Is Batman Gay? (do we CARE?)

EDITOR'S NOTE: WELL I SAW "BATMAN BEGINS" TODAY. QUITE GOOD. AND THE MALE-PULCHRITUDE LEVELS WERE EXCELLENT.


SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE.....
CHRISTIAN BALE, FOR THE OBVIOUS CHOICE,


if that wasn't obvious enough....here ya go, Joel ----


GARY OLDMAN, FOR THE INTERESTING/CHARMING CHOICE,


MORGAN FREEMAN, JUST CAUSE HE IS LOVELY,


MICHAEL CAINE, BECAUSE HE'S BRITISH AND FUNNY AND YOUR DADDY
PROBABLY DIDN'T GIVE YOU ENOUGH LOVE AS A CHILD,


CILLIAN MURPHY, CAUSE YOU ARE OFF YOUR MEDS BUT BOY ARE HIS EYES PURTY,


AND....WELL....LIAM NEESON. WHO REALLY REQUIRES NO EXPLANATION WHATSOEVER. (QUI-GON, YOU NAUGHTY BOY.....YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY).




And the highlight of my day???

I got that free "Who's your Daddy" Star Wars poster!!!

Even though we were watching “Batman” and not “ROTS” (and I was prepared to buy a ticket to a matinee of ROTS for the poster…yes, I’m insane), Debs told me to show the lady my Star Wars tattoo, and the lady was so impressed (frightened?) she gave me a poster anyway!!!

Life is really good for the QOTD. Sometimes.

But here's our weird Batman-themed dweeb-blogging ------

Camp Crusader
By Sean Macaulay

With Batman Begins the superhero's sexuality is under scrutiny again

IS BATMAN the Tinky-Winky of the superhero canon?

This is the question that has plagued the world’s most brooding superhero, aka the handsomely tailored, perfectly coiffed, howlingly repressed industrialist Bruce Wayne.

The writer-director Christopher Nolan has done wonders to rescue Batman from the scrapheap of laboured camp with Batman Begins. He has changed the S&M rubber batsuit to a more macho bullet-proof Kevlar bi-weave. He has removed the nipples, downplayed the tights and restored gravitas to this most agonisingly reclusive of crime-fighters. But by taking it all so seriously he has also revived that most potent thematic missile in the Bat-arsenal, the homoerotic subtext.

Nolan’s Batman comes with an old girlfriend to throw one off the scent, but their hilarious lack of chemistry only confirms one’s suspicions. How perfect it is that Katie Holmes, who plays the girl, is more convincing as an authentic love object — she’s Tom Cruise’s girlfriend — in real life. This screen Batman is so obviously happier when he’s buffing up his physique, dressing up and sneaking off to enjoy hot, sweaty tussles in the back alleys of Gotham. EDITOR'S NOTE: SO, BECAUSE KATIE HOLMES HAS THE SCREEN CHARISMA OF PASTE, BATMAN IS GAY. (NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT)....BUT SURELY THERE ARE OTHER...MORE INTERESTING...WOMEN THAN KATIE HOLMES IN GOTHAM CITY? (THERE WOULD HAVE TO BE, OR ALL THE MEN IN GOTHAM WOULD BE GAY).

Unlike the farcical fun of Superman, Batman gives the standard metaphor of the masked alter ego an extra frisson with his roiling discontent. He seethes with restless torment, which requires some kind of release. The accepted story is that the murder of his parents gives him a raging thirst for revenge. But he is incapable of sustaining any kind of relationship, except with his kindly array of male guardian figures, such as Alfred the butler and Commissioner Gordon. And later his ward Dick Grayson, whom he initiates into the joys of the costumed secret life. EDITOR'S NOTE: OK....DICK GRAYSON. YEAH. GOT ME THERE. (AND BATGIRL/BARBARA GORDON ALWAYS SEEMED LIKE AN AFTER-THOUGHT, LIKE ONE DAY BRUCE AND DICK WOULD 'FORGET' TO TELL HER IN WHICH ROOM IN THE MANSION THE MEETING WAS BEING HELD).

