Paradoxical Body

Superhero comics have tended to promote an ideology that is both masculinist and driven to mastery. Nowhere are these biases more blatant than in the representation of female superheroes. With unabashed and unapologetic obviousness, women are portrayed as objects of male desire and fantasy with absurdly exaggerated sexual characteristics. While it is true that the costumes worn by male superheroes can also be defined by an overt sex appeal, those worn by their female counterparts tend to reveal a lot more bare flesh. But the frisson of fetishistic sexuality presented by female superheroes is adduced with one hand only to be dismissed with the other. This offering and denying of sexuality, which helps to resolve the sexual fears and desires of developing males, is the eternal paradox of the superheroine.

Catwoman, through her radical split of conscience between "good girl" and "bad girl," literalizes this contradiction. Created by artist Bob Kane, she was inspired, in part, by Hedy Lamarr, whom Kane admired for her "great feline beauty." When she first appeared in Batman No. 1, Spring 1940, she was known simply as The Cat, a female burglar. Her real name was Selina Kyle, and originally she was characterized as a sybaritic socialite whose initial impulse to steal stemmed from ennui. Over the years, both her origin story and her costume have undergone several redesigns. While in some cases the costume changes parallel (and signal) character transformations, in others they seem to be purely for the sake of fashionable appearances. Indeed, in another instance of comic-book chauvinism, female characters are typically subject to more stylistic makeovers, whether radical or restrained, than their male counterparts. Submission to the dialectics of fashion is presented as another expression of a fetishized femininity. Fetishism is a defining ingredient to Catwoman's wardrobe. She is best known, perhaps, for catsuits that cleave to the body, due in large part to the portrayals of the character by Julie Newmar in the television series Batman (1966) and Michelle Pfeiffer in the film Batman Returns (1992). Typical of the intermedia cross-pollination for which superheroes are famous, the costumes of both actresses served to inspire and influence those worn by Catwoman in her comic-book representation.

As apparel, the catsuit has long been identified with the dominatrix, an archetype frequently associated with Catwoman. Michelle Pfeiffer's performance strengthened this connection by spotlighting the themes of alpha-cat and submissive kitten-like behavior. Her costume, which co-opted the traditional iconography of the dominatrix, included associated paraphernalia such as a whip, gloves, and high-heel shoes.

The visual and symbolic language of Catwoman resonates strongly in fashion, especially in the work of Thierry Mugler, John Galliano, Dolce & Gabbana, Gianni Versace, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Alexander McQueen. All these designers, like Catwoman (and, indeed, female comic-book characters generally), have been attracted to the wardrobe of the dominatrix and its associations of a liberated sexuality. Conceptually loaded and psychologically coded items such as catsuits, corsets, bustiers, and harness bras, usually in black "wet-look" materials like leather, rubber, and polyvinyl chloride, have in the hands of these outré designers achieved widespread acceptance as exotic-erotic haute couture. But in co-opting these sexual clichés, fashion has, in the process, muted their meanings and sanitized their subtexts. In much the same way as comic books, fashion presents elements of fetishistic sexuality stereotypically, undermining, or at least redirecting and repositioning, its subversive, sadomasochistic underpinnings. While presented blatantly, erotic energies, like the feral nature of Catwoman, are tamed, neutered, and, ultimately, neutralized.

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