BATMAN: “I’ve got something for that. Always.”

Hello dear reader. Welcome to We Could Be Heroes, where I take a pop culture icon and break down what I think makes them resonate with audiences.

Each post, I’ll boil down, deconstruct and dangle damsels in distress directly at our favourite heroes, heroines, idols and idolesses until we can ascertain exactly what it is that makes them stick around in our hearts and minds.

Today, I look at perhaps the most iconic character in comic book history, Batman. The Caped Crusader, the Dark Knight, the World’s Greatest Detective and perhaps the only character in all popular culture that could make a Lego movie franchise to rival The Lego Movie’s own Lego movie franchise from which it was… er, built.

We all know the story: Bruce Wayne witnesses the brutal murder of his parents as a child and grows up to become the masked vigilante that strikes terror into the hearts of Gotham’s criminal underworld, but do we know why this character keeps popping up whenever a new zeitgeist needs be darkly reflected?

Sure, he’s hugely popular, but he’s not the most popular. Spider-man wins the superhero merchandise wars by a land-swing. We’ll get to Spidey one day, but truth be told the Spider-man fan-base has something going against it besides double hyphenation – age. You see, Spidey is extremely popular with younger audiences, with his vibrant colours and (sorry Bruce) super powers. Youthful audiences enjoy simpler themes, more palatable metaphors and less nuanced structure. Bombast and bamboozlement win out and who’s to say they aren’t in the right? It is enough that the hero is just like one of us, but with super abilities.

Yet I believe that Batman has the greatest power of all, and it is that power that connects with its audience, permeates their subconscious and transcends the traditional tropes of idolatry.

Batman is never not in control of a situation. Ever.

Hell, his main weapon is a belt of utility.

People always describe him as being ready for anything, but I think that circumvents what makes Batman special, as if the reactive. Humans are all about controlling their environment – or, as I should say, are all about pretending to themselves that they can control their environment.

Take parenting for example. Now, most parents will concur that kids have a tendency, perhaps a propensity, or even a talent, for finding those spots of relatively calm, placid minds that can turn them into their very own Mr Hyde. We’re talking instant rage. No other kids can do that, in fact very few people can do that. Siblings perhaps, maybe your partner or a roommate, your parents used to be damn good at it too. What do they all have in common? They share your space, your home, your environment.

Have you also noticed that, as our environments expand, the quantity and type of people that can enrage us are also expanding? Suddenly politicians infuriate, film directors err on the side of controversy and that singer you used to like can make you see red quicker than a narcissist strawberry at a matador’s accessory convention.

Or how about the last time you got angry whilst you were driving? Were they not signalling? Did they cut you up? Did they do something, anything that contravened the universally accepted mandate of road rules?

Why stop there? Ever wonder why racists don’t like minorities, or why homophobes don’t like anyone from the LGBTQ community? Why people post comments full of rage and spite to an uncaring world? Why parents (and teachers) used to use violence against their own children?

Let’s go deeper. Are you afraid of spiders? Rats or mice? How about the dark?

Does high or low level intellect unnerve you? How about people of a different social class? Does change upset you? Just how meticulous is your routine? Do you defend the correct use of grammar against those that would proliferate gobbledygook?

If you answered no to all of those questions then you’re not paying attention because not all of them were closed questions, but even if you were able to answer no to those that were: congratulations! That’s awesome. You’re likely either in denial, or you don’t like Batman.

Maybe – just maybe – we place too great a value on control.

I have heard it said recently that our lives have gone from being lived or experienced,to being managed.

We manage our bodies, our health and our facial structure. We manage our opinions, our passions and our relationships. ‘Micromanagement’ is the new ‘care’, actual care being reserved for the mistreatment of our elderly.

How many of our vexations and petty grievances are rooted in our lack of control being exposed?

I’m a huge fan of words. Words mean things. Yes, I know clever pants, I meant that words can be powerful indicators of social and personal persuasions. The word ‘they’ took on greater significance in the wake/woke of transgender rights being a prominent public discussion. The word ‘Chernobyl’ went from being an innocuous proper noun to a word of hugely varied feelings and connotations, in almost no time at all.

Is it significant that the age of individualism, of Thatcher, Reagan, Blair and Clinton, of neo-liberalist consumerism coincides almost exactly with the age of the gaming console, and its focus on the controller?

Yeah, probably. That one is a bit of a stretch, but it strikes a chord with me.

Too political? Let’s look somewhere else. Here’s a quote from Clinical-depression.co.uk:

“It is common for depressed people to feel helpless, with little control over things. Or, alternatively, to feel that everything relies on them.

This extreme perception of control, either too much or too little, helps maintain depression in the following way.

• Too little control – the person stops doing things that could improve their situation, perhaps ceasing activities they used to enjoy.
• Too much control – person tried to control things they can’t and may become angry or anxious when they realize things aren’t happening the way they wanted. They may also take responsibility for things outside their control. This adds to the emotional arousal that maintains depression.”

 

I would have liked to add citations from an article called “Controlling Self and Others: A Theory of Anxiety, Mental Control, and Social Control” but unfortunately that article was restricted by its particular strata of academia, and would have cost me $36 to access. This societal control – the access and distribution of information – is possibly the most egregious and self-damaging of all privileged gatekeepers, but that’s another blog for another day. The restriction at least furthered my point.

In lieu of academic citations, let’s get deep.

Let’s talk about real powerlessness. Let’s think about people wrongfully imprisoned, like the central park five, or the victims of rape, bodily or psychological assault. I hope you have never and never have to hear a doctor say something like “I’m afraid you’ll never be able to have children” or “It’s cancer” just as I hope you never find yourself fighting a war or living in the abject poverty that so many of our global neighbours do on a daily basis.

Hey, I’m not trying to say you haven’t lived until you’ve experienced these situations, because I genuinely wish for a world where none of these things is a viable reality, but the context it wraps around our view of control, of desperately trying to pretend it exists and that we are the powers that maintain it, can’t help but put things in perspective.

So, back to the Bat.

Batman faced tragedy, he experienced the powerlessness of being able to do nothing as his parents die in front of him, and he decided to conquer that powerlessness. He would be in control.

Whatever the situation – be it becoming the hero Gotham needs him to be, or repelling sharks with a spray – Batman can cope, will cope and does cope with anything the world throws at him.

That is the power that everyone wishes they had, and that is why the world can’t help but adore the billionaire psychopath that could’ve solved all of Gotham’s problems with infrastructure and social funding, but felt the need to instead perpetuate a system that allowed him to physically attack those he deems ethically inferior to himself.

Hmm, maybe he’s not so in control as we think.