Batman

Batman (1989)

Batman Forever

Greetings, my friends, foes, and morally-grey antiheroes. As this stubbornly-humid May closes out, I am grateful that I just started going to yoga classes because, I, for one, require several cooling breaths as I exist in this heat and this hot-headed American wasteland. When the political, social, and cultural landscape feels this bleak, I vacillate wildly between craving hopeful media and cynical content—and if you watched this most recent season of Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal, you got to experience a bit of both at once. But there is a realm of pop culture that embodies optimism and fatalism, and this is the world of Batman. As I’ve stated, perhaps a pretentious amount of times, I do not typically gravitate toward the “standard” superhero storylines that have corroded Hollywood over the past 15 years. I like the darker, edgier, absurdist superhero stories that explore the many contradictions of these premises like Darkman, Watchmen, Kick-Ass, even Megamind and Sky High, and I’m pretty certain that my tenebrous tastes were formed through my adoration of the original conflicted superhero: Batman. I inherited my love for the Dark Knight through my mom, a lifelong Batman-lover, and I have consumed every piece of Batman media I could from the time I was a little kid (who had a Build-A-Bear dressed like Batman.) As a teenager I saw the 1966 movie (presented by Adam West at the Paramount, no less), and I was charmed by the fact that the superheroes of the present-era who tried to be earnestly cool, were more or less birthed from this goofy yet complex character. Batman was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger in the late 1930s—originally to ride the cape-tails of Superman—but after his debut in Detective Comics on March 30, 1939, this character developed into a much more interesting archetype. His creators drew inspiration from pulp fiction characters like the Shadow and Sherlock Holmes, and he was originally a ruthless vigilante who frequently killed criminals. This made him a perplexing foil to the do-gooding-Mary-Sueperman, but overtime, Batman’s persona evened out into a just, tempered superhero with a stringent moral code that does not condone killing. His lore is consistent: as a child he witnesses the murder of his parents, and he is so overcome with guilt and fear and rage that he becomes vengeance. Sometimes he’s got his trusty sidekick, Robin, sometimes he’s got a love interest and/or star-crossed lust affair with a villain, sometimes he’s a lone agent. He’s not an alien, or a victim of toxic waste or experimental science, Batman is just a cool guy. By day he is Bruce Wayne—billionaire playboy, philanthropist, tech-innovator, scientist, and businessman—and by night he is armed with no superpowers but supreme intellect, fighting skills, and all the cool gadgets his privilege affords him. He’s a polyglot who knows martial arts, a tough guy with a tender heart, a passionate man who’s forced to yearn and brood. He is the ultimate fantasy of what any man should be, especially if they’re wealthy, attractive, mildly-traumatized, and/or a billionaire. The men who actually fit this description are really always, in reality, the actual bad guys, which is why it’s fun to imagine a world where this type of man has not only a conscience, but a dedication to helping his community. And whether Batman is dark and stormy or vibrant and campy, he is a significant figure within pop culture. David Finkelstein and Ross Macfarlane of the Guardian once said, “Batman is a figure blurred by the endless reinvention that is modern mass culture. He is at once an icon and a commodity: the perfect cultural artefact for the 21st century.” Batman, of course, moved on from mere comic strips and into books, radio dramas, television shows, a stage show, and several films. In 1943, Batman got his own daily newspaper comic strip, and that same year, the 15-part serial titled Batman debuted with Lewis Wilson as the first actor to portray him on screen. A second movie serial, Batman and Robin, followed in 1949 with Robert Lowery taking over the role, and due to the timing of these serials, they were more-or-less just anti-Japanese propaganda. Batman’s star was solidified as Adam West took on the role in the 1966 film and television show, which ran for 120 episodes and held no shortage of kooky, caped-crusading hijinks. But in his memoir, Back to the Batcave, Adam West notes his dislike for the term “camp” as it was applied to the 1960s series, declaring that the show was instead a “farce or a lampoon, and a deliberate one, at that.” The 70s and 80s were full of more Batman adventures of the cartoonish variety, but in 1992, the greatest Batman adaptation arrived—Batman: the Animated Series, with Kevin Conroy voicing Batman and an evident return to Batman’s originally-dark themes took hold. This television show (as well as its eventual spin-off, Batman Beyond) will always be the ideal Batman to this critic, in terms of design, writing, acting, and general tone. But apart from Ben Affleck’s forgettable turn in the Snyderverse, I love every iteration of Batman. I love the weird, gay, flamboyant Batmans of the 60s and 90s, I love the steely, serious, sophisticated Batmans that Christopher Nolan brought us in the late 2000s, I even loved Robert Pattinson’s barely-visible but clearly emo take on Batman in Matt Reeves’ 2022 film. I love all of the video games, all of the parodies, all of the “appropriations” from “artists” like Andy Warhol, and I love that you don’t have to be 17-shitty-movies-deep into a gluttonous franchise to know the name Batman. He’s the only superhero with a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and he’s the only superhero (that I know of) that has been analyzed and studied to the degree of having psychologists write about him and teach him in curriculums. I would’ve been happy with any Bat-friendly cinema tonight, but I decided to focus on two films that I haven’t seen in a very, very long time.

