If you want a movie with a strong female character just go watch Wall-E.

Thanks for reviewing the movie! I have been wanting to go see it, but wondered if it would be a male dominated action flick in which females were prizes or eye candy. I am still interested in seeing it because it sounds like it has many redeeming aspects, but the lack of worthwhile female roles is a constant irritation.

I honestly really loved the movie, and yes, of course, Batman, the comics, the movies, are all male-centered. That should come as no surprise. However, I do give Nolan props for actually showing Batman (Bale) cry after the loss of Rachel (Gyllenhaal), showing that it is okay for even big strong men like Batman to cry. Moreover, maybe if the analysis of Rachel choosing between two stereotypically masculine men is turned upside down, we see that these men - Harvey Dent and Batman - also struggle to balance their love interest with their "work", and the main reason that Harvey Dent turned into two-face, arguably, is because he is seeking revenge for the loss of his love. However, batman does choose to save Dent over Rachel in the end... so hmm... does this mean he devalues women? I don't know...
Again, Nolan knew the audience he was making the movie for and we all know that Batman is male-centered, so there is really no point critiquing this movie on gendered terms. Ha, I think for hetero- and bisexual women, the attractiveness of the male leads makes us watch Batman, alongside our male friends, lovers, and brothers, not Maggie Gyllenhaal in a 2 piece suit as a lawyer. I however, was there in part for Gyllenhaal ;)

coming out of the movie (which I loved to peices anyway) I was thinking about how all the women in Batman's life are either 'Put On A Bus' or 'In the Fridge'. The Batman stories even in the comics are full problems as far as gender goes. I'm not sure if they will ever get to Batgirl and I know Harleyquin is probably not going to make an appearence but I'm hoping if they do get into either Catwoman or Poison Ivy that they're actualy think a bit about the characters and make them enjoyable. (Yeah I'm a big fan of Selina Kyle ^^;)

I really liked the movie, but I was going in well aware of what to expect from these types of movies. I don't want to go into a long social commentary about the role of women in comic books/ movies based on said readings, but I do want to correct Itarasoff, who said, "However, batman does choose to save Dent over Rachel in the end... so hmm... does this mean he devalues women? I don't know..."

(Spoiler Alert) Because I liked the movie I will point out that Batman did not choose Harvey Dent...the Joker told him the opposite locations and thus when Batman arrived to save Rachel he got Harvey instead. He loved her and valued her life over Harvey but the Joker was playing one of his twisted games. Ok, so it isn't that I want to defend a movie that you may view as anti-feminist, but I just don't think it should be misinterpreted either.

"women are going to see this movie, as they often go to male-dominated movies either out of a craving for complex characters and story lines or with their boyfriends or other male friends"

Or, I might go to this movie because I love Batman?

Really though, I do see your points, and noticed as well, but I guess that it was minor enough that it didn't bother me as much.

Exactly. Yes, I miss that one. Thanks for correcting me.
Yes, I was definitely there to see Batman, because I like Batman movies in general.

And again, that goes to show that girls can like these types of movies too, regardless of the presence of lead female characters or a love story for that matter. I think up until recently film makers and other creative types who usually cater to men under-estimate the interests of women - Isn't the new thing these days hot nerd girls?

Being a geek, being smart, being creative, is sexy.

I have to agree with all of you here. Yes, Batman has almost no female characters worth mentioning. There's Rachel and the ballerinas hanging all over Bruce Wayne. I think I'll just have to file this movie in there with James Bond under movies I can't watch and try to analyze as a feminist or tt'll drive me crazy.

I would like to point this out as a positive though- I went to the midnight showing of The Dark Knight with my boyfriend and some friends. I was excited, but I figured I'd be one of the few girls in a room full of fanboys. I was wrong. There were tons of women in that theater, and it made me really happy. For me it was great to see women showing up and being excited and not just believing that the opening of Batman is for the boys and the opening of Sex and the City is for the girls. WE can always hope that's something the movie industry will start to know and tap into.

