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Robin and the Making of American Adolescence by Lauren O'Connor

2022; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 46; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/uni.2022.0015

1080-6563

Sara Austin,

Gender, Feminism, and Media

Reviewed by: Robin and the Making of American Adolescence by Lauren O'Connor Sara Austin (bio) Lauren O'Connor. Robin and the Making of American Adolescence. Rutgers UP, 2021. In the second chapter of her book, Robin and the Making of American Adolescence, Lauren O'Connor writes that Robin from the Batman comics "was a product of America's fascination with the newly defined adolescent, and he was created to both reflect and entice superhero comics' largest and [End Page 249] most impressionable demographic—young people" (32). This encapsulates the argument of O'Connor's book: that Robin functions as an idealized representation of teenagers. O'Connor argues that Robin changes over time, but always in ways that support status quo constructions of young people's role in society with regards to dominant narratives of class, race, and gender. As a sidekick, Robin's primary function is to support Batman's claims to power through an upper-class white heterosexual man. Robin represents a point of identification for the target audience and illustrates how they might one day grow into superheroes, just as Robin will one day take up the mantle of Batman. O'Connor's book discusses why being a heterosexual white male is also a key element of Robin's identity and how even examples of the Robin character that offer "detours" from this cultural script reinforce it (10). In chapter 1, O'Connor provides a brief history of Robin as a character and focuses on his role in shaping American understandings of adolescence in the 1950s, as well as the "real-time reactions to the morphing meaning of adolescence" (31). Specifically, Robin humanizes a cold and distant Batman, by offering him an opportunity to act as a parent figure. Robin also demonstrates Batman's correct approach to crime fighting. Robin's recklessness often gets him captured so that Batman must save him. This feminizes Robin and calls into question his heterosexual identity. Chapter 2 focuses on Robin's sexuality. O'Connor explains that teenagers are expected to be heterosexual without being sexually active, and so Robin's creators must balance his interest in girls with his appearance of sexual innocence. The result of this cultural bind is that Dick Grayson, the first iteration of Robin, is often "remembered for the connotations of queerness he brought to stories" (32). In order to un-queer Robin, creators must age him into a proper adult and allow him sexual relationships. In 1984, "he is shown in bed with [his girlfriend] Starfire, the first mainstream comic book characters to be depicted as such" (49). In 2009, Dick Grayson becomes Batman after Bruce Wayne's death. In this role, Grayson, a former Robin, ages into adulthood by assuming the Batman identity and by becoming a parent figure to the new Robin, Bruce Wayne's son Damian Wayne, "reinforcing that heterosexual parenting is a key marker of adulthood" (55). In chapter 3, O'Connor takes on representations of gender by focusing on Frank Miller's Carrie Kelly (1986) and the 90s and 2000s Stephanie Brown (1992), the two female iterations of Robin. O'Connor observes that Carrie Kelly exists as "empty adolescent femininity and hollow identity" to be shaped by Batman's needs (83). She functions alternatively as a child to be protected, a competent sidekick, or a grieving widow. When Carrie ages, however, she's no longer malleable and must move on from the character of Robin to the over-sexualized Catgirl. In contrast, Stephanie Brown is [End Page 250] disobedient and overtly sexual from the beginning. As the "daughter of a criminal father and a drug-addicted mother" she is never a suitable Robin (84). Batman calls her a "'foolish and reckless young woman'" who "isn't worth the trouble" (85). After Batman fires her, she is kidnapped by Black Mask, tortured, and finally murdered. The images of her torture, as well as Stephanie's reflection on her role as Robin, suggest that the abuse is her fault, a natural "result of Stephanie's attempted usurpation of the [Robin] role" (95–97). Unlike the white male Robins—Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake or Damian Wayne—girls cannot retain the role...