They’d much rather you follow the legendary tales of Batman whose complex moral dilemma hinges upon not directly getting blood on his own hands even if it means keeping mass murderers alive to continue to terrorize the population.
Batman as a superhero is basically a libertarian wet dream: a defense contractor billionaire who may be complicit in all forms of mass violence but maintains the thinnest veneer of plausible deniability personally.
What’s hilarious is even in most of the fiction the libertarian wet dream of Gotham is a dystopian shit hole.
There’ve been Batman comics where he admits that he knows he could do so much more to improve Gotham than by beating up criminals but he’s fundamentally broken (to the point where he considers Bruce Wayne to be the alter ego of Batman rather than the other way around), so he just keeps punching things.
Yeah but like, he doesn’t do anything with that revelation. Realizing you’re part of the problem is only the first step, you have to actually follow through with more steps after that.
Too many different writers. Too many different ideas. If you take an established super hero character in too far any direction, you risk pissing off the fans. Really, you just shouldn’t be making adult stories with these characters because the moral dilemma start breaking down. Just be glad the editors didn’t let Frank Miller make Holy Terror about Batman like he originally wanted.
Yeah, ultimately, it’s a story for children to sell toys. Trying to make it “mature” was always going to produce plot holes and weird characterization.
Yeah if you want those in depth analysis type shit you usually have to go for the spin offs, mini series, and one shot comics. Red Son for example is a decent breakdown of Superman, since all it does is changes his outlook not his need or want to help people.
Yeah, while I like Batman to an unhealthy degree, I’ll never miss an opportunity to shit on what a horrible character he is.
Batman gets comic books and movies because he’s someone for us all to aspire to: being so rich and removed from reality that you don’t realize that you’re the creator of your own enemies. Being so fantastically wealthy that you can’t see how you’re causing a wealth gap that forces people to turn to crime so they can afford housing and food. Making it so that mentally ill people—who gain powers from desperate paid experiments, suffer workplace accidents due to poor worker’s rights, or birth defects due to proper healthcare inaccessibility—can’t access therapy and medication until they’re already labeled as criminals and are forced to be under the state’s care. And then he dresses up as a monster and beats the shit out of all of them at night. Batman and Bruce Wayne get comic books and movies because we applaud them for proving that they recognize that flattening the wealth gap will solve many problems by funding social services such as orphanages, but then missing the mark by privatizing what should be public services and funneling your largest donations through things like “charity auctions” and the ballet, an art form so removed from the lower classes that you beat the shit out of the poor just for showing up at a performance because they’re obviously unable to afford a ticket.
You wanna celebrate a woman who fucks a few monsters and then shoots them in the woods? That’s fine, but you gotta make a few minor changes: the woman has to be a man who is super strong instead of sexy, s/he needs to fight the disenfranchised rather than legitimately evil people, and they have to show their softer side by only permanently maiming these poor people instead of killing them. AKA, Batman.
He’s a great character of a horrible person; an anti-hero like Walter White or Hannibal Lecter. People like these characters because they give us a safe outlet for violent fantasies. They’re not completely without risk, however, because some people struggle with the boundaries between fantasy and reality.
I don’t think he’s aspirational at all however. He’s lonely and obsessive. He has many of the same mental health issues that his villainous rivals struggle with. The only difference is that he acts out his violent fantasies against criminals instead of the general public.
The only difference is that he acts out his violent fantasies against criminals instead of the general public.
I think this glosses over a bigger difference that lets his character off with a little less shit on him than he deserves: the only difference is that he can afford act out his violent fantasies against criminals. If beating up criminals paid the bills, I’m sure more of the criminals would do it. In fact, it’s so obvious that crime-fighting isn’t lucrative in Gotham, evidenced by the astounding number of dirty cops. The big baddies punch down on the general public because they can squeeze out money that way. The only reason Batman continues to get away with cosplaying as a villain is because the general public lets him get away with it.
