Catwoman - supernatural?

Tim Burton: "The ambiguous nature of the Catwoman. You start out when you see the creation with the cats coming around and it's not supernatural but we feed into the mythology of cats and 9 lives and all of that sort of thing, so in the same way with Batman, wanting to keep him sort of mysterious, we sort of treated the same idea with Catwoman a little bit and not come right out with it. It's not supernatural." (BR audio commentary)

Some fans are still under impression that Catwoman was a supernatural character which really had 9 lives and was passed superpowers by cats, however, that does not appear to be true. Let's take a look

Selina Kyle was knocked out of the 6th floor from a building (not a skyscraper or a 20 floor building as some suggest) ... 

The building had 6 floors

...but her fall was significantly slowed down four times, greatly reducing the impact. If you watch the scene carefully, her fall is so reduced that her head doesn't hit the ground with any force, and seems to be just dropping from a sitting position.

The scene were the cats "examin" the unconscious Selina is a homage to the identical scene in the comics when Selina the prostitute was beat up to unconsciousness and thrown out to the alley in the winter.

It's also nothing unusual for cats to feed on human bodies when starving.

Catwoman's origin in Batman Returns harks to her original Golden Age origin from Batman #62 (December 1949/January 1950) in which she was introverted, then survived a crash, but suffered from amnesia. There after she became Catwoman by releasing her formerly repressed inner-self, and all her inhibitions. The version of Catwoman's origin involving a crash (a death and resurrection motif) and amnesia has the most depth psychologically. This origin suggests that Selina Kyle had a dual personality, and that her amnesia released her dark side, leading her not only to turn criminal, but liberate her formerly inhibited sexuality.

Also, one must have in mind that Selina never really dies, yet she counts her lives down after each fall or injury. Its just playing it close but surely nothing supernatural and Burton even says so black on white. Let's see:

She counted those lives down , saying that she died, yet she only fell into the sand...

...and then into the garden located on the rooftop above which she dropped from (and yet again, the fall was slowed down by the glass and the height wasn't that great)

As far as the bullets go, it's the same thing as with falling - it may appear like she's bulletproof, but if one takes a closer look, she never gets hit in a spot that would cause a fatal wound, only arms and thighs. Shreck also missed twice and she managed to avoid 2 bullets, yet she was counting down her lives counting fired shots and counting her non fatal shot wounds as deaths. The script also notes that she gets shot in her arm and leg:

He fires a shot, that rips into her arm. And another,
that smashes into her leg. Still coming, she pulls off
her hood.
 

SELINA
Four, five. Still alive.

 

Max shoots her other leg and the hand  

Note no wounds on the torso whatsoever. They're all on the sides of her legs and there's one wound on her shoulder

The comic book adaptation makes it even clearer

The movie begins around the Christmas time and the last scene is implied to be taken place during Christmas Eve, so it must have been significantly less than a month in between Catwoman's suppose demise and the last scene in the movie. Considering how well Catwoman handled the physical pain, it's no stretch to assume that she took care of and recovered from the shot wounds. She is also seen prancing in the alleys, not on rooftops, suggesting that she may not have been fully recovered yet.

One will naturally point out the last shot in the movie where she's clearly on top of the building, but that shot was added after the movie was already shot and finished, and it wasn't scripted, therefore wasn't a part of the original and complete story. It was there for both a better closure and to make it clear that she did indeed survive. The shot wasn't anything more than a visual message, after all, as the filmmakers point out, the panning shot shows that there's nothing for her to stand on, and it would've been impossible to climb so fast so high.

When it comes to the electrocution, there was none. The scene is quite different then how it was written in the script, so the script can't be a guideline in this case (in the script she jams her hand into a fusion box, really getting electrocuted). The movie makes it more clear that the Catwoman doesn't get electrocuted. She never touches the generator, and instead, grabs an isolated cable from above to which he holds on to. As oppose to the popular belief and how it was presented in the screenplay, Catwoman doesn't put the stun gun in hers and his mouths and instead actually kisses Max...

while holding the gun to his neck

Some may be wondering about Catwoman's sudden aerobic skills, but it's all very much exaggerated. The cats did not pass any superpowers to her because as we already seen in the movie, she never really dies and doesn't really have 9 lives. Also, Catwoman never has any really special or inhuman skills, and the only thing she really does is backflips which aren't really anything extraordinary. There's a simple explanation behind this:

Selina already knew how to do backflips before, which is confirmed by the script. According to the script she already had the skills and training but was to shy and introverted to use them until the crash released her formerly repressed inner-self, and all her inhibitions. In the Batman Returns script it is explained that she took karate lessons.

SELINA

I won some karate

lessons. Radio thing. I'd been

calling for Grateful Dead tix...

anyway, I take the course. I was

a most serious failure. The

instructor kept chanting "Your

mind isn't clear, your mind

isn't..."

(disturbingly)

It is now...

Doing backflips and karate is no superpower and no superhero skill. If she had any special skills passed by cats, she would certainly do better in crawling on the roofs which she could not do (she almost fell of it once) and seemed to struggle while climbing the building. No cat powers then.

Catwoman climbing awkwardly and struggling...

...and falling off the rooftop, fighting to climb

It was toying with the idea, but clearly nothing supernatural. If she was supernatural, she would simply fell of the window without slowing down. She would really take fatal injuries every time she counted her lives down and she would've gotten hit in her chest with the gun. The Cat instincts and persona was much more to do with the female prowess, agility, good shape and seductive skills, rather than being literal.

As already mentioned numerous times throughout the blog, Bob Kane worked on Batman and Batman Returns, and Burton's movies faithfully reflect Kane's early vision more so then not. Not only the origins go all the way back, but also the whole ambiguity with Catwoman was there in the Golden Age comic books as well

Panels taken from Batman #35 

 

The fact remains that Catwoman did not have any inhuman, super skills, did not have any feline characteristics and never really cheated death, therefore, no supernaturality