This Reblog

This reblog ↓

It's so fascinating because you can clearly tell that Chuck loved some of his characters but that he still subjected them to his own biases the most. Like a parent who loves their kid back cracks down harder on their beliefs specifically because it is their child in some sense of the parent trying to show their love of the child.

Stephanie Brown deserves so much better and to have a really good writer, but it do clearly shows that the one comic person who wrote for her was the one who doomed her.

Some of Chuck's writing of her falls exactly into the 16 year old girl mentality (trust me I was one). Some points where she is being written as irrational and moody fit perfectly well into a teenage girl who is going through stressful situations and trying to keep everything going right at the same time. But it wasn't written with that intent but so clearly works.

I hate Chuck for the damage that he has done and the legacy he created for those to follow, and for his hatred. But there are moments where he somehow writes complex characterization that can lead to brilliance within characters.

Why is Chuck good at unintentionally writing Queer characters?

Back to Stephanie. She's the troubled girl next door with a chip off her shoulder and the skill to bite back. But she is also a teenager making so many stupid teenage decisions and a teenager being put through situations no one should ever have to go through (plain out or in the way she did.)

Anyway have to agree with OP.

On another note though I wish that DC would actually write her with complexities and give her characterization back but remove it from the lense of misogyny and move it to something more positive.

the thing i tend to rotate in my mind when i think of how dixon wrote steph is that. you can tell chuck doesn't respect women and is clearly a misogynist. but you can also tell that despite that, chuck really, really loves steph and that she's also very much his precious baby character in the way that tim is.

like, if tim is his ideal of how a nice young man should act and behave, it's clear that steph is very much his ideal of how a girl should be, especially as a love interest for a nice young man. a good boy deserves a girl who is spunky & fun and all that.

like. setting aside his standard brand of misogyny where steph is often condescended to or shown to be the one who messes up or makes dumb unrealistic decisions because ~women, amirite?~

there's just a thread of. idk. you can tell how much he actually likes steph despite writing sexist things for her. like she's curated in an extremely positive way that contrasts to ariana (who is the boring, safe love interest) that shows how much more interesting and compatible with tim she is, because girls who have a bit of an edge are more exciting. she's maybe on the lower end of middle class, so she's poor enough to be plucky (&& because it fits a rich boy poor girl trope very nicely--see also, the candy girl dynamic in kdramas--steph is poorer with the hardship of having a criminal father, but despite that she's going to keep trying and her perseverance and frankness despite being an underdog is appealing to the rich boy she meets and they initially clash at first but she gets "rewarded" for overcoming all that in the end. with the man.), but not too poor of course (she takes gymnastics, she lives in the suburbs, she can clearly afford a phone in her room/personal line and computer in the 90s that was very common with regular, relatable middle class girls in the 90s. see: clarissa explains it all). she's smart! she's creative enough to make her own costume from scratch! but at the same time, she gets into trouble that tim has to get her out of because a perfect girlfriend to chuck is one who is extremely competent but ultimately still needs the help of a man. the annoying pregnancy storyline is a hallmark of chuck's misogyny, but at the same time in it he ensures that steph is the Good Girl who, despite her mistakes, valiantly chooses to keep the baby to give her up for adoption despite everyone like her mom and tim telling her she's making a mistake. which is basically chuck's version of venerating her by having her do what he thinks an ideal girl should do in that situation. he did that story because he hates women and gave it to steph because he loves her. she even gets to kick the dude who got her pregnant in the balls! she gets mad and unreasonable about tim at points partially because chuck thinks women are unreasonable and partially because he genuinely thinks a good love interest/female character has those traits. all the complaints about sexist writing with her are valid, because chuck is a sexist, but at the same time it's just clear to me that he wrote her that way because of how much he loves her character.

it's just fascinating to me i'm just fascinated.

Wow, Jason Todd really stole Huntresses whole schtick huh

A street-level anti-hero with mob connections, a taste for violence, an ambivalent attitude to murder, and a contentious-at-best relationship with Batman, plus a soft spot for kids

Helena should sue for copyright claims, he’s even treading on her Catholic turf

What makes it worse is that the stomache cutout was given soon after a plot where Helena was shot in the stomache multiple times. Also within her character is her need for control over herself and the sense of feeling in control and strong. She is the survivor of CSA and SA, and during this new era of her writing the comic makers decieded to have create conflict among the birds of Prey by making Babs a character who shut shames Helena. [I have a lot to say on that choice on both characters parts and the way that men have written these characters but that is for another day.]

One thing that makes it weirder (the costume) is that Helena is shown as a civilian to dress fairly conservatively (IE modest or more covering than revealing clothing) so it feels more out of place in many ways.

That's not to say I don't like impractical or silly hero costumes but I want it to feel like the character would actually wear it. Like they choose to put it on.

Can we take a moment to talk about how Helena Bertinelli is disrespected in the DC fandom (more specifically the Batman side of DC). Like this woman is one of the founding members of the modern Batfam and yet so many people don't even know who see is.

[Sidenote: Bruce Wayne/Batman didn't create the Batfam it was made by Tim, and to people who value the importance of a character with the extended Batfam by their connection to Bruce. I tell you that the characters connection to Tim should matter more. Tim brought Nightwing back into the fold, held up Batman, was the first accepting vigilante of Huntress, a major reason Babs got back into the fold, was the one most connected to Steph. Tim collected a lot of older sibling figures, an ex girlfriend and a failure of a father figure.]

Anyway back to Helena. The legacy that the stomache square hole has had on her costume is massive and the poor writing done in the mid 2000s still directly affects the writing on Helena now.

Anyway Helena is the better Gotham antihero and the one who made that mold that so many people like the put Jason Todd into.

best (!!!!!!!) Antihero in gotham!

