Selina Kyle In Batman Returns: A Character Study

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Next, we follow a woman walking all alone down a snow-covered street in Gotham, before she's abruptly pulled into a dark alleyway by a much larger man, taking advantage of the relative physical weakness she possesses partially due to her gender, and, even though he's apparently just a mugger, the way he rapaciously snatches downward at the woman's purse, keeps his hand firmly over her mouth to smother any potential cries for help, and his creepy comment about her way being a "pretty little thing", mean that the specter of potential sexual assault is never far from our minds during this scene. Before he can finish robbing the poor, helpless woman, however, a long, Expressionistic shadow begins to slowly, ominously rise up on the nearby wall, catching the man's attention and causing him to cease his attack, as he turns to see what's casting it:



It's Selina, finally, fully revealed in all of her Catwoman'd glory, enveloped head-to-toe in her gleaming catsuit, the white stitches all over representing the way that she's "sewn" her fractured psyche back together (for the time being, at least) after her defenestration, the obvious dominatrix stylings representing her newfound aggressive sense of sexuality, one that's not liberated for men's pleasure in any way, but is designed to be weaponized against them, while its full-body design, besides just being practical outside in the icy Gotham winter (a lesson that the naive Ice Princess should've cared about), also prevents it from becoming just some pointless, skimpy bit of fanservice, ala Halle Berry's much-maligned version of the character.



"I just love a big strong man who's not afraid to show it with someone half his size", Selina sarcastically purrs in her deep, sultry Catwoman voice, fearlessly challenging the mugger's manhood, as she is no longer content to just stand around any more and be victimized, or let any other woman have to experience the same trauma she did. The mugger immediately lets go of his first intended victim and looks to make Selina his next one instead, advancing on her while adopting a fighting stance, although he fails to intimidate Selina at all, as she confidentally stands her ground, steady as a rock, and continues to taunt the man by quipping "Be gentle, it's my first time" (again, another example of weaponized sexuality). And, at any rate, you'd never know it was Selina's "first time", as she effortlessly utilizes her six-inch dominatrix heels to brutal effect, taking the man completely off guard with a flurry of furious, no-mercy kickboxing (a discipline that Pfeiffer trained in just for this role!), as she steadily drives him back up against the wall:



Selina then pops out her homemade "claws", made of sewing implements up out of her hand (further weaponizing the incredibly benign, "girly"-seeming hobby), letting out a sudden, furious hiss as she does so, as the mugger can only watch frozen in completely, stunned bewilderment, as she scratches a bloody set of horizontal and vertical lines across his face, darkly, playfully exclaiming "Tic... tac...", before punching him right in the face for the "toe!", sending him out cold to the (also cold) ground before. The woman begins to to thank Selina for saving her, but she is abruptly silenced again by another hand being pressed over her mouth, although it belongs to Selina this time:



"You make it so easy, don't you? Always waiting for some Batman to save you?" Selina challenges the woman, likely thinking back upon her own physical helplessness in the face of the clown, and utilizing her outrage to break the cycle in Gotham of men collectively victimizing, and then rescuing helpless women... from other men. However, rather than continue to direct her self-loathing inward as she did before, she instead lashes out at with it, as if using the other woman as a proxy to criticize her past self, unfairly blaming the victim in the process, which obviously puts Selina in the mugger's place without her realizing it, making her the new predator, as she seems to have gotten involved for her own spiteful reasons, with no real interest in actually helping her out. The woman can only continue to stare in a petrified silence at this sudden about-turn, as Selina leans in closer and fiercly growls "I am Catwoman... hear me roar...", her proclamation to Gotham that a brand new black-clad vigilante is in town, this one a feminist avenger, and the XX-chromosome'd yin to Batman's yang, before she leaves the scene just as dramatically as she entered it, peeling off a flawless, furious set of rapid backflips, and disappearing off into the cold, dark night.