Tim Burton's Batman: Deep Thoughts About Pop Culture Gatekeeping, Clown Mafia, and the Psychology of Billionaire Vigilantes Dressed as Bats

You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?

On today's episode of Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Emily delves into Tim Burton's 1989 film Batman. This pop culture phenomenon was controversial prior to its release, as comic book purists objected to the casting of Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman. They assumed his acting would make the film a comedy rather than gritty storytelling. While Emily agrees that Keaton brings a level of gravitas and pathos to his depiction of Wayne, she finds something unsettling about how pop culture gives us a billionaire who spends his time and money beating up purse snatchers rather than fixing the infrastructure of Gotham City. That said, Batman--or at least this iteration of the Dark Knight--is ultimately a mafia movie, which is not at all interesting to Emily, until you add a psychopathic clown to the mix. And of course, casting Jack Nicholson as the Clown Prince of Crime (with serious mental health issues) was inspired.

Keaton's Batman may not be the pop culture hero we deserve to overthink right now, but he's the one we need to spend too much time overanalyzing. Throw on your headphones and overthink the caped crusader along with us!

Mentioned in this episode:

Review: Learning to Love Tim Burton's BATMAN (1989)

Why Fans Didn't Want Michael Keaton As Batman

Tags

deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, pop culture, film, psychology, mental health, batman, comedy, movie reviews, storytelling, comic book, analyzing film tropes, classic movies, tim burton, cultural commentary, film analysis, gen x childhood, nostalgia, 80s and 90s movies, kim basinger, michael keaton

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Why Batman Still Sticks
• 2:33 Parenting, Fandom, And A Dark Knight
• 5:03 Vigilantes, Power, And Billionaires
• 9:33 Plot Walkthrough And Key Players
• 19:08 Smilex, Spectacle, And Media Control
• 23:53 Burton’s Gotham As A Character
• 28:43 Inequality And The Price Of Justice
• 34:33 Crime Film Bones Beneath The Cape
• 39:43 Clowns, Mimes, And Disrupted Joy
• 45:53 Art, Gatekeeping, And The Museum

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:24

I spend a lot of the time being pissed off at him because like he has all the power in every relationship, in every interaction, at every point, and he acts like he doesn't.

SPEAKER_00: 0:36

Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just up culture? What others might deem stupid shit, you know matters. You know it's worth talking and thinking about. And so do we. So come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.

SPEAKER_01: 0:55

I'm Emily Guy Birken, and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit. Because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? On today's episode, I'll be sharing my deep thoughts about the 1989 Tim Burton film, Batman, with my sister, Tracy Guy Decker. And with you. Let's dive in. So, Trace, I know you've seen this film. I'm pretty sure we saw it together in the theater, but tell me what's in your head about this Batman iteration.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23

Yeah, I gotta be honest, they all blend together to me. So even before we hit record, I was like, wait, wasn't she for in this one? She wasn't. So yeah, I think what's in my head is Michael Keaton playing super straight-faced I'm Batman. And there was like a song, was it Prince? With like the the sample of like Vicky Vale in the background. Specifically from this iteration, that's all I got. Like there's a lot in my head about Batman, right? From Adam West through to the Michelle Pfeiffer version, like the Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman, the Heath Ledger Joker, like so much in my head about Batman, but about this movie, that's what I have. So tell me, why are we talking about it today? What's at stake for you?

SPEAKER_01: 2:20

My youngest, who is now 12, has really been into Batman since like infancy. And I'm not sure where that came from. He had a like a Batman zip-up sweatshirt and like Batman sunglasses. And it was one of those, it just kind of became a thing. To the point where there would be times where if he was like having a rough day, I'd be like, let's name all the Batman villains. That would help. Partially because I couldn't. And then he'd be like, No, mom, you're forgetting Razaghool, or you know, like the the ones that are super obscure. That's part of where this is coming from for me, is like I've been a little bit more immersed in Batman in the past decade than I might have otherwise been. I really liked the Adam West Batman TV show when I was a kid without really getting the humor of it. And I remember being super excited for this film when it came out and really enjoying it. Like I remember it just being a delight. My family recently went to see this film when the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra did it live, where they did Danny Elfman's score with the score. And so that's why it's yeah, so it's been in my head. Because the score is fantastic. The Bottomer Symphony Orchestra has done that with a few minutes. It's really fun. It was great. It was great. I was excited to share that with my son because he's been in, there's been some recent Batman movies that I am not ready to show him. The Robert Pattinson Batman film that came out in 2022. It's really grim, even darker than the Nolan films that came out in the mid-2000s that had Keith Ledger as Joker, that had Christian Bale as Batman. Because that's the thing about the Batman character, is you can go from totally campy Adam West to like super duper grim serial killer, like with Robert Pattinson. Like he's not the serial killer, but he's it's the Riddler who's the serial killer he's he's fighting and everything in between. So that's why I it was in mind. That's what's going on. As for what's at stake for me, considering how much my kid loves this character, I have been troubled by Batman for quite some time. Because I know that he was created because so often with comic book heroes, they are superheroes because they are they have superpowers. Whether they like were born with them or they were thrust on into them like Spider-Man. But they are superhuman. And so Batman in some ways is appealing because he's just a regular guy who trained really hard and has gadgets. Except Yeah, yeah. He's like Iron Man. Except that he's not a regular guy because he's a billionaire who inherited his billions. Right. And Gotham City is a crime-infested hellhole where he is a billionaire and he is an orphan because his parents died in front of him. They were murdered. He channels that trauma into becoming Batman. And so as someone who thinks very deeply about things like police reform and like macroeconomics and what causes extreme income inequality and what good can be done with when someone has access to billions of dollars.

