It's safe to say, fans of the DC Extended Universe were shocked when the announcement came that Warner Bros. was canceling the Batgirl movie. It caught the directors, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, off-guard, as well as the cast, just when it seemed like the hype train was leaving the station. After all, many were excited to see Leslie Grace's take on Barbara Gordon, Brendan Fraser as Firefly, and Michael Keaton returning as the Dark Knight from Tim Burton's Universe.

It's been so tragic that even Marvel Studios president, Kevin Feige, has offered condolences to the creative team. This further compounds just how badly the DCEU is in disarray at the moment, but what this axing also does is highlight a disturbing double standard occurring over at WB.

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Leslie Grace as Batgirl/Barbara Gordon for the film, Batgirl

The reasons for canning the film were pretty shoddy, with Batgirl said to be off-brand for what's being planned in the next few years. It's almost as if WB had no idea what Batgirl was about and decided to pull the plug because of continuity breaches that magically appeared. It's all conflicting, though, as some reports suggested the studio felt the final cut wouldn't be good, while others said quashing it as a tax write-off made sense.

Whatever the reason, as Kevin Smith pointed out, it's a bad look. And this statement really has to do with the nuanced optics surrounding Batgirl. Firstly, with so many characters of color getting chopped with the death of the Arrowverse, it felt pretty tone-deaf to squash a Latina-led Batgirl, especially from a franchise that wants little girls and young women to believe in the message of empowerment and inspiration from characters like Wonder Woman. Oddly enough, the DCEU never had a problem with Gal Gadot's Diana, which was not the most ideal version of the character in Zack Snyder's vision. Instead, the studio course-corrected her while adding plot holes to a character that was supposed to be hidden for decades. She, as well as Superman and Batman, were instead shifted to something more palatable, with the DCEU intent on fixing the Justice League's road map.

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Ezra Miller as The Flash

Yet that benevolent chance wasn't afforded to Batgirl, who would have stood as a statement for minorities, and marginalized communities while telling a story that wasn't necessarily white -- something the directors got praise for due to their work on Ms. Marvel. Factoring in Ray Fisher's racism allegations against WB, the Batgirl cancelation looks terrible in the media, with the impression being POC-driven properties and characters aren't a priority.

To make it worse, Barbara Gordon is an iconic character who already hasn't received much live-action screen time. So, to just place a nearly finished movie in the bin like that shows no respect for the character or her fanbase. Even if a rebranding is to come with the DCEU, fans likely would have just enjoyed the film for what it was, accepting the DCEU might take whatever is good and use that moving forward.

This speaks to how art from POC, meant to stand for equality, representation, diversity and inclusivity, can be viewed by a society that's driven by capitalism and a mostly-white patriarchy as expendable. The bias can be perfectly seen with Ezra Miller's The Flash movie still being finished, despite questions over the common ground it shares with Batgirl, how it ties into the DCEU in general, and the fact it's rolling on despite Miller's legal and public image problems. With burglary now added to Miller's list of growing charges, one ultimately has to wonder how this PR disaster isn't affecting WB's vision, yet a cosmopolitan movie about a woman fighting for justice does, especially when it was already deemed worthy of a spot aboard an ever-turbulent DCEU ship.