because of this,
who could do this,
and who looks cool like this.
But put aside the gorgeousness of Christian Bale, the genius of Christopher Nolan, the talent of Ann Hathaway and while you're at it - un-suspend your imagination and what do you see?
A man pretending to be a bat so he is dressed like one;
Also, if Batman was in his right mind, he would have worn his briefs first and then slip into his skin-tight pants after - not the other way around.
"Generally, the explanations that are given for the motivation of these characters is pretty flimsy. People I'm sure have had their parents killed in front of their eyes. I think that would probably lead to a life in analysis and probably all sorts of personal problems. It probably won't lead to you becoming a bat-themed vigilante." - Alan Moore
But why do we lap Batman up? Why are we willing to suspend our logic and common sense?
Is it because we want to be entertained?
Is it because we `get' him?
So who would readstories of an impotent society desparated for a faceless (and therefore dehumanized) avenger? People who are themselves frustrated, and and angry and who perceive their anger against their parents, school, job..as righteous rage. The worldview presented in the stories is usually simple and uncomplicated, with the hero as simultaneously the stand-in and avenger of a wounded society that in some metaphorical way reflects the reader’s worldview. They’re hurt by or afraid of forces smarter and more powerful than them, so they want to lash out. Both the hero and the villain share this outlook, but from opposites sides of course. And it’s important to note that the reader sympathizes with both the villain and the hero. (The villain is the hero of his own story, after all.)
This kind of story is literally thousands of years old. Achilles, the strong invincible superhero of Greece, directed his rage just as much at the leader of the Greek forces, Agamemnon, as at the Trojans. And his rebelliousness is very much a part of the subtext of the story. In Achilles’s eyes, Agamemnon was too weak, too dissembling. Too quick to hedge his bets and to hold back. Achilles is the first superhero. DC and Marvel have slaughter forests and made fortunes from retelling his story over and over again.
Sing to me, O goddess, of the rage of Batman, Son of Gotham…
The problem that the superhero genre has is that it didn’t model itself after the rest of the Iliad. Achilles is an asshole. For all his talk and bravado, he didn’t win the Trojan War. What won the war was the Trojan Horse, a scheme concocted by a secondary character, the rather put-upon mortal named Odysseus. Where Achilles is an unrealistic character that reflects the unrealistic way in which youth views itself, Odysseus is a very realistic representation of a middle-aged man. He’s burdened by all the responsibilities he has left unattended back home. Odysseus, “the man of many twists and turns,” is like all reasonably mature middle-aged men, fed up with the all the high and mighty bullshit. He just wants to go home and play with his dog.
There is no DC or Marvel superhero franchise patterned off of Odysseus.
That a genre originally targeted at teenage boys would approach storytelling in this hyper-masculinized, hyper-sexualized way is not at all surprising. This is how many adolescents see the world. What is surprising is that the people who buy comics aren’t teenage boys anymore, they are men in their late twenties and thirties. For them, the comic book is an escape from that which frustrates them in the real world. - PastaBagel from Partial Objects
And then this happens:
"The suspected gunman at a Colorado showing of the latest Batman movie had painted his hair red and called himself the Joker, one of the villains populating the comic book world of Gotham."
It's not solely Batman's fault though. There are tons of Batman-fanatics who do not go out and shoot people.
But Batman is a convenient excuse for our mental dis-ease.
He's right up there cathartically fulfilling what we could only wish for in our dysfunctional hearts.
Batman doesn't need us. We need Batman.
What's wrong with that?
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