Holy Homosexuality Batman!
Daedra Morrighan
Camp and Corporate Capitalism
in Batman Forever
Freya Johnson
Only someone ignorant of the fundamentals of psychiatry and the
psychopathology of sex can fail to realize a subtle atmosphere of
homoeroticism which pervades the adventure of the mature 'Batman' and
his young friend 'Robin.'
-- Frederic Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent
So psychiatrist Frederic Wertham warned parents and lawmakers in 1953,
as he detailed the 'factually proven' method by which comic books
turned innocent children into homosexually and pederastically inclined
'deviants and perverts.' In this hilariously paranoiac document of
homophobic panic, he unwittingly anticipates queer theoretical
practice as he ransacks the comics for 'clues' (nowadays we call them
'signifiers') revealing the homoeroticism leaking from the pages of
the books into impressionable pre-pubescent brains. Sure enough, his
spot-the-homo routine reveals Bruce Wayne and 'Dick' Grayson (Wertham
supplies the snide quotation marks) enacting 'the wish dream of two
homosexuals living together' as Wertham presents this condemning
evidence:
Sometimes Batman ends up in bed injured and young Robin is shown
sitting next to him. At home they lead an idyllic life. They are Bruce
Wayne and 'Dick' Grayson. Bruce is described as a 'socialite' and the
official relationship is that Dick is Bruce's ward. They live in
sumptuous quarters, with beautiful flowers in large vases, and have a
butler, Alfred. Batman is sometimes shown in a dressing gown. . .
Obviously, they must be fags: otherwise they'd have a butler named
'Butch,' live in cramped quarters littered with beer-cans, wouldn't
show concern for one another's injuries or be caught dead in a
dressing gown and cultivate only (what?) cactuses in small ugly metal
pots?
More damning than the flowers and dressing gowns, however, is that the
'muscular male supertype whose primary sex characteristics are usually
well emphasized, is in the setting of certain stories the object of
homoerotic sexual curiosity and stimulation.' In that case, one can
easily imagine a now-decrepit Wertham feverishly taking notes in the
back of the theater when Dick dons his Robin costume in Batman Forever
and the camera loving focuses on what looks like a glowing violet
dildo showing through the codpiece of his uniform. 'We're not just
friends,' says Dick, 'we're partners;' the next shot is the dynamic
duo's clasped hands. Indeed, queer signification so saturates Batman
Forever that it would be inaccurate to call it a subtext. With his
earring, haircut and leather jacket Chris O'Donnell looks like he's
just come straight from an ACT UP meeting, while Val Kilmer's body is
exposed and eroticized only in the scenes with O'Donnell (as he
wanders out of the shower bare-chested in towel, is treated for
injuries, or puts on the new bat-suit while the image of his
butt-cleavage fills the screen). During the sterile 'love-scenes' with
Nicole Kidman he remains fully clothed as the camera coyly pans down
only as far as the top of his chest at most: her body entirely escapes
the emblematic 'male gaze' of cinema and her breasts or legs never
once fill the screen.
How did director Joel Schumacher get away with turning loose so many
queer signifiers to float freely about in Warner Brothers' biggest
asset? By turning the queer subtext hidden beneath the surface of many
Batman representations into an overtly queer supratext that goes right
over the head of the mainstream viewing audience. Although Batman and
Robin are shrieking 'queer,' Jim Carrey's Riddler (who even the
willfully obtuse National Review managed to describe as 'campy') is
much much queerer. Yet because he's a villain, his prancing around in
a diamond tiara and skin-tight green unitard exclaiming 'Spank me!'
doesn't offend the sensibilities of the homophobic mainstream
McAudience: in fact, it draws their attention away from the homoerotic
electricity between the heroes and invites the misreading 'if the bad
guy's gay, the good guys must be straight,' while Two-Face's troops of
thugs tricked out in now universally recognizable (thanks to Pulp
Fiction) queer S&M gear help keep queerness and villainy aligned. And
significantly, it's Ed Nygma's extreme reaction to his rejection by
Bruce Wayne, a rejection that mimics a straight man's rejection of
homosexual advances ('We're two of kind'; 'You were supposed to
understand,' laments Ed), that drives him to criminality.
