DC Showcase: Catwoman

[aeka]

Say what you will about Eliza Dushku, I think she sounds puuurrrrrfect as Catwoman. ;)

Damnit, I want Holly Robinson back in Catwoman's book. :<

I Also want more Catwoman animations. :3

For legality: Old DCU Bruce being a softy around Selina never gets old!

Comments

[darkknightjrk]

That was a hella fun short. Loved it. :D

[aeka]

It was! I seriously want more Catwoman animations after this. :3

[eyz]

You made me notice how I miss 3 things here...
- Bruce and Selina open about their respective secret id
- Holly!!! I want her back too!! Holly <3
- Slam!! I miss the guy too...

And it's fun how with this Batman: Year One feature we're able to have Catwoman presented in both her Year One attire and her modern interpretation (well..pre-new 52 at least) in the Showcase short!

[mrstatham]

No. We do not need Holly back, not with the current bunch on the book. If DC coerced Brubaker back with bags and bags of money, sure, or hell, put Dini on the book. But putting Holly in Winnick's hands? Fuck no.

[eyz]

'nuff said!

[turtlefu]

What, you don't want Winick to have her show up and explain how she has AIDS because she was a prostitute and all prostitutes have AIDS and then do a VERY SPECIAL EPISODE about how bad AIDS is and how horrible it is for people to have AIDS and and nobody knows more about AIDS than Winick the straight white guy who had one gay friend?

[proteus_lives]

That was a great short!

Good action, nice voice acting and I like how they remembered that Catwoman is a street-level non-powered vigilante and they get knocked around.

Plus, surprising with the overt-sexuality for a 'toon that didn't come out of Japan.

[meowshi]

That was pretty good!

Have to admit I was surprised by the topless stripper though.

[jeyl]

I know everyone is probably tired of this being brought up again, and again, and again, but I just want to say it. I hope that DC's next female lead outing will not spend 1/3 of it's running time dedicated solely to fan-service. This is only their second one after all, and it's tacked on to a much larger Batman title.

[rocketlindy]

I don't really like Dushku's voice for Selina--she sounds too "young" for me, and in my head Selina's got that smoky femme fatale voice, maybe Kathleen Turner-as-Jessica Rabbit.

That was a cute short, though, with some really good animation. Except--those TEETH. The scary, perfectly rectangular, totally stationary teeth. I might have nightmares.

[thehefner]

Funny you mentioned Jessica Rabbit. Over at my Henchgirl's Catwoman blog (where she's a lot harsher than I, and awesomely so), she reminded me that Jessica Rabbit is a perfect example of how to do sexy right. Now I wish the stripping scene had been transported to a smoky nightclub instead, even though Dushku doesn't have the vocal chops to pull it off.

[rocketlindy]

Great minds think alike, I guess!

I think it's a good parallel to make because it's one of the few non-comics examples that still faces the same issues that comics do when trying to portray women that are sexual without being sexualized: it's not hyper-real art, so you have to use caricature to get things across; there's not much of a "real actress" behind the character, so you can't rely on their reputation to flesh out their personality; and since it's another step removed from reality, there has to be a greater effort to ground things in recognizable, realistic details to suspend disbelief and to avoid hitting too many cliches in a row.

Strippers-as-victims can work in a story, but only if you're very, very careful and make sure that it's obvious that that's not always the case. A sexual, but self-controlling and self-assured, woman can be a hero, a villain, or any shade in-between, but only if you draw them with the same care you use for other characters.

Catwoman isn't bad, she's just drawn that way by Guillem March by writers and artists who can't get past the most basic, and outdated, ideas about what it means to be a woman in charge of herself, what it means to use your sexuality for personal gain, and what it takes to make those ideas work in a given setting.

tl;dr I really like Kathleen Turner, and I'm not a big fan of Dushku. She just doesn't have the same cache, the same sophistication, or that voice.

She'd be better as another 'cat'

[steverodgers5]

I remember years ago, her being rumoured as a choice for Black Cat. THAT I could see working. But yeah, Selina's a different story. She should sound like a sexy WOMAN not a girl..

But then Hollywood always seems to cast young for superhero/heroines..(Val Kilmer as Bruce Wayne, Chis Evans as Cap) And in this instance it looks like that policy's spreading to cartoons too..LOL!

Re: She'd be better as another 'cat'

[rocketlindy]

The skewing-young thing weird me out, but that might jut be my taste--I'd much rather read about/watch people who are older than I am, or at least look and sound older than I am, than people my age or younger (I'm 18.)

