The Critical Question that “The Batman” Never Asks
I recently watched The Batman (2022), and although I was not the biggest fan of The Dark Knight Trilogy, I have to say that I enjoyed this film thoroughly. Batman takes on more of a detective role in this movie, and there’s nothing I love more than a good old-fashioned murder mystery. The cinematography was stunning, the acting was brilliant, and it even touches on some big themes of corruption and justice. Despite this, throughout the whole movie there was one question that I kept waiting for the film to address, and it never did. Before I tell you what it is, a few disclaimers:
The movie is not on any streaming services yet so I’ve only seen it once. I’m writing this article with just my memory and a Wikipedia article so please forgive any inaccuracies.
I’m not a Batman expert by any means, so this question may very well have been addressed in one of the many movies or comics. For this article I will focus on The Batman (2022).
There will be spoilers for the movie.
The Batman, if you didn’t already know, is about billionaire Bruce Wayne, who becomes a masked vigilante at night to serve his own brand of justice in the crime-infested City of Gotham. In one of the narrative sequences near the beginning of the film, Bruce explains that he intends for the fear of Batman to deter criminals from, well, doing their thing. And when he is asked to identify himself by a gang of the aforementioned criminals, he says simply, “I am Vengeance”.
How Conservatives View Crime
So, another question (not the critical one). What side of the political spectrum does The Batman fall on? At first glance, the film seems fairly progressive and left-leaning. After all, Batman and friends uncover massive corruption within the police force, and the newly elected mayor is one who vows to root out this corruption. But I think this first glance is deceptive. For although the movie is filled to the brim with themes of crime and justice, it never answers, or even attempts to ask, this critical question: Why do criminals commit crimes?
Let us go back for a moment to the scene where Batman encounters a gang of criminals in an empty subway station. Well, I call them a “gang of criminals”, but I don’t really know what they are. They are just a group of men in dark clothing, faces covered in Joker-esque white makeup. We know they are baddies because they follow an Asian man off the subway and attempt to assault him.
But why did they try to assault him? The movie doesn’t really care about that. They did a bad thing because they are bad people, and we know they are bad people because of the way they look, and their stereotypical thug-like behavior on the subway. We can always tell if someone is a bad person by looking at them; there is one member of the gang (I forgot his name) that only had his face half-painted, as a heavy-handed metaphor for someone caught between good and bad. But why are these people in a gang? What are the forces that are playing tug-of-war with this half-faced “criminal”?
Could it be that (gasp) the gangsters were created in part by socioeconomic inequalities? Could it be that their upbringing was influenced by systemic racism and prejudice? Of course not! Everyone makes the choice between good and evil in a vacuum, and if they choose incorrectly then they are fair game for whatever punishment is doled out by the same system that created them. This is a very conservative way of thinking about criminality that is still heavily influencing criminal justice systems in the United States. Examples of police brutality and malpractice are always caused by “a few bad apples” and never the inherent failings of any system or society. We see this in The Batman too; although the scope of Gotham Police corruption is large, the only motivation ever ascribed to the “bad cops” is that they are “greedy”.
“Not Everything Is Political”
I can guess what many of you might be thinking. “It’s just a fictional superhero movie based on children’s comics, it’s not meant to be political”. And while that’s an understandable sentiment to have, I disagree. Here are some reasons why:
Even though The Batman is PG-13, it’s hard to argue that the movie is meant only for kids. Batman is a mainstream IP and the movie is being watched by people of all ages and demographics. Besides, children’s movies can be political too, like The Lorax.
The Batman intentionally broaches subjects of crime, corruption, and justice. These issues are inherently political. The movie even features a political race for the Gotham City mayorship.
I would say that for movies of sufficient scope, it’s impossible to be “apolitical”. Not commenting on political issues is basically the same as supporting the status quo, and that is usually a right wing political stance.