Batman will have billions no matter who he beats up and he can afford privacy and security in his private life. If Batman tried beating up a villain and then went home to find out that someone killed Alfred to send a message and that Bruce Wayne couldn’t afford to feed himself, I’m sure it wouldn’t take long before his inner rage unleashed on some innocent bystander and he’d realize that beating up anyone feeds his violence addiction and that stealing money and food feeds his hunger.
And let’s not forget: these “criminals” are mostly people who were ostracized and desperate before getting caught on some charge that landed them in Arkham. When they were finally released, they were even more radicalized, unemployable, and destitute. If crime is their only perceivable career path, they can’t be faulted for that. And all of this begs the question: what kind of fucked up economy exists in Gotham that “villainy” is the second richest employer behind “self-employed billionaire bare-knuckle boxing bastard.”
I feel like Nolan’s Batman actually has moral dilemmas beyond the no killing rule.
In Batman Begins, you can clearly see he doesn’t even like living as Bruce Wayne. When he sees his childhood friend Rachel and says “this is not all that I am. Inside, I am more…” or whatever he said, you could tell he felt embarrassed about flexing his billionaire lifestyle, which he was only doing because Bruce Wayne needed to occasionally be visible in society, otherwise things would get suspicious.
He clearly realized that A) Law Enforcement and the DA’s office needed a lot of help in Gotham and B) He needed to help them arrest and prosecute people legally, rather than having himself, one rich dude, be judge, jury and executioner. This is why he cooperated with Jim Gordon
In cases of particularly dangerous people like Ra’s Al Ghul, he committed manslaughter, potentially murder, because he knew they’d endanger more people otherwise. At the same time, I think he realized Ra’s Al Ghul had a bit of a point, that the rich and powerful had fucked Gotham up so bad it would almost be best to destroy it altogether. Still, he can’t agree with it because even letting it happen would mean the blood of millions of people on his hands.
While he’s doing a lot as Batman, the Wayne foundation is trying to actually improve society - and while this is feeding into the old libertarian narrative that individuals doing charity is better than government spending to improve society, it becomes clear to him at some point that this is not really working either.
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me.
They’d much rather you follow the legendary tales of Batman whose complex moral dilemma hinges upon not directly getting blood on his own hands even if it means keeping mass murderers alive to continue to terrorize the population.
Batman as a superhero is basically a libertarian wet dream: a defense contractor billionaire who may be complicit in all forms of mass violence but maintains the thinnest veneer of plausible deniability personally.
What’s hilarious is even in most of the fiction the libertarian wet dream of Gotham is a dystopian shit hole.
There’ve been Batman comics where he admits that he knows he could do so much more to improve Gotham than by beating up criminals but he’s fundamentally broken (to the point where he considers Bruce Wayne to be the alter ego of Batman rather than the other way around), so he just keeps punching things.
Yeah but like, he doesn’t do anything with that revelation. Realizing you’re part of the problem is only the first step, you have to actually follow through with more steps after that.
Too many different writers. Too many different ideas. If you take an established super hero character in too far any direction, you risk pissing off the fans. Really, you just shouldn’t be making adult stories with these characters because the moral dilemma start breaking down. Just be glad the editors didn’t let Frank Miller make Holy Terror about Batman like he originally wanted.
Yeah, ultimately, it’s a story for children to sell toys. Trying to make it “mature” was always going to produce plot holes and weird characterization.
Yeah if you want those in depth analysis type shit you usually have to go for the spin offs, mini series, and one shot comics. Red Son for example is a decent breakdown of Superman, since all it does is changes his outlook not his need or want to help people.
Yeah, while I like Batman to an unhealthy degree, I’ll never miss an opportunity to shit on what a horrible character he is.
Batman gets comic books and movies because he’s someone for us all to aspire to: being so rich and removed from reality that you don’t realize that you’re the creator of your own enemies. Being so fantastically wealthy that you can’t see how you’re causing a wealth gap that forces people to turn to crime so they can afford housing and food. Making it so that mentally ill people—who gain powers from desperate paid experiments, suffer workplace accidents due to poor worker’s rights, or birth defects due to proper healthcare inaccessibility—can’t access therapy and medication until they’re already labeled as criminals and are forced to be under the state’s care. And then he dresses up as a monster and beats the shit out of all of them at night. Batman and Bruce Wayne get comic books and movies because we applaud them for proving that they recognize that flattening the wealth gap will solve many problems by funding social services such as orphanages, but then missing the mark by privatizing what should be public services and funneling your largest donations through things like “charity auctions” and the ballet, an art form so removed from the lower classes that you beat the shit out of the poor just for showing up at a performance because they’re obviously unable to afford a ticket.
