MostBatmanfans will be familiar with theJoel Schumacherfilms:Batman ForeverandBatman & Robin. Sequels to the original Tim Burton films, the Schumacher duology fits a little incongruously within the Burton-verse, swapping out the gothic, noir style for a more neon-laced, darkly camp aesthetic instead. For many Batman fans, the change in tonality — mandated by the studio, mind you — signaled the death-knell for the franchise, and by the timeBatman & Robinrolled around, it was.
When thinking of the character of Batman, most people today will probably first think of the more modern renditions of the character: a grim, somewhat loner character, whose job has consumed his life. Despite his cheery front as the rich and affluent billionaire Bruce Wayne, he has entrenched himself in the depths of the city’s crime and corruption, to shoulder its weight and weed it out piece-by-piece. Although in large part the character does represent the way childhood trauma can manifest itself into a self-destructive lifestyle, most modern cinematic adaptations of the character stem from the works of a single author: Frank Miller.
Creating two of the most influential Batman stories in recent memory:The Dark Knight ReturnsandBatman: Year One, Miller’s work on the character was instrumental in changing Batman’s public perception, which had then been heavily influenced by the ’60s Adam West series, to a darker and more mature space. These two iconic stories continue to influence the character’s motivations even today, withBatman v Superman’s iteration taking heavy inspiration fromThe Dark Knight Returnsand 2022’sThe Batmanbeing more than just anhomage to Miller’sBatman: Year One.
In an odd sort of coincidence, there was supposed to be aBatman: Year Onefilm in production, which was then axed after the failure ofBatman & Robin, putting the cinematic franchise on hiatus until 2005’sBatman Begins— seeing a pattern here?
Cultural Readings of the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder
But we need to look a little deeper — outside the aesthetic change, why was there such a stigma around Schumacher’s Batman? The tonal shift is an easy way to look at it, considering the hard left-turn the franchise took after Burton’sBatman Returnswas deemed too scary. That said, perhaps there was some latent unhappiness around the change in the titular hero’s presentation, considering the character was no stranger toqueerreadings, and these films did little to separate themselves from a similar exploration of the character.
Considering the number of in-jokes about Batman and Robin’s relationship, as well as some very pointed parodies about the dynamic duo, it’s no surprise that the movies have largely avoided involving thecharacter of Robinin any of Batman’s cinematic retellings. Yet, despite the movies' insistence on Batman’s heterosexuality — a fact made abundantly clear in almost every Batman-led live-action film in which the story demands a new love interest — the character operates majorly asexually, his first love always being Gotham. In fact, it isn’t until the inclusion of Robin in Schumacher’sBatman Foreverthat the character is forced to look outside his own internal anguish, and address his place both as friend and caregiver to the young man who lost his parents in the same senseless way.
Audience interpretation of Batman as a queer character has been around for quite some time now. Burt Ward, who played Robin in the original ’60s’s show, even admitted that the duo could be interpreted as lovers in his autobiographyBoy Wonder: My Life in Tights— though readings of Batman and Robin’s unlikely friendship have always skewed towards controversial places despite its innocent beginnings. Mainly, the age gap between the two comes under scrutiny, despite Batman clearly taking Robin under his wing as his ward.
Robin’s costume design was also considered controversial, with the green shorts often seen as a sort of perverse and needless addition to a crime-fighting child, while his mentor wears a full-body suit, covered quite literally from head to toe. Of course, Robin’s inclusion in the story begins with his life in the circus, so his costume is representative — and often directly lifted from — his time as an acrobat before his parents' untimely death. The shorts stayed for a time, though in TV and film, Robin was aged up to avoid the age-gap conversation, and also because grown men throwing children into life-threatening situations just does not read as well in reality as it would in the pages of a comic book.
Related:Batman: The Best Moments in the Dark Knight Trilogy, Ranked
Batman Through a Queer Lens
So much of Batman’s way of functioning can be viewed through a queer lens, even outside his relationship with Robin. The fact that he never feels truly himself in his Bruce Wayne persona reads like a not-so-subtle closeting of the self. His comfort lies in being Batman, a kind of gendered performance to really let himself and his identity fly freely, like some sort of crime-fighting exploration of drag. And there’s the fact that almost his entire support system is built on the foundation ofa chosen family, as opposed to a biological one (yes, his parents were killed, but even Spider-Man had an aunt and uncle to live with; Bruce’s only family seems to be his butler), which is a common trope in LGBTQ+ storytelling. Perhaps unintentional, but these facets of Batman’s mythology cannot be overlooked, as the inherent queerness of his life and self-expression are fundamental to the core of his character.
Of course, there have been moments in older comics where the character’s queerness can be interpreted in more stereotypical ways: sharing a bed with Robin and the flamboyant outfits from the ’50s and ’60s can all be construed as a link to Batman not playing things entirely straight. But writer Warren Ellis took this subtext and reinterpreted Batman as queer from the get-go, with a Justice League pastiche calledThe Authority. In it, Midnighter — our Batman stand-in — operates in almost the exact same ways: hypermasculine, gruff and self-serious. The only difference here is that, this time around, he is in a long-term relationship with Superman stand-in, Apollo. The rest, we’d say, is pretty obvious.
Related:All Batman Animated Series in Order
Batman Can’t be Gay! Only Joker Can! And He’s Not!
