Lego Batman's Subversive Qu33rcoding

fun fact about me i love lego batman i love the animation the characters the humor this is mcguffin airlines flight 1138 we are transporting 11 million sticks of dynamite and two best friends the humor nothing bad ever happens to me the humor my name is richard grayson but all the kids at the orphanage call me dick well children can be cruel yeah and yes the rampant queer coding batman doesn't do ships what as in relationships i am not gonna be part of a one-sided relationship boo-boo look at me you're too good for batman he needs to open his eyes and see what it feels like when you're not around you're trying to entrap me into a relationship really yeah and it's not gonna work oh yes it is lego batman is a film about batman bruce wayne and his greatest fear your greatest fear is being a part of a family again batman doesn't want to get close to anyone because he might lose them dick robin barbara gordon batgirl and alfred all help bruce confront that fear and realize he's better off with an open heart sometimes losing people is part of life but that doesn't mean you stop letting them in this lesson extends to batman's relationship with the joker at the start of the film batman refuses to acknowledge joker as his greatest enemy and here the term greatest enemy has a romantic connotation in the lego batman movie bad guy translates to partner then i'd say that i don't currently have a bad guy to fight someone means to date them okay look i'm fine with you fighting other people if you want to do that but what we have is special i hate you means i love you i hate you joker oh i hate you too i hate you more i hate you the most it's a gag yeah and people can and do claim that's all anyone should take from these moments but director chris mckay called their joker and batman dynamic the backbone of the film and i think he's absolutely right this lover's tiff between joker and batman propels the entire plot it's what drives joker to make a new evil plan it's why batman rises to joker's bait which then allows joker to kickstart the final battle it's what forces batman to face his fears and team up with others and beyond the laughter there's real heart to these scenes it's hard not to feel the gut punch when batman tells joker you mean nothing to me it's hard not to get angry at batman when he refuses to say he hates the joker i hate you me too at the end of the film when the fate of the entire city depends on batman's ability to open up to the joker to win him back the creators embrace the romantic nature of that premise batman reaches out to joker and delivers a heartfelt speech lit by a sunset backdrop and underscored by dramatic music and suddenly i'm all verklempt you'll help me save us you just said us this film works as a romance as well as a comedy and i know people agree with me on that because some of them boycotted lego batman on the grounds that it was chock-full of pro-gay propaganda what do you say you had me shut up just shut you had me at hello but there's a reason i find this dynamic so special when i look at the batman mythos at the homophobic nightmare legacy that's dogged this series for decades i'm struck by the way the lego batman movie turns the tables it treats the romance between batman and joker not as a nightmare but the key to batman's salvation well to explain that claim we're gonna need to talk about history batman was popular and could also get kinda dark but ho ho time for a vibe check what's that over there oh my god oh yes the early years of batman were plagued by homoeroticism batman and robin were supposed to share a purely platonic dynamic but due to panels like this one gay vibes began to accumulate grant morrison writer of batman comics such as arkham asylum and batman and robin even went so far to say gayness is built into batman i'm not using gay in the pejorative sense but batman is very very gay there's just no denying it obviously as a fictional character he's intended to be heterosexual but the basis of the whole concept is utterly gay ever heard the snl series the ambiguously gay duo yeah that's a batman spoof can't keep this up lifetime companion let's go over the break by the time the 50s rolled around parents had started to grow wary of comic books the same way the parents of today are wary of video games people were concerned that comics caused juvenile delinquency they're reading stories devoted to adultery to sexual perversion to hara to the most despicable of crimes crime and horror comic books stimulate outbursts of destructive violence that might otherwise have been channeled into much less anti-social activity then boy wonder mr frederick wortham over here shout out a little book called seduction of the innocent he used falsified studies to claim comics swayed kids to violence disrespect for authority and of course gay he described batman and robin's situation as like a wish dream of two homosexuals living together in a study of over a thousand homosexual cases at the quaker emergency service readjustment center we found that the arousal of homosexual fantasies the translation of fantasies interfact and the transition from episodic homosexual experiences to a confirmed fixation of the pattern maybe due to all sorts of accidental factors the back the pilot the blad man type of story may stimulate children to homosexual fantasies of the nature of which may be unconscious in adolescents who realize it they may give added stimulation and reinforcement the morality of comic books was already widely disputed by the time seduction of the innocent hit shelves but many credit wertham's book as the match that lit the censorship campaign bonfire a senate subcommittee of juvenile delinquency recommended that comic publishers create a system to regulate their content