#so have a passionate defense of sewing as an artform from someone who couldn't sew a button

[soleminisanction]

I’ve wanted to talk more about Steph’s run as Batgirl because I’m genuinely fascinated by it, but I keep starting and then abandoning posts because they inevitably spiral out of my control. In an attempt to illustrate my problem, allow me to wax poetic for a bit about a single line that has bugged me for years:

Context:

This page comes in the first issue. Steph is running around in Cass’s Batgirl costume and it keeps getting damaged, so she says…this.

And if you’re a more casual reader, you’re probably saying right now, “So what? It’s just a joke, a quip. It doesn’t mean anything. Why the hell is this post so long for something as small as that?”

In answer, I give you this:

Yeah. 

Stephanie Brown knows how to sew. Stephanie Brown specifically knows how to sew, fix and maintain superhero costumes. Because she makes her own. And it’s not like that’s some kind of deep cut; those panels are from a Secret Files and Origins story that Chuck Dixon (Steph’s creator) wrote, but all you really have to do is know Steph’s story and use some basic logic: she is literally a self-made superhero. Of course she makes her own costumes. Where else would she get them?

And I want to be clear here – this is a skill. One that Stephanie would have to cultivate and that she should be proud of. Costuming is hard enough when you’re trying to make something that’s just intended to be worn for a few hours at a convention a couple of times a year. Steph’s Spoiler gear is literally full-body, covering head-to-toe twice over, and built to stand up to regular rooftop parkour, motorcycling, fisticuffs, gunfights, knife fights, dips into Gotham Bay and the occasional fire. It’s almost certainly made out of thick, quality cloth and leather, both of which are hard to work with but vital if you’re creating something that’s designed to protect you.

She built that costume from scratch at least twice and maintained it, by herself, with no Bat support, financial or otherwise, for years. It is absolutely a skill and a credit to her as a character, not to mention foundational to her entire origin story and her whole independent “you can’t tell me what to do” attitude.

And this one line… takes that all away for the sake of a cheap, generic quip. 

What’s extra frustrating about this whole thing is that, in going with this lazy, cliche joke, they missed a golden opportunity to actually show her character.

Imagine if, instead of this page where we’re leering at her in the shower for no reason, we got a short scene in which Steph sits down at her sewing machine to fix the costume… and realizes that she only has purple cloth and thread. That would be a subtle symbolic moment for what's supposedly the central theme of this book, that Steph "just can't help" but be a bright and happy "burst of color" in contrast to the darkness of Gotham and the other Bats. 

She could then hesitate, wonder if maybe this is a sign, maybe she should just stop… and then persist anyway, filling in the gaps with “her” color (as if Babs and Helena didn’t wear it first but that’s another rant). That would establish her as stubborn, resourceful, tenacious, and someone who doesn’t let superficial appearances get in her way.

Plus, remember, this is Cass’s Batgirl costume, it already has a stitched-together aesthetic; she could make it work. And as a bonus, you’d get the interesting symbolism of it looking like her old Spoiler gear is trying to burst out from inside this costume that doesn’t quite fit her (because Cass is smaller than she is in a couple of different places) and, due to the placement of the cuts we see later on, it’d even be a neat visual transition between this temporary look and the one she wears as her permanent Batgirl gear.

But, no. All we got was a cliche quip and the implication that Stephanie cares more about Being Batgirl than she does her own safety, comfort or modesty.

But you know what really, really drives me nuts about this line? 

There is no way for us as readers to know whether it was an intentional change to Steph’s characterization or just a careless, thoughtless joke. 

The latter would be bad enough, as it implies that the people in charge of this character’s big spotlight starring role neither know nor care about the fundamental basics of who she is as a person and think that Batman handed her everything. But if it’s a deliberate change? That would imply a lot worse.

Because sewing, you see, is women’s work. In our dominant culture, it’s viewed as a feminine skill and a girly hobby. And our very special heroine simply can’t be shown to have girly interests or hobbies. That would make her… like other girls.

Even if that’s not a conscious mindset, I can see that being why the (entirely cisgender male) creativity team valued the skill so little they didn’t even think before tossing it aside for a joke. Frankly, given how the series goes on to treat both Steph and literally all of the women around her, I would not be surprised in the slightest.

But that’s a topic for another day. 

For now, I hope I've made my point. People are going to think I'm exaggerating when I say this but I really believe it’s true: the entire series is like this. If you read it in a vacuum and don't think about it, it seems perfectly functional, but the second you bring in outside context or start questioning things even a little, it all falls apart. And instead of drawing on Steph's established history and personality to make her a compelling and unique protagonist, it strips her down to nothing but shallow cliches to render her out as little more than a blank, generically quirky cipher for insecure people to project themselves onto.

It’s honestly depressing. 

#meta #batgirl #batgirl 2009 #stephanie brown #canon critical #critique of canon #long post #sorry #a lot of the topics I'm interested in talking about are interesting to me and possibly no one else #but they literally will not get out of my head so here I scream them into the void #so have a passionate defense of sewing as an artform from someone who couldn't sew a button