Capstone / WA 3
In this project my purpose is to analyze the changes that have taken place in the film portrayals of Batman between the original Batman: The Movie feature from 1966 and the trilogy that was directed by Christopher Nolan, which ended with The Dark Knight Rises. My major question was whether or not the shift in tone from campy to dark and introspective was a sign of shifts in American culture. The subquestions included such inquiries as whether or not the movies’ success tracked with their ability to mirror the slow darkening in the cultural mood and whether the writing and design of the movies were designed to mirror other indicators in American culture.
My plan of action involved watching the films in question and making note of the specific ways in which Batman, the various villains in the stories and Batman’s sidekicks were portrayed. Then I researched the reviews that came out contemporary to the films and noted how the critics of the time received the films and interpreted them in their cultural contexts. I also made note of which films were critical and financial successes, and which ones represented low points in the series.
Next, my thought was to compare the events as they are portrayed in the various films with events that were happening in American history at the time when the film came out. For example, when the original Batman: The Movie came out, the American counterculture was in full swing, but the original writer decided to make it campy – and it was a huge hit (King 2010). It seems that the conflict at work in American culture had worn out the sensibilities of the viewing public, and so mindless entertainment was what was wanted. If you have seen Batman: The Movie, then you know that there is nothing so simple as a plot in the film. Instead, it is a series of adventures featuring Batman, Robin and all of the major villains stacked into one movie. Over the course of the film, the effect is simple overload, keeping the audience moving from one moment to the next without having time to reflect, to consider. If one imagines a dance club masquerading as a film, that is what Batman: The Movie really does – and it is what Batman & Robin tries to re-create (Ebert 1997).
The end result of what I want to create is an historical narrative that sweeps from 1966 through the making of The Dark Knight Rises, pulling both American culture and history along with the changes in the Caped Crusader. Camp did not last long, but then again that is not a surprise given that 23 years went between the original version that starred Adam West and Burt Ward as Batman and Robin and the reboot of the idea starring Michael Keaton in 1989. What had been a splash of color became a black, ponderous backdrop. So such events as the American civil rights movement, the Vietnam War protests, the death of liberalism (and camp, if you think about it) over the course of the 1970s will inform the paper. By 1989, the mood of the nation had definitely darkened and become more dour, as the conservatism of the Reagan years had perhaps stiffened the American spine a bit but also taken the frivolity of the disco era and left it stuffed in a dumpster, much like the set to Merv Griffin’s talk show that the Seinfeld character Kramer finds in the trash one day and decides to erect in his own apartment.
Moving through the 1980s and 1990s led to an attempt to recreate camp, an attempt to find fun in entertainment, but it seems that we had lost the way. The era of The Apple Dumpling Gang and Green Acres had given way to the era of L.A. Law, Law & Order (not to mention all of those spinoffs) and comedy for comedy’s sake became the dodo of American television. It makes sense that an attempt to represent perhaps the most camp of all the major pantheon of superheroes as the darkest of thinkers, and then once again as a source of humor, became uneven. It was only the Christopher Nolan trilogy that grounded Batman in the new aesthetic, the new reality of American culture. We realized that we were no longer willing to put up with camp as adult entertainment since it had infiltrated cable television and taken over children’s networks all by itself. And since Batman is ultimately a children’s tale, that cynicism has begun to work its way down the biological ladder. As time has gone by, the tendency toward dark introspection seems to influence children at a younger and younger age. What are the implications for this change? Why has Adam West gone from the Caped Crusader of Camp to the mayor of a cartoon city that cannot seem to transcend self-referential, crude comedy and produce something that the whole family could once have watched? Those are the questions at work in this paper.
References
Ebert, R. (1997). Batman and Robin. RogerEbert.com.
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/batman-and-robin-1997
King, S. (2010). Camp it up: The writer of ‘Batman’ and ‘Flash Gordon’ answers
five questions. Los Angeles Times 17 May 2010. http://herocomplex.latimes.com/uncategorized/batman-flash-gordon-lorenzo-semple-jr/
