As anticipation for Matt Reeves’ The Batman reaches fever pitch, fans are excited to see Zoë Kravitz’s take on the iconic role of Catwoman, aka Selina Kyle. The fan-favorite character has been portrayed by a long list of actresses, from Eartha Kitt and Julie Newmar to Michelle Pfeiffer and Anne Hathaway. And while various Catwoman performances have hinted at the character’s bisexuality, Kravitz confirms that her portrayal of Selina is in fact queer.
While the film (like most Batman films) focuses on the romance between the Bat and the Cat, there’s a scene where Selina looks for a female friend named Anika, calling her “baby”. When asked about the nature of their relationship, Kravitz told Pedestrian in an interview, “That’s definitely the way I interpreted that, that they had some kind of romantic relationship.”
Director Matt Reeves concurred, saying “[The film is] very true to the character of Selina Kyle. She’s not yet Catwoman, but all the elements of how she’s going to become Catwoman are there, … And in terms of her relationship with Anika, I spoke to Zoë very early on and one of the things she said which I loved was that: ‘She’s drawn to strays because she was a stray and so she really wants to care for these strays because she doesn’t want to be that way anymore and Anika is like a stray and she loves her. She actually represents this connection that she has to her mother who she lost, who was a stray anymore’.”
He continued, “So I don’t think we meant to go directly in that way, but you can interpret it that way for sure. She has an intimacy with that character and it’s a tremendous and deep caring for that character, more so than a sexual thing, but there was meant to be quite an intimate relationship between them.”
Of course, a throwaway line is hardly peak bisexual representation, but it’s still a step forward for the live-action version of the character. Selina Kyle came out as canonically bisexual in the comics in 2015 in Catwoman #39. Writer Genevieve Valentine later confirmed as much on Twitter.
Since Catwoman is not the focus of the film (it’s titled ‘The Batman’ after all) we won’t likely see her in a relationship with a woman, or more than a passing reference to her sexuality. In the vein of Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok, it’s a case of actors and directors acknowledging a character’s queerness but not making it explicit in the film. Valkyrie is supposed to be more visibly queer in the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder. Perhaps the same will hold true for future installments of Kravitz’s Catwoman. And if Kravitz wants to headline a solo Catwoman film, we would absolutely love to see it.
(via Pedestrian, image Warner Bros.)
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