SPEAKER_00: 6:00

Right, right. If Batman, if instead of becoming Batman, he was like, let's make Gotham City actually a place that supports all of the people who live here, he could have done a lot more good.

SPEAKER_01: 6:11

Just the amount of money that went into building the Bat Cave and like the Batmobile and all of his gadgets. And it's just like you see all these people on the streets in Gotham, and how many meals would that have bought for them? How many shelters would that have built?

SPEAKER_00: 6:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 6:30

And like job training and like address the root causes here, Bruce. Which, you know, I don't want to yuck my kids yum. Like he loves Batman, and I understand it because I loved Batman when I was a kid too. There is no comic book of like billionaire creates after school program. Yeah. Right. Right. Um and the philanthropist. It's the new, the new superhero, the philanthropist. Like when you get into Batman battling these like supervillains, then it gets really interesting. And then that that is something where, like, okay, the regular world police can't necessarily deal with that. Okay, maybe you do need a vigilante dressed like a bat. I don't know. So I did want to talk about that, especially with this film, which I loved unreservedly as a child. That's what's at stake for me. So let me give you some like postcards from the destination, as we call it. I am going to be talking quite a bit about authoritarianism authoritarianism and vigilanteism. There's a great moment in a film. The film wasn't that great. There's a superhero movie called The Blue Beetle from about two years ago, two or three years ago, that we watched for a family film night. And the kid who becomes the Blue Beetle is Hispanic. And at one point, his father, he was like, No, not Batman. Batman's a fascist. And that stuck with me. So we're going to be talking a little bit about that. I want to talk about the visuals of this movie because Tim Burton's the director, and you can tell. And it's gorgeous. Like he did this amazing, gorgeous job of what he created with this film. I want to talk about how this and all Batman movies are in a lot of ways crime films. They're really about, like, they're mafia films, they're crime films, and that they're about that. And I don't like crime films, typically, this type of crime film. And so kind of talk a little bit about what's going on here and why, if you add a like psychotic clown, all of a sudden I'm interested. I do want to talk about the clown imagery that the Joker uses, because I find it really interesting talking about that and the specifically it's not used in this, but the clown prince of crime and why Joker, who is the main antagonist for Batman, is a clown, why that's the like the foil to the bat. I do want to talk about art and gatekeeping a little bit, in part because of what happens in the film, and in part because of the reaction of comic book fans to the casting of Michael Keaton, because the fans were afraid this was going to be another Adam West, like campy situation because Michael Keaton was mostly known as a comedian. And then I'm going to talk about economics quite a bit. So that's that's kind of where we're going. Let me give you kind of a briefish synopsis of the plot as best I can. We see Gotham City. We are introduced to what we think when we first see them is we think it's Bruce Wayne and his parents. You know, Bruce Wayne is a child and his parents, turns out it's tourists, and they are attacked by petty criminals, cosh the father over the head, and they steal the mother's purse, the father's wallet, and they threaten the kid, and then they're counting their money on top of a building. And one of the guys is like, Oh, I don't like being here. I've been hearing about that bat guy, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The other guy's like, Oh, you're paranoid. He's not, there's no such thing. And so Batman shows up, kind of knocks him around a little bit. But of course, Batman doesn't kill anyone. That's his thing. But he holds the purse snatcher over the edge of the building. And the guy's like, Please don't kill me. He's like, No, I'm not gonna kill you. I want you to tell your friends about me. I want you to do me a favor and tell them about me. And the guy's like, Well, who are you? And he does the iconic, I'm Batman. Which is like the one thing that I really remember. We then meet Alex Knox, who is played by Robert Wool, who is a journalist who has been doing articles about the Batman. He is asking for information from Eckert. We quickly learn is a sleazy, corrupt police officer. He's on the take, who