"The thing I can't wrap my mind around is that a single character, like Selina Kyle here, can be either white or black or mixed. Unless she has some supernatural power to change her genome... and I don't recall her having that."
She's not a real person, or historical figure. not about her genome changing.... its about the artist writing her or decisions of who would portray her being extremely varied over the years
"Or is it that at some point, some illustrator decided, after too many drinks, to change Selina's ethnic background... just because? That would not be a valid point, for me personally."
I dont think inventing that scenario in your own head is valid for anyone....
and again you'd have a point if her history was significant to her character. like she was say always portrayed from around her first appearance in 1940. as her origin story being her coming from a poor polish immigrants who came after ww2 and hence became a cat burglar to support her poor family. The character origin would be constantly reinforced, and attached to a certain race/ ethnicity for decades and decades and decades. changing this would certainly be jarring and pointless.
But that isnt the case and race has played no role in Selenas character arc. other than her character being shown as not strictly white through her various appearances.
its not about a reboot, a multiverse, an alternative timeline ect. For whatever reason, possibly due to a black actress, Eartha Kitt portraying her fairly early on in her creation, that there wasn't such a firm racial background established with her compared to say Bruce Wayne. and artists felt they didnt have to stick as closely to a single look.
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[deleted]
3 years ago
I understand your answer. I'm not convinced. I still think she should be how she was originally intended to be. But I got the sense of what you're saying.
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Leodicaprio (6426)
3 years ago
the problem is race aside, characters often become completely different, changed, added on to and unrecognizable from what they were "originally intended to be"
especially given many of our favourite heroes and villains came about in the 40s-60s.
i'm not sharing "cool so make batman a wheel chair bound asian and black panther an American".
But I think Catwoman has a unique history, and researching it more to provide arguments to you people said many of the artists who later portrayed her as black (year one) or mixed race were doing homages/ throw backs to when Eartha Kitt portrayed her. because to them that was part of the character
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