A friend of mine recently watched a season 3 episode with Batgirl and shared with me an interesting bit of trivia. Batgirl never punches anyone, she only ever throws/swings objects or kicks. Now why is this? Was it a matter of the censors or something along those lines. Of course there's conjecture but the official behind the scenes reason is what's being discussed.
A good review of "Inside Out": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXC_205E3Og
I could be wrong, but it most likely has to do w/ the producers and/or the network thinking that it wasn't "ladylike" for a woman in those days to really scrap it out like that.
shareI would agree: They probably thought it wasn't becoming of a Female to throw punches like Batman and Robin did.
Also, if you notice, she never took a hit either. During the fights, Batman and Robin would receive some punches from the bad guys from time to time. Never Batgirl. I guess the male criminals were all gentlemen as well and would refuse to hit a girl. Which gives Batgirl a huge advantage, of course.
The female villains and accomplices would never fight Batgirl either. In the first two seasons, we were used to this because since Batman and Robin would never fight females, they would always sit it out on the side. Now that Batgirl was there, you would think that they could join in now, but apparently that was not the case.
I think all of these limits were a bit much. But hey, it was a different era.
It was definitely the era! As small as she was, what kind of punch could it have been anyway? She wasn't Wonder Woman for Gawd-sake!
- - http://scifiblogs3.blogspot.com/2012/12/batman-forever.html - -
- http://www.childrenofrassilon.com/batman-forever.html - Batman Homage
And I thought that Batgirl was brought in to fight the women---but yes looking now she does not do this. Interesting observation. I guess it was a censor issiue.
Because in 1992's Batman returns he certainly has no problem fighting against Catwoman. This is the 'modern Batman. She is hit by men and hits several men in that film.
The crazy thing is that I was always weirdly turned on by Yvonne Craig doing that Rockette kick during the fight scenes. I don't think that it's very practical if you were to use it in a real life brawl. But its theatricality goes hand in hand with the campy nature of the series. And maybe a lot of it had to do with how smooth and easy Yvonne made it look.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woowSOnDllc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTWzbaZJgtw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYgDiHe0n2E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y_YQ_9uBX0
Gotta say its a plot hole
shareI believe TMC is correct, the censors at that time would not allow her to punch.
shareHonor Blackman (62) and Diana Rigg (65) of The Avengers were fighting bad guys in the sixties, but's that's British.
share
Because she had great thighs that looked great in tights and looked great kicking!!!