51社区黑料

By Alexa Elwood

McKeithen states in 鈥淨ueer Ecologies of Home: heteronormativity, speciesism, and the strange intimacies of crazy cat ladies,鈥� that crazy cat ladies are a representation of failed heteropatriarchy (2017). Failing at the heteropatriarchy, for example, are child-free women, women who are not married to men, women who refuse to marry or live in nuclear family homes altogether. Really just anything fun nowadays. I argue that Catwoman, a famous DC villain, is a case study of a 鈥渟uccessful鈥� crazy cat lady who 鈥渇ails鈥� at heteropatriarchy. She was shot, flew into a rage, destroyed her home and then made herself a catsuit becoming the crazy cat lady that enacts revenge using the community of cats that 鈥渂rought her back鈥� to life. While Catwoman is portrayed as a villain, a feminist lens can reinterpret her as an antihero鈥攚here Selina Kyle鈥檚 transition into the 鈥漜razy cat lady鈥� solidifies her space within a community of cats external to heteropatriarchy.

In this , Selina Kyle is pushed out a window because she knows too much about her boss鈥� criminal activity. He compares her to a cat asking, 鈥淒o you know what curiosity did to the cat?鈥� When her boss tries to kill her, it is the cats who come to aid as she regains consciousness while lying on the ground. Once she gets home, she hears her mother's and an ad for a perfume that is guaranteed to get her boss's attention. This is when she loses it and starts her transformation into Catwoman. She smashes things, spray paints her pink house black and sews a catsuit. Her emotional outburst violates norms of femininity (McKeithen, 2017), While emotions as associated with femininity, excess emotion, violence and action are associated with masculinity.

Catwoman is "queer" in that she fails at heteropatriarchy (McKeithen, 2017). Before becoming Catwoman her home is pink and frilly and girl-like. In becoming Catwoman she rejects the dollhouse and uses her 鈥渇eminine鈥� sewing skills to her own liberation. Her sewing is "queer". She does not follow the domestic expectations of performing mending or alterations, but rather, she cuts up a jacket and miraculously has enough fabric to make a skintight catsuit. She even repurposes a sewing tool meant to guard people's fingers into a weapon. Without her knowledge of feminine arts such as sewing, she would not have been able to fully become Catwoman. It is her connection to femininity and cats that empowers her.

While Catwoman/Selina gains connections and revenge, for her with Bruce Wayne, she is still considered a villain as a 鈥榗razy cat lady鈥�. However, I argue she is not seen as a hero, but should not be seen as a villain either rather someone acting only in their own interest. The media does try to demonize cat ladies (McKeithen, 2017). But Selina enacts revenge, she gains a somewhat partner through Bruce, she gets a lot of cats, and she is crazy. Selina can succeed, not because she is crazy, but because she is a cat lady.