Let’s begin with the movie that really began Batman’s career in cinema, a genre-blending, box-office-record-breaking movie that would kick off a decade of convoluted movies about the man of the evening, this is Tim Burton’s 1989 film Batman. Producers Benjamin Melniker and Michael E. Uslan purchased the film rights of Batman in 1979, with the desire to “make the definitive, dark, serious version of Batman, the way Bob Kane and Bill Finger had envisioned him in 1939. A creature of the night; stalking criminals in the shadows.” Studios were not interested in a more faithful adaptation, though, they wanted more silly superhero movies with tights and capes for the whole family, so it took a decade of rewriting, rehiring, casting, re-casting (and almost having Bill Murray and Eddie Murphy as Batman and Robin) for this movie to get picked up and made. Michael Keaton felt like wildcard casting at the time, as he’d established himself as more of a comedic actor, but Keaton and Burton proved to make a good team (via Beetlejuice), and Keaton proved to be a sweet, swell, if not bumbling, Batman. This film isn’t a Batman origin story but a Joker origin story, that primarily focuses on Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson), as we witness this gangster devolve from sleazy crime lord to full-fledged maniac. While Batman investigates the Joker, the Gotham Police, as well as the reporters of Gotham City (Robert Wuhl as Alexander Knox and Kim Basinger as Vicki Vale), are far more curious about this masked vigilante whose been spotted eight times in one month. Jack Nicholson (who insisted on receiving top billing for this film) was already a hilarious slime ball as Jack Napier, but after falling into a giant vat at Axis Chemicals, he’s got a brand new, twisted sense of humor, and a permanent smile carved into his face to match. Among the idiotic henchmen, soft-spoken mobsters, and a Batman still afflicted with some of the 1960s silliness, the Joker is the most memorable character in this film. He concocts a devilishly disturbing plan, and begins lacing hygiene products with his patented “Smylex”—which causes victims to die laughing—and Batman, nor the police, can find him. The Joker is clever, efficient, unpredictable, and has all of his nefarious schemes set to music by Prince, which makes him a real force to be reckoned with. All the while, Bruce Wayne meets Vicki Vale, and the two begin a whirlwind love affair that, shocker, complicates things for Batman. It’s all funnier and more frenzied than I remembered, and the Joker is so much more frightening than his ludicrously loopy persona would suggest. The set design and costuming and 1940s meets the 80s aesthetic was stunning—it’s no wonder this film won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction—but the music and the gorgeous use of shadows took my breath away, because it reminded me so much of the haunting style of Batman: the Animated Series. The cast also includes Billy Dee Williams, Jack Palance, Jerry Hall, Tracey Walter, and William Hootkins, and a plethora of white smoke/steam rising up from the streets of Gotham City at all hours of the day. As unserious as this movie might seem now, the Keaton Batmans were pitch black and severe back then, and the sheer fact that Bruce Wayne gets to fuck Vicki Vale in this movie is proof that Batman is one of (if not the only) superheroes that is afforded a sex life. Even more unique than this, is the fact that I’m 99.99% sure that Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne is the only one who gets to wear blue jeans. These elements may not seem special, but for the typical buttoned up formula of masked heroes, all of these factors are still pretty groundbreaking. This movie, as well as Batman Returns, proves that minds were being opened, suits were loosening their ties, and eventually, the studios got their campy, gay Batman once again. I say “gay” not as a derogatory term, of course, but as a fairly objective descriptor for a particularly homoerotic chapter of an already bi-curious franchise—and I’m just about the last critic on planet earth to refer to Batman as such. There is an entire Wikipedia page titled “Homosexuality in the Batman franchise”, and within it you’ll find that the first gay-panic surrounding Batman occurred in 1954, when psychologist Frederic Wertham asserted “Batman stories are psychologically homosexual... (they) may stimulate children to homosexual fantasies, of the nature of which they may be unconscious." Andy Medhurst wrote in his 1991 essay “Batman, Deviance, and Camp” that Batman is intriguing to gay audiences because “he was one of the first fictional characters to be attacked on the grounds of his presumed homosexuality.” Professor of film and cultural studies Will Brooker argues the validity of a queer reading of Batman, and that gay readers would naturally find themselves drawn to the lifestyle depicted within, whether the character of Bruce Wayne himself were explicitly gay or not. Writer Alan Grant has stated, “The Batman I wrote for 13 years isn't gay ...everybody's Batman all the way back to Bob Kane ...none of them wrote him as a gay character.” Writer and comic book artist Frank Miller views Batman as sublimating his sexual urges into crimefighting so much so that he is “borderline pathological”, concluding “He'd be much healthier if he were gay.” Why do I bring up Batman’s sexuality? One, because it’s interesting. Two, because it’s a polarizing topic despite the many downright queer depictions of this man in tights. And three, because it’s about to be Pride Month, and I can’t think of a better movie to ease into June with than Joel Schumacher’s 1995 film Batman Forever.