Pyroglobe, thanks for pointing that out. That was a silly oversight on my part, considering I have friends who totally love Batman and obviously went to see the movie for that reason.

Thanks for all of your comments! I guess it is fruitless to analyze these films as a feminist, but I'm glad I had a place to put my thoughts since I couldn't get them off my mind anyway.

Great analysis, but I think it should go a step farther and analyze the source material, specifically Frank Miller's reinterpretation of the Batman series.

In the beginning, Batman was a comic for kids. The writing wasn't dark, the women weren't overtly sexy (Vickie Vale, while the love interest, was also quite professional as a reporter and was seen primarily as such).

Then, as fanboys grew up, so did their tastes. Suddenly, we get Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns" and the comics that came from that. Much of the modern reinterpretation of Batman stemmed from Frank Miller and his take on Batman. I wouldn't argue that Frank Miller is a feminist. In fact, I think he has a very dim view of women (suddenly Vickie Vale is a scantily-clad sexed out love interest who is the nominal journalist).

Take a look at the subtle differences:

http://girl-wonder.org/girlsreadcomics/?p=13

This is from the wonderful Karen Healey's blog, Girls Read Comics and They're Pissed. I recommend it. It's the starting place of gender imbalance in comic book movies.

I would love to see a new Batgirl, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and Catwoman redeemed. But at the same time, I don't want to watch female super-heroines (and villains) on film as glorified porn. The fact that a woman is making the world a better place always seems to be an afterthought.

Wouldn't it be cool, though, if a feminist filmmaker took on one of these projects? Imagine what Patty Jenkins (writer/director of Monster) portrayal of Catwoman might have been like...

I'm not 100% sure how the community posting gig works (can you edit your posts or not?), but you might just want to include a spoiler alert...the movie hasn't been out that long.

That said, I went to the movie very excited and fully expecting that there would be no female characters with any depth, and still, I was disappointed by how little Rachel's character was given. Despite that, I really enjoyed the movie.

Entertainment is for enjoyment purposes, and here it is produced in the context of a largely misogynistic and racist culture. Sometimes for the sake of my own enjoyment, I have to ignore those alarms going off in my head (or mute them until later) in order to allow myself to be entertained. I can't ignore those alarms for everything all of the time, but in this case it was actually quite easy to do since it's so commonplace for action/comic book/superhero/etc. movies to lack three-dimensional female characters. Sad, eh?

Of course, I'm not saying we should ignore the more pervasive/less viscerally angering (for some) examples of sexism in our entertainment; a harsh criticism and analysis is always welcomed by me after the fact. And that's how I deal with it while still getting my Batman rocks off.

I try to stay optimistic that focusing on raising awareness and educating young individuals can help get us to the point where eventually there will be more people producing our entertainment who *shock!* have actually had to think about gender and race issues, because they aren't part of the dominant culture in the same ways a white male is.

MissWizzle - According to Wikipedia, a Wonderwoman film is in the making. I would have liked to see Harley Quinn too, but I think the reason she wasn't included is because she wasn't in the original comic, she was created by cartoonists for the TV show and then written into the comic.

Personally, I didn't find the Dark Knight all that great, mainly because I thought that the action scenes were cut poorly and most of the acting was a bit mediocre, except for Ledger's outstanding performance. One moment in the film that particularly annoyed me was when, I think it was during panic, Rachel was trying to tell Harvey some important information regarding the situation, and he just stops her right in the middle and kisses her and walks off, as if he has absolutely no regard for her opinion; this moment could have easily been removed or altered so it wasn't so cliche. I was also thoroughly disappointed by the lack of female characters; they could have put some more females on the force besides that one hypocritical officer and they could have easily had some women working at Wayne Enterprises. Needless to say, I agree with you.

Please put a spoiler alert at the top of this for those of us who haven't seen the movie yet! It looks like an interesting post, but I had to stop reading at the second paragraph when a character's death is discussed. Not all film critiques include spoilers, so I didn't have the foresight to bookmark the post 'til after I'd seen the flick.

