Note: This is the first guest post on my blog. I am pleased to bestow that honor upon my good friend Jared Van Dyke, who is perhaps the foremost Batman scholar I am privileged to know. In fact, he has even portrayed Batman on stage, opposite me as the Joker - Jack.
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| What do you mean you don't like my portrayal of Batman? |
I saw Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (BvS) the Friday after it came out. Instead of waiting to watch it with family, trying to convince recently-graduated friends to spend their hard-earned cash, or paying for my wife to take a 2 ½ hour nap during the critically-panned movie, I went by myself* to a late showing. I went in with low expectations, hoping to enjoy the spectacle and ideas behind the film even if the execution and plot were sub-par.
After coming out of the theater, I wasn’t initially sure how to react. My first impression was that it was not as bad as critical consensus led me to believe, and that it was similar in quality to other movies in recent memory that have not been similarly reviled. I enjoyed the cinematography and the spectacle. However, as time went on and I continued to process the movie, the shallowness of the ideas, combined with Snyder’s willingness to sacrifice the plot for cool visuals, led to a growing feeling of discontent and disappointment**.
The impetus for these feelings was the portrayal of Batman. The more I thought on the characterization, the more my memory of the movie soured. My contention is not with Ben Affleck, the actor, but with the characterization of Batman (to whom I shall occasionally refer to in this post as ‘Batfleck’) he portrays - a Batman with some of the worst traits from his comic book history. What bewilders me is that some audience and critics have accepted Ben Affleck’s character of an older and ‘hardened’ Batman as one of the higher points the film. The core of this argument is that Batman was never meant to be a force for good; he is a merely a force for order. As a huge fan of the portrayal of Batman within the Dark Knight trilogy, I vehemently disagree with this viewpoint***.
The Bruce Wayne we see in BvS is not a hero. He begins the movie as an embittered anti-hero, one who has already rejected any ideals of justice he once stood for and concedes no standard of good higher than his own actions. This Batman gazed into Gotham’s abyss and was corrupted by the cruelty of what he found. After ~20 years of destroying criminals and suffering loss, he has adopted a lethal**** approach and has accepted the title of criminal himself.
Some people enjoy this portrayal of Batman, believing that his willingness to play by the rules of his enemies makes him more potent. In the film, however, Snyder clearly shows that the Batfleck is no more effective as an anti-hero than Batman has been in the past as a hero; while he is quick to kill criminals who get in his way, he admits that each time he cuts a criminal down, others rise up to take his place. He feels powerless to stop the decay of his city and admits that, on ideological grounds, he is just as criminal as those he fights. He himself admits Gotham is no better off than when he started, and that he views the execution of Superman as his only opportunity for an enduring legacy.
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| "Yes, I'm the cooler superhero. Come on, it's not even close." |
Not content to remain an anti-hero, Batfleck soon becomes a full-fledged villain. Upon seeing the destruction that Superman (and Zod) inflict upon Metropolis during their battle at the end of Man of Steel (restaged from a ground-level perspective at the beginning of BvS), he formulates a plan to destroy Superman out of a belief that no one can continue to do the right thing in a broken world. In response to protests from Alfred, his butler, crime-fighting partner, and surrogate father, that Superman is not their enemy (and, in fact, has demonstrated absolutely no ill intent thus far), he justifies his murderous plot by agreeing with Alfred, and saying that, even though Alfred is correct, Superman’s capacity for free will justifies the use of lethal force to prevent evil from ever occurring. As Batfleck states, “if there is even a one percent chance” that Superman could turn bad - something he has provided no evidence of doing - then Batfleck will “treat it as an absolute certainty.”
This justification is illogical and insane. All men have a capacity for evil; many men are in powerful positions. He could therefore apply the same rationale as justification for him to murder politicians, businessmen, or even himself. The fact that this sociopathic portrayal has been heralded as a bright spot in this dour film is especially frustrating, as other writers have done a far better job of using the character of Batman to explore how a man can live and fight for justice in a world that is only a push away from madness.