When I was researching my Val Kilmer double features a few weeks ago, I learned that Batman Forever was not the easiest set to be on. Tensions were already high, given the fact that Tim Burton dropped out and Michael Keaton followed, blaming the change in creative direction, “To lighten up and brighten it up and be a cartoon was of no interest to me.” But, in theory, Batman Forever was primed to be a hit. Unlike Tim Burton, the new director, Joel Schumacher, was an actual fan of Batman, and Val Kilmer was such a fan that he accepted the role without even reading the script. (Coincidentally, Kilmer received the news that he’d be playing Batman while he was literally in a bat cave in Africa, doing research for The Ghost and the Darkness.) Once again, the director originally planned to make a much more serious film, one that would explore Bruce Wayne's growing fear that his crusade to be Batman had done more harm than good and now he suffers from burnout, but the executives at Warner Bros. insisted on a lighter tone. On top of this, the 100-pound batsuit Val had to wear made him sweaty and miserable and virtually deaf while inside it, and two of the other leads who shared most of their scenes—Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones—despised each other. This film is also where my confusion surrounding the 90s Batman movies began, as some—but not all—of the cast is shared and crossed over. Some shared villains, others shared Robins, a couple shared Batmans, and more than one had pointy nipples, but the only true continuity between any of the 90s films are the actors who played Alfred and Commissioner Gordon (Michael Gough and Pat Hingle.) Batman Forever just feels like the third movie of a series, and even though Michael Keaton kept the Batmobile warmed up for Val Kilmer, it all feels a little less effortless and a little more disjointed. Val’s first line as Batman is a joke—a response to Alfred trying to convince him to take a sandwich with him on his nightly patrol—to which Batman says “I’ll get drive-thru.” And he says it with all of the gusto of a man actively sweating off 10 pounds as he goes through divorce proceedings with his wife behind-the-scenes. Batman has a plethora of cool, creepy, unique villains in his (often sympathetic) rogues gallery, and in Batman Forever he’s forced to tangle with not one but two of these foes: Two-Face and The Riddler. These are hardly the scariest options to choose from (though, I guess, Two-Face is at least half-scary) but Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey were thoroughly committed to playing these characters (that needed to be committed.) Batman Forever pictures Two-Face and The Riddler as a despicable dynamic duo, and along with Two-Face’s henchwomen, Sugar and Spice (Drew Barrymore and Debi Mazar), they plan to manipulate and absorb the minds of every Gotham City resident. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne falls in love with Dr. Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman), which is awkward, because she’s falling hard for Batman—not Bruce Wayne, Batman. When Batman is trying to thwart her advances, Chase says, “Well, a girl can’t live on psychoses alone.” It’s the type of horny, corny conundrum you’d expect from the Adam West show. I mean, if Batman (1989) was dipping a toe into Batman’s sexuality, Batman Forever is fully in the bedsheets with him. Bruce wants to get with Chase who wants to get with Batman who wants to stop Two-Face and The Riddler who clearly are in love with each other. It’s the kind of dizzying movie where Dick Grayson (aka Robin played by Chris O’Donnell) can be introduced by doing a “death drop” in his circus routine, and you won’t even think of Drag Race because everything on screen is distracting and glittering enough. In fact, in honor of it almost being Pride Month, let’s just go through some of the gayest moments of Batman Forever: multiple shots of Batman’s ass in his batsuit, Two-Face having buff gimps as his henchmen, Robin’s pierced ear, Dr. Meridian obsessing over the black pleather of the batsuit, The Riddler telling Two-Face that he’s both a Summer and a Winter, The Riddler telling Batman to “spank” him, The Riddler saying “joygasm”, The Riddler thrusting his hips into the air, and the font they used in the opening credits—just to name a few. Right off the bat (so to speak), the effects are worse, but the costuming was better (even the extras were all colorful, cute, and gorgeous.) The energy was enhanced, but the direction felt fragmented. You can tell that Val wanted this to be a serious Batman movie like its direct predecessors, but ironically, his steely, sincere, even stiff delivery of his lines just made for a better comedic effect. Despite it having the largest opening weekend for a Warner Bros film until Harry Potter, Batman Forever didn’t receive much love upon its release, and its George Clooney-led successor Batman & Robin, was received even more coldly. I hope Val Kilmer and Joel Schumacher knew that Batman Forever’s 39% on Rotten Tomatoes is outshined by the way the LGBTQ+ community loves it. And as much as I enjoy the grim and gruesome iterations, I feel that the best Batmans are the ones who have a sense of humor. It inspired one of my favorite Batman-adjacent projects, The People’s Joker, and it gave us a Batman who’s sexy in and out of the suit, so I’ve got no complaints. You’ve probably got a few complaints if you’ve read this far, though, so I’ll shut my verbose mouth up. Until next time, I am vengeance, I am the night, etc. 🦇