Batman Returns: A Bativity Scene

issue 161 - 19th December, 2021

CJW: Welcome to a special bonus issue of nothing here - a Christmas movie group watch! This year we’re tackling Tim Burton’s Batman Returns.

In the past few (ten?) years I have completely lost interest in Burton’s whole aesthetic, but that new distaste hasn’t been retroactive, and I still recognise his Batmen are great films (and though it’s been a few years since I rewatched it, I loved Big Fish when I first saw it).

Batman Returns is campier than Batman (I tend to assume that Burton was given more freedom after the success of Batman), and I mean that as a compliment. Where Batman had to give us the dark origin stories of both Batman and the Joker, Batman Returns is weirder, slightly kinky, and less tethered to a sense of dull realism. Basically, it’s fun, something that can get lost in the brooding, “sophisticated” takes on the Batman character.

Anyway, without further Batdieu… Batman Returns.

MKY: written by Daniel Waters… I’d forgotten this key and vital fact. LFG!

CJW: In the opening scene, we see the wealthy Cobblepots discard their freakish son into a small creek - this is an Old Testament movie disguised as a Christmas movie. Penguin is Moses, set into the river where he will be adopted by those that find him. But where Moses returns to his Jewish roots and turns against the Egyptian state, Penguin will be unable (ultimately unwilling?) to take up the mantle of wealth that comes with his name. He will become the Egyptian Pharaoh… (Yes, I am stretching this metaphor to breaking point…)

DCH: Wait. So who are the Egyptians in this scenario? The Gothamites? The Penguins? I’m going to have to pour some spiked eggnog onto my brain to figure this all out.

Kidding aside, the Moses riffs are pretty extensive. I recall at the time critics also alarmed by the over-the-top Jewish stereotypes with the character too: hooked nose, greed, pescatarian diet. The movie never comes out and says Cobblepot is Jewish but his dead mother is named Esther (although her tombstone is capped with a Christian cross).

CJW: Batman doesn’t kill people, he just sets them on fire and drives away while they burn. Don’t worry, that’s a less-than-lethal jet engine.

MJW: Do you remember when this boring batmobile was the ultimate in cool bat tech? Sigh. The early nineties were a different time, friends. He never even drives it fast or furious, though the streets of Gotham are narrow and the traffic is probably hectic. That flamethrower is great if the bad guys are directly behind you and within six or so feet, otherwise it’s useless.

DCH: HE WAS TRYING TO KEEP THEM WARM FROM TEH COLD GOTHAM WINTER

Seriously though… could you imagine if Wayne ever actually outed himself as Batman? Just think of all the weird Tesla fanboi equivalents he’d have. Ugh.

CJW: I would be an appendage for Michelle Pfeiffer any time. It’s hard to buy her as the undesirable shut-in because, look, she’s still Michelle fucking Pfeiffer!

MKY: this movie is way more horny and explicit than I remembered…

CJW: Haha, same.

CJW: Here is where we see the unreal/surreal elements of Burton’s aesthetic coming through. Selina Kyle is resurrected by cat spit - and if you look closely, that cat is really getting up in her business. Kudos to Pfeiffer for throwing herself into the role enough to let a cat eat out of her mouth.

Also, resurrection? Is this an Easter movie? This is also exactly what I mean about this film being more distanced from reality than the first - Joker’s origin story obviously isn’t realistic, but it’s more realistic than this, which could only be described as a supernatural resurrection (unless there’s something They aren’t telling us about the medicinal uses of cat saliva).

And the neon light transition from HELLO THERE to HELL HERE is something that stuck in my child brain for years.

MJW: She doesn’t even need to look at the sign to smash it perfectly. She’s above that now. I will say that the sign smash isn’t what stuck in my child brain about Michelle Pfeiffer in this film.

DCH: That bit with the sign is very Sin City. Nice psycho-noir touch there.

There’s a lot to be said for the traumas in the text and subtext of this version of Selina Kyle. She’s emotionally harassed and harangued non-stop by Shreck. She’s internalised so much of his abuse: from the berating voice in her head (ex. “stupid corndog”) to the poignant “How can you be so mean to someone so meaningless?”

