@superohclair oh god okay please know these are all just incoherent ramblings so like, idk, please feel free to add on or ignore me if im just wildly off base but this is a bad summary of what ive been thinking about and also my first titans/batman meta?? (also, hi!)
okay so for the disclaimer round: I am not an actual cultural studies major, nor do I have an extensive background in looking at the police/military industrial complex in media. also my comics knowledge is pretty shaky and im a big noob(I recently got into titans, and before that was pretty ignorant of the dceu besides batman) so Iâll kind of focus in on the show and stuff im more familiar with and apologize in advance?. basically im just a semi-educated idiot with Opinions, anyone with more knowledge/expertise please jump in! this is literally just the bullshit I spat out incoherently off the top of my head. did i mention im a comics noob? because im a comics noob.
so on a general level, I think we can all agree that batman as a cultural force is somewhat on the conservative side, if not simply due to its age and commercial positioning in American culture. there are a lot of challenges and nuances to that and itâs definitely expanding and changing as DC tries to position itself in the way that will...make the most money, but all you have to do is take a gander through the different iterations of the stories in the comics and itâll smack you in the fucking face. like compare the first iteration of Jason keeping kids out of drugs to the titans version and youâve got to at least chuckle. at the end of the day, this is a story about a (white male) billionaire who fights crime.
to be fair, Iâd argue the romanticization of the police isnât as aggressive as it could beâthey are most often presented as corrupt and incompetent. However, considering the main cop characters depicted like Jim Gordon, the guys in Gotham (itâs been a while since I saw it, sorry) are often the romanticized âgood fewâ (and often or almost always white cis/het men), thatâs on pretty shaky ground. I donât have the background in the comics strong enough to make specific arguments, so Iâll cede the point to someone who does and disagrees, but having recently watched a show that deals excellently with police incompetence, racism, and brutality (7 Seconds on Netflix), I feel at the very least something is deeply missing. like, analysis of race wrt police brutality in any aspect at all whatsoever.
I think it can be compellingly read that batman does heavily play into the military/police industrial complex due to its takes on violenceâjust play the Arkham games for more than an hour and youâll know what I mean. to be a little less vague, even though batman as a franchise valorizes âpsychiatric treatmentâ and ânonviolence,â the entire game seems pretty aware it characterizes treatment as a madhouse and nonviolence as breaking someoneâs back or neck magically without killing them because youâre a âgood guy.â while it is definitely subversive that the franchise even considers these elements at all, they donât always do a fantastic job living up to them.
and then when you consider the fetishization of tools of violence both in canon and in the fandom, it gets worse. same with prisonsâif anything it dehumanizes people in prisons even more than like, cop shows in general, which is pretty impressive(ly bad). like thereâs just no nuance afforded and arkham is generally glamorized. the fact that one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, I will admit, does not help. im not really sure how to mitigate that when, again, one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, but I think my point still stands. fuck you, killer croc. (im just kidding unfuck him or whatever)
not to take this on a Jason Todd tangent but I was thinking about it this afternoon and again when thinking about that cop scene again and in many ways he does serve as a challenge to both batmanâs ideology as well as the ideology of the franchise in general. his depiction is always a bit of a sticking point and itâs always fascinating to me to see how any given adaptation handles it. like Jasonâs ââstreetââ origin has become inseparable from his characterization as an angry, brash, violent kid, and that in itself reflects a whole host of cultural stereotypes that I might argue occasionally/often dip into racialized tropes (like just imagine if he wasnât white, ok). red hood (a play on robin hood and the outlaws, as I just realized...today) is in my exposure/experience mostly depicted as a villain, but he challenges batmanâs no-kill philosophy both on an ethical and practical level. every time the joker escapes he kills a whole score more of innocent people, let alone the other roguesâis it truly ethical to let him live or avoid killing him for the cost of one life and let others die?
