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This post all started yesterday, when ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
indefatigable42 posted this link to Women in Refrigerators, a website dedicated to women superheroes, and how they tend to meet gruesome ends. One of the heroines on the list is "Batgirl 1," because she ended up shot by the Joker, and paralysed from the waist down.
Well, years ago (shortly after that storyline began) I read a favorable review of the "Batgirl is paralysed" in New Mobility magazine,* for showing that you could still be a hero in a wheelchair, and that paralysis =/= death (But, jeez, the critique ran, couldn't you give her a modern-looking wheelchair, at least, instead of one that looks like a clunky Everest&Jennings from the '70s?)
And then, today, I get an email from a medical supply company announcing that July is National Wheelchair Beautification Month. And featured in the email is an ad for this:
A JET-POWERED concept wheelchair!
...with the price slashed from $755,000 to a mere $387,568...
Can you say "More dollars than sense," boys and girls? I knew you could...
Still, in the real-world, it looks like a would-be Barbara Gordon could out-gadget a would-be Batman, these days... And that's kinda cool...
*I got a few year subscription to this magazine, back when I bought my first Quickie (wheelchair brand); it just started arriving in the mail. And it's very shiny and well-written. Part of me wants to get a new subscription, but other parts of me know that I already get more incoming mail than I can handle... so I am a bit conflicted.
indefatigable42 posted this link to Women in Refrigerators, a website dedicated to women superheroes, and how they tend to meet gruesome ends. One of the heroines on the list is "Batgirl 1," because she ended up shot by the Joker, and paralysed from the waist down.Well, years ago (shortly after that storyline began) I read a favorable review of the "Batgirl is paralysed" in New Mobility magazine,* for showing that you could still be a hero in a wheelchair, and that paralysis =/= death (But, jeez, the critique ran, couldn't you give her a modern-looking wheelchair, at least, instead of one that looks like a clunky Everest&Jennings from the '70s?)
And then, today, I get an email from a medical supply company announcing that July is National Wheelchair Beautification Month. And featured in the email is an ad for this:
A JET-POWERED concept wheelchair!
...with the price slashed from $755,000 to a mere $387,568...
Can you say "More dollars than sense," boys and girls? I knew you could...
Still, in the real-world, it looks like a would-be Barbara Gordon could out-gadget a would-be Batman, these days... And that's kinda cool...
*I got a few year subscription to this magazine, back when I bought my first Quickie (wheelchair brand); it just started arriving in the mail. And it's very shiny and well-written. Part of me wants to get a new subscription, but other parts of me know that I already get more incoming mail than I can handle... so I am a bit conflicted.
