You seriously think there's no difference between a person's ability to recognize two social acquaintances and his ability to recognize his own daughter????
Do you actually thinkBruce & Dick would not have greater need to protect their identity considering the incontrovertible facts / experiences available to Gordon:
- One male adult, one male teenager of an approximate gate and build.
- One costumed adult, one costumed male teenager of an approximate age and build.
- Both sets with similar voice patterns
- Both sets known professionally and socially by Gordon on a frequent basis for years.
Batgirl just dropped in town. Constant exposure of Wayne & Grayson in and out of costume poses a greater challenge than Barbara--a person who Gordon holds preconceived notions about all he thinks Barbara is, and until recently (in universe) was long out of his presence at college.
You cannot underestimate how well someone should know those who are in his office (seemingly) every day, while the other half he knows as friends he's socialized with on numerous filmed occasions.
I've certainly never heard anyone trash Batgirl as aggressively as you do.
Which does not mean the criticism does not exist.
Batgirl was designed to inject new life into the
Batman ratings. If the character was a success, that desired goal would have helped, but it did not. When anyone discussing the decline of Batman, one cannot simply say,
"oh, it was the budget" (apparently not, as they added another performer, and paid her more than series star Burt Ward), or "oh, the fad had lost its appeal, so..." In any critical analysis, all new factors have to be considered, and none were bigger than the addition of another superhero to the series.
The behind the scenes motives (as related by Infantino) hammer the fact that Dozier thought Batgirl was going to be
the answer, so in comes the meeting with DC Comics brass, the promotional film for ABC (which was uncommon for a single character planning to be added to an existing TV series), and ultimately, Batgirl as the would-be life saver.
If that did not happen--and of course, it did not, that means Batgirl failed as said life saver. She was no minor supporting player that would not move the needle in either direction (e.g. Aunt Harriet), but a major effort to draw in viewers.
Again, that did not happen because the character was a failure--evident in the anti-super heroic characterization.
http://feministbatgirl.tumblr.com/day/2015/08/19
As the original Batgirl actress, she was the first female hero on screen, introducing the idea of superheroines in a fun way just as feminism was about to become a greater part of the culture. She even used that platform to star in a Department of Labor Equal Pay PSA!
...
Being smart was shown as a superheroine’s real power- a power that could best both male physical strength and material resources.... One of the enduring things about every version of Barbara Gordon as Batgirl is that she is unapologetic in being both an intelligent and a feminine character, even during times when that combination is unpopular in media.
Unpopular? Questionable in the extreme. In the 1960s, the female characters oft-cited in this thread were not only popular (one had her
own TV series, while the other was often more of a draw than her male companion), but considered revolutionary for their time, and in TV history overall.
Are you--or anyone else--going to place Yvonne Craig's Batgirl on the same level of breakthrough and cultural / media importance as
Honey West and the female heroines from
The Avengers?
Ask Gloria Steinem or Lynda Barry about which female superhero character was more inspirational.
The article also points out that Yvonne Craig, unlike West and Ward, did all her own stunts.
Yvonne Craig said she had a stunt double. One can be seen riding the horse in
"A Horse of Another Color," and another was used in some of the motorcycle stunts, though Craig also operated the bike on camera.
Moreover, man, you just hammered that final nail! The reason she was able to perform more of her own stunts was due to the fact her "fighting"
was not fighting at all, meaning they were as non-dangerous as possible. That was not the case with West and Ward's fights at all. Bad comparison, Christopher.
Further, we do see West and Ward allowed to take chances that was never going to be sent Craig's way, such as West performing the entire fight in the United Underworld hideout from the
Batman movie, or Ward's martial arts work in episodes mentioned earlier.
There's no comparison.
Granted, you're right that Batgirl wasn't as feminist as other characters, that the show didn't take her as far as they could have. But for the time, her very existence was still a powerful feminist statement, even watered down as it was. Your problem is that you're seeing only the negatives. For girls and women in the '60s, they were surrounded by far more negative images and assumptions, so anything that eroded those expectations at all was a step forward
I see the positive
when it exists. All of us Trek BBS members know the reach Nichelle Nichols had with some women and people of many colors, then the TV spies/detectives already made that list, along with
Julia, or Peggy Lipton's Julie Barnes character (one of the earliest, college age women as an active police officer--though undercover) from
The Mod Squad.
The 1960's made numerous important strides in female characters being more than set dressing, and on some of the most visible series of the decade. Many were written to have opinions that could not be ignored, and having the ability to change situations around them based on being just as vital and effective as any man. My point is that with progressive female TV characters existing
before TV Batgirl, and the comic version designed specifically to act as a guide for Dozier, he (Dozier) had no excuse to mold Craig's version into someone no more believable in the role of a superhero than Shelly Fabares' Mary Stone "flighty debutante" type character from
The Donna Reed Show.
Good point!
