Batgirl’s Debut 50 Years Ago Proved Damsels Can Save The Day

The biggest superhero of 2017 wasn’t Spider-Man or Wolverine or the Guardians of the Galaxy. It was Wonder Woman, the Amazonian headliner of the biggest movie of the summer, the second highest-grossing film of the year, and the film that finally broke the bad luck streak female superheroes have unfairly shouldered. This ground-breaking movie (which is getting a ground-breaking sequel) was a major step forward for inclusivity in the superhero genre–and the first step on that journey was taken 50 years ago today.

On September 14, 1967, another A-list DC Comics super woman made her live-action debut, pushing her purple high-heeled boot through the door of the comic book boys club. Yvonne Craig pulled double duty as Commissioner Gordon’s daughter Barbara and Batgirl in Batman’s Season 3 premiere, giving pop culture its first live-action female superhero.

There had been plenty of female heroes in superhero comics before Barbara Gordon’s Batgirl (Wonder Woman, Miss America, Black Canary, Batwoman, the Invisible Girl, Marvel Girl, and the Wasp among others), but Batgirl became a living, breathing icon before all the rest. In fact, Barbara Gordon owes her existence to television. Legend has it that Batman executive producer William Dozier asked DC editor Julius Schwartz to develop a new female character in the hopes of using her to convince ABC to pick the show up for another season. Artist Carmine Infantino designed Batgirl’s original black and yellow jumpsuit look, and thus one of the most enduring DC heroes was introduced in late 1966’s Detective Comics #359.

The addition of Batgirl sold ABC on a third season of Batman, its popularity having waned from the Bat-mania of 1966. A new caped crusader, secretly a fresh-out-of-college librarian named Barbara Gordon, swung onto the scene with the episode “Enter Batgirl, Exit Penguin.”

Batgirl was a revelation and a revolution in 1967. This was the first time that girls across the country got to see a young woman don a colorful costume and mix it up with henchmen, more than holding her own with well-placed high kicks. But Batgirl’s intro episode did so much more than that; it instantly made Barbara Gordon a vital, fascinating, and appropriately campy part of the show. Not only does Barbara have a cape and a dual identity like the Dynamic Duo, she also has her own secret compartment that swivels out from behind her vanity, revealing a cool exposed brick wall and her Batgirl gear. And in another compartment lies Batgirl’s motorcycle, a glorious purple hog trimmed with incongruous white frills (reminder: Batman ’66 was a purposefully ridiculous show). This episode sneaks you into Barbara Gordon’s secret world, one of masks and motorcycles located behind the wall of her All-American girl apartment.

What stands out about this episode now is how ahead of its time it was in its portrayal of a female superhero. For one thing, Barbara Gordon is a college graduate and a librarian. This girl got a degree and went into a legit profession in the late ’60s, and she lives on her own in her own apartment (she probably shoved her motorcycle into a second bedroom, right?). And while her superhero identity is derivative of a man’s, it’s one that Barbara chooses for herself, totally owns, and uses without Batman’s (Adam West) permission (and to his total surprise, TBH). The ’60s Batman show never dabbled in traumatic origins, only mentioning Batman and Robin’s (Burt Ward) dead parents fleetingly, so Batgirl isn’t even saddled with a grim origin. She’s an independent woman working in academics and kicking crime’s ass because she wants to.

As Batgirl tells Batman after her introductory melee, “I’m sure you could have handled these crooks without my help, but I was glad for the chance to join in the fun.”

Batgirl’s introduction even puts a clever twist on the damsel in distress rigamarole, which was already a tired trope in 1967. The Penguin (Burgess Meredith) kidnaps Barbara and a preacher with the intention of marrying into the commissioner’s family, thus receiving immunity from prosecution (just go with it!). Barbara is tied up, pressured into a wedding dress, and expected to wait for her awful fate. Barbara does not do that. Barbara escapes through the window of her prison (conveniently the apartment right next to hers), walks the ledge over to her pad, and then gets into gear as Batgirl. She “ZAP!” and “ZOWIE!”s through a fight scene and ends up having to rescue Batman and Robin from the Penguin. She has to peace out of the final battle to get back into her damsel dress, so as to not blow her secret identity.

This moment of subversive brilliance exposes the damsel trope for what it is: it’s a costume that immensely capable female characters have to wear in order to fit in with what men expect. It would have been great to see Barbara figure out a way to free herself as Barbara in front of Batman and Robin, thus preserving her identity and de-samseling her alter ego, but the fact that a 1967 superhero romp subverted the trope at all is revolutionary. Viewers in 1967 were just shown that damsels can save themselves and save the boys.

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