"A lot like Robin if you close your eyes": Displacement of meaning in the Post-Modern Age

Meta
Title:	"A lot like Robin if you close your eyes": Displacement of meaning in the Post-Modern Age
Creator:	Mary Borsellino
Date(s):	2006
Medium:	Meta essay
Fandom:	DC Comics; Batman; Robin (DC Comics)
Topic:	Class, women
External Links:	https://web.archive.org/web/20060701025115/http://girl-wonder.org/papers/borsellino.html
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"A lot like Robin if you close your eyes": Displacement of meaning in the Post-Modern Age is a 2006 meta essay by Mary Borsellino, examining the sociopolitical aspects of the history of Robin (DC Comics) as a legacy. Borsellino touches upon sexism, classism, and other social issues.

Excerpt

Dear Batman,

You are cute but I am in love with Robin. I like to dress up like Robin. I put on my leotards, then my bathing suit, a towel and my pajama top. My towel looks like a cape.

I look a lot like Robin if you close your eyes.

Love,

Stephanie G.

Malden, Mass.¹

Television and sequential art are two media where the image is intrinsic to conveying the intended meaning. Lunch-pails and action figures and movie rights all rely on a brand remaining static, and in Robin's case this has come to mean remaining within an increasingly narrow space of depiction.

But, as Stephanie G put it, there are other ways of seeing Robin, if you close your eyes. The things which a Robin-like figure can contain, but which are cut off from being embodied by Robin himself, lose none of their importance simply because they are rejected by a restrictive, corporate-controlled status quo.

Looking with one's eyes closed can also be a useful critical tool. It's worth inspecting what was excised from Robin, and charting where these elements instead found articulation: in those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds; non-White people; young single parents; and HIV positive people. And, especially, girls and women.