Catwoman and Cheetah: Two Sides of the Same Coin

What's one thing that both of DC Comics most prominent feline-themed villains to make it in the movies have in common? TV Tropes dot Org.

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Readers, I’d be lying if I said that one of the things I was excited to experience about Wonder Woman 1984 wasn’t Kristen Wiig’s depiction of Cheetah.

More specifically, how she was going to depict her pre-transformation self, Dr. Barbara Minerva and her relationship with Diana Prince.

Because, I’ll be honest; the initial announcement of her casting in this years ago threw me off in a good way, considering what I already knew about Barbara from the comics and various animated depictions of her.

My main concern was whether or not she’d pretend to be British to match her various counterparts or adapt the character to be American. Others, on the other hand, were concerned that Wiig’s more comedic background might make her a bad match for the role.

I didn’t, because 1) I know what Patty Jenkins can bring out the best in performers after watching Monster. 2) They said the same thing about Michael Keaton, and I stopped really caring about people’s opinions on superhero character casting that hardcore ever since the Ben Affleck Batman fiasco of 2016

Soon, I got my answer in the first still of her in character they released for the movie, followed by the teaser trailer that got me hype for movie last year.

/Then I saw the movie on HBO Max, and I realized that not only did I absolutely LOVE Kristen Wiig’s portrayal of Minerva, but I also realized something very familiar about it. Familiar, yet different./

You see, the moment Wiig’s Barbara first appeared on screen and I saw how she was gonna portray the character up until she became Cheetah, I immediately recognized the trope that was going to be used and how it was going to be further subverted in regards to her character.

The trope in question is called “Beautiful All Along,” in which a character -- most commonly a femme female identifying one -- undergoes either a physical or a mental makeover for lack of better phrases -- hell, sometimes both -- into a more societal mainstream variant of a Beautiful Swan after being depicted as a quote-unquote Ugly Duckling.

/They usually wear glasses, they wear ill-fitting clothes to show the audience that they’re either ashamed of their body or aren’t confident in it. They lack self-confidence and are absolutely shocked and semi-untrusting when someone MILES out of their league gives them the time of day because it usually means they’re about to be the butt of a school or office-wide prank. Then, usually through character development, they either fix their hair a certain way, wear their clothes differently or gain a sense of self and we find out that they’ve been Beautiful All Along./

Y’know, according to the impossible standards of Hollywood. But you already knew that.

Now I say that this trope is a further subversion in regards to how Barbara is treated in 84, because this is not the first time we’ve seen this trope used in a superhero movie, especially one from DC Comics. Michelle Pfeiffer’s depiction of Selina Kyle and her alias Catwoman in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns is actually the first time we see this play out.

/She’s a lowly secretary to her piece of shit boss Max Schrek who -- because of her lack of confidence, unkemptness and constant self-deprication (stupid corndog) -- is vastly ignored by Schrek and the bigwigs of Gotham he associates himself with. Then, the one time she tries costs her her life. Or, y’know; her first of nine./

Then when she reaches her breaking point because of what happened to her, she begins to change.

/She’s bolder. She has a tremendous boost of self-confidence (That’s my name, don’t wear it out). She no longer needs her glasses. She wears her hair differently. Becoming Catwoman aside, the decisions Selina makes in how she presents herself after her “Death Drop to the Cat Gawds” reflect in her and us realizing that she was “Beautiful All Along.”/

The reason why its a subversion of the trope however, is because before Pfeiffer’s version of Kyle, it was mostly used in a heteronormative romantic sense that played heavily into patriarchal norms.

The quote-unquote Ugly Duckling usually became the Beautiful Swan in order to win the heart of the male love interest, and is always depicted as their best selves by the end of the transformation because of that aspect.

Grease. Pretty Woman. The Princess Diaries. As long as there’s a man to appease as the end-goal, the transformation of the Ugly Duckling into a Beautiful Swan will always be done in a way that presents them and their personality in a positive light to everyone surrounding her.

Michelle Pfeiffer’s Selina Kyle did NOT change for the attention of a man -- even if she did begin to fall for Bruce later on after the change -- and instead changed for the combination of herself and the motivation of enacting her revenge on Max Schrek.

/Because this was back when Catwoman was mainly depicted as a straight-up villain rather than the anti-hero she is nowadays, the shifts in her confidence and how she depicted herself had to be seen as uninviting and emotionally detached from the rest of patriarchal society, including the women that can’t see a life past it. Which, as a result, causes her to be feared for her transformation as opposed to adored.

Too Long, Didn’t Read: (Life’s a bitch. Now so am I)/

When you look at it from this lens, it makes the decision to take this route with Selina’s character in the movie as opposed to just being either the daughter of Gotham mob boss Carmine Falcone or a cat-burgling philanthropist as she’s usually depicted as in the good comic book stories she’s in that are coincidentally enough not written by Frank Miller all the more impactful.

