Jean Batten, the Kiwi Wonder Woman
A new TV movie about Jean Batten showed the human side of the woman who was a Depression-era Wonder Woman.
Aviatrix Jean Batten is back. The 80th anniversary of her record setting solo flight from England to New Zealand has led to a flurry of new activity, including a tele-feature and a commemorative flight.
Jean Batten was a Kiwi Wonder Woman: a superhero who flew fearlessly around the world further and faster than other women, and men. She was a lone daredevil, risking her life in a tiny aeroplane with an open cockpit, basic navigation equipment, and no autopilot, let alone a toilet. She promoted the British Empire, and was an ambassador for humanitarianism.
Batten definitively challenged the gender order. She proved that women could possess the risktaker gene and be brave and courageous. With the right talent, hard work and support, they could take to the skies and break through barriers against their participation in men-only occupations. Batten’s many records and awards saw her appear as a role model locally and globally. There was new hope for women beyond domesticity and restrictive lightweight feminine pursuits. Batten helped to make determination and competition positive attributes in girls and women.
Batten was photogenic, charming and articulate. She was an excellent public speaker and author, and could dance and play the piano. Born in Rotorua in 1909, she grew up with a love of geography, the outdoors and sport. Like many New Zealanders, she yearned to travel the world. She magnificently realised her dreams, managing to gain a pilot’s licence and become part of the glamorous interwar age of aviation. Batten was mock-royalty, a celebrity who could draw the crowds to her spectacular performances. She was an opiate for the masses, offering escapism and excitement at a time of world depression.
And as that age quickly ended and the dark clouds of World War II gathered Batten largely disappeared from public. She didn’t go missing on a flight, like Amelia Earhart, and become a forever-young legend. She did what most people dream of doing if they win the lottery or become rich and famous; she spent her time on perpetual holiday, living a life of parties, travel and adventure in exotic warm climates such as Jamaica and Spain.
Batten’s life necessarily involved a seesaw of emotions. At one end there was intense publicity and socialising and at the other literally getting high and embracing being completely and utterly alone flying in the sky.
She had a personality that both craved and managed to cope with such extremes. Her private side won out in how she died in 1982; in a Majorca apartment from complications due to an infected dog bite. Her body was unclaimed and she was buried in a pauper’s grave.
Unfortunately, interpretations of Batten’s death have recast her entire life, assassinating her character and diminishing her achievements. Ian and Caroline Mackersey uncovered Batten’s death and went on to research her life. This involved stripping her of much of her talent and glory, and instead introducing her as reclusive and tragic.
She was also portrayed as deceitful, responsible for selfish career-advancing failed relationships with men and, according to psychobabble, was an androgynous woman with a male sex drive. In his book The Garbo of the Skies, Ian Mackersey casts Batten’s mother Ellen as a manipulative and controlling villain, rather than an essential rock and support in Jean’s life and success.
More recently, Fiona Kidman’s The Infinite Air rehabilitates Batten’s memory from the posthumous negative portrayals. Kidman goes for a talented and successful, yet personally fallible heroine. It is a perspective that has directly influenced Jean ,anew tele-feature. Batten’s skills and determination are back.
But she is also cast as vulnerable and human, to the extent of being ordinary, rather than a superhero. The musical score is sad and gloomy and viewers will likely end up pitying rather than celebrating her. There is a step back from her portrayal as a man eater, and instead the focus is on one ill-fated true love scenario. The ghost of Mackersey is present in Ellen’s portrayal as inappropriate and obsessed.
The real tragedy in aviation is that in the post-war years women were evicted from the cockpit and relegated to jobs in the aisles as trolley dollies, doing domesticity in the skies. The spirit of women’s equality that Batten sought was lost. But change is in the air.
To commemorate her England to New Zealand flight Air New Zealand put on an all-woman crew for its London to Auckland service. Soberingly, this was a first for the airline and only seven per cent of its current pilots are women. Once again, Batten is an inspiration. It’s what she deserves.
Katie Pickles is Professor and Head of History and Associate Dean Postgraduate Research at the University of Canterbury where she teaches and researches about heroines in history.
Batten definitively challenged the gender order. She proved that women could possess the risktaker gene and be brave and courageous.