Is Batman a Fascist?

hello I'm thought slime and today we're going to talk about whether or not Batman is an authoritarian for some reason this is what I've chosen to do with my fleeting time upon this earth the whole world is in chaos children being put in cages let me login to YouTube see what my favorite leftist youtuber is doing oh he's mad that people made fun of his favorite cartoon [Music] Batman is a furry superhero created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane he fights crime in the city of Gotham an with the use of his powerful nipples and magic belt he dresses like a bat because his parents got murdered I made a recent comment in a video saying this but anarchists don't oppose order for rules or the Batman now I thought that was just a cute little joke that I could say the type of thing I like to do in my videos in place of putting in arguments with substance but people did not like it suddenly my comments were flooded with people telling me that Batman is an authoritarian fascist as though this was a new and novel reading of the character and not the preferred interpretation of lazy hacks since the 1980s and I thought huh that's weird there's hundreds of interpretations of the character sometimes he hates guns sometimes he loves guns sometimes he'll use a gun but only to kill a vampire sometimes he is a vampire I mean don't get me wrong you definitely could write a story where Batman is an authoritarian fascist and lots of people have but does that mean that the character is irreducibly and irrevocably fascist now here's the part where I imagine lots of you are shouting at the screen yes yes you fool of course he is he uses violence to enforce his will on other people but does he I mean you're not really enforcing your will on someone if you stop them from mugging somebody and like sure he uses violence but so too does every political framework in existence that alone does not qualify him to be an authoritarian but most versions of the character also show him going to absurd superhuman lengths to avoid doing any more violence than is absolutely necessary he certainly doesn't usually kill his enemies even when he would be clearly justified in doing so in fact most versions of the character make it explicit that he refuses to ever kill anyone ever because he so values human life in kingdoms come ease one of DC Comics most popular stories yeah I know it's not Kanon come at me nerds Superman says this of Batman more than anyone in the world when you scratch everything else away from Batman you're left with someone who doesn't want to see anyone die and he'd know he's Batman's boyfriend not Robin Robin is his son that's weird Superman is Batman's boyfriend get it right valuing all human life is not the type of quality I would expect from an authoritarian and I think it certainly disqualifies him from being a fascist fascists tend to be pretty cavalier about who gets to live and who gets to die that's kind of their whole deal for the record he's also not particularly nationalist or xenophobic so that Batman's not fash that's silly that's silly sauce okay thought slime you handsome genius he's still a billionaire playboy he dresses in high-tech ninja gear to personally punch mentally ill people he could use his vast fortune to get to the roots of Gotham social problems which is probably why in most versions of the character he did that he did that thing that I just said he starts the big charity called the Wayne foundation and he uses his personal fortune to try and reform Gotham non-violently it's just that the comics don't tend to focus on it because if it succeeds then it makes everything else in the story pointless and also it's really boring and no one cares also like the people Batman punches aren't just mentally ill people mentally ill people don't typically try to poison all the fish in a water supply to turn us all into clowns they don't typically set bombs throughout the city that will explode if you don't answer their riddles they don't typically try to freeze the earth and if any of them are about to do any of those things then maybe punching them will be a good idea maybe that maybe that will be a good course of action to take it's worth noting that most of the more popular interpretations of the character have him showing sympathy for his villains like in this touching scene from Justice League Unlimited where he comforts a dying child who's also a supervillain with the power to warp reality I got cheated out of my childhood I know what that's like you do don't you I'm dying very soon yes I'm sorry you stay with me scared [Music] okay but he's still a billionaire playboy capitalist you can't deny that I can't but he was born into wealth and he uses his wealth in service of an enormous social welfare program that he calls Batman and he um he saves the earth sometimes so pretty good return on investment so far in fact he's openly contemptuous of the wealthy elite in Gotham and he personally steals from a major corporation in order to funnel that money into making the community a safer place for everyone okay but he works with cops I thought you left these are supposed to hate cops mr. anarchist man with your hating cops I thought blue lives didn't matter mr. anarchist man yeah he does and that sucks he works in tandem with the police sometimes I don't like the police but if your standard for authoritarianism is working alongside the police even when you personally make sure that they don't abuse their power that makes a lot of people pretty authoritarian every politician every judge every lawyer every social worker here's the question what do you think he should do instead do you think he should abolish the police and set up his own law would that be less authoritarian or should he lead the people of Gotham in a revolution against the police because like they don't seem down with that they mostly seem concerned with making sure they don't get blown up by Missal penguins okay but all superhero stories are inherently authoritarian it's one person with supreme power using that power to boss everyone around the idea that you can rely on one person to fix all of society's problems is inherently authoritarian but in most mainstream American superhero stories the heroes don't fix everything they show up where they can and they try to help but that's about it and almost all of them limit the use of their powers to helping other people not you know just doing whatever the heck they want that's kind of their whole thing now you could make an argument that that's how authoritarianism sells itself that it has to maintain the pretense that it's in the best interest of everyone or else other people rise up and revolt against it I don't really see how that has any relevance unless you're trying to imply that everyone who works in the comics industry has some sort of ulterior authoritarian agenda which is kind of a whack thing to suggest and I'm not really gonna dignify it with a response because it's wack in most superhero stories the heroes aren't overwhelmingly powerful in the context of the world they live in in fact they're usually outmatched by more powerful villains Batman more so than most if he was just punching muggers you might have a point Batman is an overwhelming force against muggers and goons but he's usually fighting like ninjas or crocodile men or evil genius Luchadors holy comics are amazing the dude spends half of his time in elaborate death traps designed to kill him personally he doesn't have overwhelming power he's a regular guy that's very good at punching and as a cool silhouette he can fight lots of people at once but he can't single-handedly depose the government people don't like superhero stories because they secretly longed for authoritarian control that huh take is premise than the idea that when you read a superhero comic you're thinking to yourself boy I wish Batman were real so that he could get out there and purge the unworthy which people don't do they read it and think oh it would be cool to be Batman I wish I was Batman is that juvenile absolutely