Every Batman Movie Villain Analyzed By a Psychologist | WIRED

hi i'm dr travis langley psychology professor author of the book batman and psychology i'm here to talk about each and every batman movie villain batman the caped crusader dark knight superhero without super powers he is defined by his psychology so his enduring enemies have to be defined by their psychology as well humble servant of his majesty our first villain is dr tito dhaka from the 1943 serial batman the year was 1943 at the height of world war ii dr tito daca was not directly a character from the comics he was a type he was both a stereotype and a villain type he fit that alien menace by xenophobia fear of foreigners and strangers played a role in this this racist story it is a racist depiction it is a character who is acting very haughty it reflects mirror image perceptions a mirror image perception during a conflict is when each side's perception of the other mirrors the other side's perception of them americans were looking at a villain such as dr daca wanting to see him as being egotistical arrogant well that was how americans were seen as well by others so each side's perception mirrored the other side's perception of them look at me martin no no i won't but you will next up the wizard from 1949 movie serial batman and robin this is the only appearance of the villain anywhere and it really seems like the writers themselves did not know for sure who the wizard really was i think they changed their mind part way through but by the end he is revealed to be not the scientist himself but the scientists servants evil twin the evil twin trope also comes out of our fear of our own dark sides our fear of something that's not us imitating us changelings doppelgangers copying people duplicating them to do evil deeds that they themselves will be blamed for you're going to temporarily extract every bit of moisture from your body let's talk about the penguin he wants to be a crime lord and he wants to be a tycoon he wants both this is reflected in him wearing a tuxedo all the time he has what is informally known as a napoleon complex the small man who wants to be big his hat adds height his umbrella extends his personal space if he could lose some of that belly he would not because it helps him be bigger tim burton has turned penguin into a physically penguin-like little guy great speech oswald my name is not oswald it's penguin i am not a human being i am an animal when the penguin after some failures says i am not a man i am an animal and he's blaming his physical differences in order to explain why people won't accept him they were accepting him it's his own behavior that has caused his failure but he's looking for an excuse this one hits on some of what psychologist alfred adler called an inferiority complex adler felt that most of us are largely driven by a need to become superior to whatever we are whatever we have been that in some people they do it healthier ways than others but for the people who feel particularly inferior those who feel outcast those who feel alienated that they will be obsessed with that need to overcome their own deficits to try to feel superior [Music] next up the joker in the 1966 film batman the movie this is the first film appearance by the joker played by cesar romero who would not shave his mustache for the role we don't see anything that really sets him apart from the rest of them beyond his laugh [Music] they're all shallow and the joker is the shallowest of them in this particular movie now we start getting greater depth of character in this film the joker is jack napier a gangster a psychopath who is already thought of as a bit reckless even for the criminals jack is dead my friend you can call me joker he says jack is dead that's not really how we think of people in psychology yes we can undergo drastic changes our self concepts can change trauma may alter us in ways that we may never come back from but the same psyche is still there this is absolutely not the hilarious joker of the 1960s heath ledger did an amazing job playing the most dangerous version of the joker we've ever seen the joker defies diagnosis his behavior doesn't neatly fit any specific mental illness beyond his obvious psychopathy he has no conscience no empathy no personal concern over right and wrong in this film the joker is shown as someone with symptoms of tardive dyskinesia it's a long-term consequence of some antipsychotic medications when he makes these smacks of the mouth or the flicks of his tongue those could be long-term consequences of having previously been on antipsychotic medications i know a couple of professionals who were bothered by that they don't want anybody to think that real life individuals with tardive dyskinesia are that level of dangerous this joker is the bad boyfriend he is scary for the sake of being scary it is very superficial this joker is a punk the character arthur fleck in this movie is not the same as other jokers honestly we can think of him as a different character he is psychotic and what we mean by psychotic is that they've lost touch with reality the symptoms that we most likely call psychotic are hallucinations perceptions out of touch with reality and delusions beliefs that are out of touch with reality so if you see a two-headed monster because your brain is conjuring a two-headed monster that's a