I think the perfect age for catwoman has to be around 35 bruce has always been older than selina in the comics and I realize this might seem completely shallow and awful of me to think so but I want Selina to be hot like.. scarlet johansson hot so idk if I want her to be played by a 40 yrs old actress the same way I dont want her to be played by a 20 yrs old child... I hope you dont roast me for this but selina has always been my girl crush so idk (different anon btw)
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting Catwoman to be hot or at the very least acknowledging that it’s an inevitable part of media consumption. Ed Brubaker straight up said people wouldn’t accept her if she wasn’t attractive, but I don’t think hotness expires by default at 40. Carla Gugino and Angela Basset are still hot. They’re not my first choice for Catwoman or anything I just happen to think they’ve got it going on. Monica Bellucci is 51 and she just played a Bond-girl.
It says a lot about our culture when we look at thediffering reasons for why we think a 20 year actress versus a 40 year actress shouldn’t play Catwoman.The reason it wouldn’t be appropriate to have an actress in her 20s playing Catwoman is because it would change the dynamic and power structure of their relationship and interfere with the effectiveness of character and story, whereas the only reason people don’t think an actress in her 40s should play Catwoman is because they think women in their 40s aren’t hot enough. Please don’t take this as a roast but when it comes to things like this I think we should consider why it is we, as a society, feel this way.
The answer is that our over arching culture values women for their apearances and beauty is equivalent to youthfulness and perceived fertility. This is a double standard as these rules do not apply to men. Consider that Ben Affleck has been acting for 20 years and everyone is just now starting to lust after him.
In terms of Bruce and Selina’s age difference it really doesn’t make a difference because Bruce isn’t that much older than Selina, it doesn’t change the nature of their relationship, and Bruce and Selina are consistently depicted as being in the same age bracket.
From what I gather since the Pre-Flashpoint era it’s been implied that Bruce is abouteight years older than Selina. Year One established that Bruce was 25 when he debuted as Batman. Selina’s age was not given, but in her spin off series, Her Sister’s Keeper, her age is said to be about 16 or 17, which would’ve made Bruce eight or nine years older than her at the time.
Admittedly this is some pretty flimsy evidence and I hate myself for even bringing it up since Year Onewas never canon and Her Sister’s Keeper was retconned into oblivion but since it become the blueprint for a lot of stuff that happened in continuity later we’ll go with it.
A lot of stuff happened in between and DC’s continuity got really jumbled \and because comics don’t happen in real time who knows how much time has actually passes between one event to another so there’s just no point in trying to pin down anyone’s actual age. I’ve tried to figure it out for years and it always leads to a headache. Given the age progression of Dick Grayson and Jim Gordon Jr I think the fandom has settled on Bruce being in his early 40s by the end of the Pre-Flashpoint era, but I also vaguely remember Alfred once saying that Bruce was almost 40. Whatever. For all intents and purposes we’ll stick with Bruce being around eight years older than Selina.
New 52 de-aged everyone beyond the point of reason and Batman’s improbable timeline became a source of contention among fans but it was confirmed in the second issue of Catwoman that Selina is 23.
DC Comics has said that in New 52 their most well known stories are still more or less“canon”. Zero Year revealed that Batman has been in business for six years. Keeping in the tradition of Year One with Batman beginning his career at 25, that would put him at 31. So again Bruce is eight years older than Selina.
In Other Media
The Nolanverse
In terms of the movies in the Nolanverse Batman Begins depicts Bruce’s 30th birthday. You can see the party decorations in the background.
One year passes between Batman Beginsand The Dark Knight and in The Dark Knight the election is reported as taking place in 2008.The Dark Knight Rises takes place eight years after that (2016), which would make Bruce about 39. In Selina’s criminal profile her date of birth is given as September 21, 1985 which would’ve madeher 31 at the time. Once again Bruce is eight years older than Selina.
Gotham
This one’s easy: Selina is older than Bruce for once. Bruce was twelve when his parent’s were killed. It was revealed recently that two years have passed since they were murdered, making Bruce currently 14. Alfred said in the most recent episode that Selina is 15 making her a year older than Bruce.
In conclusion in most recent versions Bruce is a little bit but not significantly older than Selina.Gotham switched things up and made Selina older than Bruce. I guess I kind of lost my point, but pretty much I don’t think there’s really an ideal age for Catwoman. It’s all just splitting hairs reallybecause Batman and Catwoman are consistently shown as being in the same age range.
