{"id":63412,"date":"2020-01-21T14:27:02","date_gmt":"2020-01-21T19:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=63412"},"modified":"2024-09-01T09:55:14","modified_gmt":"2024-09-01T13:55:14","slug":"peppard-the-undeniable-queerness-of-superhero-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2020\/01\/peppard-the-undeniable-queerness-of-superhero-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"PEPPARD: The undeniable queerness of superhero stories"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Anna Peppard, a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada postdoctoral fellow in Brock\u2019s Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film, had a piece recently published in <em><a href=\"https:\/\/thewalrus.ca\/the-undeniable-queerness-of-superhero-stories\/?fbclid=IwAR1Nms93V37zqiAN00wPlQK8kVv9uHZdJT7ew12NHk_F09JfXBs501Dtskw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Walrus<\/a><\/em> about themes of transformation, disguise and duality in superhero stories and how these themes relate to the LGBTQ community.<\/p>\n<p>Peppard writes:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cIn a film-and-television landscape increasingly saturated with superhero content, the CW network\u2019s\u00a0Batwoman \u2014 which debuted last fall and was renewed for a second season last week \u2014 is unique for at least two reasons: the title character, who is a lesbian, is the first openly\u00a0LGBTQ\u00a0superhero to headline a live action comic book adaptation; and the show\u2019s star, Ruby Rose, who identifies as lesbian and gender fluid, is the first openly\u00a0LGBTQ\u00a0performer to portray a headlining superhero.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>This isn\u2019t a case of \u201cin name only\u201d diversity. The lesbian identity of Batwoman, civilian name Kate Kane, is woven into the show\u2019s narrative premise. The show is adapted from a 2006 comic book reenvisioning of the character, which made her a former star recruit at West Point academy who is forced to abandon her dreams of a military career after an anonymous tip outs her as a lesbian. This compels Kate to find another way to serve, which leads to her becoming Batwoman. In the CW show, Kate is additionally compelled by necessity: Gotham City has descended into near anarchy after the mysterious disappearance of Batman three years earlier. Yet she is more directly compelled by love; she dons the Batsuit for the first time in order to save her military-academy ex-girlfriend, Sophie, from the clutches of a supervillain.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Continue reading the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/thewalrus.ca\/the-undeniable-queerness-of-superhero-stories\/?fbclid=IwAR1Nms93V37zqiAN00wPlQK8kVv9uHZdJT7ew12NHk_F09JfXBs501Dtskw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anna Peppard, a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada postdoctoral fellow in Brock\u2019s Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film, had a piece recently published in The Walrus about themes of transformation, disguise and duality in superhero stories and how these themes relate to the LGBTQ community.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63416,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,38],"tags":[8596,522,8597],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63412"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63412"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63422,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63412\/revisions\/63422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}