In fact the villains mirror and exaggerate the heroes in more than
just homoerotics: their raison d'être also originates in some
traumatic event that has irrevocably altered their lives -- a
correlation which is certainly no accident. Schumacher reports
ignoring the previous Bat-films and looking instead to the original
1939-40's DC Batman comics to inspire Batman Forever, comics in which
it's the villains' traumas that drive them to madness, crime and a
quest for world domination. As Bill Botchel points out in The Many
Lives of the Batman (1991), these villains, who share Bruce Wayne's
status as respected members of society, enact the contemporaneous
anxieties about fascism suffusing the culture during Batman's early
years. They are similar to Bruce Wayne, perhaps, in the same way that
American society is similar to a European fascist state (similar
origins), yet the differences are oh-so-crucial as Wayne turns his
trauma-forged obsessions toward upholding goodness and the democratic
ideal while his opponents strive to become nightmarish versions of the
Nazi Übermensch. This Democracy vs. Fascism conflict is retooled for
Batman Forever and played out as Good Corporate Capitalism vs. Bad
Corporate Capitalism.
We first hear of Bruce Wayne as the camera pans over the sunlit
commercial district of Gotham City while a newscaster reports
'Billionaire Bruce Wayne has extended his trend-setting profit-sharing
program to the employees of the highly successful electronics division
of Wayne Enterprises.' Swooping inside Wayne's skyscraper (which is
crowned with a massive statute of muscle-bound Atlas holding up the
globe), we find him in the midst of a corporate walk-through,
African-American woman exec by his side, benignly smiling on his
employees who are working, we are told, on such projects as 'fire
remediation' and 'alternative fuels.' After listening politely to
E.Nygma's psychotically enthusiastic presentation of his 'brain-wave'
device, he turns down the project on ethical grounds ('it just raises
too many questions'), thanks the crew of employees, tells them the
factory 'looks great,' and departs.
This benevolent democratic corporate capitalism (Wayne even extends
'full benefits' to the widow of Nygma's first victim, despite the
official verdict of suicide as cause-of-death) where workers share in
the profits from projects which benefit society and ethical concerns
are placed above marketing potential, is in direct contrast to Nygma's
version of unbridled capitalist exploitation. Literalizing predatory
capitalism (with start-up capital obtained by robbery, no less) his
product actually feeds off the consumer, invading their minds and
channeling their brain waves to the Riddler. His blissed-out
expression and shuddering body as he absorbs these waves leaves no
doubt that the thrill is sexual as well as intellectual. That the
Riddler's corporate headquarters is topped with a giant Nygma-Box (in
contrast to Wayne's Atlas) underscores the masturbatory
self-consumption of 'Bad Capitalism,' and lest we miss this elision of
malignant consumption with sexual perversion the Riddler lasciviously
gloats to Batman during the film's penultimate scene that his new
improved mind-reading version of the device will soon spread
throughout the world, feeding him 'credit card numbers, bank codes and
sexual fantasies.' (Also echoing, perhaps, the homophobic panic
surrounding queer discourse 'contaminating' mainstream culture and
penetrating the sanctity of the home, which has many an irate PTA
member screeching about the Internet's capacity to bring queer
newsgroups and chatrooms into their child's bedroom).
Since the Riddler aligns 'Bad Capitalism' with 'Bad Sexuality,' it's
hardly surprising to find that the film's pro-forma heteronormative
narrative manifests when Wayne is performing his role of 'Good
Capitalist.' His ethical rejection of Nygma's design is coded as
sexual rejection, while his first meeting with Dr. Meridian for a
'consultation' (wherein he refers to the riddle as a 'love letter' and
the sender as a 'he') results in her being his date to the Circus
opening-night extravaganza for Gotham's wealthy elite--his public
performance of the ultra-successful business tycoon bound up with his
performance of heterosexuality.