:( :( :(

Ah! I'm sorry, I can't seem to edit the post. I will email the feministing ladies to see if a spoiler alert can be added!

Thanks! I totally overreacted with my not-one-but-three frowny faces (most movie trailers themselves contain a bunch of spoilers!)
I look forward to reading your post after I've seen it!

:) :) :)

I adore Maggie Gylenhaal in everything she does, and she handled her small part with great charm. But of course, it was a nothing part.

What I find interesting is how these nothing parts for women have changed over the decades. Functionally speaking, Rachel was nothing more than a prize for the important characters. But stylistically, she was presented as having chutzpah.

The message: the modern "perfect" women is mouthy, beautiful, smart and principled. Thirty years ago, they settled for beautiful. Maybe she was beautiful AND moral, where "moral" translated to unslutty.

You know, I actually really liked Rachel's character. I agree it was a bit part, but I liked that she was smart and capable, and sure as hell wasn't going to put her life on hold waiting for Bruce forever. She did serve as a trophy, for sure, but I think they could have portrayed her much worse than they did.

I really hope that if there is another batman movie in the future they'll bring in some of the strong female villains, especially catwoman. There's tons of potential there for a strong female character. Hopefully if they do bring her in they won't reduce her to shiny leather and boobs :(

For me it was great to see women showing up and being excited and not just believing that the opening of Batman is for the boys and the opening of Sex and the City is for the girls. WE can always hope that's something the movie industry will start to know and tap into.

I don't think that there are ever any problems of women getting excited to see movies like Batman. Even when I went to watch 300 at the movies, it was very equal (rough estimation of course).

I once mentioned to a friend that movies like Batman or 300 shouldn't really be considered "guy" flicks, simply because if it was only meant for guys,why do so many women turn up to watch it?

Of course, while I do realize that perhaps they are only accompanying their boyfriends, brothers, fathers, male colleagues, but from anecdotal experience, many women and girls really like action movies like Batman, 300, Diehard, Transformers...so I don't action-oriented flicks necessarily preclude women from going.

The only movies that I have seen that women show less interest in are war movies. But then again, I don't really like war movies myself though, so maybe its the genre itself (though Iwo Jima was good!)

It seems that the opposite is true however, ie. while women love most action movies, it seems to me that a lot of guys hesitate to go and see what some people call "chick" flicks. While there are no "guy" flick sections at the DVD store that I frequent, there's definitely a special section called "chick flicks" (I never know why though, since they could have just placed those movies with the rest). I haven't watched Sex and the City yet due to having no interest in the TV show, but from what I have read on these blogs, it seems that in such movies, the audience skews towards female. (once again, correct me if I'm wrong).

This just reinforces the notion that while action oriented (guy) flicks are for everyone [default], only women would really like to watch "chick flicks".

Yay movie analysis! One of my favorite past times :-)

I went to go see The Dark Knight at the midnight showing on Thursday, in part because that's what I do (I go see movies I don't care about at midnight, just because I love the energy of a theater filled with people who are passionate about a film) and because I was legitimately excited about this film. Heath Ledger has been among my favorite actors since '10 Things I Hate About You' so I was super excited to see his take on a villain (often my favorite character in a story - a hero can only be as good as the villain is bad!), and I certainly wasn't disappointed in that respect.

My number one disappointment was, of course, the treatment of Rachel's character. I think I went in with my expectations set way too high - just an hour before the movie I watched Maggie Gyllenhal on The Daily Show where she said she'd really worked with Nolan to re-create Rachel as a complex, feminist character. I really, really hope that a lot of that work was left on the cutting room floor, rather than anyone think this was an even vaguely feminist part. We're told that she has a powerful role in the legal workings of the city, but we never see her do anything other than sitting second chair at a trial and frantically directing paperwork while on the phone with Dent (before getting kidnapped. Because that's what women do in comics: get kidnapped and killed). Rachel's only power, as presented in the film, lies with how she is attractive to powerful men, and because of that attractiveness she can drive them to commit great/terrible acts.

