Note: Although this article contains no major spoilers, avid fans are advised to read after watching the film for the best experience
I, admittedly, am a sucker for emotionally unavailable men. And whether or not DC will admit it, that makes me a prime consumer of content featuring Robert Pattinson beating the ever-loving life out of criminals and contemplating the events that led to his parents’ deaths.
The film follows Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) as he orchestrates an investigation into a mysterious villain known as The Riddler. It’s a macabre story, with no sunlight or smiles (seriously, he doesn’t smile a single time), making for a noir that boasts masterful creation. Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz) is maybe one of the most attractive DC characters we’ve seen yet but Kravitz’s performance juxtaposes Pattinson’s stoic masculinity with a delicate finesse.
That being said, I feel as though there is a conversation to be had regarding the acceptance of Wayne’s actions throughout the film. His character is notoriously morally gray, which although can provide fun antihero elements, can also come off as brusque and pompous. At one point, he follows Kravitz’s character from her work to her home, watching her change into her skin-tight catsuit with a pair of binoculars. This voyeurism is handled as a necessary plot point for the movie to continue forward. But is this behavior worth accepting? Ironically, the “stalking for love” trope is also present in Twilight (2008) in which Pattinson plays a decades-old vampire who falls in love with the new girl in town. Later in the film, he speaks to Catwoman through an earpiece as he watches the world from her eyes through video-camera contact lenses that she wears on an undercover mission. Though the scene only lasts a few minutes, it emphasizes the narrative at hand; this is a movie about The Batman, a wealthy, white male with a tragic past and nothing to lose. And isn’t that what most major Hollywood movies have consisted of since the dawn of film?
I have a theory that classic stories like Batman and Spiderman are beginning to evolve into cultural cornerstones reminiscent of Shakespeare. The narratives are accessible, several decades old, and have withstood the continued renewal of the same tale over and over again. On the same note, although I liked Spiderman: No Way Home, do we really need three Spidermans (Spidermen?)? This is (to my knowledge) the ninth iteration of this character. As much as the stories are fun, the villains are classic, and the love interests are captivating, is this the story that needs to be told right now?
As any IB European History student will tell you, a society’s values will often be reflected in the arts and culture that it puts out. And in a world that, more than ever, defines a person by the content they consume, we eat up whatever is available to internalize it and curate a persona that we deem appropriate to present to others. So what does it say about us when violence is such an important facet of modern media? When we glorify violence, we become desensitized to it. Squid Game proved this fact from the moment it was released, garnering millions of fans instantly. I am a staunch pacifist, but I recognize the use of violence within a narrative to demonstrate moral alignments, emphasizing the preservation of life, and generally being, well, cool. But is violence cool? Or have we just been conditioned to believe that it is? Even still, why is it okay for the “good guys” to hurt people but when the “bad guys” do it, it’s damning? It’s not fair for us to cherry-pick our condemnations. This brings me back to the subject of this essay; The Batman.
Batman is a perfect character for the setting of Gotham City. He lurks in the shadows waiting to take down anyone who thinks of causing trouble, in essence creating an almost panopticon effect in which the prospect of being caught by him is enough of a motive for criminals to discipline themselves. Nonetheless, the city is still ravaged by crime, with The Batman involving himself in affairs that interest him, not necessarily the average store-robbery.
I feel I need to reiterate that this was a good movie; the casting was brilliant, the car-chases entrancing, and the romance scintillating. I recommend it to teenagers looking for an escape right now, which we’re all very much in need of. I’m just not sure if this type of production needs to be reinforced. We’ve seen the story before, we know Robert Pattinson is good-looking, and we’re well aware of the fact that sunlight deprivation can mess a person up. Yet these films are still being remade, and I’m not so sure that’s a good thing. Isn’t there enough violence in the world as it is? This content only promotes the idea that brutality should be met with brutality.
There is an infinite number of plots that could satisfy the modern movie-goer, and yet the film industry continues to fall back on violence and white victimization to please audiences. I thought that film was about expressing creativity, not reproducing what has already been conveyed. This adaptation of a classic character’s tragic life is good, but I don’t think it’s what our pop culture climate needs right now. We need to begin thinking critically about what stories deserve to be told. The voices that are overrepresented in the arts are the voices that speak for us all. There is a world in which a variety of films can express the thoughts of the world population, but the one that we have right now seems to only care about certain voices.
I highly recommend watching this film and examining what it says about our society at this time. Is it possible for a movie to be good and not entirely necessary? I’m inclined to believe so, and maybe you are too. So moving forward, as our generation starts filtering into creative fields, take into consideration the templates that already exist and what it means to remake a classic story. Is Batman a fundamentally white, male story, or are there other avenues for expressing heroism that’s more inclusive to a diverse audience? Tokenism is a huge issue, but we need to see more voices highlighted, rather than valuing the ones that have been enabled for hundreds of years.