She again performs the date-function for Wayne at the capitalist
debutante ball where the mind-reading version of the Nygma-Box is
unveiled and Nygma usurps Wayne's media-appellation of 'Gotham's most
eligible bachelor,' while also coopting his public manifestation and
sporting identical glasses, suit, and haircut -- mimicking Wayne right
down to the to the mole on his cheek and the token woman on his arm.
On loan from Two-Face and overtly ogling Wayne, Nygma's date is
clearly for appearances sake only as is his dance with Dr. Meridian
during which he openly camps it up, saucily flirting with Wayne and
making it abundantly clear that the women are entirely ancillary to
the coded transactions between the men. Although Wayne's 'romance'
with Dr. Meridian satisfies the plot-level demand for
heteronormativity, its credibility is perpetually undermined by both
its stock formulaicity and by the similarity of Wayne's supposed
genuineness to Nygma's obvious self-conscious falsity.
But what is the pay-off of marketing this safely contained and
topically sanitized Camp suitable for mass-consumption--'Bat-Camp' if
you will--to the mainstream audience? In fact, Bat-Camp appears to be
central to Warner Bros.'s carefully designed campaign to woo back its
wavering corporate sponsors who were disconcerted by the darkness and
violence of Batman Returns. Following the film's release angry
parents' groups lashed out at the studio, licensees and promotional
partners, prompting McDonald's Corp.(the largest and most desirable
promo-partner) to change its film promotional strategy; retailers
howled as Batman products languished on store shelves; and the film
took in a disappointing $90 million less domestically than its
predecessor. Clearly the studio needed to lighten up the film in order
to entice wary licensees back to the table for a third course, and
began by replacing director Tim Burton with Joel Schumacher (who's
come a long way since his days as a window display designer). When
Warner Bros.'s marketing mavens unveiled the new Batman characters to
about 200 potential corporate sponsors thereby 'setting the mood for
Batman Forever,' Schumacher was charged with convincingly presenting
the transformation of the old Dark Knight into the new Bat Lite.
Remarked one attendee, 'It was lighthearted, particularly with
Schumacher joking around. He said -- and we could tell because he's
very flamboyant -- that is was going to be a more adventurous,
entertaining Batman.' Apparently this 'flamboyance' paid off: Warner
Bros. lined up a reported $45-$50 million worth of media money
commitments from McDonald's, Kellogg's, Kenner Toys and others.
Following in the tradition of the first comic books which debuted in
1933 not as commodities-in-themselves but as marketing devices --
promotional giveaways and premiums for such companies as Proctor and
Gamble, Milk-O-Malt, and Kinny Shoe Stores -- Batman Forever was
conceived as much as a promotional vehicle for its corporate sponsors
as a product in its own right.
Given the importance of the sub-teen market to the film's heavy-weight
promo-partners and Schumacher's determination 'not to have kids
terrified' but instead to create a movie 'light enough to be a living
comic book,' the deployment of Bat-Camp makes perfect marketing sense
-- theorists have long noted Camp's appeal to children's sense of
play, their love of exaggeration, and their consciousness of the gap
between who they are and who they would like to pretend to be. And
according to some, its irreverence toward gender difference and
mockery of the extremes of femininity and masculinity titillates kids
because it implicitly undermines the authority of parents who are seen
to embody these constructions.
But Bat-Camp even goes one step further in converting what Susan
Sontag once termed 'a secret sensibility' into mass market symbolic
currency. As well as being consciously about capitalism and
consumption, Batman Forever self-consciously draws attention to its
own status as a marketing vehicle and commodity, highlighting its own
artificiality with playful irony and making reference to its position
within the matrix of production and promotion surrounding the movie.
With today's media-savvy audience who take the homoeconomic synergy
among mega-corporations as a given, there is no need to disguise
promotional relationships; instead, the film affectionately mocks
these connections and flatters the audience by letting them in on the
joke.