Keeping these cultural ideas in mind, it is not difficult to see why Joel Schumacher’s Batman was ultimately rejected by the public. Even now, many Batman fans considerBatman ForeverandBatman & Robinas the bottom of the barrel films in this growing franchise. There is something to be said about the fear of Batman’s queerness that fans and creators alike feel, bringing down the character, making him either frivolous, gross, or just plain wrong. If you think we’re joking, let’s consider his relationship with the Joker for a moment.
Queer-coding villains is not new to cinema. For generations, villains have been portrayed as flamboyant, often gender-bending machines of malice, whose intentions are as questionable as their gender presentation and sexuality. The Joker is perhaps the most successful and popular among this long line of characters, a Clown Prince of Crime who wears makeup (although in iterations sinceThe Killing Jokeit has become his natural skin) and paradesthrough Gotham City, wreaking havoc only to get the attention of his one and only nemesis.
BothThe Dark Knight ReturnsandThe Lego BatmanMoviehave played with the idea of Joker’s obsession with Batman to different degrees, and yet, in both cases, Batman remains a singular unflinching force. But even despite his numerous heinous crimes, Batman cannot allow himself to break his one rule: he cannot get himself to kill Joker.
Batman’s weakness is never shown through the lens of love or obsession — it is a matter of overcoming the will to kill. A step he cannot take, a rule he cannot break. And so, both Batman and Joker are forever entrenched in this eternal dance, neither able to really finish the other off. As Joker once said, “Without Batman, crime has no punchline.”
The Bat-Nipples That Enraged a Fandom
Comic-book fans, more specifically, comic-book movie fans can be a vocal lot. In this decade, outrage has become an expected response from the public if studios and films don’t follow fan expectations to a tee, and maybe even then there’s often public backlash. Unfortunately, this is not new behavior. As the famous story goes, audiences sent around 50,000 letters to Warner Bros. when Michael Keaton was announced to be donning the iconic cape and cowl because he was “not Batmanesque.” And that was before there had even been a majorBatmanfilm (barring the Adam West version)! Of course, fans loved the movie andKeaton as Batman, but it is telling that, often, people can fixate on something small and, in the echo chamber of their fandom or community, amplify it until it’s the only thing people will remember about a piece of media.
In the case of the Schumacher films, the Bat-Suit became a thing of controversy for one very specific reason: bat-nipples. Costume Designer Jose Fernandez, who is also responsible for creating some of the most iconic superhero costumes ever put to film, not to mention theBatman V Supermansuit, says that the now-infamous Batman design was his idea (perTHR). Thinking of the Bat-Suit as a suit of armor akin to that of the Romans, and drawing a parallel to the way superhero costumes seemed spray-painted on their bodies, Fernandez made the conscious decision to sculpt the subtle silhouette of nipples on an already anatomically-heightened sculpt of musculature. Schumacher was drawn to the design, and wanted it enhanced even more in the sequel, drawing much more attention to the anatomy of the characters.
What’s interesting about this aesthetic change, was that the press at the time were more concerned about Schumacher’s equation with the costumes rather than the outfits themselves. An out and proud gay man in the ’90s, scrutiny from the public was an expectation that came hand-in-hand thanks to the casual gay panic that wormed its way into the pop culture at the time. Hilariously, Schumacher himself denies having made any implicit or explicit connections to queerness in his films or the costuming therein (perGQ).
A majority of the outcry and unhappiness towards Schumacher’s Batman can be attributed to the failure ofBatman & Robin. With its predecessor,Batman Forever, Schumacher does an excellent job of balancing a fairly dark character study with lighter, family-friendly elements — doing exactly what the studio mandated. There is, of course, some misalignment in terms of character choices: mainly that Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones are both playing a version of The Joker despite both playing characters with relatively milder temperaments. However, Val Kilmer, oft forgotten, plays his Bruce Wayne with a suave and serious sincerity, carrying himself like a man who shoulders a great burden and cannot forgive himself for not acting on the day he lost everything. With the benefit of hindsight, Kilmer’s Bruce is slowly self-destructing, losing himself while trying to keep up with the constantly falling apart city around him.
It wasn’t until his exit, and George Clooney’s turn in the cowl arrived, that public sentiment soured on the character, and Schumacher’s name was mud (in the superhero genre).Batman & Robinisn’t without reproach: with a paper-thin plot that gives more time to one-liners and sellingshiny new toys, the film, especially at the time, definitely comes off as a corporatized product. Still, Schumacher manages to find a heart in the story: a final outing for Michael Gough’s Alfred, acting as a catalyst for Bruce to finally look outside himself and build that found family; but too little too late, and the franchise sleeps for a short while.
Some Final Thoughts
Despite Schumacher’s claims that hisBatmanfilms weren’t intended to be queer cinema, we can all agree that the inherent camp and vulnerability explored in both his films definitely speak to queer fans of the series. Since their release, mainstream audiences may not have softened too much on them, but many queer fans have come out and spoken about reclaiming these films as unabashed forms of queer expression in mainstream superhero cinema.
Fans of the character often look toBatman: The Animated Seriesas a source of satisfaction with the character’s portrayal, and often tout the series for having perfected a Batman adaptation that pleases everybody. But what many fans may not know is that Kevin Conroy, the man who voiced Batman for over 30 years, was an openly gay man, whose experience during the ’80s HIV/AIDS crisis helped inform his take on the character (perDC).
Batman has existed for almost 90 years now, and the character has been interpreted and reinterpreted enough times to the point that his origins have become indistinguishable from one another. We cannot sit here and say for certain whether Batman is queer, or is not queer, but for a character whose story has become modern-day mythology, we have to allow for space to explore and rediscover new avenues to tell relevant stories, and be representative of the world of today.
