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ExploreNow we can all go on and on about characters like Napoleon Dynamite and Bella Swan and Joffrey Baratheon. With their two-dimensional glamour and flimsy development, they are a disgrace to the industry. Everyone knows that, and of course, there’s more than enough blame to go around (looking at you Jar Jar)…
But despite their best efforts, Hollywood and the media churn out a diamond in the rough every once in awhile. A diamond whose personality has more than one side and whose backstory cannot simply be explained in a fifteen second flashback. Enter: Selina Kyle.
Thanks to Supreme Leaders Bill Finger and Bob Kane, we finally get to experience a complex character struggling with tricky morals and tough decisions. We too wrestle with that perennial question of whether or not to have sex with Batman. What’s he like under the armor? Will the cape get in the way? And because Catwoman has seen a number of reincarnations from Julie Newmar to Halle Berry, here we’ll focus on one of the most recent adaptations from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises.
Starting right off the bat, Selina is caught burgling Bruce Wayne’s mother’s valuable necklace (and his fingerprints!) from his home before quickly disabling Wayne and escaping. And a couple scenes later, she’s kidnapping a congressman and trading away Batman’s prints, essentially his identity, to John Daggett’s assistant CEO only to receive a gun to her head in return. But he’s no match for a crafty trickster like her!
She backstabs him in return (just to make things fair), fooling him into calling the police. She disarms and kills several henchmen before the police arrive, then escaping again into the night. So far, she’s looking pretty bad. Once you beat up Batman, there’s not much argument there. But maybe she can turn it all around…?
Nope. At least, not yet. Next time we see her, she’s swindling some old guy, threatening Wayne with the “storm,” and stealing his sick ride. It’s not until later that we start to learn a bit more about her. But as she’s strangling Daggett and his cronies, it starts to make sense why she’s so adamant about this Clean Slate, a mythical program that erases anyone from every database at any time – she wants to start over! And here is where the audience finds the common ground.
Everyone has reached a point where everything has fallen to pieces (and if you haven’t, then just wait for adulthood). You’re doing everything you can, but the rent is due, the heater’s broken, and you’re out of milk for your cereal. It’s just not looking up for you. It sounds easier to start over, to begin again. And in a way, Selina Kyle represents this desperate yearning for a second try at a new life.
Even after Batman has to save her from Bane and company, she refuses to show gratitude and hardens even more. None of us want to be a pity case. We always want to do it all by ourselves, and Catwoman perfectly exemplifies that independent drive. As she grows more relatable, her evil rating falls accordingly. So now, she’s definitely no Girl Scout, but at least we understand that she wants to be better.
But Selina really hits her all time low right about here. Despite his earlier assistance (or maybe because of it), she meets up with Batman under the guise of an alliance, only to give him up to Bane. He puts up a good fight but soon falls at the feet of the masked man, and the Dark Knight is handed over to the depths of hell. Wow Catwoman. We’re reading record levels of bad.
Only after Bane’s takeover of the city does she realize what she’s done. She can’t escape, and she can’t win the city back alone. She’s the ultimate case of “be careful what you wish for.” So she changes her ways. On Batman’s return, she goes on a frenzy of good, freeing Fox, opening the tunnels, and in a twist of sweet irony, saving Batman from Bane. Another example of just why we relate: she’s pure at heart. Turning her back on those ambitions of greed, power, and a fresh start, she instead does what is right. No matter how much she hates Gotham and the injustice that it represents, she kicks and fights and claws with everything she’s got to save that city.
Final Verdict: GOOD (with a scratch of mischief)