By the time the movie was released mid-June, everyone had seen the
Batman McDonald's commercial (airing since May) in which Batman turns
down his butler's offer of a sandwich with the line 'No thanks -- I'll
get drive-through' before zooshing away in the Batmobile. But this was
not just the standard commercial-inspired-by-feature-film: it was the
actual first scene of the film, a revelation that had the audience
giggling immediately. Just as Camp highlights and mocks gender by
exaggeration and reversal of gender-norms, 'Campy Capitalism' does the
same thing to its own constructions. That the movie opens with a
commercial rather than the commercial spinning off from the movie
draws attention to usually veiled marketing mechanisms by this
reversal of the standard form in which commercial relationships are
publicly represented, thereby reminding us of the film's artificiality
at the moment when the viewer is traditionally called upon to exercise
a willing suspension of disbelief. After this postmodern version of
the invocation of the muse, even the 'serious' moments in the film are
given a possibly ironic valance. In other words, this nod to the
viewer's knowledge of the film's status as a promotional vehicle
invites the audience to participate in the movie's light-hearted
irreverence toward itself.
When Nygma upbraids Two-Face for ostentatiously crashing his party
without prior warning, his complaint that 'We could have pre-sold the
movie rights!' is as much the film's campy reference to its own well
documented marketing strategies as it is Nygma's campy awareness of
his strategy for marketing himself. Both the Wayne Enterprises logo
that looks like Warner Bros.'s minus the 'B,' and the 'GNN' news which
replaces the generic newscasts of the previous movies, remind us of
the fictional nature of the world inside the film by meta-commercial
references to the world outside. Meanwhile, Dr.Meridian's sarcastic
question to Batman 'or do you prefer black leather and a whip?' does
double discursive duty as an extratextual reference to Batman Returns
(and the heavily hyped Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman) as well as an
internal reference to the fictive world of the three films for the
sake of some nominal consistency.
But perhaps the most telling example of this Commercial Performativity
is what has to be a corporate tie-in for The Club (because when a
product fills the screen for several precious seconds in a big budget
film it is never an accident--e.g. E.T.'s Reece's Pieces) in which
Batman -- who has just deployed some of his emblematic Batgadgets to
penetrate concrete, scale a skyscraper, secure a plummeting multi-ton
metal canister and harness a helicopter -- is foiled when Two-Face
snaps The Club onto the helicopter's steering wheel, thereby forcing
him to evacuate. Whether this is a serious commercial suggestion that
The Club is unassailable, or a parody of commercials suggesting The
Club is unassailable, seems impossible to determine, and is ultimately
unimportant. To the marketing-conscious consumer this spot may be
taken as a refusal to patronize, a sharing of an in-joke, a kind of
'Outing' of itself; with the unaware viewer it does the same work as a
traditional irony-free commercial.
The movie's climactic scene, then, where Batman triumphantly tells the
Riddler he had to save both Dr. Meridian and Robin because he is both
Bruce Wayne and Batman, while allowing for a wistfully optimistic
bisexual reading, can be taken as a metaphor for the film's campy
marketing and marketing of Camp -- replacing polymorphous perversity
with polycommodified performativity, one might say. Although Batman
Forever highlights its own commercial artifice, it carefully maintains
its promotional earnestness beneath the veneer of irreverence: without
the metatext we still have product tie-ins, commercial spin-offs, and
a film custom designed for its corporate sponsors. The irony about
promotion is, after all, for promotional purposes. And the film may be
replete with queer signification, but the heteronormative narrative
and over-the-top Riddler provide the homophobic viewer with just
enough plausible deniability for the rumors that the Caped Crusaders
are queers. So provided the queen is put safely back in his box in the
end, the McAudience can tolerate him as a viable means of producing an
appealing yet suitable kid's film without resorting to nauseating Care
Bears variety sweetness; meanwhile their offspring clamor for a Batman
Super Value Meal and limited-time-only (Collect all six!) McDonald's
commemorative Batman Forever mug.
<http://eserver.org/bs/23/johnson.html>
-- Daedra Morrighan
Founder: Black Vanguard
<http://www.pornonationalist.ws>
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"As long as the state remains Christian, and as long as the Jew
remains a Jew, they are equally incapable, the one of conferring
emancipation, the other of receiving it...In the final analysis, the
emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from
Judaism.."
- Karl Marx
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