs to go with her arms. And 'plight'? Please. I'm not saying she doesn't face problems, I'm not saying she wouldn't like full use of all her parts again, but her story is all about finding your strength even when the world tells you you're broken. People can focus on the wheels and see weakness, but what you have, you use. Better than anyone.
And what has any of that had to do with being Batgirl? That's just what she grew out of.
Sending her back to being Batgirl feels like putting her back in school uniform and erasing her adult career. She made a lot of choices since she last dressed like that, she grew into her own identity, chose her own name. This feels like shoving her back into a father-name and putting her on display frozen in time. No growing up for you, stay bouncy forever.
And erasing her disability... do we not get any heroes? Is the hero's journey, to be triumphant, necessarily to be not one of us? I'm not in a wheelchair but it still feels pretty damn personal from here. But more than that, it's like saying strength wasn't what she already had, that the strength that matters is the standing up and kicking kind, that all that mind work didn't count and she needs to be defined by her body again.
I have such rage.
And I haven't even read the story.
God knows what they'll do with it.
But how could they do anything that doesn't say all this?
The only story I'd want to see is one where she gets the suit back for a little while, then realises all the ways it doesn't fit, and goes back to using all of herself in her own way again.
And even then, if it erases her disability? What does that say?
*sigh*
I know I'm not their audience any more. I've stopped reading, I'm not who they're writing this for. But that's because I wasn't who they were writing for anyway. They keep on diversifying for just long enough to 'prove' they couldn't cut it and kill them off, or doing the same old garbage to women, and there's only so long a story can kick you around before you get the message.
If all these #1 comics are supposed to be a new starting point, supposed to get a whole lot more new readers, which are the titles for me? I gave up reading when Birds of Prey went. I might have read Oracle.
(I also gave up because of all the uber xovers messing around every individual title, and the thing where they killed off all the Justice League International and had long since abandoned the International and Authorised = Good thing that I'd rather liked about JLI. But that doesn't fit with this particular point.)
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no subject
Date: 2011-06-08 05:29 am (UTC)Would you like to link to this for the http://oracle-create-a-thon.tumblr.com ?
no subject
Date: 2011-06-08 09:51 am (UTC)Also I am not on tumblr and do not get it.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-08 04:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-08 04:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-08 04:43 am (UTC)