Shumacher's Gay Batman

Today's normally scheduled post is coming later, but first I had to deal with an issue that's been growing in my brain and gnawing at me for the past year. So welcome to my first bonus editorial! It has no connection with today's scratch off poster movie (Raw Deal), but everything to do with a video I recently saw on YouTube linked here. Yup this is about criticism of Joel Shumacher's Batman movies. For a bit of context I'm a fan, and have been since I initially saw them on home video as a kid, but only recently have I been bold enough to publicly declare my love of these two movies, especially Batman and Robin.

So naturally I’ve gotten really steamed up regarding criticisms of Shumacher’s Batman movies. Especially regarding the homoerotic subtext of the films. Yes the movies are gay. The movies are VERY gay. Yes the Batsuit has nipples and while they are explicitly there to lend Batman a mythic aesthetic in line with Greek and Roman statuary (as explicitly referenced by the film’s director). They are unquestionably there whether intentionally or not (though I lean toward intentionally) to present an attractive and idealized masculine form that has strong homoerotic subtext. Yes the movies are campy as hell. Jim Carry prances around the screen, and Uma Thurman devours literal tons of scenery, while puns are thrown left and right. Can we stop calling this a bad thing? PLEASE!? Can we just accept that a gay director made a couple of gay Batman movies and that’s fine? Batman has been very gay before and will continue to be so in a veriety of incarnations. Hell Grant Morrison who has been writing the character since 2006 had this to say 

“Gayness is built into Batman. I'm not using gay in the pejorative sense, but Batman is very, very gay. There's just no denying it. Obviously as a fictional character he's intended to be heterosexual, but the basis of the whole concept is utterly gay. I think that's why people like it. All these women fancy him and they all wear fetish clothes and jump around rooftops to get to him. He doesn't care - he's more interested in hanging out with the old guy and the kid.”

Hate for Shumacher's Batman films reads to me less like a bunch of nerds getting anal (lol) about a misinterpretation of a beloved character and more like homophobia concealed by a thin veneer of righteous indignation. It's fine to not like campy gay Batman but to suggest that such a presentation of the character is “wrong” and therefore automatically bad? That's crossing a line for me.  Shumacher’s Batman films are visual feasts and technical marvels with writing no worse and in some cases far better than some of the early X-Men movies. There is some genuine quality beyond “so bad it's good”, and Shumacher is a competent, stylish director with nothing to apologize for.

Criticizing Batman Forever and Batman & Robin for being campy and gay and not dramatic and serious like Burton’s films is EXACTLY like criticizing Rocky Horror Picture Show for not being dark and serious like the 1931 Frankenstein. It’s completely ludicrous and absolutely inane. There is nothing wrong with campy gay films as a concept so why does labeling some of these films Batman make it wrong? Are they scared of “the homosexuals” invading the sacred territory of the holy Batman? Cause it’s too damn late we’re already here and we’ve been here the whole time they’ve just been too wrapped up in themselves to notice.

Edit 8/28/19: Joel Shumacher has once again reiterated that Batman and Robin aren't gay. This isn't really news; least of all to me. He made just as much clear in the special features on the DVD and Blu-ray. As such this doesn't change my above editorial one bit. I even referenced this mentioning that the director added batnipples to the suit explicitly to echo Greek statuary not for the homoerotic imagery. Regardless of intent the gay coding is present and it is that coding that draws the majority of criticism. https://movieweb.com/batman-robin-not-gay-director-joel-schumacher/