In the altogether lovely Netflix series Heartstopper, there’s an iconic moment from Season 1 that many bisexual people have resonated with. In the scene, Nick (Kit Connor) is watching The Pirates of the Caribbean with his mom. He looks back and forth between Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth and Orlando Bloom’s Will, the bi-awakening strong and urgent as he realizes his attraction to both characters.
I only really started labeling myself as bi well into my 20s. First, because I’d been in a long-term relationship with a cis-man and then because I’d started to feel awkward about when to casually drop it. Usually I’d just note my attraction to a woman and hope those surrounding me would head the context clues. But said clues had been obvious since childhood. From my adoration of the Disney Original Movie Motorcrossed, to the surfing early aughts classic Blue Crush, and my moon eyes over Éowyn and Arwen in The Lord of the Rings, I perhaps wasn’t only interested in boys. Even I couldn’t convince myself that I loved Charlies Angels: Full Throttle for the plot.
But one of the biggest tells, looking back, was my definite crush on the animated character, Hawkgirl, in Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. It wasn’t just that I was the odd child/tween who cared about the romance in the animated superhero series. It was that I was so invested in Hawkgirl’s story that I have ever since been perplexed at how little she appears in other DC adaptations. What do you mean she isn’t the star player when she was the star in my heart?
Celebrating angry women.
In recent years there’s been jokes about other animated characters who were the first crushes of many millennials. Think Shego in Kim Possible. But it was Hawkgirl, her rage, and her mace that captivated me.
Shayera Hol/Hawkgirl (voiced by Maria Canals-Barrera) has many definitive pieces of iconography. Her Thanagarian wings and her spiked mace. In the first part of the series she was constantly wore her signature mask in order to protect her identity. But it’s her quick temper, punch first ask questions later attitude that became truly singular to her character. Her blazing battle cry as she leapt into fights became a highlight of any major fight the Justice League fought.
And it was refreshing. Not to put too broad a point on it, but, especially at this reductive point in media (the early to late 2000s’ were horseshit for positive stories about or surrounding women) her anger was something, in retrospect, I cherished. As a scowling, poker face lacking tween, her anger was validating. From all-powerful foes to insidious misogyny, her character was constantly, declaratively, standing up against those who did her wrong. And while other female cast members also refused to let these aggressions slide such as Wonder Woman and Black Canary, it was Hawkgirl’s righteous fury that made it so welcoming.
As a woman who one had a man tell her “I’m sorry you’re so angry” that burn it to the ground anger is something to be bottled. Of course, Hawkgirl is so much more than her anger in the two series. She becomes the lynchpin of so much of the story. From her and John’s surprisingly adult relationship (because animation is capable of many types of stories) to her betrayal of the team and latter reinvention as she earns back their trust and sets aside her hero moniker, she is vital to the stories throughline.
Hawkgirl was hot.
But listen, it would be a lie to say I liked Hawkgirl so much because of her personality. The animators put time and effort into a rendering of the character who, while still suffering the Barbie-effect style measurements, was glorious in her strength and unrepentantly hot. The entire early ages of the DC Animated Universe understands how to draw characters who are timeless while embodying an adult sense of sensuality and chemistry.
Does the puritanical nonsense afflicting Marvel bother you too? Are you looking for real chemistry between superheroes? Skip out on The Fantastic 4 and boot up these old cartoons. Because while, again, the 2000s did a lot of things wrong, the DC animated series got a lot right about its characters and how to draw on decades worth of source material while imbuing it with a spirited, all-ages welcome approach.
With the release of Superman, and Isabela Merced making her debut as Hawkgirl before going on to play the character in Season 2 of Peacemaker, it’s as good a time as any to dust off the old DVD’s to remember just how wonderful a character she is. And, a reminder that sometimes, that first bisexual inkling comes in the form of an electrical mace swinging menace in a sports bra. As it should be.
Image courtesy of Warner Bros Animation.
Based in New England, Allyson is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of InBetweenDrafts. Former Editor-in-Chief at TheYoungFolks, she is a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics and the Boston Online Film Critics Association. Her writing has also appeared at CambridgeDay, ThePlaylist, Pajiba, VagueVisages, RogerEbert, TheBostonGlobe, Inverse, Bustle, her Substack, and every scrap of paper within her reach.