is basically saying no comment, there is no Batman. We then see that Eckert is taking bribes from Jack Napier, who is the second-in-command for Carl Grissom, who is a mob boss in Gotham City. Carl Grissom's played by Jack Pallance. Yeah. It was kind of exciting to see him because I'd forgotten that he was in it. I kind of love Jack Pallance. He's kind of the best. We also learned that Jack is sleeping with Grissom's girlfriend, who's played by Jerry Hallowell, I think that's her name. Mick Jagger's wife. There is also a new district attorney, Harvey Dent, played by Billy D. Williams, who I also had forgotten was in this movie. I kind of love Billy D. Williams. We learn that Gotham City is going to be celebrating its 200th anniversary. They want to make sure the celebration and the parade goes ahead because people are afraid because there's crime is so so rampant right now. But if this uh celebration goes ahead, that'll bring the businesses back and you know everything will be better. Vicki Vale shows up. She is a photographer. She got her start in fashion photography, but she has recently been a war correspondent. She has come to Gotham City specifically to meet with Alex Knox. No one believes him about the Batman stories. Everyone is like making fun of him, like he should be writing for the tabloids. She believes him and she says, like, with your story and my photographs, we'll win a Pulitzer. He's like, Well, I can't even get Commissioner Gordon on the phone to talk to me. And she's like, Well, he'll be at the Bruce Wayne charity thing tonight. And he's like, Oh, but I don't have invitations. She's like, I've got an invitation. And so they go to that. She meets Bruce Wayne, but doesn't know it's him. She's bumps into him. She's like, Can you tell me which of these guys is Bruce Wayne? He's like, Oh, I'm not really sure. Because he's like overwhelmed by her Kim Basingerness, because she's played by Kim Basinger. I mean, and can you blame him? I mean, my goodness. Honestly. Yeah, when Alex Knox sees her for the first time, she's sitting at his desk with her legs up with a newspaper up. So all he can see are for her legs, and he says, hello legs. And like on the one hand, ew. On the other hand, hello legs. I mean, they are really nice legs. That's all he can see. He's greeting what he sees. So they they notice that the commissioner has been called away from this charity function, and they go wandering around trying to find out what's going on. And they end up running into Bruce Wayne, who talks to them and like basically introduces himself. And she's like, Oh, are you sure about that now? And Knox asks for a grant, like jokingly. And Alfred the butler comes in and says, Sir, I believe you need to go. Because whatever's going on with Gordon, as he's leaving, Bruce Wayne says, Oh, they need more champagne. So-and-so needs this. Oh, and get Knox a grant, which I mentioned because I want to talk about the money. What's going on is that Napier has suggested Harvey Dent has gotten close to some of the legitimate businesses. Wait, who's that's Jack Napier? That's uh who will become the Joker? Oh, Jack Nicholson's character. Who's sleeping with the mob boss's girl? So sorry. Yes, that's a lot of names. And I kept forgetting who Napier was too when they were just using his last name. I was like, just call him Jack, please. So I fell into the same problem. So Harvey Dent has gotten close to some of the legitimate businesses that the mob boss runs behind closed doors. And Harvey Dent is the new who will eventually become Too Faced. Harvey Dent is Too Faced, but not in this film. Okay. I didn't know this when I saw it at 10, but anyway. Because of that, they're concerned about what's going to happen. And the plan is what Jack thinks is going to happen is they're going to knock over Axis Chemicals, which is one of the legitimate businesses, to make it look like corporate espionage. So when it's raided to look for evidence that the mob boss is involved, then it will be looked like corporate espionage. So they'll come off looking clean. Instead, the mob boss alerts Eckert, the corrupt police officer, to let him know that Jack will be there doing this, knocking it over, so that Eckert will have an excuse to kill him. At Axis Chemicals, Batman shows up, there's a police shootout, and Jack ends up getting injured on his face before being dropped in a vat of chemicals, which is how he goes from being Jack Nicholson to being the Joker with the white face and the rictus grin that's constantly there and green hair and all of that.

SPEAKER_00: 15:52

So is the smile is because he was injured, and the coloring is because of the chemicals.

