Duncan Lay: Holy racists Batman! It’s a fake controversy
Ironically, the whole racist Batman controversy seems to have swallowed up what would be a genuine Catwoman controversy about sexuality, Duncan Lay writes.
Opinion
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Batman is all about the darkness but a huge drama this week has suggested the Dark Knight is not dark enough.
The Batman, which is currently packing out cinemas, is a perfect piece of dark and brooding superhero entertainment and one of the many highlights is Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman.
Yet she has set the Catwoman among the pigeons this week after an interview with the UK’s Observer where she said she had been rejected for a role in Christopher Nolan’s 2012 blockbuster The Dark Knight Rises.
That was the third of his celebrated Batman films, where Batman (Christian Bale) ends up cattily ever after with Anne Hathaway’s version of Catwoman.
Kravitz went for an unspecified – minor – role but said she was rejected for being “too urban”, which was obviously a reference to her skin colour, given it was highly unlikely she showed up to the audition dressed as a block of units.
Instantly a number of outlets who are quick to cut and paste stories but slow to check them (one of them sounds a bit like the Maily Dail) blasted out headlines implying Nolan was racist after rejecting Kravitz for the part of Catwoman.
Naturally this ignored that Kravitz would have been about 21 during that audition and obviously not reading for the love interest of an older Batman. Kravitz’s excellent version of Catwoman is at least a decade older and playing against what is a younger Batman in Pattinson.
Kravitz clarified her remarks and hit out at those outlets who had jumped to the wrong conclusion, saying it was one of the junior casting staff and Nolan would have had no idea.
It’s strange but as someone whose first exposure to Batman was the tongue-in-cheek Adam West TV show, I always had it in my mind that Catwoman was black, as Eartha Kitt is who I think of as that character.
I actually found it jarring to see Michelle Pfeiffer in the role in 1992’s Batman Returns.
Although, when I checked, Kitt only played the role for the third season and appeared in just five episodes. Julie Newmar played Catwoman for the first two series but I can’t remember her at all.
Ironically, the whole racist controversy seems to have swallowed up what I thought would be a genuine Catwoman controversy.
In the comics, Catwoman has been officially bisexual for a while now and Kravitz’s character certainly seems to be played that way, calling her female friend “Baby”.
Meanwhile her interest in men seems to be exclusively faceless, taciturn blokes with a fetish for black rubber suits.
However, director Matt Reeves told Australian website The Pedestrian: “I don’t think we meant to go directly in that way, but you can interpret it that way for sure.”
Marvel has been careful not to play with the sexuality of its heroes, with Tessa Thompson saying all references to Valkyrie’s bisexuality were cut out of Thor: Ragnarok.
DC, on the other hand, certainly with its TV shows, has been out and proud. I thought that was perhaps an opportunity lost with The Batman and more might have been made of that.
But that potentially genuine controversy has been left alone in favour of a confected controversy.
So is that a reflection of our times or just a sign The Riddler has been at work?
Fantastic Beasts may kill Harry Potter for good
With just one month until Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore hits cinemas, fans are on the edge of their seats – wondering which part of the Harry Potter legend will it wipe its arse on this time.
This prequel series of movies, of which there are apparently two more to come, have attempted to “fix” the perceived problems with the original Harry Potter stories … in the same way that cutting off your legs will “fix” the mosquito bite on your knee.
Perhaps the best thing you can say about this movie is its lead-up is slightly less controversial than the last one, The Crimes Of Grindelwald.
Still, that’s like saying Vladimir Putin is slightly less evil than Stalin. It’s a pretty low bar to get over.
The biggest question is whether Dumbledore (Jude Law) is going to properly come out as gay. The books certainly didn’t spell that out – so to speak.
But once author Joanne “J.K.” Rowling started copping Twitter heat for a lack of gay and coloured characters in the series, instead of doing what most sensible billionaires would have done and ignored them, she began to rewrite her own work.
To hear her talk, there were a whole series of deleted scenes where Harry walked into Dumbledore’s office and found the Headmaster being bent over the Pensieve by a muscular black wizard.
Now, Fantastic Beasts 3 is only rated PG-13 in America, so I’m guessing Dumbledore and Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen) won’t be seen playing with each other’s wands.
But, between exploring the issue of being gay in a 1940s world that was more accepting of leprosy and the foray into the rise of wizard fascism, it’s hardly sounding like lighthearted children’s entertainment.
And that’s even before we get to the real problem. Most original Harry Potter fans are now adults, in their late teens and early 20s. And they have been turned off the series by Rowling’s tweets about women’s rights and transgender people.
Now it doesn’t matter whether Rowling was right, wrong or unjustly accused. The judge, jury and executioner that is the Twitterverse has made a ruling and declared her transphobic. And that’s enough for the bulk of what were her fans. They haven’t read her lengthy explanations.
They just saw the hashtag and switched off everything she has ever done, or will do.
I wonder if that’s why the Harry Potter stage show The Cursed Child, which is brilliant and should be turned into films, has now slashed its runtime in half to get more bums on seats. The original fans have not turned up as expected.
It’s certainly why The Crimes Of Grindelwald only just made a profit. Rowling might think that shoehorning as many gay, lesbian and coloured characters in as possible will “fix” things. Really she’s just bolting the stable door after the Woke horse has galloped off into the sunset to live happily ever after with the purple unicorn.
Ten years ago, Harry Potter was untouchable. The books were bestsellers and the movies were all smash hits. Rowling was riding a wave of love and money.
Now the unthinkable could happen. Having survived the worst Voldemort could throw at him, Harry Potter and his world could be killed by his creator.
So perhaps it is best if all your dreams don’t come true.
Got a news or entertainment tip? Email weekendtele@news.com.au
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