Not only did the subversion help bring attention to the patriarchal dogma that usually attached itself to the trope back in the day...

But ever since the potent rise of more feminist practices and ideology in modern society, the original intent of Selina Kyle’s subversion of “Beautiful All Along” has since been reclaimed to mean something more positive and anti-establishment driven.

And that’s not even counting how many queer people look at Selina’s journey in releasing her true unhinged self and claim it as a spiritual awakening for themselves.

Because of this, Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman -- intentional or not -- became the blueprint for how both Patty Jenkins and Ray Fisher’s second harasser on the set of Justice League would handle Kristen Wiig’s transition from Barbara Minerva to Cheetah.

And as I’ve stated near the beginning of this video, those who’ve already seen Batman Returns can spot this easily in Wonder Woman 1984.

/The difference between how Michelle Pfeiffer’s Selina Kyle subverted the trope versus how Kristen Wiig’s Barbara Minerva subverted the trope however, is that while society has SOMEWHAT evolved to the point of no longer stigmatizing the breakdown of Kyle’s character in Batman Returns...

Wonder Woman 1984 takes that subverted trope, applies it to Barbara and tells a story of what happens if the Catwoman subversion of the trope in question happens for the wrong reasons./

As I stated earlier, Kristen Wiig’s Barbara Minerva ticks a lot of the same boxes as Michelle Pfeiffer’s Selina Kyle did.

/She’s stereotypically unconventional when it comes to attractiveness according to film and television’s depiction of societal standards. She’s awkward and lacks self-confidence to the point where people either don’t notice her or remember her. Even when they should. Even her blond hair and the decision to give her glasses is straight from Selina’s look-book./

It starts to take a turn into uncharted territory however, when Diana enters the picture. Because while Selina’s motive to change was out of resentment and revenge, Barbara’s was out of envy and desire.

/Diana takes the place of the traditional heteronormative use of the Beautiful All Along trope with Barbara the moment she helps her pick up her displaced paperwork from the floor. The subversion here is supposed to be that Barbara finally gained the attention of someone, and its in this beautiful, confident and strong woman as opposed to a traditionally tall, dark but still white and handsome man./

But because both of the writers of this movie are straight, they don’t know any better.

As they befriend each other, to Barbara, Diana becomes the goal. Not as far as winning her love or anything like that like in the comics -- remember: the writers are straight and one of them refuses to know any better according to his body of work -- but instead becomes the goal for Barbara to achieve.

/Diana has everything she wants; strength, presence, confidence, conventional beauty. And while Barbara coveted them enough to wish for them with the Dreamstone, the tragic irony in how well the two’s dynamic is made in this movie, is that Diana saw all of that within Barbara from the start. And so did we./

When Barbara begins to lose what makes her Barbara in exchange for what the Dreamstone granted her, what once was envy grows into spite.

/Because as far as Barbara’s point of view is concerned, Diana wants Barbara to give up what its like to be just like her; strong, beautiful, and confident, refusing to acknowledge that she made the wish that granted her this all for the wrong reasons./

And because she refuses to see that who she was before the Dreamstone is truly what she sought to achieve due to being blinded by what she believes she wants according to how the world sees Diana, the empathy and compassion Barbara once possessed that would’ve otherwise fueled everything she wanted to bring to light within her is now gone, and will never return unless she renounces her wish.

/Only once she does that, along with some soul-searching, will this iteration of Barbara Minerva realize that she’s been “Beautiful All Along.”/

So while we now have two VERY good examples of this trope being subverted thanks to Michelle Pfeiffer and Kristen Wiig, they’re both done in ways that actually show how they reflect each other.

While Selina Kyle realized what was inside her and brought it out in ways that gave her the confidence to be her best self without being restricted to societal norms, Barbara coveted things she THOUGHT she didn’t have from someone who only kept themselves within the brackets of societal norms in order to keep from drawing attention to herself and became the worst version of herself in order to obtain it, unknowing that she had the things she wanted within her all along.

/Go figure that the two cat-themed antagonists from DC Comics to make it on the silver screen would also end up being two sides of the same coin./

But, I digress, Readers. Your homework assignment for the day:

Write in the comment section below what YOU thought of Kristen Wiig’s performance as Cheetah in Wonder Woman 1984. Y’know, if you’ve seen it.

Or, if you feel like sharing with the rest of the class, write in the comment section below, an example of the Beautiful All Along trope that YOU’VE seen that -- like Michelle Pfeiffer’s Selina Kyle -- doesn’t conform to patriarchal norms and isn’t looked at as antagonistic because of it.

Whichever you decide to answer, I’d love to hear your thoughts.