And yet, the prevailing logic seems to be that everyone should be between 20 and 25, maybe 30 to 35 for guys. Maybe I'm just an odd duck.

Re: She'd be better as another 'cat'

[steverodgers5]

No, you are certainly not an odd duck. I mean, like the motto of this place goes 'It's never just you!'

I don't mind it so much if it's was casting for maybe more appropriate characters e.g Cyclops, Gambit, Dick Grayson, etc.
But for any characters who should have an older gravitos/voice of experience/authority about them, that I can't understand..

I think the Avengers movie especially gonna be hurt by the fact that it's almost inconceivable that Chris Evans' Cap could boss Robert Downey Jnr's Iron Man about. Hope I'm wrong though..

It's annoying as well, because I remember reading that one of the reasons Jon Favreau had to fight with the studio to cast RDJ in the first place was because they reckoned he was too old for the part. And yet look how well he worked in that role. You'd think they would have learned from that..

And yeah, I think it's even worse for female roles. It's funny that I was talking about avengers, because I think the worst example of inappropriate younger casting ever was for the old avengers movie based on the tv show of the same name. (i.e Emma Peel & John Steed.) I knew before I even saw that movie that Uma Thurman was way too much of a girl, and not enough of a woman to match Diana Riggs iconic role. Bewilders me that no-one could see that from the get-go. Oh well..

Re: She'd be better as another 'cat'

[rocketlindy]

The problem in that Avengers wasn't age, just actor--Rigg was 27 when she started playing Peel, and Uma Thurman was 28 when the movie was released.

I guess the logic is that young people want to see other, albeit preternaturally attractive, young people when they see a movie. And having women skew even younger than men is in every part of culture, though while it has a bit of a scientific/genetic basis, it's still odd when a character played by someone not yet 26 (like, say, Scarlett Johansson) is put on the same level, and considered to be of the same maturity/responsibility/whatever, as a character played by someone 46 (like, say, RDJ) or that the 46-year-old would, in turn, defer to a 30-year old (like, say, Chris Evans.)

Yeah, yeah, "age is just a number." But it create really weird dynamics on-screen when little things like that don't jive with reality.

Re: She'd be better as another 'cat'

[steverodgers5]

Wow! That is a surprise. I hadn't realised Diana Rigg was that young when she played Emma Peel. She definitely had that whole sexy older lady vibe about her. Whilst Uma, I don't even think she has that now. Never mind back then. But I suppose that's just personal taste on my part.

And yeah I get where you're coming from on studio logic. Sad but true..

[laddical]

All in all, not bad. I do question the need to have Selina unzip and defy the laws of physics before getting her whip on - that felt salacious and gratuitous. Strangely, I didn't feel at all bothered by the stripper doing her job (beyond the fact that I can't share the short with my kids) - but with Selina, it felt wrong. Does that make sense? But I can't fault the short for anything else, really. Great animation.

The only other thing that stuck out at me was Selina putting her goggles back on at the end. My brain gets this strange sense of vertigo just *thinking* about trying to process images where one eye is shaded and the other is not.

[thehefner]

Four minutes dedicated to stripping, following by six more minutes of empty chasing and fight scene, with four more minutes of good character stuff sprinkled throughout. Ugh. No, thank you.

I mean, first off, why did the film spend a couple minutes on the blond stripper? She wasn't a character, she served no purpose to the story. That was just pure titillation, and not particularly sexy titillation either. Selina's served more of a purpose, even though it was BOOBS EVERYWHERE (that one under-boob camera shot was seriously unnecessary), but why the hell did she have the whip inside her suit? As I recall, Darwyn Cooke (or Jim Lee, tweaking Cooke's design for Hush) designed it so the whip could double as a belt, which is more logical than trying to stuff a whip inside a skintight suit so you can produce it erotically.

(He also designed the cowl to have a built-in bike helmet, which this film didn't seem to realize as they had her wear a full helmet, but whatever, no one seems to remember just how practical the goggles suit was meant to be.)

After that, we're treated to dialogue-less fight-chase-fight-chase for six bloody minutes, more than half the running time! No character stuff, no banter, no sense of what the stakes are, just rote, toothless action. Is this what people who don't read superhero comics think superhero comics are? God, I hope not. I was bored shitless.

