A few days after a Batman poll stirred up nationwide controversy, another survey is out that’s bound to end up being even more controversial. Over 2,201 adults have spoken their minds and declared that Halle Berry’s Catwoman is somehow superior to Michelle Pfeiffer’s. Read that sentence again if you have to.
It’s currently unknown whether or not those thousands of adults were inebriated when voting and/or happen to be related to Berry, but those seem to be the only reasonable explanations as to why anyone would say this. No offense to the Academy Award winner, but her portrayal as the iconic Gotham City villain is often considered one of the worst of all-time. The character’s 2004 standalone film with her at the forefront was a box office bomb. It’s since become a punchline when discussing bad movies and even won Berry a Razzie for Worst Actress.
She took her poor performance in stride, though, and actually arrived in person to accept the derogatory award. It’s likely that she feels the same way about her Catwoman performance that George Clooney does about his take on Batman. Both of the celebrities are extremely talented at what they do, but definitely didn’t quite fit into the roles as well as others.
Berry certainly doesn’t hold a candle to Pfeiffer, whose interpretation as Selina Kyle in Batman Returns is easily one of the most memorable in cinematic history. Those surveyed, however, disagreed. The results of the poll showed that 41% of those polled had a “very favorable” impression of Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman, which soundly trumps the 26% earned by Anne Hathaway’s version of the character in The Dark Knight Rises. Halle Berry’s Catwoman somehow manages to barely eek out the victory over Pfeiffer’s version though, with 42% of those surveyed having a “very favorable” view of the former.
The moral of the story is that sometimes people are wrong. With plenty of gorgeous young stars competing to play Catwoman in the next installment of the Batman franchise, it’s possible that there’ll be a new number one atop the hierarchy before long. Whoever ends up playing the character though, she can’t be much worse than Berry.