is it authoritarian yeah why do you think superhero stories are so popular while stories about people using extraordinary abilities for their own personal gain usually aren't I really can't think of a single story about a person using superpowers for their own benefit that isn't like a horror story or a morality fable about the dangers of selfishness typically stories like that are not fantasies to project yourself into as superhero stories are as you'd expect them to be if people just wanted lots of power to boss other people around I actually think it says something pretty good about people that we fantasize about having power so that we can use it to help others and yeah Nazis talked about heroes a lot everybody's got to become a heroic individual you know what other cultures wrote about heroes a lot all of them no mind you Nazis did like to draw a big muscly men in heroic poses kind of like superheroes pretty damning stuff it's not like the superhero genre was invented and largely the result of the work of Jewish Americans oh wait yes it was now I'm sure you can find specific instances which confirm or contradict everything I've just said the thing is there is no definitive Batman Batman is what we like to call a plastic character like doctor man from Doctor Who or Sherlock Holmes from the works of William Shakespeare the broad strokes remain intact he always dresses like a bat he's usually a good guy his parents are always dead but beyond that writers are given carte blanche to decide his personality some writers like to delve deep into his pain and anguish others like to make him a globe-trotting swashbuckler others still like to make him clumsy allegory for the war on terror that attempts to excuse the war crimes of the Bush administration comic book fans like me love to obsess over continuity and that can be a lot of fun but it doesn't give you a very coherent view of Batman as a character there is no definitive Batman because he's always changing depending on who's writing him so why am I even talking about this well I'm gonna level with you I don't actually care if you think Batman is an authoritarian you can stop writing that novel in the comment section I will not read it you're right he is but he's also not because there's no definitive version of the character he's just however you interpret him to be I wanted to talk about this for for a few reasons a couple small ones and one big one small reason number one maybe don't give that to authoritarians maybe don't make them feel cool by comparing them to Batman the coolest guy number two authoritarian Batman is boring it's boring it's been done I'm sick of it it's not just think to me anymore stop writing him this way it sucks here comes the big one the reason I actually care about this subject we on the Left have a bit of a reputation as joyless buzzkills and I can kind of see why people just want to watch cartoon sometimes and then some left oh it'll come along and go actually you're interpreting this wrong you're supposed to look at it the opposite way that you did you know that thing you like it's problematic not in any way that you know degrades people just in like a weird way that you have to imagine into the text either you accept the way that I'm looking at this or you're enjoying it wrong and that means you were my enemy you know that kind of reminds me of gamergate because the purpose is the same to get keep people in this case instead of gatekeeping people for being women your gate keeping them for being low art peasants who don't have the brains to interpret art on the same level that you do how do you know they can't interpret it on the same level that you do well they have to because they disagree with me and I can't be wrong a better method might be to compare the things that you like to the things that people already like here's an example of how I would do that with Batman I think the black bloc is is a necessary tactic sometimes if I wanted to convince someone of that I might point out that they wear all black and wear masks to conceal their identities and intimidate their opponents like Batman does if I wanted to convince someone it's okay to expropriate money from a large corporation and use that towards a social welfare program I might point out that that's what Batman does you can use people's passions and interests as a way to bring them into your community rather than forcing them to adopt yours and I think that might be more helpful than smugly telling people actually the cartoon you like is authoritarian and your authoritarian for liking it wrong you must change the way you like this cartoon that is part of the price I demand for having the privilege of agreeing with me I can't pretend like the authoritarian interpretation of Batman is wrong it's not obviously there is a case to be made for it I all the things that you did use to make that case earlier and then decided counter-examples that may or may not satisfy you my whole point is that like all art no matter how childish it lends itself to multiple interpretations to argue that there's one particular interpretation that's more correct than the rest is I think a pretty lazy way to look at art and culture you can't solve arts like a puzzle you certainly can't solve a continuum of art created by thousands of artists over almost a hundred years like a puzzle there's a million Batman's for every kind of tastes you want a Batman in Santa Claus done you want a Batman is no our detective done you want a Batman who's not drawn very well done here's a version of Batman that I like it's from Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubrick's underrated what ever happened to the Caped Crusader and here's a little here's a little Batman trivia for you when they talk about the Caped Crusader its Batman that's what they're talking about don't say I never touch enough and the story takes place in some sort of metaphysical realm which may or may not be the afterlife various Batman characters have gathered together for Batman's funeral and each one gives a eulogy and in each eulogy Batman's a little bit different and the world he lived in is a little bit different gradually it's implied that all of these Batman are one consciousness reincarnating over and over into various different versions of the same life the scene that stands out to me is this in clayface's eulogy he tells the story of Batman dying to save him we're not told how Batman dies or what he's doing that's not important to the story before Batman dies Clayface tells him I'm not worth it to which batman replies everyone is worth it everyone is worth protecting everyone is worth saving everyone is worth dying for because that's what it means to be a hero not having big muscles or armored nipples it's protecting people it's helping people it's giving to people I want people to help each other I people to protect one another to look out for one another if you don't think it's possible to extract a positive message from that maybe you're the one who's not reading into the character deeply enough the following people gave me money on patreon this June without knowing I'd use it to talk about comic books today Matt ups to pregnant Seinfeld my keeo calm recorder illusia s Matthew Ryan William Cox Nina Lego spider facts live static cat Arthur Matt frees ironic Brett Dibble nestor ivanovich jacob a Berkowitz Julian : Neil's a bill guard Ian Thompson some random leftist Michael Holland back Matt Brighton Mia naka no Leo Jane Nicole via naka duck thorn Melchior and chor ham but the greatest of all ups goes to Queen Maxine Judds McKenzie Jordan Hoxie Siobhan O'Leary Jan Anders Bremer Aaron B Colby Imani - of week Morgan Clark and James Taylor I am NOT a billionaire vigilante so if you'd like to give me money you can do that at patreon.com slash thought slime press the like button and subscribe to this channel where I make weirdo leftist nonsense same slime channel often very different slime times but I try to do 12:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Fridays if I can help it but sometimes it's too hard