hallucination if you think you are a two-headed monster that's a delusion this is a character with hallucinations and delusions he sees some things he sees some people who are not there there are other things within the film when he gets beaten up by the yuppies on the train some of the movements they're making are oddly similar to the kids who beat him up at the very beginning through the entire film there are things not to trust it just makes this wonderful psychotic movie sick of maggoty scratch catwoman in the 1966 film batman the movie catwoman gets a larger part in this movie than the other villains because she's playing a dual role she is also pretending to be a russian journalist called miskitka maintaining the dual identity means you're lying all the time in at least one of your lives with this kind of dual identity hopefully each is close to your heart somehow this is more extreme much more extreme than how we will bring different personas to different situations in our lives there are rituals people go through to have symbolic death ways of saying i am no longer the person i used to be i am now going to be someone else totem psychologically is a symbol that the person embraces in order to represent deeper part of their nature other part of their nature a spiritual side of themselves historically totems tend to be animal figures which again plays into this particular movie's animal theme with the bat the cat and the chilly little bird with selena and bruce they adopt these symbols themselves she finds strength from the cat symbol he finds strength from the bat symbol they are both becoming scary dark creatures of the night because they want to let their own darkness out while also managing it and putting it to what for them is a constructive purpose they built from catwoman's story in batman returns but taken out batman she is somebody who is very shy reserved unsure of herself gets lit back to life by kittens emerges sexier more aggressive and that's it this catwoman has some things in common with bruce wayne they were both orphaned at an early age and she understands what that does to an individual catwoman grew up poor though she did not have a butler to be her confidant the version of catwoman that we see in the dark knight rises is an extension of that they don't refer to her background but she's very much being played that way she does not neatly fit any disorder she is not mentally ill she knows what she is doing she is engaging in some anti-social behavior she steals she breaks into homes those are anti-social actions she has empathy toward others even if she tries to suppress it at times she is not as heroic yet this is more of a catwoman who's on her journey to becoming more heroic i see the way to do it next up the riddler the riddler as played by frank gorshan in this film was just manic wired driven by his compulsions the other villains keep having to try to get him to settle down [Laughter] the riddler is often cited as one of the most narcissistic the most egotistical most full of himself and the kind of criminals in real life who send messages to authorities tend to be pretty full of themselves too in his case the riddle sending is a compulsion he does not see it as a compulsion because he wants to do it and you see that in this film when the other villains are saying this time just send a straightforward message don't send a riddle and he grins and then laughs you can call me the riddler now we've gotten the fourth of the big four who were all in that 66 movie now we have the riddler played by jim carrey there are some things he definitely seems to be mimicking from gorson such as his laugh and some physical movements and there's a whole lot of jim carrey's sense of humor in how he's playing this character this individual edward nigma as played by jim carrey adores bruce wayne hates bruce wayne there's a great book on borderline personality disorder titled i hate you don't leave me the psychologist character chase meridian played by nicole kidman she talks about this stalker who is sending the riddles to bruce wayne she's describing a lot of borderline personality without ever using the term patient may suffer from obsessional syndrome with potential homicidal tendencies some people with this condition will go to great lengths to try to fill a void in themselves not just stalking a person but maybe by emulating them and you see this rather drastically with edward when he even does something such as where an artificial mole to look like val kilmer who's playing batman in this movie how's my mole fine rejection is hard on anybody but these are individuals who may not be restrained by consistent traits and so their emotional action will be more extreme two-face in 1995's batman forever this is the first live-action depiction of two-face this version of two-face as played by tommy lee jones is almost a one-face because there's really not variety in how he acts throughout this film he does not in any way act like he has dissociative identity disorder the clinical term for what people commonly call multiple personality disorder he's not inconsistent in his behavior he consistently wants to do wrong and this one version of two-face will even cheat he'll just keep tossing the coin until it lets him do the thing he wants to do somebody with an external locus of control feels that events are