I love your Stephanie Brown post. It verbalized this feeling I've had about her character for awhile but didn't quite know how to phrase.

Just wanted to thank you for that!

ah thank you <3

yea to me, the super frustrating thing is that dixon's sexism gives her flaws that i find super narratively compelling and interesting and 3-dimensional and overall strong in a way that other writers somewhat miss the mark for me (i actually have a lot of criticisms about bg2009 and how bqm wrote her--overall i find it a very surface level girl power story veneered over pretty standard 2009 era sexism wrt the dynamics between women that has not aged super well and doesn't do much for actually giving steph interesting depth as a character & i find it's weakened by the fact that it is a doylist apology for the absolutely horrific way editorial treated steph prior to her death (which. she does deserve an apology and to be treated better), but also by doing that it makes almost every other character such as babs seem unreasonable and bad for their very understandable watsonian response to being wary of steph for many valid reasons and also makes it hard to actually give steph any flaws that aren't just quirky or clumsy--she's not perfect because she's adorkable). dixon steph has so many problems, being written by dixon, but she's truly my favorite flavor of steph because despite how horrid dixon is, you can absolutely tell how much he truly cared about her as a character. like. i bet if you asked him, he would have nothing but positive things to say about her personality and other characteristics. in fact, i believe a lot of the letters to the editor that talked about her back in the early robin issues had a lot of super positive things to say about her! like he created her! she's his blorbo! he wants to put her through the struggles!

like so many of her struggles when he's writing her is so much due to his sexism (she's never quite as competent as tim, and shouldn't be because she's The Girlfriend--compare to characters like babs and dinah and helena that were women but also written as extremely competent and good at what they do) and also because he wanted to put her through the wars, give her adversity to overcome! like steph is treated horribly a lot. by everyone. but it's partially because he wants her to perservere through it because he likes her and wants her to succeed. like a couple of very common threads through dixon's storytelling for her are the following:

tim is condescending (because that's how boys and girls are. see also: every 90s tv show that had a beleaguered sensible man with a nagging, over the top, ridiculous woman who does silly things that the man Puts Up With) -> steph gets mad -> tim thinks to himself that he shouldn't be so hard on her and usually apologizes -> well, actually tim was probably right because steph did get into trouble but steph making constant mistakes isn't actually narratively seen as "hey, maybe she should stop if she's making mistakes" because dixon wants her to continue.

or

more experienced vigilante (male or female--tim gets a lot of flack, but honestly, almost every single vigilante in batbooks at the time seemed to think steph wasn't quite good enough--batman, dick had his reservations about her, barbara didn't really necessarily want to train her, *cass* straight up told her she shouldn't be doing this, dinah didn't want to be her mentor, etc) tells steph not to screw up -> steph screws up -> steph has to get bailed out by more experienced vigilante -> steph keeps trying despite this

like so many of her diary entries that steph writes involve some flavor of "i've been told not to do this, but i have to, it's something i need to do despite all the naysayers". and it's sexist! because chuck wouldn't necessarily write the 'screw up and overconfident which usually leads to needing to be bailed out but keeps trying anyways' kind of a narrative for a male lead character (male characters get the 'i'm super competent but insecure/humble about it and when i make mistakes i'm able to figure out how to fix them by myself' narrative). but at the same time, it's what he truly believed for her--that she deserved to keep going despite any naysayers. if he truly believed that steph shouldn't be a vigilante or thought poorly of her, she would have been written out and/or he would have written her as making a mistake so bad she wouldn't have continued her activities as spoiler and finally agreeing with everyone that she's not cut out for this. but he didn't. dixon writes her as not as competent as her peers because he has a worldview where girls are lesser and not capable of being as good as the boys. but he writes her with dogged determination to keep trying despite this because dixon truly thinks she deserves to keep going despite any mistakes he writes her making and that her perseverance should be rewarded.

like consider the arc where steph finds out tim's identity. dixon makes steph seem unreasonable for daring to change her mind and realize that yea, she does want to know the boy under the mask she's dating after all (because dixon thinks that girls are fickle and change their minds and boys shouldn't have to put up with that kind of nonsense behavior, not because this is a super valid thing to want) -> he has her go beat up an innocent boy named tito and stalk him in the hospital (because dixon is a sexist who things girls are just like this) -> tim does rightfully get mad about this and leaves in a huff -> batman tells steph tim's identity and she gets what she wanted?? -> tim is mad at her and batman until JLL when this is all swept under the rug and they go back to happily dating again + at this point everyone is open to training her/finally giving her a chance (until murderer/fugitive when she gets locked out again--which also leads into the era where dixon is no longer writing her--and after this is when we really get a lot of the really iconic unfair treatment towards her because at this point didio wanted her gone). and it creates this absolute interesting dissonance where you can see the overt sexism in dixon's writing and it's infuriating. and at the same time dixon also rewards her for the sexist way he writes her and she does generally get what she wants because dixon wants to give her the reward for her perseverance.

hell, consider the pregnancy storyline which is beyond overtly sexist and conservative but is probably the part where steph is most treated the best/in the right. tim and her mom are shown as in the wrong compared to her "correct" decision to keep the baby and they have to come around to support her. not just that, but for her to be given a teen pregnancy storyline in the 90s and not be shown as a Bad Girl for getting pregnant as a teen? dixon hates women and yet to him steph is a good girl who makes a mistake (something something he'll judge others, but when it comes to his daughter that's a different case. expections apply.) and she gets an ultimately supportive good boy boyfriend who helps her go to birthing class despite the fact that i'm sure dixon looks down on unwed teen mothers a lot.

it's just. i want to study it under a microscope. there's so much to unpack there.

Waking up realizing it's your birthday and that you are another year older.