P.S. If you think your boss hasn’t daydreamed of pushing you or your coworkers out of a window then you’re not paying attention.

In the shooting script for the film, there’s also mentions of Selina having taken rape prevention courses in the past so yeah, lots of trauma.

CJW: Danny DeVito is fucking perfect as the Penguin. Not just because of how he looks, but because he plays it with just the right mix of creep (“That’s the biggest parasol I’ve ever seen.”), disenfranchised monster, entitled rage, and pathos (or faux pathos?).

CJW: I can’t believe they used the word “poontang” in a Batman movie in 1992.

DCH: Unlimited Pootie Tang would be even better.

CJW: Michelle Pfeiffer is great in the role, and looks like she’s having a ridiculous amount of fun with it. Not only that, but she’s legitimately good with her whip!

DCH: She’s GREAT with the whip. That scene with The Ice Princess…

Earlier Corey briefly touched on Burton’s trademark aesthetic and the rise in camp traits in BR and I want to expand on that a bit. The prior film owed a fair bit to Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns. This time out Burton takes more inspiration from Sin City and really leans into his own brand of gothcamp. Pfeiffer’s Catwoman-as-Bride-of-Frankenstein vibes is the best example of that.

MJW: I love Catwoman’s homemade aesthetic; watching her stitch together her costume from an old jacket, use whatever sewing accoutrements to make those claw thingies, it’s all very DIY fetish-queen.

As someone who does stuff with whips, lemme say that a long bullwhip like that is fucking HARD to handle and she’s had impeccable training to wield it so. I do not doubt that watching Catwoman (and this movie should definitely have been called Catwoman) as a ten or eleven year old definitely helped push me into a career path where I too can wear lots of PVC and use a whip. I had to become a Domme because there’s less call for Catwomen these days.

MKY: Second that cat call for Catwoman. Pfeiffer is on a whole ‘nother level this entire film.

Also points for asking Batman, not exactly his pronouns, but how he prefers to be addressed.

CJW: Our woke queen.

CJW: Batman doesn’t kill people, but he does shove three sticks of dynamite in some guy’s pants and then kick him into the sewer.

DCH: IT WAS A CHRISTMAS PRESENT, COREY.

CJW: When I was a kid I must have seen Batman Returns before Batman, because this right here is my batmobile (in the same way that people have a “my Doctor [Who]”). The segmented armour carapace, the jet engine, the detachable segments that explode away to let it pass through the alleyway – Batbobsled!

MJW: The bit with the go-go platform that comes out of the bottom and lets the batmobile spin around made me really mad for some reason.

CJW: Penguin tries to send Catwoman off to Heaviside Layer via helicopter umbrella (yes, I watched the Cats movie, yes it was terrible). For some strange reason, she’s not stoked about this development…

Considering Burton’s general aesthetic, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was a deliberate Andrew Lloyd Webber reference.

DCH: Worth noting he only does this after she rejects his advances.

MJW: Penguin actually gives me an icky, nauseated physical reaction - he’s just so gross, and his sexual innuendo makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit. Penguin is the reason why I’ve not watched this movie more. It really should have been 90 sexy minutes of the bat and the cat having saucy banter and sexy-violent encounters.

MKY: seconded.

CJW: This is where we see Penguin return to his role as Moses. He dabbled with the idea of becoming an Egyptian - that is, claiming his birthright and entering high society - but he cannot deny his true nature. He sets about enacting the next plague against Gotham city - first was killer clowns, second was… killer clowns, and now it’s a plague of kidnappings targeting Gotham’s first borns in a move reminiscent of Exodus.

I really like Penguin’s plot in this film, but none of it is a surprise at all because Penguin so obviously looks the villain and we know he’s going to do villainous things. But this same plot played with some more nuance could have been interesting. What if it was shown that Penguin, as aesthetically unpleasant as he was, was actually a good person who was still rejected by the wealthy of the city? It’s a Batman movie, so in this fictional world we can pretend that there might actually be some good rich people, but a piece of Batman media where they got exactly what was coming to them? I’d love to see that.

