Will Joss Whedon's Batgirl Be a Woman of Color?

04/21/2017 04:00 pm EDT

Yesterday, ComicBook.com picked up a quote from Marvel's The Avengers director Joss Whedon, who is currently developing a Batgirl film that will fit into DC's plans for the Batman family of characters in live action, and it made us wonder whether the filmmaker has an eye toward casting a person of color in the film's title role.

Batgirl is 50 years old, but hasn't had a solo outing in live action yet. She made her debut in 1967, after Batman TV producer William Dozier asked for the comics to introduce a female counterpart to the Dark Knight. As Commissioner Gordon's daughter, she has extenating circumstances that tend to complicate her relationships with Batman, with the law, and more -- and that's part of what makes her great. She has often felt like a human, relatable character whose sense of moral outrage at the injustices in the world have pushed her into the larger-than-life universe inhabited by the Batman family.

Especially in her most recent "Batgirl of Burnside" iteration, the hipster-friendly version of Babs has stuck out as a Batman character by virtue of her happy demeanor. Given the popularity of that take, it has seemed likely some of it would carry over to Whedon's film, and while he stopped clear of saying what characteristics he was looking for in a Batgirl, he did acknowledge that it would be mostly personality-driven, rather than a physical standard to find someone who looks like Barbara from the comics.

"I know what she looks like in the comic books," Whedon said recently. W"e'll deviate if the right person is different," he continued. "We haven't even begun the conversation, but it's about the spirit she exudes, not exactly what she looks like."

In the context of the larger conversation about representation in comic book movies, and the constant debates about changing the body types, personalities, or ethnicities of traditionally-white/straight/male characters, it certainly sounds like Whedon was setting the groundwork for casting a person who doesn't "look like" Batgirl looks in the comics.

That's reading a lot between the lines -- but it's doing so in a quote where Whedon seemed to be leaving the lines far enough to driving a casting call through.

What would that mean for Batgirl? Well, not much at this stage. We know that James Gordon is white, but that doesn't mean that Barbara's mother couldn't be a woman of color, or that Barbara couldn't be adopted. As has happened in the past when characters were altered, there will likely be some pushback on that -- Fantastic Four taught us, though, that despite the negativity, most fans had settled down and were open to the casting as long as the movie was good and the actor good in it. With Fantastic Four, at least Michael B. Jordan was good enough in it that there were a lot of "He wasn't the problem" hot takes.

In terms of the movie itself, it would be a little bit of history repeating: creating a version of Batgirl that exists to serve media outside comics is how she came to be in the first place, and of course her character got altered again to suit the story in Batman & Robin, not that a movie like that is much of an argument in your favor.

Would you like to see Batgirl recast as a woman of color? Hit is up on Facebook or on Twitter @comicbook with your feedback!

More Batgirl news:

• Joss Whedon Reveals Which Traits An Actress Needs To Play Batgirl
• Joss Whedon Speaks Out About Batgirl's Casting
• Joss Whedon Called Marvel's Kevin Feige About Batgirl
• Here's What Drew Joss Whedon To Direct Batgirl

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