Another complaint that I can foresee is that “the simplification of good and evil is a common superhero trope, and as such there is no point in criticizing it.” I also disagree with this. It may be the case that many superhero movies have this same flaw, but we’ve also seen many wildly different interpretations over the years, including The Dark Knight Trilogy. Even within these tropes and expectations the director has a lot of freedom to implement their own vision, and I think this criticism is still valid.
How The Ultra-Rich View Crime
Bruce Wayne isn’t a playboy in this film, so it’s easy to forget that he’s rich. But he is. He’s a billionaire. As the Riddler points out to him from behind bars, even though they are both orphans, they are not the same. Bruce Wayne grew up in a gilded castle with all the luxury, resources, and opportunities he could ever ask for. The Riddler grew up abused and poor in an orphanage paid for by Bruce’s father. But the film, having gotten to this point, refuses to go any further. Was the Riddler motivated by the unfairness of the wealth gap? He doesn’t really say. All we know is that he wants to weed out the corruption in the city, to pick off a few bad apples, instead of uprooting the tree. Is Batman qualified to pass judgment on thieves and robbers when he has never experienced what it’s like to be hungry or desperate? Who can say?
At the funeral of Gotham’s previous mayor, the soon-to-be new mayor remarks to Bruce that his father, Thomas Wayne, was a famous philanthropist, but that Bruce hasn’t been doing anything charitable with his wealth. Well, why not? The movie seems to say that Bruce, having already provided the city with the sacrifice of being Batman, is under no further obligation to do anything with his wealth.
But this is precisely the problem with how the ultra-rich view social issues. Philanthropy itself has often come under criticism as a way for billionaires to assuage their guilt and curate their image, while ignoring any solutions for long-term change. What Batman does is even worse. Instead of pretending to help, he instead punishes those who fall victim to a broken system that he himself probably helped to perpetuate. Perhaps Wayne Enterprises, through exploitative labor practices, is maintaining the wealth gap in Gotham that has led to its high rate of crime. After all, it is implied that Gotham City has a particularly high level of crime as compared to other cities in that universe. Why is that? I guess we’ll never know.
Justice As Vengeance
Recall that in the subway scene, when asked to identify himself, Batman calls himself “Vengeance”. I guess “I am Incapacitation” or “I am Rehabilitation” just doesn’t have the same ring. The idea of justice as vengeance is a very right-wing view of the criminal system, and is often used to justify the death penalty. But we have to ask ourselves, who is Batman avenging himself against? On whose behalf is he seeking vengeance for?
The answer, in the movie, is that he is seeking vengeance for the good guys, who choose not to commit crimes, against the bad guys, who do choose to commit crimes, out of personal motivations of greed or just inexplicable evilness. But, to be fair to the movie, there are some points that are later made against this idea of vengeance. Batman stops Catwoman from killing Falcone, the top gangster, when she tries to take her vengeance. But his justification for this seems to go along the lines of “he’s not worth the psychological and emotional damage you will do to yourself from taking this vengeance”; he never questions the validity of the vengeance itself. And later, when he confronts a domestic terrorist trying to assassinate the new mayor, the terrorist says in an ultimate twist of irony, “I am Vengeance”. Batman seems to realize the folly of his original claim.
But I say that the film does not, yet again, go far enough. It only says that vigilante vengeance is bad. The alternative, of course, is the Gotham criminal justice system, which, after having the few bad apples removed, will be the perfect embodiment of justice, with no faults whatsoever. Batman gives up his illegitimate, vigilante vengeance so that Gotham City can have its legal, state-sanctioned vengeance. For many conservatives, the law is the ultimate arbiter of moral justice and can never, and should never, be reformed.
In Gotham City there is deterrence, but only the kind that comes from fear, not humanity. There is no mention of rehabilitation or any long-term solutions to the systematic issue of crime. At the end of the film, Batman speeds away on his motorbike to answer yet another Bat-Signal, ready to do the whole thing all over again, wondering why things never change.
