I mean what made Deflater Mouse a funny name was that it was a running gag of "what the hell is that". I think it had to do with the execs thinking that they didnt know what it was either, so they changed the name. Also, I think that they changed the name American Maid because I think they thought women would be offended by a maid superhero.
Maybe it's because I read the comics first and saw "Die Fledermaus" written out, and knew that it was German for "The Bat" (actually more literally, the flying mouse) but I NEVER thought it was a running gag of "what the hell is that." Maybe it was for
YOU because you really didn't know what the hell it meant. The joke was, he couldn't use
Batman...now do you get it? And I'm a woman, and I was never in the slightest offended by female superhero American Maid. That's ludicrous, there's nothing offensive about it. Women have been maids, that's a fact of life, and some women are still maids. So? Now if someone had said something stereotyped and prejudiced like "
all women should be maids," or "the only thing women are good for are being maids," then I might take offense. But there's a difference between that and a superhero character based on something silly, like an "industrial clean-up artist."
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Grethiwha
8 years ago
You are correct that part of the joke is, he couldn't use Batman, and "Die Fledermaus" is German for "The Bat". But another part of the joke, is the fact that in English it sounds like "Deflater Mouse", in other words, a scared little mouse – and he is depicted in the cartoon as cowardly. It's a clever name, more than people in this thread are giving it credit for...
Batmanuel is a pretty good name too, but I always preferred the original names.
--- grethiwha -------- My Favourite Films:
http://www.imdb.com/list/Bw65XZIpkH8/
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