SPEAKER_01: 15:59

And the aspects of the smile are also because the chemicals with the injury. Got it. Now known as Joker, he goes back to Grissom and kills him, but hide the mobile. That's the mob that and then calls the rest of the mob together and claims that Grissom has is just missing and says that I'm in charge with him gone. And we're like, you are going to transfer all of your holdings to me while he's away, all of your legitimate holdings to me while he's away. And one guy says, Well, what if we say no? And he says, Well, no problem. We'll just shake hands and leave. And he's got a buzzer in his hand, like a but it actually electrocutes the guy until he's smoking corpse. And so the rest of the guys are like, Okay, yeah, we're gonna transfer them to you. And so they do that at City Hall. And as soon as they do that, the Joker shows up with a whole bunch of mimes and shoot all of these other mob bosses. So, because now that he's got their holdings, he doesn't need them anymore and he kills them. The Joker also creates something called smilex, which is a chemical that causes you to die by laughing and you die with a smiling rick disgrin. But it's not just, and he puts it in everyday household items, but not just one household item, like not just deodorant. It's something that it interacts with other items. So if you use deodorant and hairspray, then it you'll die. But people don't know. In the meantime, Vicky has gone on a date of sorts with Bruce Wayne and spent the night with him. He freaks out and then tells her he's going out of town for a few days, which Alfred immediately is like, no, we're not going out of town when she says something to him about it. And so she's like, Okay, you know, what's going on with this guy? And she's kind of a little persistent about, like, I thought, you know, it wasn't just me who was feeling something. Vicky comes to the attention of the Joker, and so he pretends to be Bruce and gets her to come to the museum where he shows up, he gasses everyone, he sends her a gas mask, gasses everyone, like paints over all the artwork, and then tells her we're artists, both of us, because she's you know brought her photography, because that's the reason they're supposed to be meeting, is she was going to show her portfolio to Bruce. Batman, of course, shows up, they get away. She tries to take pictures, he takes the film from her. Batman explains to her that he's figured out what the Smilex is in. She takes that to the press. The Gotham City has decided to cancel the celebration for the 200th anniversary because everything is going on with the Joker. The Joker interrupts broadcast and says, No, no, no, celebration's still going. I'm going to have a parade and I'm going to give away$20 million. So on the day of the parade, he's got balloons and floats and he's throwing out the money. But then the balloons actually have Smilex gas in them. So he's going to kill everyone that he's just thrown the money to. Batman comes, destroys the balloons, and shenanigans fighting ensue. The Joker ends up in a cathedral all the way up the stairs with Vicky Vale. Batman is injured and following them. There's a tussle on top of the bell tower, and the Joker's henchmen are coming with a helicopter, and Batman is able to get a gargoy stuck to the Joker. And so he falls to his death, even though he was clinging onto a ladder from the helicopter. And then Vicky Vale and Batman are he's able to rescue them both. She at this point knows who he is. And at the end, we see Commissioner Gordon says, okay, Batman has given us a way to call him whenever we need him. And so we have the bat signal. And Vicky is going off to Wayne Manor to meet him once he's done his vigilanteeing that for the evening. Romantic or something. Okay. Where do you want to start? Let's start with Gotham City. And part of this is Like I want to talk about the visuals that Tim Burton created. Now, this isn't entirely Tim Burton because he's basing this on the work of Kane, I think, the illustrators who created Batman. So the original. The original one. Because and people have said like Gotham City is its own character. And the visuals are like it's this art deco, kind of almost steampunk's not quite right because I don't think steampunk was a thing yet in 1989.

SPEAKER_00: 20:50

But like Well, also it's like steampunk is not.

SPEAKER_01: 20:56

It's not. It's just that it's got a similar kind of vibe to that in that it's crowded. Like a mix of times. Yeah, like a crowded sense of it. And there's a little bit of a mix of times because it's definitely like set in the modern as in like 1980s world. But there's a very like it's like an old city that is run down and down on its luck. Like it's a city that was in its heyday in the Art Deco world. Right. Like they filmed part of some Batman movies in Chicago. And this I think was entirely soundstage. I don't think this was. They have created this sense of, and like the thing is, like Gotham City is New York. And it feels gritty and like, you know how like New York itself is not like this. But New York in movies feels like kind of dirty, slimy. Do you know what I mean? It feels like that. And even as I'm watching it, and I know, and there are times where I'm like, okay, that's clearly a matte painting, but most of the time I didn't realize it. It was just like this gorgeous visual of a world that I know it's based on New York City. I know that it's a sound stage, and yet I'm sitting there going, like, that's Batman's Gotham City. It's its own place. And that was that that's really remarkable and really cool. And like what I feel like Tim Burton does really well. And one of the things I think can be a shame about how really talented directors later in their career, because I think this is early in his career, and I think he still had some, like, he still had some um restrictions on him. I feel like as some directors get a little further along, they have fewer restrictions and things go a little bit wild and are less yeah, they're they're less effective. I and I might be wrong in Tim Burton's case. I can't remember the most recent of his films I've watched, but this was just like it was its own thing that didn't intrude upon itself. So that was great. And it sold us, it sold the audience on how seedy the city is. Just the fact that like we've got Wayne Manor, you know, this ginormous mansion with the bat cave underneath that he lives in entirely alone with with one servant. Right. Which I I tend to be like very democratic socialist, but I also am like, you have a house, it's yours, you can do whatever the hell you want with it. Like he was a traumatized 10-year-old child, whatever. Right. But in addition to that, the wealth of like Boss Grissom, the mob boss, like the wealth that he's like enjoying. A mast. And then you see the wealth of like even Commissioner Gordon, like when he's wearing his tuxedo and Harvey Dent, and the wealth of the offices that they're in. And then the fact that there's the museum they go to, there's wealth in this city. Why are there guys stealing purses here? Now, obviously, I know that even in the most equitable societies, there's probably going to be people who fall through the cracks. But it's not just a few people who fall through the cracks here.