that decree along with wortham's book forced publishers hands they created the comics code authority as an alternative to government regulation behold comic publishers dni list crime shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice or to inspire others with a desire to imitate criminals all characters shall be depicted in dress reasonably acceptable to society sex perversion or any inference to same is strictly forbidden respect for parents the moral code and for honorable behavior shall be the treatment of life's aesthetic understanding of the problems if your comment cleared all those points congratulations you've met the code criteria here's a cool little seal on the cover of your comic that promises parents you aren't gonna poison their children's minds with gore cleavage or gay people if you didn't get the cca seal chances were no stores would even carry your comic and so america entered a new age of censorship say hello to reverse beards batgirl and batwoman who were created to make batman and robin look less gay somehow batman already had the hots for catwoman but she made crime seem cool and that was also on the naughty list so yeah no the larger cast served another key hetero function they made sure batman and robin were never left alone together at one point alfred the butler was even axed and replaced with some rando named aunt harriet so wayne manor would have a female resident the shadow of the great comic book scare hung over the batman franchise for decades it took a new avenue of publication direct market distribution for comic artists to bypass the cca regulations and that didn't occur until the late 70s to meet the comic code authority's criteria batman became a much more silly comic the tv shows only cemented that standard until america came to associate batman with this your orange juice sir batman special as restrictions lifted creators began to play around with a darker batman but frank miller was the one who drove the real paradigm shift when he collaborated with claus janssen and lynne varley to create the dark knight returns this landmark story stars batman is a washed up old dude who comes out of retirement after he watches too much zorro he goes on to face off with gangs the joker and even superman miller's story ushered in a whole new era of comics the dark age gritty comics flooded shelves it wasn't until the release of the dark knight returns that americans were able to shake the campy absurdity of early batman the gay vibe batman from the wonder years made a few cameos post to the dark knight returns but the general mythos of batman was changed forever batman became dark and mysterious and oddest of all cool now he's the masked vigilante who takes out whole hordes of gangsters with street smarts and fancy cars and giant muscles and after he whoops ass he gets to go home to his mansion and live as a playboy millionaire far from the homo vibes of his youth batman has become the ultimate straight power fantasy the alpha male to end alpha males the hell are you supposed to be and the joker oh boy the joker the joker has also gotten darker over the years and as batman has become more hetero the joker has become more queer oh girlfriend i just love that shade as decadent as it is real your beautiful hair and skin tones i have a few makeup tips for you to try oh do share do share chase j made a great video on the joker the exact ways he's been coded how queer people might relate to the joker i don't have the time to explore those topics but i will point out that from the start joker has boasted campy clothes and a flamboyant demeanor and then miller entered the scene as miller forever changed batman's mythos so too did he change jokers early batman comics liked to blame joker's pale skin and red lips on chemical burns but miller's joker applies his own makeup miller's joker calls batman pet names miller's joker lures the batman to the tunnel of love for their final confrontation when asked about the gay aspects of the dark knight returns miller responded yeah the homophobic nightmare is very much part of the batman mythos it's always been there i just spelled it out a little more plainly it's common for batman stories to reflect upon the symbiotic nature of batman and joker's relationship joker's crimes create the demand for a caped crusader and batman provides the challenge that sparks joker's desire to commit crime miller added a romantic lens to that dynamic which motivated other creators to do the same it's now become commonplace to frame joker's obsession with batman as romantic then why'd he say till death do us part because he didn't say it to you it was him all along wasn't it it's always been him in the telltale series joker says wanting to be like you be loved by you in both batman catwoman the wedding album and the death of the family series joker admits to catwoman that he loves batman wow if i had a nickel for every top joker told catwoman he loves batman i'd have two nickels which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice right in the white knight series harley laments that the joker loves batman not her christopher nolan's joker even lifts a line from the romantic comedy jerry maguire you complete me your garbage you complete me you complete me when frank miller describes the batman and joker dynamic as the homophobic nightmare he means that the joker represents homophobe's worst fears he's a flamboyant campy weirdo he's obsessed with another man whom he tries to seduce over and over again mostly through tricks and acts of violence he's a predator and a murderer and an anarchist with an agenda to corrupt the natural order of the world to sow total chaos wherever he goes in their thesis queering the crown prince of crime a look at queer stereotypes and signifiers in dc comics the