You wanna celebrate a woman who fucks a few monsters and then shoots them in the woods? That’s fine, but you gotta make a few minor changes: the woman has to be a man who is super strong instead of sexy, s/he needs to fight the disenfranchised rather than legitimately evil people, and they have to show their softer side by only permanently maiming these poor people instead of killing them. AKA, Batman.
He’s a great character of a horrible person; an anti-hero like Walter White or Hannibal Lecter. People like these characters because they give us a safe outlet for violent fantasies. They’re not completely without risk, however, because some people struggle with the boundaries between fantasy and reality.
I don’t think he’s aspirational at all however. He’s lonely and obsessive. He has many of the same mental health issues that his villainous rivals struggle with. The only difference is that he acts out his violent fantasies against criminals instead of the general public.
I think this glosses over a bigger difference that lets his character off with a little less shit on him than he deserves: the only difference is that he can afford act out his violent fantasies against criminals. If beating up criminals paid the bills, I’m sure more of the criminals would do it. In fact, it’s so obvious that crime-fighting isn’t lucrative in Gotham, evidenced by the astounding number of dirty cops. The big baddies punch down on the general public because they can squeeze out money that way. The only reason Batman continues to get away with cosplaying as a villain is because the general public lets him get away with it.
Batman will have billions no matter who he beats up and he can afford privacy and security in his private life. If Batman tried beating up a villain and then went home to find out that someone killed Alfred to send a message and that Bruce Wayne couldn’t afford to feed himself, I’m sure it wouldn’t take long before his inner rage unleashed on some innocent bystander and he’d realize that beating up anyone feeds his violence addiction and that stealing money and food feeds his hunger.
And let’s not forget: these “criminals” are mostly people who were ostracized and desperate before getting caught on some charge that landed them in Arkham. When they were finally released, they were even more radicalized, unemployable, and destitute. If crime is their only perceivable career path, they can’t be faulted for that. And all of this begs the question: what kind of fucked up economy exists in Gotham that “villainy” is the second richest employer behind “self-employed billionaire bare-knuckle boxing bastard.”
I feel like Nolan’s Batman actually has moral dilemmas beyond the no killing rule.
In Batman Begins, you can clearly see he doesn’t even like living as Bruce Wayne. When he sees his childhood friend Rachel and says “this is not all that I am. Inside, I am more…” or whatever he said, you could tell he felt embarrassed about flexing his billionaire lifestyle, which he was only doing because Bruce Wayne needed to occasionally be visible in society, otherwise things would get suspicious.
He clearly realized that A) Law Enforcement and the DA’s office needed a lot of help in Gotham and B) He needed to help them arrest and prosecute people legally, rather than having himself, one rich dude, be judge, jury and executioner. This is why he cooperated with Jim Gordon
In cases of particularly dangerous people like Ra’s Al Ghul, he committed manslaughter, potentially murder, because he knew they’d endanger more people otherwise. At the same time, I think he realized Ra’s Al Ghul had a bit of a point, that the rich and powerful had fucked Gotham up so bad it would almost be best to destroy it altogether. Still, he can’t agree with it because even letting it happen would mean the blood of millions of people on his hands.
While he’s doing a lot as Batman, the Wayne foundation is trying to actually improve society - and while this is feeding into the old libertarian narrative that individuals doing charity is better than government spending to improve society, it becomes clear to him at some point that this is not really working either.
I do like how Nolan showed that most of the police department was dirty and couldnt be trusted. Spot on.
Until the third one, where it was a bit of an about face in cheering on the Gotham police
:-(
Libertarian PD
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me.
If you want this in novel form, it’s essentially Phillip K Dick’s Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said.
come to qualityland