COMICS CULTURE SHRAPNEL from CBEM 389

Pain

I'm sure that every single comics 'zine has their view on Birds of Prey by now, and this magazine probably has a few reviews on it as well. So I'll keep my ranting brief. Watching this show was painful, not because it was bad (which is kinda was, but that didn't bother me) but because something I liked has been exploited for some political agenda that in turn is being exploited by networks.

What I mean of course, is this whole "girl power" thing that's pervading the media now. I don't have a problem with female empowerment, or with girls kicking ass. After all, I am a girl. A girl who used to watch Xena devotedly (until it jumped the shark), watches Buffy religiously, and loves the Powerpuff Girls. But at times the genre seems to become a parody of itself. Like the show Cleopatra 2525 - which at first glance has a silly premise (a porn star is cryogenically frozen and wakes up in a post-apocalyptic future - that sounds like parody to me) but turns out to be a somewhat serious show. Birds of Prey was the opposite of that - it seemed like it could have been serious, but everything was so outrageous or silly or contrived.

It's funny, but even professional reviewers pointed out that this show was going to drive fans nuts. Like the fact that Batman didn't know he had a daughter - what a load of crap. Batman knows EVERYTHING. That's one of the things that makes him so cool. But in this show, the men are secondary. You can't have girls running around and being badass when the menfolk are watching over their shoulder. So they got rid of him. Hopefully there will be a later storyline that looks into it more, offers a better explanation. Too bad I probably won't be watching then.

I've decided that if I want to watch a cyberpunkish future Gotham post-Batman, I'll stick with Batman Beyond. Even if the female hero quotient is nil - it's less insulting to my intelligence and my gender.

(Though I'll admit - I kinda liked Dinah in the show. Reminded me of Dawn from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but less whiny and/or stupid.)