Channel: Thought Slime

Views: 177,927

Rating: 4.8626475 out of 5

Keywords: superhero (topic), frank miller, batman, is batman a fascist, is batman authoritarian, superhero, superheroes, anarchist, anarchism, thought slime

Id: 73M2sq9zK-I

Length: 18min 14sec (1094 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 13 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/GreatGreen286]

Good video! Can't wait for the next one.

[u/dirtbagbigboss]

TIL: I need to be a little less contrarian sometimes. The video has a great point. Many comic book characters have existed for a very long time. There are plenty of valid interpretations of them. I don't need to point out all the authoritarian characteristics I don't like in generally popular superheroes. Doing that is disingenuous and potentially harmful.

[u/bleer95]

Anybody on here watch the Justice League TV series from the early 2000s? I genuinely feel the episode with the Justice Lords was one of the best episodes out there for making young children question how politics are and how they should be.

As for the question of is Batman an authoritarian... Yes and no. Batman is rarely the type to preemptively attack somebody over a perceived threat, but he is also the type to do heavy investigation and spying. Batman isn't hte type to have an issue with liberty so much as he is the type to just totally disregard privacy, he is, after all, the guy that kept detailed records on how to take down the League should they ever turn evil. Various incarnations of Batman put different amounts of value on liberty. The Batman from the Dark Knight Returns is certainly a man who wants order and an end ot crime, but his situation is so apocalyptic it's hard to blame him, and he's about as anti-government as you'll find in the Gotham.

The most libertarian superhero is probably Green Lantern TBH, which is ironic considering he's basically a space cop.

[u/Sekenre]

You missed out one of the best examples! In the graphic novel Judgement on Gotham Batman is compared directly against a character written as a parody of fascist policing, Judge Dredd. They are forced to cooperate to save Gotham from Judge Death, the personification of fascism taken to it's inevitable end.

It's great fun.