It’s no longer taboo to talk about kink. All the cool directors are doing it, Halina Reijn in Babygirl with Nicole Kidman going raw and unhinged even more than her past self, and Denis Villeneuve giving us a glimpse of Austin Butler’s kinkiness as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in Dune: Part Two, not to mention Zachary Wigon’s Sanctuary which explicitly draws in the power struggle between dominatrix and her submissive inside and outside the dom/sub relationship.
Some films build their whole narrative around kink, Crash (1996), Last Tango in Paris, Secretary, and the easily-dismissed Fifty Shades of Grey saga among the most prominent examples. But then there are films where kink plays a huge part in character development, plotline progression, and the narrative without explicitly stating that.
Since when did I discover the dual-kinky nature of Catwoman? For me, it began with the comic books and the pop art, many stories depicting her holding Batman captive, surrendering him to twisted games of pain and pleasure, tying him up -with her whip of all things- and finding delight in his struggle, in her threatening to tear his mask with her razors and wires claws. Other paintings depict her as a captive, with Batman’s hand on her mouth, or her explosive, emotionally unstable nature allowing her to fall into his arms. This is all a testament to one of the facts of life that every cat person worth their penny knows: the dual nature of cats.
Cats are divine, intelligent creatures. Unlike dogs, the most popular and beloved pets, they’re not easy to love and discover. You can rarely consider a cat a pet; cats have been domesticated later than dogs, and their unforeseen, ignitable nature makes them difficult to read, to love even. So with Catwoman, it takes a particular kind of person to understand and love this intense fragility, prone to flight at any moment. Someone who loves deeply but can easily rip the tissue off the face of the person they love in a rage. Toxic? Sadistic? This is part of what someone signs up for when loving a woman like Catwoman.
So where do the complexity and duality of nature lie? In the rare moment, a cat opens up like a lotus flower to its owner. It’s when the cat that has resisted all kinds of cuddling or connection, creeps up into the owner’s lap, and snuggles there, asking for warmth, for love, submissively purring in contentment that the owner wonders if they’re dealing with a severe case of Multiple Personality Disorder.
It was after a discussion with one of my close cinephile friends that I realized; Catwoman is not simply a dominatrix, but she’s a sadomasochist. Catwoman wants to be empowered as much as she likes to empower Batman. She wants to hurt him, but she also wants him to disentangle her from that fierce burst of power that she has lunged into after her great transformation; she dies, then cats resurrect her, like an unannounced queen on their throne, as harborers of multiple lives, and tactfully connecting both worlds, the dead and the alive.
Ever since I watched Michelle Pfeiffer in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns, I’ve never been able to see any other Catwoman. It starts with the transformation scene, in which she kills Selina Kyle to become Catwoman. Something has shifted in me as a little girl and how I saw many women in my family trapped inside their Selina Kyle dollhouses, wishing they could just smash everything, obliterating an entire universe of facade that they built or has been built for them. I see how she drinks the milk, lets it drip on her face, paints everything black, and stitches her skintight latex costume (designed by Bob Ringwood and Mary E. Vogt) as if stitching her new personality into action. Also, as if it’s an allegory to self-harm, this cat is dangerous, but she’s as self-destructive as she is a menace to society. Pfeiffer’s Catwoman represents female rage, unrefined, unabashed, detrimental, and growling with rage.
To me, she has been the only giant Siberian/Persian cat hybrid, her stone cold, predatory eyes, her wild blond hair, her Aryan features, her ferocity, her viciousness, her pleasure in torturing her victims, or even the pleasure she feels while holding her captives underneath her power. She finds Batman a worthy opponent, smart, violent -although a tad repressed- volatile, moody, and dark. And to Catwoman, darkness motivates and attracts her like a moth to a flame. Pfeiffer explores Catwoman’s sadism with the perfect blend of vitriol and arousal. Her Catwoman is unpredictable, but also cynical and bored. She’s a giant, feral, irritated cat that finds everything a joke, until she meets Batman. Since then, the joke has turned into a mutual, erotic attraction; a toxic infatuation bordering on trauma bonding.
Catwoman’s first meeting with Batman, sees her on top, licking his face, asserting a domineering sexual position, asserting the power dynamics in this relationship.
It’s settled, Pfeiffer closes the deal for me, and she will always be my Catwoman. I can never see anyone but her, I can never unsee her. Halle Berry (although a great BDSM-inspired outfit) hasn’t contributed much to the character, nor has Anne Hathaway. Their Catwoman feels tasteless and featureless, lacking character or an edge. Until I watch Matt Reeves’s The Batman and my eyes fell on Zoë Kravitz’s Catwoman, titillating Batman, I discovered the other side of Catwoman.