caused by what's outside themselves with two-face as written throughout his history he actually has this internal locus but he's angry at the world he's upset about what has happened to his face and he wants to take out that anger but he also wants to be true to himself he he doesn't want to think of himself as a bad person two-face in 2008's the dark knight tommy lee jones did not play a complicated character aaron ercart is playing a complicated character this is an individual who very much has an internal locus of control he has made himself who he is but now his world view has been shattered by what happened he did not have control over getting abducted he is incredibly angry he's taking out his anger on the world he's starting with those that he feels deserve his judgment but he will also hurt innocent people along the way something we see with a lot of these characters just as with jack napier he had undergone his accident in the acid emerged as the joker and it brought out some things that were in him already in the film that he was already nicknamed two-faced by a number of police and this is unleashed and augmented some other dangerous potential that had been there this is the first film appearance of mr freeze in 1997's batman and robin the version being portrayed here is pulling heavily from an episode of batman the animated series for his origin in which his alter ego had been renamed victor freeze and he was motivated by trying to save the life of his terminally ill wife he is ruthlessly trying to do whatever it takes to save her regardless of what it does to anybody else regardless of how she would think about it one of the most poignant characters in batman's rogues gallery this man with the cold personality who had been warmed up by the love of this woman who for some reason was played by arnold schwarzenegger in live action poison ivy in 1997's batman and robin the villains of this movie are each individuals who are extremely introverted perhaps some of the most introverted characters in batman's rogues gallery they both have some qualities that may suggest that they're on the autism spectrum let's go to the book in the movie poison ivy says i am not insane i've just been pushed too far which brings us to that question is she insane as depicted in this film what is insanity insanity is a legal term reflecting psychological states in which the person is not responsible for their own action due to an inability to understand the rightness and wrongness of their own actions and she knows what she is doing bane in 1997's batman and robin this is bane's first live-action appearance he had only recently appeared in comics for the first time ever he was supposed to be batman's bane he was created to be this enemy who could crush and break batman in this film the chemical venom has pumped him up he's steroided up which was a popular topic of the time he's this thug who barely speaks who obeys poison ivy for reasons we don't know he is absolutely the most cartoonish version of any batman super villain ever brought to screen [Applause] bane in 2012 the dark knight rises aside from some superficial qualities he has very little in common with the previous version he's not even on venom he is a mix of the comic book version of bane and the al ghul's faithful servant ubu of the three needs that psychologist david mcclellan identified as driving personality most heavily needs for power achievement and affiliation in the comics bane is mainly driven by the need for achievement in the film is more motivated by need for affiliation by his attachment to talia al ghul by his loyalty to her and his protectiveness of her yes he has things he wants to achieve and he has power that he is amassing but he is driven most by loyalty to somebody else which is not the comic book bane at all you will never learn [Music] in 2005's batman v this is the first live-action appearance of raz al ghul or reish al ghul he's something of a james bond villain thrown into batman stories he is an eco-terrorist his motivations are to make the world a better place there are definitely some cult recruitment techniques that show up in the way he approaches bruce wayne it is not the behavior of someone who's recruiting just one of the minions though it is someone who is trying to recruit a new right hand somebody to be at his side this is the first live-action depiction of the scarecrow jonathan crane played by killian murphy he is the only villain to appear in all of nolan's trilogy which is appropriate because the trilogy is about fear how it is caused how it's inspired how it's overcome or how it's used for other purposes in 2012 the dark knight rises they are brought to him afraid and they are sent out to be afraid you are philip striver executive vice president of daggett industries they could just be killed no they're going to be killed in a moment of terror in these three movies we don't know anything about his background he is not the central villain and we don't really see his motives we see him using fear and his professional status to skirt around the law and serve this other purpose but we really don't know why he's doing these things what do you want i want to know how are you going to convince me to keep my mouth shut next up carmine the roman falcone in 2005's batman begins he is a mob boss his role in there is to be a mob boss and