In contrast to Batfleck, Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy presents a nuanced examination of actions and morals. The central question of The Dark Knight is: What will become of a man who stands up against absolute evil? The story provides examples of two different paths. The first is the path of a man who compromises - Harvey Dent, Gotham's White Knight, who decides that he will become whatever he needs to be to fight evil. The second is the man who will not compromise - Bruce Wayne, Gotham’s Dark Knight, who dwells in the shadows but has a strict rule that prevents him from joining them. For the uninitiated, his rule is simple - he refuses kill his foes. As seen in Batman Begins, he will not cross that line to executive vengeance and become an executioner; instead, he delivers criminals into the into the hands of civil society, which then puts the responsibility on Gotham’s leaders to take notice and address the evil within their city.
As The Dark Knight unfolds, we see the consequences of Bruce’s and Harvey’s actions and ideologies. After initial heroics and defending the idea of suspending rules to defeat evil, Harvey comes face-to-face with the Joker and succumbs to the temptation of evil. He is convinced that it cannot be stopped, and that there is no good in the world. Ultimately, Harvey’s willingness to compromise and become what he is fighting nearly lead to the Joker’s victory. In his final showdown, Harvey screams out to Batman that “You thought we could be decent men in an indecent time...but you were wrong! The world is cruel. And the only morality in a cruel world is chance. Unbiased, unprejudiced, fair.” Snyder’s Batman reveals just how far he as fallen when he mirrors this sentiment by saying “My parents taught me a different lesson... lying on this street... shaking in deep shock... dying for no reason at all. They showed me that the world only makes sense when you force it to.” Both Nolan’s Two-Face and Batfleck are overcome by the brokenness of the world, and aim to force it to make sense by applying their own version of lethal justice.
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| Pictured: The Batman we need (from The Dark Knight) |
Nolan’s Batman stands in contrast to Batfleck. After working closely with the police department to defeat the mob and save his city, he is faced with the senseless chaos brought about by the Joker, which eventually leads to the betrayal of many members of the department who had helped him in the first place. In a moment of doubt, he confides to Alfred that he doesn’t know what he can do against an evil that only desires to watch the world burn. Alfred urges him to endure, and to make the right choice. He shows the strength of his endurance in his final confrontation with the Joker. Even after suffering the loss of the one he loved at the Joker’s hand, he does not kill the him, instead telling him that people can be better than the Joker - that they can make the choice to believe in good, and to do the right thing even at severe personal cost.
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We can clearly see the stark contrast between Syder’s and Nolan’s Batmen. Batfleck aims to kill an innocent superhero to ‘save the world.’ But Nolan’s Batman, fighting for his idea of good, refuses to execute personal judgment on a villain.
So why must I set the record straight? Why should the world care about Batman? I believe there is a clear answer: The characterization of Batman matters because he shows how good can respond to evil in a broken world. In his better writing, Batman fights for order against chaos and darkness by holding himself to a higher standard. He has rules that separate him from the evil he fights. Thus, he remains above it as an incorruptible force for good. The world doesn’t need more cynics believing that the only way to live in a world without rules is without rules. It needs decent men in indecent times. Men who will not allow acts of evil to push them into the darkness themselves. If a dark Batman does not stand for anything higher than himself, he is not worth investing in as a hero.
And if a heroic Batman is not going to be a part of the DC Cinematic Universe, then I am not interested.
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*Coincidentally, I had done the same thing for the previous Batman film - The Dark Knight Rises - but only because I was in Argentina for a month after it arrived in theaters and decided I had to watch it as soon as possible upon arriving home.
** James Cameron’s Avatar is a similar experience - high on visuals, short on plot and substance.
***I realize that this is not a new argument against Zack Snyder’s DC cinematic universe. After Man of Steel came out (which, admittedly, I enjoyed at the time), many long-time Superman fans were appalled by the creative liberties that were taken with their character. While I chalked it up to mere fanboy backlash at the time, watching BvS has caused me to go back and re-consider the character destruction that occurred in that movie - and I see now that fans had good reason for their negative reaction to the character that Superman was turned into within the DC Movie Universe, and that it should have been a warning sign about what he would do with the rest of the characters he was given to play with.
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