Seriously, where was the character? We barely have a sense of what Eliza Dushku's Selina is like, since she barely spoke or had any character bits throughout the entire thing! It's Selina as sex object and Selina as generic ass-kicker. The only real sense of who Selina was came in TWO scenes: under the bridge with the cat, and the great ending with Holly. I loved that ending, and wish the whole film had more scenes like that, which showed who Selina was as a character and actually gave the viewer some sense of drama.

Interesting how they used the logo for the late 80's Catwoman mini-series. That, along with the ending, are the only interesting things I can find about this one, speaking personally. Meh.

[ravenous_raven]

I agree. During the chase scene, I actually thought at one point, "I'm bored now." And then I thought, "Wait, could this have been longer if we didn't have the blonde stripper? Is that a good or bad thing?"

For those who don't read comics, they might have missed Selina's relationship with her sister, Maggie. I would be a whole lot more interested in seeing that than two women stripping, never mind that one of them is Selina. It would also make the chase and fight scenes have more meaning of the stakes as well as heightened suspense. If they cut the scene with the stripper out, or replaced it with a nightclub scene, as thehefner mentioned above and then started out the short with interaction between Selina and Maggie (instead of the confusing chasing of the cat), then we might actually have a pretty decent plot.

Y/N?

[thehefner]

would be a whole lot more interested in seeing that than two women stripping, never mind that one of them is Selina. It would also make the chase and fight scenes have more meaning of the stakes as well as heightened suspense.

Motto! :D

[shadowpsykie]

you problematic stripping aside (i don't think i was bothered too much by th stripping as i was by the fact that Selina unzipped down SOOO much... im sure it could have been done with her not revealing so much (maybe thats just the gay man in me who gets squeamish at the sight of boobies... don't get me wrong i can appreciate them... its just.... hmm this doesn't seem to be getting awkward)

back on point. i thought the walk/dance/ down the catwalk (heehee) was pretty cool, it showed off Selina's atheleticism, and honestly i couldn't help but see Faith as she was doing this (she did very similar gymnastic type moves on buffy)

i liked the fight scene, it also showed off her catlike moves... it could have been longer and more intense. though they did showcase her fighting style nicely.

i also loved the moment at the end with Holly. It was sweet and tender.

were there problems with it? yes, but i would give it an 8 or a 9/10

[ravenous_raven]

Wait, I'm confused. Is that girl at the end Maggie, Selina's sister, or Holly?

[thehefner]

Holly. She looked the same way in the Batman: Year One movie.

[kksimone]

My guess is the writers were much more interested in the stripping than in continuity. Or it's just a complete coincidence that there's a missing stripper named Maggie since Selina calls the redhead Holly and the cat's collar was somehow a gift to Holly.

[thehefner]

While it makes sense for it to be Holly since the video is meant to be a supplement to Batman: Year One, it doesn't help the fact that so few people (including writers) seem to know anything about Selina's rich backstory. If stories like this are any indication, her history and personality are not what many fans and writers are interested in when it comes to Catwoman.

[rdfox]

Paul Dini used Maggie and Selina's backstory in Gotham City Sirens.

My guess is that his choice was to avoid continuity issues that might not be accurate to the Year One movie.

Also, Holly's been generally depicted as a redhead, or at least strawberry blonde, ever since Countdown.

[thehefner]

Did he? I thought that was only Tony Bedard. Either way, Sister Zero was such shit.

What continuity issues do you mean? Continuity with Year One fits modern day continuity pretty seamlessly. Or at least, it did until the DCnU.

[rdfox]

I haven't seen the movie yet, so I don't know how closely it sticks to the Year One comic; it might not mesh nearly as well.

Either that, or maybe Dini didn't want to try and cover that much of her backstory when he had a total of 15 minutes to work with? (I wouldn't be surprised if he was actually told he had less, and then the striptease sequence was somewhat extended, either.)

[thehefner]

The movie sticks closely for the most part, and definitely so where it counts for Selina and Holly's friendship. The short is clearly expressly made to accompany Batman: Year One, both the movie and the comic, even if it doesn't match up with what Mindy Newell and Ed Brubaker subsequently did with Holly.

I think he just didn't care, and wanted to tell a sexy, action-packed story. And/or, that's what he was hired to write.

[rdfox]

Note to Judd Winick: THIS is how you write Catwoman being sexy.

[superfangirl1]

I agree. :)

[jelly_ace]

Aside from Selina's gravity-defying boobs, horrible soundtrack, and the cheesy title font, the animation was surprisingly good. And Catwoman was pretty much badass. And yeah, I have to agree, Ms. Dushku's voice needs a little more maturity to properly fit Selina.