SPEAKER_00: 24:50

Something that I'm interested in, and I I haven't seen it recently, but sort of the I feel like by the first person that you named after Bruce Wayne being the mob boss, like just the way you're telling it makes me think about sort of there are good ways to be affluent and there are bad ways to be affluent. And like the this movie is not, and I don't think you either are sort of just saying, like, being like, if you're rich, you're bad. That's not what this movie says. I don't believe that's what you're saying either. But it's interesting to me that the movie, like, that shows such broad income inequality, like that it's so bad that this city's crime infested. And it is showing good ways to be wealthy and bad ways to be wealthy. It's interesting that the good way is not about hard work. Right? Like Bruce had the fortune of his birth to thank for his wealth. I don't, I'm not going anywhere further with this, but I think that's like I feel like often we talked about it a little bit like with Wall Street, right? The blue collar, whatever wealth a blue-collar guy has because he scrimped and saved and worked really hard is like worthy and meritorious versus the sort of effectively like crime boss of Gordon Gecko, you know, who has so much that like you can only water ski behind one yacht at a time. But that's not what I'm hearing here, right? Like it's so like because both of them have it not through hard work.

SPEAKER_01: 26:33

Yeah. And so Vicky's apartment is enormous and gorgeous. And in fact, there's a funny moment where Bruce comes to her apartment and he's very nervous because he's gonna tell her he's Batman. And he comes in and she's very mad at him because he's been ducking her. And he comes in and he's like, Oh, it's a great place, lots of space. And they're talking. And then the Joker shows up and he comes in, he's like, Oh, this is a great place, lots of space. So they say the exact same thing. And it is, and like I remember seeing the the apartment and going, like, how does the photographer afford this? Like, I know she's like a renowned photographer, but I'm like, I don't think Annie Leibowitz has been. But at this point in her career, not when she was in her 30s. A war photographer. Like in her 30s, I don't think Annie Leibowitz could afford that apartment, even if it's a sublet or whatever, because she's she's not there permanently. She's only visiting Gotham City. But what's interesting is now we don't have the background on the Joker. We don't have his background, we don't know exactly what's going on. Every time we see him, he's been wearing a suit. And we learn that he was actually the person who killed the Waynes. Do you remember you ever dance with a devil in the pale moonlight? Except ring any bells. Yeah, so that's what he says before he kills someone. And he said that to the Waynes before he killed them. And of course, little Bruce remembered. Of course, Bruce remembers it. Um, and he was wearing a suit then, too. But Bruce asks Alfred to get him the his like, can you get me his police report? They find out like his juvie records and all of that. It's pretty clear that Jack Napier, who becomes Joker, was not from wealth. The fact that he wore suits all the time had more to do with that's kind of like a mafia thing. Yeah. Performative. Uh-huh. And it said his aptitudes were science, chemistry, and art. I feel like Tim Burton and this film is not questioning money at all. It is not questioning income inequality at all. And in fact, when Knox and Vicky are watching the Joker throw the$20 million to the people, Vicki's taking photos because you know it's her job. Knox says, Oh, here's the caption, the greed of Gotham City. And I was just like, this is not greed. What is wrong with you, Knox? Yeah. Like, and like for the most part, Knox is a little bit obnoxious, but mostly he's pretty heroic. Like he, once they realize the smilex gas is coming in, he says, Vicky, get in the car, close the windows, and he gets a mask and a baseball bat from the back of his car. And he goes and tries to help people as best he can. So, like, he's generally considered to be a good guy and someone we root for and a friend to Vicky. You know, he's a little bit like underhanded reporter type, but in the hopes of getting a story for the people. And so that look at this, the greed of Gotham City is we're supposed to agree with him. When it's like, what are you talking about, Knox? Like they're just receiving.

SPEAKER_00: 29:55

They're actually not seeking.

