Just So We’re Clear, That Leaked BATGIRL Casting Wish-List Originated With Some Dude On Reddit

Over at Elle, an article's gone up with the headline "The Batgirl Actress Shortlist Has Allegedly Been Leaked, and There Are Only Two Women of Color on It". The post goes on to name the nine actresses who are (allegedly) up for the titular role in Joss Whedon's forthcoming Batgirl film. The list includes Elle Fanning, Olivia Cooke, Bella Thorne, Katherine Langford, Margaret Qualley, Jane Levy, Emma Roberts, Haley Lu Richardson and Naomi Scott.

As you might guess from the title of the post, the focus in Elle's piece (which links to a Paste Magazine post that originally reported the news) centers around the diversity (or lack thereof) in this leaked casting wish-list. It does not focus on the source for said wish-list, which turns out to be "a Reddit user who said 'a friend of mine was recently contacted by WB to work on concept art for the upcoming Batgirl film." This Reddit user's name is "DCEUThrowaway89."

Look, maybe that short-list is legit. Maybe those really are the names of all nine actresses currently being considered to play Barbara Gordon in Joss Whedon's Batgirl. Maybe, against all odds, this information really was revealed to a DCEU fan who then decided to set up a burner account to share that secret information exclusively with Reddit, rather than with, say, any one of a hundred different film blogs or comic book news sites that might be able to confirm said list via their own independent, anonymous sources. Or maybe - and hear me out here - some bro on Reddit just wrote up his own Batgirl casting wish-list and posted it to the site for the lulz. It's gotta be one or the other!

We'll have to wait and see how this mystery turns out. But in the meantime, this is just a friendly reminder not to take everything one reads on Reddit at face value, and a further suggestion that maybe our outrage would best be conserved for stories that have already been verified as factual, like the fact that Geostorm exists. I mean, it's your life, do what ya want with it. But that's the stance we're taking on this one until we've been given good reason to think otherwise.

Feel free to weigh in for yourselves in the comments below.