batman

Gender Defying Halloween PSA Gives Us All the Feels

The PSA tells children (and their parents) that it is OK to dress as anyone you want for Halloween, but the twist at the end has social media buzzing.

The two-minute PSA is simply titled “My Heroes.” It shows a family celebrating Halloween together. They buy costumes for their little boy and girl: Batman and Wonder Woman; carve Jack-o-Lanterns and excitedly speculate about the candy they will get.

Although they are having a good time, obvious expressions of concern and worry show on the parents faces when the kids aren’t looking. After a night of trick or treating, both kids are in candy-and-television induced comas. The mom and dad each grab a kid and tuck them into bed.

It is only as the camera pulls away that we realize that after they put on their costumes, we never saw the kids’ faces. It was the boy who was Wonder Woman, and the girl had chosen Batman.

The video ends as the dad looks back on his sleeping children and whispers, “My heroes,” before turning off the lights.

This 2-minute digital PSA was written by Alexander Day and Brian Carufe, directed by Almog Avidan Antonir, and produced by the team at Landwirth Legacy Productions, as means to challenge gender stereotypes when it comes to children’s Halloween costumes

Landwirth Legacy Productions aims to create entertaining and educational visual content and stories that seek to enrich, empower, and inspire audiences. Compassion is at the root of every project and relationship that Landwirth Legacy cultivates.

‘The Killing Joke’ Gets a Brutal ‘Honest Trailer’

Warner Bros. new animated take on the controversial Killing Joke makes the problematic Batgirl story arc even more problematic.

This summer at San Diego Comic Con Warner Bros. unveiled the trailer for their newest and most controversial animated film yet, an R-rated adaptation of The Killing Joke. The fine folks at Screen Junkies decided to make one of their patented ‘Honest Trailers’ for the movie, and it is safe to say they are not fans.

The Killing Joke is widely considered to be one of the greatest Joker stories ever told. But as time as passed it has also become infamous as one of the worst Batgirl stories ever told. The story sees the Barbara Gordon (Batgirl) shot in the spine, paralyzed and sexually abused at the hands of the Joker, then discarded — solely to provide motivation for the male protagonists, Batman and Commissioner Gordon.

Writer Alan Moore remembered asking whether it would be OK to dispatch Batgirl in such a cavalier fashion. “I spoke to Len Wein, who was our editor on the project … [He] said, ‘Yeah, okay, cripple the bitch.’ It was probably one of the areas where they should’ve reined me in, but they didn’t.”

The movie adaptation tried to blunt some of the criticism aimed at the graphic novel by adding more Batgirl content to the beginning of the story, but the minds at Screen Junkies were having none of it. From their ‘Honest Trailer’ of the film:

“Warner Bros. is fighting fire with gasoline, by adding even more Batgirl, except now she also gets roofied, flirts with a criminal who is giving her attention, has sex with her boss, complains about men and gets talked down to by a grown man in a batsuit … Prompting this strong female character to just give up and quit, and only then get victimized in the exact same way as the original source material.”

Ouch.

Batwoman Is Back to Her Badass Self

As part of the new “Rebirth” storyline, DC has restored some luster to one of of its best and brightest female heroes. Batwoman has officially joined the cast of the revamped Detective Comics — which is now a team book, rather than us focusing solely on the exploits of Batman.

The new teams features younger heroes Red Robin, Spoiler and Orphan –and throws in a wildcard by including the villain Clayface trying for his shot at redemption.

But Batman needs someone to whip this newly-formed team into shape. And he chooses his cousin Kate Kane a.k.a. the military-trained Batwoman; a woman that Bruce trusts so much, he reveals his secret identity to her .. only to find out that she figured it out on her own more than a year ago.

Writer James Tynion uses this scene to make clear early on that Kate Kane is no one’s “sidekick.” She is every bit Batman’s equal and she won’t be taking a subordinate role to anyone. Batwoman is one of the greatest female heroes created in the past 10 years, and this is a welcome return to form for the character.

Detective Comics #934 is on shelves now.

Batwoman

2 - 0k6csrG

3 - bHDiocs

Batgirl Fights For Equal Pay

Today marks “Equal Pay Day.” April 12th is the date that symbolizes how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year. It’s a depressing statistic made even more depressing by the fact that we’ve been fighting this same injustice for decades, as this PSA from 1974 starring Batgirl (Yvonne Craig) demonstrates.

But we don’t fight because it’s easy. We fight because it’s the right thing to do.