SPEAKER_01: 29:56

This is like he offered to give this money, and things are dire here in Gotham City. Yeah. Like otherwise, why would Bruce Wayne need to do so much charitable work? And the thing is, it would be great if he didn't do so much charitable work with his name printed all over it, if he actually just invested in the infrastructure of his home city, if he actually did stuff that helped people instead of like terrorizing purse snatchers. Now, I'm not saying the purse snatchers weren't awful at the beginning. They were awful. But like what he does to them is way over the top. Also heinous. It's also heinous. And that was one thing that I really appreciated about the Robert Pattinson version of Batman that came out a couple years ago, is it makes it clear that this is an anti-hero. That was also Pattinson's Bruce Wayne, is the only Bruce Wayne I've ever seen who is uh appropriately fucked up. Like this Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne is just he's commitment phobic, which is just like okay. Yeah, he's got a vo he's gotta void an attachment style. He's he's a 30-something man, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 31:13

Well, I mean, also who's whose parents were killed when he was 10? Like it's you named a number of things. And while we're talking about Bruce Wayne as an anti-hero, which is less so in this film, at least intentionally, let's can we talk about the fact that this is a crime movie and like what do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_01: 31:29

So, like what's happening in this film, what's happening in Gotham City, is basically about different factions like squabbling for control in the like the underhanded. So, like Grissom, Jack Pound's character, is trying to keep control over his lieutenant, Jack Napier, who becomes Joker, because mainly because he's sleeping with his girlfriend, but also because everyone keeps saying you're a psychopath to Jack. It's not like Heath Ledger's Joker, where you can tell like there's something seriously wrong with this guy, but he does play him as like not quite right. And he is like playing fast and loose with things in ways that it's like this guy's inconvenient. And then add to the fact that he's sleeping with Jerry Hallowell. No, he's gotta go. That aspect of it, and those are the sorts of things I just don't care about, that kind of jockeying for power positions in like I don't care about it in crime movies, and I don't care about it in like like Game of Thrones type things. Like, I just I find that it turns me off seeing those kinds of stories.

unknown: 32:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 32:38

That kind of politics and then you've got on the other side, you've got the quote unquote good guys with Harvey Dent, the DA, and the mayor of Gotham City and Commissioner Gordon, who are doing similar sorts of things on the other side trying to claw back control of their city. And those are all like aspects of like mafia films, you know, that jockeying for position, that politicking, that's who's top dog and who's betraying whom, that sort of thing. And I just like I'm not gonna say it's it just doesn't appeal to me. There have been a couple of films that I've watched that I've been I've really enjoyed, but just doesn't appeal to me.

SPEAKER_00: 33:16

You add a guy in psychotic clown. Right. So what you're telling me is like you are not, you don't really care about the godfather, but you take the godfather, you stick a psychotic clown in it, and all of a sudden you're interested. So talk to me about why. That is a good question.

SPEAKER_01: 33:33

Now, some of it I think has to do with like, because I was thinking about the symbolism of the clown. So there is because it's not just a clown, he takes like all kinds of symbols. When the other mob bosses say, like, yep, we've just transferred all of our businesses and they're having a press conference. He has the Joker has his henchmen dressed as mimes show up. Right. You mentioned that. And there's like French like with the black and white striped striped striped shirts, and they're doing like, you know, I'm in a box site type thing, and which is not the same as a clown. Yeah, a specific kind of clown. There's a little girl who is the first one who notices the mime, the first mime, and uh is like delighted, and the mime comes over and pats her on the head in a way that seems very like kind of reassuring, sweet. Yeah. I was thinking about like the meaning of mime and how it doesn't really relate to the meaning of clown art.

SPEAKER_00: 34:40

That's a really I mean, that I feel like we could probably do a whole episode of that. I would need to do a little bit of research, but like the physical com the physical comedy aspect of it, the physical physicality of it, of like the traditional miming, I think is sort of at the seed, at the core of like American clowning or Western clowning, but but yeah, it's not the same.

SPEAKER_01: 35:03

And so I was thinking about like, why would Joker choose to have mimes? And then it turns out they're his henchmen and they have, you know, machine guns and they mow down all the uh the mob bosses. So that got me thinking of like the dichotomy that Joker uses throughout, where he has this, like, he's a clown, which is supposed to bring joy, and then he has this parade with balloons, which is supposed to, you know, be joyful and happy. He has these mimes that, you know, delights this little girl, and they all bring violence. And like that is so much more interesting to me than just, you know, double crossing henchmen. Yeah. Sure. The imagery of it and the like the interesting imagery of it because it's like eye-catching. It gets to like what I talk about, how like laughter and fear are two sides of the same coin. And like I was terrified of clowns as a child.

