#idk anyway forever a horrocks champion i guess. he gets some flack for sexualising cass (which does happen and is gross)

[casscainmainly]

A Deep Dive Into Why Cass Threw Dick Out A Window

If you've been here long enough you've probably seen or heard of this moment, which is super hilarious and iconic. It's mostly discussed in reference to Dick and Cass' relationship. However, in my opinion Cass throwing Dick out a window had very little to do with her opinion of him, or even of Barbara; it has more to do with her understanding of romance and love. I briefly touched on this in my gender/sexuality post, but I'm going to explain more in depth my interpretation of how Dick functions in Batgirl (2000) as a whole. (This moment is very open to interpretation though, this is just my opinion!). So let's try to answer Dick's question: what was that all about?

Love, Language, and DickBabs

While Puckett's run is notable for not having Cass date anyone, romantic love does play a role in Cass' early understanding of the world. It's the impetus that spurs her to write: in issue 2, she sees a wife read a letter from her deceased husband, and her reaction affects Cass so strongly she immediately starts trying to write. (She also kisses the husband on the cheek earlier, which may or may not be a crush). Romance, and the ability to communicate your love, is a fundamental part of Cass' desire to learn language.

So we have Cass, who has experienced neither love nor language, living with Babs, who's in a relationship with Dick. This telephone conversation in #4 (the issue where a metahuman changes Cass' brain into understanding language) again links romance to communication. Dick and Babs are talking on the phone, unable to see each other but understanding each other perfectly; Cass and Babs, on the other hand, live together and can't understand each other at all.

"She can't talk, so it's not all that different [to living alone]." Babs is telling an eavesdropping Cass that her inability to speak prevents her from love and connection - a love and connection symbolised by one of the first romantic relationships Cass is consistently around, Dick and Barbara.

Dick as an Ideal

There's a debate whether Cass likes Dick or not because half the time they're friendly, and half the time she's punching him or throwing him out windows. This disparity makes sense if you consider that Cass strongly associates DickBabs with communication, understanding, love - very idealised notions - but she does not associate Dick as a person with them. Her interactions with Dick (sans Babs) are cute and normal - Batgirl #29 and Nightwing #81 feature some very adorable Dick-Cass moments, with no real tension whatsoever.

It's only when Cass sees Dick in a romantic light (as in associated with Babs) that she makes him into a symbol.

Cass often tries to copy Babs, thinking it's the 'correct' thing to do - in DC First: Batgirl/Joker, she goes after Joker because that's what Barbara did; later in Horrocks' run she'll wear Barbara's outfit. In a way, Cass' affairs with Tai'Darshan and Kon - as much as I do think Tai'Darshan was genuine attraction - is another way to 'copy' Barbara. In #42, Cass stares at a picture of Dick and Babs while asking if Babs likes boys. Obviously Cass knows the answer is yes, but see what she asks next, and how Barbara responds:

She shifts from 'like' to 'love', and Babs responds that she 'care[s]' about him. For Cass, whose arc in Horrocks' run is about parsing out the nuances of attraction, understanding the difference between like, love, and care is incredibly difficult. She struggles to separate familial from romantic (Bruce in #50) or romantic from platonic (Kon, and in somewhat the reverse way Steph). In this conversation, Cass comes to associate Dick with like, love, and care - DickBabs becomes not just a symbol of romantic love, but of any connection whatsoever.

The Old Costume

I've discussed elsewhere that Cass wearing Babs' old costume in #45 is a representation of her desire to be 'girly', and how she associates girlhood with someone other than herself, discarding her own costume for Babs'. But putting on a costume is not the only prerequisite for being a 'girl'. In Babs' speech to Cass, she emphasises being sexually attractive to men, with her final comment being about this "particular look Dick used to give [her]". For Cass, visual language is incredibly important; putting on Babs' costume is not about being or feeling like a girl, but about being perceived as one. Dick is symbolic of the perceiver: the one who can essentially 'grant' women their femininity.

But Cass is disgusted when Tim calls her hot, which adds to her confusion - why should Dick being attracted to Babs make Babs happy, but Tim (who's not a sibling at this time) perceiving her like that grosses her out? Cass' inability to feel good - to feel 'feminine' - through the male gaze is another sign, to her, of her failure to be a woman.

Which finally brings us to issue 46...

That Ableist Kon Comment

Cass finds out Dick breaks Babs' heart and then starts hallucinating on a drug. One of the things she hallucinates is Kon saying "who wants to date a cripple? Ain't that right, Nightwing?" and Nightwing responding "not me--at least, not anymore."

For the first time, we get to the heart of why DickBabs mattered to Cass: it was an example of a disabled person in a loving, romantic relationship. It goes back to that phone call in #4, where Babs implies that Cass is hard to care about because she can't speak. The Kon comment suggests Cass has carried that with her all this time, trying to find proof that she can be loved, no matter her disability. DickBabs showed her it could be done - the break-up shows her now that it can't be done.

Dick's hallucination mocks her disability: "look at her--she can't even read!" Attributing this mockery to Dick (whose real-life counterpart, unlike the other hallucinations, has never said anything remotely like this) shows that this 'Dick-as-ideal' is intrinsically tied to Cass' self-worth.

Honestly this whole post stemmed from me thinking about this one panel. There is no real reason, from Cass' view of Dick as a person, for her to think he's brave and noble and kind (more so than anyone else). But it's in the DickBabs context - that Dick seemed to love, wholeheartedly, a disabled woman - that makes Cass think this way. And now that DickBabs is broken up, it shows that she, too, is rotten to the core; that someone like her cannot be loved.

And so when Dick shows up, she throws him out the window.

Conclusion

In this moment, Cass isn't just reacting to Dick breaking up with Barbara, she's reacting to what it means to her. If Dick can't stay with Barbara, then that means Cass, as another disabled woman, is also unable to be loved. This all leads up to #50, which features another Cass punch to Dick's face, but more importantly is when Bruce and Cass reconcile through Cass' first language. It's a confirmation that though her verbal skills may not be fully developed, she still can communicate, and she can love and be loved.

I don't think a lot of the ideas I touched on here are fully developed, or conclude cleanly. For example, how does Cass' 'failure' to be a woman relate to her inability to be loved? Is she able to have a stable romantic relationship? There are lots more questions, but the role Dick specifically plays in Cass' understanding of romance is probably not going to develop further. I just think it's interesting how Horrocks uses the Dick-Babs relationship to explore Cass' identity.