As for women going to see action movies: well, of course we go to action movies, and even enjoy them. If we didn't go see action movies where we're hardly represented on screen (let alone in the creative process), we'd spend a lot of Friday nights home alone. If I waited around to go see films that were driven by women, I would have gone to the movies twice this summer, to see Sex and the City and Mamma Mia. Neither of them action movies, though they are still attracting formidable audiences (even with the competition from Batman, Mamma Mia had the best opening weekend for a musical). Imagine the audiences that would show up for a well done Wonder Woman movie! (Not that I'm holding my breath for it to happen; it's been in development hell for years now)

Okay, I think I'm done :-)

**SPOILERS**

I'm glad this discussion came up because I had a couple thoughts on it.

Yes, Rachel is a career-woman. Yes, she gets to wear pants (some of the time) and hit back. However, in a film where the most important moments are the action set pieces, she is either being rescued or being disposed of during and this frustrates me beyond belief. Also, the crux of her character is indeed who she will choose and the possibility of marriage. The crux isn't some great moral dilemma where she is in any position of great influence, unlike the choices Batman has to make, but which man is she going to align herself with. In "Batman Begins" Rachel was an uncompromising career woman who probably would have scoffed in the face of such romantic conflict, but suddenly she's planning on tying the knot? I should acknowledge the gratifying move when Rachel decides not to take Bruce's shit anymore and eventually chooses the man who, while not a superhero, treats her better.

I guess I'm just tired of the love interest in superhero films. These women aren't flying through the air, the ones being gazed at in wonder. They are romantic fixtures that look more and more unavoidable. They get thrown out windows, stalked in alleys, and constantly rescued. Will it ever end, or will even Wonder Woman just be another fantastical female to be drooled over?

And don't even get me started on the depiction of Gordon's wife. Yeesh!

Worse than the gender stuff was the racial stuff, I thought. I got the impression that the film was trying to redeem its portrayal of blacks exclusively as criminals with that one scene on the ferry where they make one of the black convicts the honorable martyr. It was like it was saying: Black guys might all be criminals, but at least they know that the lives of a boatload of white people on the other side of the bars are worth more than they are, right? Yeesh.

Not having yet seen TDK, I can't comment on this particular movie, but as a female action/horror/zombie/gore fan, I've had to balance my affection for the genre with the character gender inequity that is pervasive in these sorts of films. To those who noticed a high percentage of women in the theater at TDK and 300 I might suggest that many women do as I do, which is to say: identify with the strongest characters regardless of the gender assigned to them.

Yes, the politics of art and film and music are important, and it is important to see strong women portrayed in the movies. But we really should all remember that they are fictional characters. No man will ever "be" Batman or the King of Sparta any more than a woman ever will, and so I am as free to place myself in "his" shoes just as much as I imagined myself as the questionably-gendered Big Bird when I was a kid, or might fight in the guise of any number of non-human entities within a MMORPG.

The important thing for me is that the actual women in the film industry are well-represented, and the credits are a better measure of this than the popcorn facilitator that comes before them.

Next time, I'd appreciate a spoiler warning, and the placement of the spoiler after the jump. Not all of us have seen the movie yet!

So, yeah... As a total, geeked-out fan girl, I'm pretty much at a loss right now. I'm sure others have politely requested that this spoiler should be either removed or, at least, be clearly marked as such. The only reason I didn't go out to see The Dark Knight this weekend was because I had to work. Well, so much for enjoying it as much as I had anticipated.