SPEAKER_00: 36:04

So yeah, a lot of people are. Let's stay with this imagery though, because I think there's something really interesting about like you also named that you want to talk about art and gatekeeping. And so we'll get to wherever you wanted to go with that. But having you have said that and now talking about clowns, I think it's really interesting because to be a successful clown, like it's like a whole it is an art form, right? Especially the French mime, you know, the European mime school. Like it is a demanding art form that people spend years of their lives mastering. It is also, it has become sort of a symbol for like bad art, right? Like the clown painting, the clown on velvet or the clown, like like in our sister podcasts when we talk about in Lucifer, like in order to be like as ridiculous as possible, there was this one episode about this painter who was like doing these paintings of like mermaid clowns. And like part of the way that the TV makers showed us that this was ridiculous and not real was making it clown. And so I think there's something really like in the dichotomy and the tension that you're pointing to. And then like, let's take it into the art because there's also art in the film where he spray paints over fine art in the museum. Like there's something really ripe to me about sort of leaning hard on the clown imagery while thinking about art and gatekeeping and what is good art. And like, are these actually trained mimes or are they just assholes in the paint, in the costume and the painted faces? Right. Like, cause trained mimes, like that's like a skill. Very. Like they're athletes. So I think there's something like really sort of interesting with that. Like, is a clown someone who just makes you laugh, or is it like someone who is trained to do it, or is it a psychopath? Or all of the above in the case of the Joker, maybe. You know, I think there's something like really ripe and interesting in this like dark, gritty crime boss film that like then gives us this.

SPEAKER_01: 38:13

Well, and the so what I was thinking about with the in terms of art and gatekeeping is so he comes in and he's like, the Joker is coming into the museum and they are quote unquote improving the paintings. And so there, he's doing one where there's a it's a painting of like a cityscape with a a long white wall, and he takes a brush and he writes the paints Joker was here on it. And there's others where his henchmen put their hands in paint and they put hand prints. And then others they just throw paint right on it. Like they just and then there's the painting of George Washington that is used for the dollar bill. And so they take spray paint and they paint the dollar bill symbol over it. And then there's one, and I meant to look it up and I forgot. It's a pretty dark work. It reminds me of Goya, but I'm not sure it was Goya, where one of the henchmen goes to do something to it and the Joker stops him. He's like, no, I kind of like this one, leave it. And I found myself thinking, like, I no, I do not want art in museums to be defaced. I, but I was also thinking about the fact that there are things that we can add to like the canon that is not allowed to be added to the canon. And some of it, I was thinking about it in terms of like comic books, because for so long comic books were not considered to be real art. Our own parents didn't consider it to be real reading. And part of what this felt like as a symbol of was putting your mark on top of like standing on the shoulders of giants, because you can't have comic book art without having studied the masters. And so the gatekeeping, keeping uh comics out of museums kind of leads to defacing, is kind of what I was thinking. I also was thinking about like no, obviously, like he didn't actually do his own costume design, the Joker, but Joker's costume design is gorgeous and so. Eye-catching and like eye-watering. Like it's so bright. And that is another aspect to it that is like that's a kind of art that is not recognized as art. And maybe it was in the 80s, I don't know. I'm not like I d it's not an interest of mine that I have any background enough in. But like the considering the fact that Vicky Vale got her start as a fashion photographer. Fashion photographs. And when the Joker is looking at her portfolio, he all the fashion photographs, he goes, crap, crap, crap. And then when he gets to the war photos, he's like, now this is art. So I think that is also really interesting as well. That's like part of the Joker's art is how he presents himself. Like, and even when he was Jack Napier, he wore purple suits. Now they weren't quite as purple, but he dressed pretty fine. And even he can't see that as art.

SPEAKER_00: 41:29

That's interesting. Having the moment when Joker says, no, leave that one. I know it was dark, and that was sort of the joke, was that it was like depressing, and that's why he said leave it. But there's also an interesting juxtaposition with the authoritarianism of Wayne, right? Like Bruce Wayne gets to decide who's a good guy and who's a bad guy and what happens to them. And Joker sets himself up as a sim as an art critic in the same way. He gets to decide what's a good guy and what's a bad guy in terms of paintings and what happens to them, like single, single-handedly. So there's an interesting sort of foil for that where, especially since we can see, like the movie makers want us to see, we see immediately that what Joker does is not okay. And yet we're meant to accept what Bruce does, at least in this film, in later iterations, in other iterations of the Batman film, where we are meant to question his heroism. Your meta commentary, I think, is really interesting in terms of thinking about it as comic book and like what other and putting fashion photography or fashion design in the same kind of category as comic books, as like something that is derided as not quote unquote real art, is really interesting.

SPEAKER_01: 42:49

What I think is interesting is that, because I am absolutely 100% certain, because there was a petition with like 50,000 signatures, which considering how difficult it was to get petitions to 50,000 people, not like today to not have Keaton play Batman from comic book fans, which and I comprehend what their concern was. Like they wanted the killing joke on screen. They didn't want Adam West Batman. And their concern was like they knew Keaton is Mr. Mom. So they're like, what is the film we're getting? Like, I don't we don't want Adam West again.

SPEAKER_00: 43:29

It's interesting, like what we just named too, like where the comic book art fans were like, no, this is art and you have to treat it as art.

