The Contradictions And Challenges Of Being Catwoman

In a comic book populated mainly by male superheroes, Catwoman is an intriguing character—both vampish and heroic. She made her debut in 1940 and has held her mystique for 85 years.

Catwoman was ranked 11th on Image Game Network’s list of the Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time, and 51st on Wizard magazine's 100 Greatest Villains of All Time list; she was ranked 20th on IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of All Time list. This not only marks her popularity but also indicates a complexity to her character, not usually granted to comic book females.

Created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, The Cat appeared in the first Batman comic in 1940 and went on to become one of his rogues’ gallery of adversaries. Interestingly, she was also his love interest. Of course, there was sexism built into the comic book universe aimed at adolescent males. Catwoman, the alter ego of Selina Kyle, was drawn dressed in a skintight bodysuit and given a bullwhip as a weapon. In those modest times, the sexual connotations of her slinky, whip-wielding persona were not lost on anyone, and the character was forced by the Comics Code Authority to vanish from 1954 to 1966, in keeping with the rules regarding the portrayal of women in comic books. The code was eventually dropped, and Catwoman returned.

Inspired by Bollywood femme fatales like Jean Harlow and Hedy Lamarr, Kane and Finger wanted to give their comic book sex appeal (though the catsuit came much later) and also appeal to female readers—according to Bob Kane’s book Batman And Me (1989), they wanted to give Batman a "friendly foe who committed crimes but was also a romantic interest in Batman's rather sterile life."

Why a cat? He wrote, “I felt that women were feline creatures and men were more like dogs. While dogs are faithful and friendly, cats are cool, detached, and unreliable. I felt much warmer with dogs around me—cats are as hard to understand as women are. Men feel more sure of themselves with a male friend than a woman. You always need to keep women at arm's length. We don't want anyone taking over our souls, and women have a habit of doing that. So there's a love-resentment thing with women. I guess women will feel that I'm being chauvinistic to speak this way, but I do feel that I've had better relationships with male friends than women. With women, once the romance is over, somehow they never remain my friends.”

The character underwent many dramatic changes in her journey, and in 1993, Catwoman was given her first own comic series, with Jim Balent as the main writer with others, who gave her a backstory as a teenage runaway, her time in a juvenile detention home, a female sidekick and her training with another DC Comics character, Ted ‘Wildcat’ Grant.

Inevitably, the feminist potential of the character was noted, and dozens of magazine articles, books and papers were written on her. There is also criticism of the hyper-sexualized portrayal and the clichéd negative stereotyping of women as cats. Gloria Steinem commented that Catwoman “is a feminist superhero with a storyline and transformation of her own–plus class consciousness, a girl buddy, equal skills with the Batman equipment and an apartment of her own.”

Making an appearance on television in 1966, she was played by the six-foot tall Julie Newmar in a black Lurex catsuit with cat ears and a low-slung golden belt. Catwoman, says Julie Newmar, quoted in a piece by Allison Keyes in , is comprised of the "most delicious" human traits—determined, calculating, and wise. And that catsuit? "You feel more power," she said, "You're both hidden and exposed at the same time. You're hidden by the black; you're exposed by the tightness of the outfit. You have on these high heels, long nails, and then your eyelashes—your hair!"

Catwoman has been played by many actresses over the years, among them Lee Meriwether in Batman (1966), Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns (1992), Halle Berry in Catwoman (2004), Anne Hathaway in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), and Zoe Kravitz in The Batman (2022). On television, she has been played by Julie Newmar, Eartha Kitt, Carmen Bicondova and Lili Simmons. All of them have interpreted the character in their own way.

Suzanne Colon, author of Catwoman: The Life and Times of Feline Fatale, wrote, “This was one of the first female characters we saw on television that really spoke to empowerment. Not only empowerment; a proto-feminism that was very sexy and pretty and female, and yet very take-charge. This woman had her own gang of men who wore little cat ears... to please her.” Any woman who can manage that is definitely a superhero!

Deepa Gahlot is a Mumbai-based columnist, critic and author.