he wants power for its own sake the need for power is not a complicated motivation even characters where we see this great need for power we want greater complexity but with him that is the thing he needs power talia al ghul in 2012's the dark knight rises this is the first live-action depiction of talia although she uses an alias miranda through much of the movie her goals are vaguely those of her father trying to get what she wants and trying to make the world better and reshape it to what she thinks it should be but she's never given the depth of characterization of the other villains we could speculate based on the way she grew up in a prison in the middle of nowhere that she was very motivated to try to live up to her father's ideals we know from previous movies that when al ghul referred to his family he was talking about a family he had before her he was not talking about her so she was not that much on his radar as a person so based on her behavior she seems to be trying really hard to live up to her father and then the memory of her father next is hartley quinn in 2016's suicide squad margot robbie plays harley in suicide squad birds of prey the suicide squad and surely more to come harley quinn is something of a social chameleon somebody whose personality adapts to the people that she's around when she's with heroes she's more heroic when she's with villains she's more villainous when she's with mr jay she is more murderous she is a strong capable individual who sometimes does not recognize her own strengths in the comics harley is depicted as the daughter of a very supportive mother and a con artist children of one parent who lies all the time tend to go to two extremes either seeing the worst in people expecting them all to lie or they're in the habit of looking for the best in this person who's lying to them they're in the habit of finding ways to justify putting up with this person they will rationalize that other person's lies this creates a very gullible potential even though she is smart enough that she has the ability to see through these things she doesn't always want to max shrek in 1992's batman returns a ruthless industrialist named for the stage name of the actor who played the vampire count orloff in the silent film nosferatu he is a bloodsucker this is his only appearance anywhere he has a strong sense of entitlement he is not completely psychopathic they give him a son to show that he has some human concerns he's just very ruthless and sees a whole lot of these others as inferiors or people who are in his way he has grown up rich as well that's very clear becoming wealthy seems to be liberating to a lot of people people who become very wealthy a number of them have said it frees them to be more of who they really are so the one who has been more obnoxious at heart they get to be very wealthy they'll do it more extremely the one who is a generous person at heart they get to be very wealthy they might finally get the opportunity to do these things when max presents his public face he's showing who he really is [Music] lex luthor in 2016's batman vs superman dawn of justice lex luthor is a character we typically see in superman stories he is manipulating batman to pit him against superman in public he extols the greatness of his father but in private he this is dad pretty hard he is this rich boy who has grown up to be powerful to represent certain modern mega billionaires if affluenza were a real diagnosis it might apply to him and so he does not seem to welcome anybody as a potential fatherly figure in the world he is threatened by batman and superman especially superman in some ways he's the cruelest of these villains that we have seen he will not just kill somebody he will make sure they know it's him he wants holly hunter's character to see the evidence to see the cruel joke and know that she's about to die and everybody else in there too and she is terrified and he does that just for the sheer joy of it in 2022's the batman we see three of the main villains that we've seen before riddler penguin catwoman three-fourths of the big four everybody except the joker because we've seen a whole lot of joker lately we get them each featured in different ways each representing different aspects of the history catwoman and penguin seem to fit more recent depictions in the comics her as more of a socially concerned anti-heroine penguin as the nightclub owner mobster that he likes to be then the riddler is a different version from what we've seen the riddler is the deadliest riddler we've ever seen depicted but it fits this story about batman is detective and batman struggling with his own violence with batman when creators are coming up with a new villain they have to start with what will challenge batman as a person so there is this rich rogues gallery to go with this complicated hero

Channel: WIRED

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Keywords: bane, bane wired, batman movie, batman villain, catwoman, dr. travis langley, each and every, every batman movie villain explained, every batman villain explained, innovation, joker, poison ivy riddler, riddler, riddler wired, the joker, the joker motivations, wired, wired bane, wired batman villains, wired riddler, wired the joker

Id: xT_d97MayLg

Length: 26min 54sec (1614 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 04 2022