Having the Talk
Apr. 10th, 2019 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daisyninjagirlSo, because I am the parent of a 5 year old, sometimes I end up having uncomfortable discussions with no warning. No, not the sex talk! That was a couple of days ago and went fine. No, this was the one where your kid comes home and tells you excitedly about this person called Batman who goes around punching people. And I am so torn. I really loved the corny Adam West version of the character when I was a kid, and I loved the Michael Keaton and Val Kilmer incarnations back when I was a teenager.
But now I am an adult, and all I can think about this character is that he suffered a tragedy in his childhood then chose to spend the rest of his life brooding in a cave about how he'd been wronged, armed himself with a fetishist's array of weapons, and then went out looking for people he can decide are bad, and 'deserve' to be beaten up. For all the supervillains like the Joker and the Penguin, it's a core part of the Batman narrative that he goes out at night and whales on petty criminals as a hobby - no probable cause, no trials, no evidence, no oversight, just raw angry vengeance on anyone who looks the part.
And also, I had another uncomfortable talk last week, which is based on how to talk about the Easter story when I don't actually believe in the God bit, and the relatives in the case range from a staunch atheist through to very performative Catholics. And I had a realisation that I don't actually need to believe in the God bit. Because I am culturally Christian, I have a two thousand year inheritance that makes a virtue of the qualities of humility, love, and forgiveness. I'm willing to bet that the religions I know less about have their own weight of ethics that people can draw on around the things people need to do in order to live with each other. As much as individuals can fail, and communities fail and nations fail to live up to these virtues - Western civilisation has put a name on what is golden and tells and retells stories about how they are good things and how we should keep on aspiring to them because they aren't easy, they are hard.
Anger is easy, and revenge is easy, and Batman is a fucking copout.
But now I am an adult, and all I can think about this character is that he suffered a tragedy in his childhood then chose to spend the rest of his life brooding in a cave about how he'd been wronged, armed himself with a fetishist's array of weapons, and then went out looking for people he can decide are bad, and 'deserve' to be beaten up. For all the supervillains like the Joker and the Penguin, it's a core part of the Batman narrative that he goes out at night and whales on petty criminals as a hobby - no probable cause, no trials, no evidence, no oversight, just raw angry vengeance on anyone who looks the part.
And also, I had another uncomfortable talk last week, which is based on how to talk about the Easter story when I don't actually believe in the God bit, and the relatives in the case range from a staunch atheist through to very performative Catholics. And I had a realisation that I don't actually need to believe in the God bit. Because I am culturally Christian, I have a two thousand year inheritance that makes a virtue of the qualities of humility, love, and forgiveness. I'm willing to bet that the religions I know less about have their own weight of ethics that people can draw on around the things people need to do in order to live with each other. As much as individuals can fail, and communities fail and nations fail to live up to these virtues - Western civilisation has put a name on what is golden and tells and retells stories about how they are good things and how we should keep on aspiring to them because they aren't easy, they are hard.
Anger is easy, and revenge is easy, and Batman is a fucking copout.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-11 11:31 pm (UTC)So you can pick which strand you say is important and that.
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Date: 2019-04-12 08:19 pm (UTC)Batman is a fantasy of anger where the fiction enables the character going down that dark path to be, by some convoluted turn of events, proven right. That fantasy of anger in real life always seems to involve someone whose life isn't so bad arming himself (and I do mean him) with semi-automatics and going to a church or mosque or school or musical festival and killing a lot of people. And then filming it for funsies.
My life, in the month after some arsehole engaged in his own fantasy - I'm two degrees removed, mind you - is working out how to explain this stuff to my kids, thanking my stars that they're too young to go on the internet, and reviewing the lockdown plans at my kids' preschool. (H&S rep etc) Oh yeah, and trying to think of the right way to talk to my co-workers who are only one degree removed; and having a friend talk about how she doesn't know how to deal with her best friend's husband who's getting disturbingly keen on the NRA. Just the usual, right.
I can't deal with the Batman fantasy anymore. It's about people choosing to brood and getting to feel like that's somehow laudable.
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Date: 2019-04-12 08:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-12 07:18 am (UTC)I'm the biggest Bat-fan. Always have been, always will be. One of the main reasons I admire him is because he is only a human, but despite this (and I'm thinking here of the Justice League more than anything), everyone's afraid of him because he is just that more amazing. Like Cat said,he works *unbelievably hard* at being that scary, and I personally don't see that as a cop out. But that's just me.
Also the tone, for want of a better word, of Batman has changed drastically over the 80 odd years he's been at it. Initially, he was much more jovial and less punchy, but over the years he's gotten more dark and more punchy. Is that good? Now that you mention it - probably not, but there you go.
That's my 2 cents worth If I have worded it a bit bluntly, please don't be offended, because that was never the intent :-). Now that you talk about him in that light though, it would be interesting to see what sort of character would be drawn if he was to take the path you mention.
Joseph :D
P.S I've been working in a supermarket for 15 years now, and I'm drawing a great sigh of relief now that Easter is almost over. It is supposed to be a great religious and cultural event, but to me at my point in life it's just a way for my employers to make pots of cash. At some point I'm going to have to stop and rediscover what the fuss was all about in the first place. Ah, the cynic in me...
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Date: 2019-04-12 08:22 pm (UTC)"Initially, he was much more jovial and less punchy, but over the years he's gotten more dark and more punchy."
Yeah, I could say that sense of joviality is well and truly gone, but along the way, to me as reader, when that got lost so did a sense of internal goodness. I'll be glad when the comics industry pulls its collective head out of its arse and lightens up some.
Hugs
no subject
Date: 2019-04-12 10:11 pm (UTC)Lighten up? For sure! That's something that really does need to happen, and it won't be too soon. In Bruce Wayne's defense, it is within his character to lighten up, so let's see if something positive can happen.
Hugs back