Still, I really like the idea of feminist movie reviews and I hope that we'll see more of them around here. Just with, you know, spoiler warnings please?

albyd, that's an excellent point about women being able to identify with a character regardless of gender.

i feel the same way and think many women probably do. unfortunately, it seems like maybe it's less common for men to do the same and identify with a female character, even when she's got a lot of the same characteristics a male protagonist would. i think we need more women in prominent, complex, well-written, non-gender-stereotyped roles to work on balancing this out. i feel pretty strongly that being able to identify with other people, which often grows out of fictional characters and transfers into the real world, can have a big impact on one's conception of gender.

OK, I love Batman. I loved this movie and have pretty much no complaints. It is a movie that the fans would have written themselves.

***WARNING: THE REST OF MY COMMENT CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS.***

That being said, a lot of fans were upset that Rachel's character was even included in Batman Begins- it seemed like them to be a Hollywood cop-out; a forced love interest (as if Bruce Wayne hadn't already lost enough love in his life). The truth is, is that Batman, as a character, can not successfully have a love interest. He is too dangerous and too solitary. It would only end tragically. That was one of the faults in the previous movies. So basically, writing her into the script was so she could die. Sad, but true. It is sad that this is what most woman are reduced to the comic folk-lore. However, I don't wish that more secondary female characters be fleshed out just to appease those who want more female characters (i.e. Gordon's wife, etc.). In this movie, they don't fit. Yes, this movie is hyper-masculine. But Batman is also a Shakespearian type of anti-hero, trying so hard and failing. Being both strong and weak. Being "allowed" to cry. As "boys movies" go, I think it is certainly something to aspire too.

As far as Rachel goes, yes, they could have done better- with how she was written (so that I might care about her), with...casting (fail, both times). But the mark that she leaves on Bruce is significant, even if she doesn't get as many lines or face time. He wants to be a better man because of her. He changes his actions largely based on her words. He wants to make her death and life meaningful. And she wasn't weak. She wasn't planning on waiting for him. For what little we saw of her, she was strong (she was willing to take on cases that no one else would touch!) and composed (even when she knew she was about to die). Her presence, however brief is a significant thread in a complex tapestry.

Now, if we REALLY want some REAL woman, it's pretty clear where to turn: CATWOMAN!! Catwoman is my favorite Batman "villain"...in that, she isn't one. She's between lines. She's complicated and strong. She's pretty much just like Batman, only she steals stuff. But she also stops violent crimes on a case-by-case basis. She's another anti-hero(ine). Yes, Halle Berry all but ruined it. But if the character could be properly written into the next film, then we'd really have something. There's also a line in the movie that suggests that she might make an appearance. (i.e. Suit protects against cats...) Batman (nor his female females) will not benefit from secondary characters. What we need is a female RIVAL, a character of equal significance and prowess that will make a real mark on comic movie-dom.

I'd also accept Harley Quinn (2nd favorite) or Poison Ivy.

ltarasoff - I agree with what you said. But as far as choosing Harvey over Rachel: I don't think he devalues everyone, especially not women as a whole. He chose this particular man, knowing that in the long run he was needed to be the representative of change in the city. Rachel was not a political figure, so unfortunately her work is not seen by citizens as having as big of an impact as an elected official. It's sort of like saving the mayor, as opposed to the mayor's aide. The mayor's aide may work even harder, but no one will acknowledge it or give s/he proper credit. Take that as you will, but I don't think it was sexist or intended as such.

ltarasoff - I meant "devalues anyone" not "everyone" -_-,

Timothy-

I loved TDK and 300. Just because it was made for men by men doesn't mean there's nothing deeper below the surface. I didn't go just for my BF (well, maybe 300, only because I've never read the novel), I just enjoy excellent film-making. Fight Club is one of my favorite movies! And besides, what's considered "chick flicks" usually suck (chick flick being evil code for "romantic comedy"). I think great films cross over genre lines to become something everyone can enjoy. That would be like saying men can't enjoy a movie with feminist overtones, you know?

That doesn't mean we can't still analyze and critique these movies as feminists, but they have many levels of appeal. Plus, when producers of comics and comic-based movies finally realize how many fan-girls there really are, maybe they can start making stuff "for" us!