"She's beautiful"
"She can't see that anymore"
An innocent victim is once again turned rogue because of the cruelty of others. This episode has so many layers to it that it's stuck with me for ages. The insistence that women need to be youthful in order to be beautiful, wanted and especially marketable is a very real dogma that has permeated the entertainment industry for decades.
Her past agent giving her up because "she turned 30" is especially nasty, yet so truthful to the fetishisation of youth that often plagues this industry. It's a horribly gross mindset that dominates the masses.
The main area this episode falls short for me is the focus. We derail to focus on a big dinosaur fight scene which comes out of nowhere, but also drags for a bit. There's also a subplot about one of Wayne's male employees who doesn't want to retire that gets neatly resolved by the end. I feel that this subplot would've had a stronger connection to Calendar Girl had the employee been female, showing Bruce's compassion towards the struggles women face in all lines of work.
I would love to see this concept tackled again sometime in the show. Even in its final season, Batman T. A. S is still the king of addressing complex issues in children's media.
An innocent victim is once again turned rogue because of the cruelty of others. This episode has so many layers to it that it's stuck with me for ages. The insistence that women need to be youthful in order to be beautiful, wanted and especially marketable is a very real dogma that has permeated the entertainment industry for decades.
Her past agent giving her up because "she turned 30" is especially nasty, yet so truthful to the fetishisation of youth that often plagues this industry. It's a horribly gross mindset that dominates the masses.
The main area this episode falls short for me is the focus. We derail to focus on a big dinosaur fight scene which comes out of nowhere, but also drags for a bit. There's also a subplot about one of Wayne's male employees who doesn't want to retire that gets neatly resolved by the end. I feel that this subplot would've had a stronger connection to Calendar Girl had the employee been female, showing Bruce's compassion towards the struggles women face in all lines of work.
I would love to see this concept tackled again sometime in the show. Even in its final season, Batman T. A. S is still the king of addressing complex issues in children's media.