(It occurs to me that this probably isn’t a Batman story at all, and in fact to do something like this I’d have to write a sort of ‘Evil Batman’ story, much the way that we’ve seen plenty of Evil Superman stories. “Evil” Batman doesn’t beat up muggers in an alleyway, he just straight up mercs the billionaires and corrupt politicians.)

DCH: The best bat-villains are usually dark inversions of Batman himself. In this movie Batman’s orphan trauma–losing his parents to crime is reflected in the Penguin being criminally orphaned by his own family. It’s a fun twist. And one that reminds one of Bruce’s privilege. It’s a real shame this is rarely explored in any insightful and meaningful way.

The absolutely creepy thing is the kidnappings are a decades-long plot. There’s a scene where Bruce comes across missing kids cases linked to the Red Triangle Circus. That means either the circus has been indoctrinating kids into their cult for decades, or Oswald has been killing and eating them, or both. Don’t forget he ate the family cat as a young child and bit some guy’s nose off too.

MJW: I’m not sure how circuses and penguins relate, but the combo is interesting. I’m going to go with it.

CJW: Side-note related to the part where Shreck convinces Penguin to take him instead of his son… I heard that Christopher Walken based his performance on Trump, but I don’t buy it at all – I think it’s more likely just another example of libs losing their fucking minds during the Trump presidency (“Walken plays a real estate mogul who’s a piece of shit - ZOMG it was about Drumpfff,” etc etc). Not only is there no Trump in his performance (Walken more or less plays himself in every role, but he’s weird and interesting enough to get away with it), but Max Shreck is concerned about the safety of his son, where you get the idea Trump would literally murder any and all of his children if it would extend his life and/or increase his wealth.

DCH: Yeah, None of that tracks. Shreck is an alpha-predator. Even visually, he’s designed to look like a wolf. Big hair, fur coats, etc.

MJW: Also, Shreck is not a fucking nitwit like Trump. And his business is actually successful.

MKY: I agree… we should totally do Gremlins 2 next.

I also swear there was a nod to Walken’s Bond villain role in there somewhere.

THE WOLF OF GOTHAM.

CJW: Is Gremlins 2 also a Xmas movie? I’ve been meaning to watch it since that Chapo episode with the director. The meta elements sound right up my alley.

CJW: Missile Penguins!

I would be all for this attack, except that we see Penguin is using some sort of mind control device on the penguins. If he had managed instead to bring them over to his ideology and had them as allies in his war against the city rather than as slaves/tools, this would be far less problematic.

MJW: Let the penguins lead the movement.

MKY: Fuck yes pengiun army!

DCH: The most absurd part of the movie. This is peak Burton. And straight out of the comics too.

In the Schumacher sequels Poison Ivy and Mr. Freeze both take on the mantle of eco-warriors and there’s a bit of that here too with The Penguin. He says of all the toxic waste in Gotham’s sewers, “You flush it, I flaunt it.”

MKY: I was very much thinking of that too, the eco-warrior ‘supervillains’ and was disappointed that wasn’t more of the plot. But also, jfc DeVito.

DCH: Soundtrack break. And I’m not talking about Danny Elfman. Burton’s first Bat-flick featured stellar music from Prince. The time out Siouxsie and The Banshee’s supply the steamy and sultry Face to Face. Total banger.

CJW: Speaking of problematic, here Penguin is (inexplicably) talking about the erogenous zones of the children he plans to kidnap. Cancel. That. Man.

MJW: See? Do you need more evidence to make your cheeks bulge with a surge of upchuck?

MKY: It’s always funny in Gotham’s sewer.

CJW: The Gang Solves the Penguin Crisis.

CJW: And then Batman saves the day, blah blah blah. What a fantastic fucking movie. Thanks, Tim. You were alright back in the day.

And that’s if for another Xmas movie bonus. Whatever holiday you celebrate around this time of the year, I hope you have a great time, spending it with people you love (whether or not that includes your biological family).