joker xena writes the joker and many of the stories that his own fans see as iconic is stuffed into the place of a queer threat this queer threat isn't just directed at batman but at the readers who fear that one day batman won't beat the joker's ass the way they want him to that batman a gary sue if there ever was one on top of being a paragon of hyper-masculine heterosexuality will engage in behavior they can't accept and don't see as appropriate in their favorite bat-themed self-insert and so batman can never again show a sliver of homo revamped as a symbol of pure military machismo badass he saves gotham from a symbol of gay evil over and over and over and finally we're back [Music] man knock knock it's 2017. it's two months till fire festival i'm still at college the coronavirus doesn't exist yet the lego batman movie drops and the batman paradigm gets turned upside down most of you will know that not all superhero comics follow the same timeline character backstories differ wildly between series this disparity goes for comic films as well to make the film accessible to a younger audience lego batman defangs joker he's much closer to the silly prankster joker of the cca era than the horse arsonist of death of the family i mean i look at scott snyder and capuyo's joker and i'm scared i look at heath ledger's joker and i'm scared this joker's kind of adorable it's hard not to feel bad for him i'm not scared of lego joker he's not abusive to harley he still poses a threat to gotham but the classic cartoon kind of threat that's pompously non-lethal you want us to make the rivers of gotham city run red with his blood oh that's oh no blood this joker has all but been stripped of his status as a queer threat he's not a homicidal monster more a fun trickster he's much more relatable than repulsive how are your abs bro too much flab not enough ab what and then there's batman the badass alpha male who this film casts as a man baby there's nothing wrong with it sir i've just taken away your computer privileges you're scheduled to get a jim gordon's retirement party what no i don't want to do that i'm going to have a great time no no no kind of hard for fans to uphold batman as the pinnacle of macho badassery when he behaves like such a child all the time this batman gets some cool moments here and there he makes awesome gadgets and takes out joker and his cronies but i'd argue that he's at his most mature at the very end of the film when he acknowledges how much his family means to him so many people were taught that to be a man you have to bury how you feel but this batman can only grow up once he learns how to open up to others and as batman points out that growth wouldn't have been possible without help from the joker and if it wasn't for you i never would have learned how connected i am with all these people and you that's why i'm so delighted by this film to save the day batman doesn't have to beat the queer symbol to a pulp or send him to a prison or a hospital he has to hold hands with him he has to connect with him in flashpoint night of vengeance batman's parents survive but bruce dies bruce's dad becomes batman and bruce's mom becomes the joker it's okay for batman to love joker then not because the joker is any less of a murderer but because she's a woman in a world where both leads are male well outside of fan works very very few comics dare to suggest batman could ever return the joker's love and even then batman has only ever repressed how he felt or as with the case of frank miller's batman sublimated his urges through violence because when you're the picture of machismo that's how you handle gay thoughts so you live in this mansion alone with another man as he serves you this butler i'm not gay you want to know how i got these scarves wasn't it gay way was it so for lego batman to dress this dynamic up as a love story and to treat that as a step towards batman's maturity um wow kind of blows my mind this film subverts so much of the batman mythos to create such a positive message about queerness and the nature of true badassery but hold on i want to make my position on all this very clear there's been this demand lately for more dark messy queer stories and as long as people like me continue to release the hounds on any queer story with less than spotless morals creators are gonna be really nervous to make darker stuff and i don't blame them i know i mostly prefer vanilla fairy tale queer stories but not everyone's like me and that's okay if you prefer the joker as a serial murderer and batman as a repressed gloomy loner that's fine those aspects can make the joker and batman dynamic super rich and complex and i don't blame anyone who's fascinated by the conflict between those two forces but i'm glad we have variety i'm glad there's also a story like lego batman where we're made to root for the joker as well as batman where batman has to work with the joker to save gotham where they replace the queer threat with queer fun lego batman represents a cultural shift to me where creators and consumers are ready to come at a queer joker from a place of empathy not disgust and question the kinds of traits that make batman [Music] cool hey you squad what's up thank you so much to all my patrons for your support a big hug to my top patrons akita anada amy holschwander can be coy dane fancy and giant y'all are the tricksters who keep this channel alive if you'd like to find your name on this list or even get previews and early video access you can pledge to my patreon hope all of you are safe and warm see you sinners

Channel: The Sin Squad

Views: 363,728

Rating: 4.8927097 out of 5

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Id: FWzY5d9G5mI

Length: 21min 49sec (1309 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 27 2021