Comics were originally tailored for young kids, but when they were reinvented for adolescent males they pandered to the fantasies of those readers — a secret power, a true identity, the idea that one’s strength can never be appreciated by others. It didn’t take a huge shift for these tales of a secret life to gain an extra resonance. It doesn’t take X-ray vision to see the Batcave as the darkest closet of all time.

Still, one has to present the evidence. DC Comics insists that Batman is not gay, and refused to allow an academic study, Batman Unmasked, to quote from copyrighted work. Nobody could stop Fredric Wertham, though. During the 1950s Wertham, the Joseph McCarthy of comics, published a hateful psychological study in which he claimed that Batman’s relationship with Robin was propaganda for paedophilia, citing the large vases of flowers in Wayne Manor and Wayne’s use of an ornate dressing-gown as proof. EDITOR'S NOTE: REALLY WRONG FOR THE WRONG REASONS, OR ACCIDENTALLY CORRECT FOR THE WRONG REASONS? HMMM.....

Then, in the 1960s Batman television series, the gay subtext went on a Mardi Gras spree that hasn’t stopped. The TV show was a priceless deadpan spoof. “Try not to look conspicuous,” Batman tells Robin as they enter a black-tie event in full caped glory. Robin was clearly the sponge to Batman’s stone in this set-up, throwing jealous fits whenever a female rival captured Batman’s attention. When set upon himself by willing females, Robin fled in terror. The subtext was so blatant that the show introduced a beard in the form of Batgirl under the guise of a ratings gimmick. EDITOR'S NOTE: SNICKER.....(I DIDN'T READ AHEAD, HONEST).

Thirty years on, the TV show is enshrined in popular lore. It inspires a running cartoon sketch on the TV comedy show Saturday Night Live called Ace & Gary: The Ambiguously Gay Duo. This features a crime-fighting pair with the same dynamic and hilariously overt codpieces and tight-fitting tops. They drive a phallus-shaped roadster and then wonder why everyone stares.
Ace and Gary are the soft, colourful version of Batman, the flouncing queen, if you will. The dark nihilistic version of Batman, the unsmiling leather clone, arrived in the late 1980s with Frank Miller’s Dark Knight comics.

Miller’s pulp savagery added bite — too much so for some tastes: Catwoman a prostitute? — and his futuristic retro look formed the basis for Tim Burton’s Batman films. Burton gave the hero a twilight world to reflect his own restless soul, even though he channelled most of the repressed gay subtext into a more general feeling of Gothic weirdo outsider.

The fetishistic adoration of the gadgets was still a long way from the jaunty womanising of 007, but it was nothing compared with what happened when the openly gay director Joel Schumacher took over for two sequels. Gotham became a world turned inside out.
For Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, Schumacher made the gayness explicit. The films were camp romps with obvious double entendres, Robin bounding up in a leather jacket and earring.

At the same time the Batmen — first Val Kilmer and then George Clooney, who is even more of a stud — were immune to such an interpretation. Clooney went further, removing all angst from Batman with his smug, twinkly grin. It was a strangely ill-fitting exercise, like watching Hugh Hefner host a gay pride parade.

Batman Begins is more tonally astute about handling its hero’s subtext and, this being the liberated Noughties, that tortured ambiguity is nothing to be ashamed of. EDITOR'S NOTE: MINUS A BOY WONDER IN THIS FILM....AND KATIE HOLMES FURNITURE-LIKE NON-APPEAL NOTWITHSTANDING....BALE'S BATS READS MORE ZEN/ANGSTY THAN REPRESSED GAY. (I MEAN, IT IS POSSIBLE TO HAVE THINGS IN YOUR CLOSET THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH SEXUALITY, ISN'T IT?)

BAT SIGNALS
Tastefully decorated mansion

Immaculately kept wardrobe

Figure-hugging outfits, including tights

No long-term girlfriends

Says of himself: “The guy dresses as a bat. Clearly, he has issues.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: FOOD FOR THOUGHT. (BUT I'M GOING TO DWELL ON LIAM NEESON SOME MORE. MUCH BETTER FOOD.....)