@evayna said: Nah, it’s still: the only life female characters have is to talk about a man. Why couldn’t they talk about how moral choices effect them, or came up in the past of their sister, or just a diversity of tactics conversation that moves on from Batman?
That’s sort of what I meant, I just put it rather badly. (Woe.) I’m thinking, a conversation like this-
SELINA: How could anyone sit back and uncritically support Batman? He’s obviously got money and all he’s using it for is to beat up low-level street crooks who probably need to steal just to eat. Why doesn’t he put that money in an orphanage or a women’s shelter?
MONTOYA: He put a mass murderer in our cells last night.
SELINA: And tomorrow night he could put a hooker trying to support herself and her three kids in there.
MONTOYA: What’re you trying to say?
SELINA: If you’re fighting crime, you don’t go after the poor slobs at the bottom of the ladder! You go after the big guys. The companies that won’t pay their taxes. The politicans taking bribes. The corrupt police, the corrupt lawmakers, the corrupt system – not broke-down alcoholics living on the streets taking what they need.
MONTOYA: Again, a mass murderer. Sitting in the cells right now. She called herself ‘Poison Ivy’. You think I should be mad he brought her in?
SELINA: There are exceptions. But I worked the streets for years. I fought tooth and claw to get by. You think I would have been grateful that the alleys were just that little bit more dangerous?
MONTOYA: I think they’re less dangerous now. And I’m the one who’s gotta go down them! I have a badge and a gun but I know Gotham. Anything lurking in the shadows that seems to want to help, it’s gonna get a pass from me.
SELINA: Speaking as something that did used to lurk in the shadows? Not from me.
MONTOYA: I gotta go, Selina. My girlfriend’s waiting for me at home, and she thinks I spend too much time working as it is.
SELINA: Okay, Renee. But just remember. We all wanna eat the rich.
(Heh. I got pretty into that.)
Okay, so – in this bizarre Batman movie or episode of Gotham or whatever (my apologies to big Batman fans if I got either Selina or Montoya hopelessly wrong, I only have the various adaptations of them to go by) Selina Kyle and Renee Montoya are talking about Batman. Except the conversation isn’t really about him as a person, more about him as a concept, and it’s also much, much more about Selina and Montoya as people. You learn Selina’s past, her opinions on how to fight crime and her politics, and you learn Montoya’s thoughts on her job and that she’s got a girlfriend. (And the girlfriend’s thoughts on her job, too.)
Like, if that was a real scene from a real movie (…I can dream…) and someone asked me what that conversation was about, I’d say “About Selina’s past and politics” long before I said “About Batman”. But I think as the writer it would also rightly be out of my hands, so what do you guys think?