The only actress smart enough to completely and boldly shed off the Pfeiffer Catwoman glam is Kravitz, whose turn as Catwoman in The Batman has given her a beautiful seductive air of compliance and submissiveness, a side that she willingly and out of her true power evokes in Batman, the masochistic nature of being subdued into someone else’s power, asking for him to overpower her. For me, it always begins with a particular scene. As it has been the transformation scene in Batman Returns with Pfeiffer, here it is the scene where Batman gags Catwoman, and they rhythmically breathe, creating a physical kinky unison that seems like a portrait, like they are fused in a singular body. A friend jokingly expressed that it looks like spooning, and this has been an eye-opener in this interpretation of Catwoman and Batman’s relationship.
In the beginning, Batman voyeuristically watches Catwoman taking off her stockings, and her wig, surrounded by cats, and comforting a friend. It doesn’t feel like she’s oblivious to him, but more like she’s inviting him. It’s more of a dominant masochist situation, where someone invites the submissive sadist into the play, orchestrating a scene and instructing them precisely on what to do, but with all the threads, the controls in their hands. Catwoman, as a less aggressive, more malleable character in this film, still seeks control and dominates the scene, but from a more feminine standpoint, like a Siamese cat, coy and controlling, but more open to curling on a lap.
Kravitz plays Catwoman entirely independent from any earlier interpretation. She’s nurturing, kind, and caring. Pfeiffer’s destroyer of the world’s cat is angry and resentful of injustice and betrayal, while she has a sense of responsibility toward others. In a second, she removes her mask, unlike Pfeiffer who doesn’t want to reveal her identity to Batman, Kravitz’s Catwoman doesn’t mind his anonymity.
This Catwoman is a burglar, so she’s sleek, meticulous, careful, and subtle. None of the Tim Burton femme rage, guns blazing Catwoman, entering a place to instill fear in the hearts of wondrous onlookers; but in Matt Reeves’s film, Catwoman reenacts some of the cat burglar fetishistic scenes, she’s immaculate and quiet. The costumes -a brilliant collaboration between Kravitz and famed designer Jacqueline Durran- play on the dominatrix leather catsuit, but from a rugged, worn-out standpoint, with a simple knitted ski mask that gives off an air of flamboyant anonymity, like she’s unbothered by her slightly exposed identity. Her attire is surely more relaxed than the Tim Burton version, more lowkey and relaxed, totally fitting the gentleness of the character here, and her more realistic, claw-like nails though give her an edgy side, but they are also less invasive than Pfeiffer’s razor-wire synthetic nails.
Batman’s first encounter with Catwoman sees him overpowering her, the shot of him asserting a top position. Then they fight, and it ends with his hand gagging her, rhythmically breathing in sync, it seems that Catwoman doesn’t mind being held and kept pressed against his body. The scene is kinkier because it happens with both of them clad in masks and costumes that barely show anything but their eyes. In this multiverse, Catwoman is a compliant but dominant captive. She doesn’t mind Batman overpowering her, but she also knows how to get her way with him. She knows when she can slip out of his grip and flee.
Catwoman gives a one-man show to Batman, she invites his voyeurism, what helps is that Kravitz has an entirely seductive, ultra-feminine, and innate female sexuality about her; unlike Pfeiffer’s audacious, contentious sexuality. Her relationship with Batman is antagonistic and feral. Kravitz’s relationship with Batman is sultry and cunning; she is very inciting and capable of working all the tools to her advantage, exploiting Batman’s dominance and mystery. Her tool lies in seduction, in bringing people into her orbit, she is a compliant participant in Batman’s voyeurism, and unlike Pfeiffer’s Catwoman who will torture information out of someone she’s hunting, Kravtiz’s Catwoman will slowly succumb them to her power, by emulating a disempowered state herself. She might wield her power and resort to violence but it will be her last resort, unlike Pfeiffer’s Catwoman with a shoot first, ask questions later mentality.
What does Catwoman say about kink on screen? What do some of the more kinky comic book characters or relationships contribute to addressing a subject that is becoming less and less taboo with growing popularity as a mainstream narrative tool, or even necessity? Are the younger generations more comfortable with the wilder, more bizarre forms of sexual expression? How so when 51.5% of teens and adolescents want less sex on screen? If so, how are films like Deep Water and Babygirl widely embraced? How is a show like Euphoria that harbors on normalizing and fetishizing kinky sex going steady with its third season run in the works? The conversation has started recently with a bold move on Kidman’s part to use her body as an actress as a vessel for the arts, where audiences project their dreams and fantasies on it, and hopefully going forward, the conversation on kink in film, is ever evolving.