moreover, batmanâs ââblindââ faith in the justice system (prisons, publicly-funded asylum prisons, courts) is conveniently elidedâthe story usually ends when he drops bad guy of the day off at arkham or ties up the bad guys and lets the police come etc etc. part of this is obviously bc car chases are more cinematic than dry court procedurals, but there is an alternate universe where bruce wayne never becomes batman and instead advocates for the arkham warden to be replaced with someone competent and the system overhauled, or in programs encouraging a more diverse and educated police force, or even into social welfare programs. (I am vaguely aware this is sometimes/often part of canon, but I donât think itâs fair to say itâs the main focus. and again, I get itâs not nearly as cinematic).
overall, I think the most frustrating thing about the batman franchise or at least what Iâve seen or read of it is that while it does attempt to deal with corruption and injustice at all levels of the criminal justice system/government, it does so either by treating it as âjust how life isâ or having Dick or Jim Gordon or whoever the fuckjust wipe it out by âeliminating the dirty cops,â completely ignoring the non-fantasy ways these problems are dealt with in real life. it just isnât realistic. instead of putting restrictions on police violence or educating cops on how to use their weapons or putting work into eradicating the culture of racism and prejudice or god basically anything itâs just all cinematized into the âgood fewâ triumphing over the bad...somehow. its always unsatisfying and ultimately feels like lip service to me, personally.
this also dovetails with the very frustrating way mental health/âinsanityâ or âmadnessâ is dealt with in canon, very typical of mainstream fiction. like for example:âmadness is like gravity, all it takes is a little push.â yikes, if by âpushâ you mean significant life stressors, genetic load, and environemntal influences, then sure. challenge any dudebro joker fanboy to explain exactly what combination of DSM disorders the joker has to explain his âââinsanityâââ and see what happens. (these are, in fact, my plans for this Friday evening. im a hit at parties).
anyway I do really want to wax poetic about that cop scene in 1x06 so im gonna do just that! honestly when I first saw that I immediately sat up like Iâd sat on a fucking tack, my cultural studies senses were tingling. the whole âfuck batmanâ ethos of the show had already been interesting to me, esp in s1, when bruce was basically standing in for the baby boomers and dick being our millennial/GenX hero. I do think dick was explicitly intended to appeal to a millennial audience and embody the millennial ethos. By that logic, the tension between dick and Jason immediately struck me as allegorical (Jason constantly commenting on dick being old, outdated, using slang dick doesnât understand and generally being full of youthful obnoxious fistbumping energy).
Even if subconsciously on the part of the writers, jasonâs over-aggressive energy can be read as a commentary on genZâseen by mainstream millennial/GenX audiences as taking things too far. Like, the cops in 1x06 could have been Nick Zuccoâs hired men or idk pretty much anyone, yet they explicitly chose cops and even had Jason explain why he deliberately went after them for being cops so dick (cop) could judge him for it. his rationale? he was beaten up by cops on the street, so heâs returning the favor. he doesnât have the focused ârighteousâ rage of batman or dick/nightwing towards valid targets, he just has rage at the world and specifically the systemâframed here as unacceptable or fanatical. as if like, dressing up like a bat and punching people at night is, um, totally normal and uncontroversial.
on a slightly wider scope, the show seems to internally struggle with its own progressive ethosâon the one hand, they hire the wildly talented chellah man, but on the other hand they will likely kill him off soon. or they cast anna diop, drawing wrath from the loudly racist underbelly of fandom, but sideline her. perhaps itâs a genuine struggle, perhaps they simply donât want to alienate the bigots in the fanbase, but the issue of cops stuck out to me when I was watching as an social issue where they explicitly came down on one side over the other. jasonâs characterization is, I admit and appreciate, still nuanced, but Iâd argue thatâs literally just bc heâs a white guy and a fan favorite. cast an actor of color as Jason and see how fast fandom and the writerâs room turns on him.
anyway i donât really have the place to speak about what an explicitly nonwhite!cop!dick grayson would look like, but I do think it would be a fascinating and exciting place to start in exploring and correcting the kind of vague and nebulous complaints i raise above. (edit: i should have made more clear, i mean in the show, which hasnât dealt with dickâs heritage afaik). also, thereâs something to be said about the cop vs detective thing but I donât really have the brain juice or expertise to say it? anyway if you got this far i hope it was at least interesting and again pls jump in id love to hear other peopleâs takes!!
tldr i took two (2) cultural studies classes and have Opinions
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