SPEAKER_01: 43:37

Don't treat it like And so like when the film finally came out, I'm sure they didn't see this moment as any way reflective of what they were feeling. I mean, you're you're getting real meta right now. It apparently really bothered Keaton. Like he got grief for like he said he got grief for like three years straight. It was announced in like 86 and the film came out in 89. It's not a natural casting decision. Like they had other people that they had in mind for casting, and I'm blanking, I think Harrison Ford was one. I mean, like other folks that you think of as like action stars. And Tim Burton liked him because he felt like he had something like there was there's a bit of a an edge and a sadness to him that he felt like he could bring to it. Which, okay, fair enough. And I like I feel like he did a great job. I mean, like Michael Keaton's a great actor. We were talking before we recorded. Like, I love Jack Nicholson, but I feel like Jack Nicholson is Jack Nicholson in every character Jack Nicholson plays. Yeah, yeah, yeah. David Bowie was considered for the Joker. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? No. Wow. That like you definitely do get some nuance in that characterization. But I spent a lot of the time being pissed off at him because like he has all the power in every relationship, in every interaction, at every point, and he acts like he doesn't.

SPEAKER_00: 45:09

Oh, well, that's his trauma talking. We are running short on time. Are there any points you want to make here before I wrap us up? Or do you want to save them for the show? Um I'm just gonna say it doesn't pass Beckdale.

SPEAKER_01: 45:22

I think other than Vicky Vale, I don't know. We've got Martha Wayne, who doesn't, I think, have any lines. And I think Mrs. Gordon is the only other female character who is named.

SPEAKER_00: 45:37

And I think that's it. Okay. Let me see if I can remember what we talked about. We talked a bit about authoritarianism and vigilanteism. Like Bruce Wayne sets himself up as this vigilante, like the sole decider, which is problematic no matter who does it, but it's all the more problematic when a billionaire does it because there are other ways he could be spending his money that might actually address the root causes of why Gotham City is in such a bad way. We spent quite a bit of time talking about the ways in which this film is like a mafia movie, which ordinarily doesn't really appeal to you because, you know, who cares about the jockeying for position and the politicking? But you throw in a psychotic clown and all of a sudden it becomes an interesting movie. So that's sort of interesting. On the score of a psychotic clown, the visuals of this movie, you spent some time sort of gushing about. Tim Burton brought his Tim Burton-ness to this comic book franchise and really gave us Gotham City as its own character, which was gritty and real and kind of helped you believe how bad things are for the people of Gotham City. You also name just what a striking figure the Joker cuts in his, I can't remember what phrase you eye watering was the second word. Eye catching. The second word they use. Eye-catching and eye watering, right? That's what you said, because it's so beautiful and also so bright. Speaking of eye-catching, we spent some time talking about clowns and the imagery of clowns and the ways in which they are meant to bring joy, but also often bring fear, in this case, like very starkly, because they're toting machine guns and killing people or gas, killing deadly gas in the balloons. And we spent sort of time talking about that juxtaposition that shows up again and again for the Joker, but also like just even like thinking about art and what is seen as real art, because clowns, the physicality of clowns, if they are successful at it, it is a whole art form that people spend years studying. And clowns are in many ways athletes if they're well trained. And also we use their imagery as like shorthand for bad art, for bad visual art. And both of those things are true. And so all of that is wrapped up in the Joker and in his henchmen. Sort of thinking about that art and gatekeeping, both from the moment in the museum when the Joker makes himself a vigilante art critic. We talked about gatekeeping and art, art and gatekeeping, which it shows up in the movie where we dismiss Vicky Vale's fashion photography or fashion design at all as sort of not real art, but also meta in this picture, in the ways in which comic book fans didn't believe Michael Keaton could pull it off, and they were afraid this art that they love that has been dismissed by many, including our own parents, was being kind of trivialized by casting this comic actor. We talked a bit about sort of the economics in this film of the fact that we see like actually many rich people, and there are good ways to get rich, inherit it, and there are bad ways to get rich, be a crime boss. But like this movie actually is not very Puritan because we don't see a whole lot of hard work happening for anybody. And it doesn't pass Bechtel. What did I forget? Just the anti-hero aspect of going after purse snatchers. It's it's icky. Right. It's icky. Right. And the fact that some other versions of this franchise show us that a bit more. But this one like really tries to give him a pass on that. We're gonna stay with the comic books next week when I bring you my deep thoughts about Dick Tracy. Very cool. And folks, we forgot to say stuff, so we're gonna stop recording and start recording right away on shit we forgot to say, but you have to be a patron to listen. So head on over to our Patreon. This show is a labor of love, but that doesn't make it free to produce. If you enjoy it even half as much as we do, please consider helping to keep us overthinking. You can support us at our Patreon. There's a link in the show notes. Or leave a positive review so others can find us. And of course, share the show with your people. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin McLeod from Incompotech.com. Find full music credits in the show notes. Thank you to Resonate Recordings for editing today's episode. Until next time, remember pop culture is still culture. And shouldn't you know what's in your head?