I’m tired of self-awareness. I’m tired of irony and cynicism and observational quips and the truth is, I don’t know how much more of that I have in me.
It feels so ingrained at this point. It’s like a commandment: Thy movie characters must be clever and snarky and speak like Joss Whedon. It seems to be basically everywhere and to some extent it is, but if there’s any one thing that this style of writing is associated with, it’s superheroes.
It feels a little bad to start the new year with yet another MCU thinkpiece, but they’ve brought this on themselves. For my own sake I’m going to try and focus the bulk of my attention on a superhero film that actually brings me some joy — 1966’s “Batman,” a brilliant little action-comedy whose positive qualities collaterally undermine most super-movies of the new millennium.
“Batman” follows spandex-clad do-gooders Batman and Robin as they attempt to thwart a villainous plot to kidnap a brewery tycoon, commandeer his dehydration gun and turn the leaders of the world into little piles of dust. Simple stuff.
Batman carries a big black spherical bomb above his head. Batman is saved by a rogue porpoise. Batman obliterates a man with antimatter. It’s a story spanning Cold War tensions and pirate henchmen and shark repellent bat-spray and it’s wonderful.
It’s convoluted and slipshod, but in a landscape of superhero films polished well past the point of being interesting, there’s something remarkably refreshing about it. Its unabashed silliness and raw confidence have aged it beautifully, like a fine Bat-Merlot.
Superheroes and comedy have always sort of gone hand in hand. There’s an inherent humor to the superhero — the capes, the brazen vigilantism, it’s all a little silly. That’s certainly not a bad thing, but it’s something writers have to reckon with.
Most choose to confront the genre’s intrinsic absurdity head-on, beating the audience’s potential judgment to the punch with carefully timed wisecracks and sarcastic, surface-level examinations. It’s a style of writing that lends itself to characters on screen acting as mutual observers with the audience, snarking about the silliness of other heroes’ costumes and the grandiosity of supervillain plans for world domination. Frankly, it’s well past tired.
In their attempts to be self-aware, a litany of films have only really succeeded in making themselves self-conscious — too embarrassed by their own premises to commit to much more than winks and nudges and perpetually concerned with assuring viewers, “don’t worry, this is all a big joke.”
These critiques are most heavily leveraged against Marvel, but once you start looking for this type of writing you start to see it everywhere. They didn’t invent this, nor are they the only ones doing it. They’re merely pioneers — akin to the poor folks that trudged their way across the Oregon Trail, but poisoned by irony instead of dysentery.
Because really, what’s wrong with letting things be silly? What’s so wrong with earnesty? For brands so committed to selling impossible characters with outlandish names and costumes, it all reeks of embarrassment and an unwillingness to admit that on some level, superheroes are a little dorky.
“Batman” does something much more difficult and arguably much braver: It plays it all straight, at least as much as it can. It understands the inanity of a bat-themed vigilante and his boy ward and, instead of getting embarrassed about it, it leans in.
The fact of the matter is that Batman and Robin aren’t that cool. They’re strict abiders of the law who wield hyper-specialized bat-gadgets and spout PSAs on the importance of respecting police and not letting people get blown up by bombs, even if they’re alcoholics. (“They may be drinkers, Robin, but they’re also human beings.”)
It’s ludicrous and it’s silly and the hard truth is that being silly requires a level of confidence that most filmmakers just don’t have. “Batman” works as a comedy because it isn’t afraid to be laughed at. That isn’t a jab at it. It’s commendation.
When the caped crusader calls up his old comrade the Admiral (hard at work playing tiddlywinks with his secretary), he is informed of a surplus naval submarine sold to a Mr. “P. N. Gwynne” — a pseudonym Robin brilliantly deduces must belong to the Penguin.
It’s not a mind-blowing joke by any means. It’s not even really very funny but, after a lifetime of characters incapable of taking anything seriously, watching Batman and his weird little sidekick hear such a flagrantly awful stage name and abstain from quippery felt like a cool bat-breeze on a hot bat-day.
We’re living through an era where 10 superhero films can come out in a single year and somehow none of them seem to possess even a shred of camp. I ask, then, what’s the point? Where’s the fun in watching bulging men in capes if all the bulging men in capes have to be so … above it all?
I’ve been optimistically calling 2024 the year of earnestness. That’s founded on basically nothing, but with how tired of superheroes everyone seems to be getting, there might be a glimmer of truth to it. Last year gave us “Barbie” and “Bottoms,” two films that are basically nothing like “Batman” but at least show that there’s still some collective interest in letting things be campy once in a while.
In the meantime, “Batman” (1966) isn’t going anywhere.
Gerrit Punt PO ’24 has been shopping around his own superhero “Arts & Culture Man” for a while now. So far no studios have taken him up on it.
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