From: poznikof@fraser.sfu.ca (Kenneth Shane Poznikoff)
Subject: Feminist Perspective of Batman Returns
Summary: What do you think about the messages in Batman Returns?
Keywords: Batman, feminist, confusion, symoblic
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 23:30:07 GMT


I cringed at some of the horrible lines in Batman Returns:

I just started reading this group, so I don't know if we have gone
through this routine yet.  I went to see Batman Returns (finally)
and well, I can't say I liked it very much.  As a matter of 
fact, I cringed at the horrible lines.  

A friend of mine from another city saw it the same night as I did and 
the following is an excerpt from our e-mail disucussion.  I wanted to 
post this to the net so that I could get some feed back from some 
people with experience in understanding the symbolic nature of films.

I am writing a paper for my Women's Studies class.  The class is
called "Women and Horror".  In it we discuss the horror genre and
talk about the negative and possibly positive portrayal of women in
horor film.  Although Batman Returns is not a horror film, I couldn't
help but wonder about the strong gender specific statements of
the film.  I hope to use any comments people might have as a spring
board for more reasearch for my paper.

Please forgive my spelling and gramatical errors.

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Excerpts follows:  (This first letter is my response to his original
 email.  His text is indented with "> ", my text starts at the margin.
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To: poznikof@sfu.ca
Subject: Batman Returns

> I just got back from Batman Returns.  Not bad.  I wasn't totally into it,
> but I enjoyed it anyway.  Michelle Pfeiffer is quite sexy in that plastic
> cat suit!

I didn't like it very much at all.  It was cool that the sets were very 
extravagent and ellaborate and I like how the dark "feel" was so complete.
On the other hand, there were some very confusing messages sent out by 
the movie.  

For example, the cat woman:
Yeah sure she is sexy but she also stands for women's liberation.  
There is a conflict of ideologies.  This is not to say that liberated 
women have to be bull dykes.  I think she represented some sort
of males view of the liberation movement.  She is somehow sexy, psychotic,
crazy and after revenge against men.  (Please read on before you
cast judgement on these statements.)

Then when Cat Woman and Batman are fighting he ends up knocking her
down and she says "How could you,  I'm a woman".  That is so pathetic.
This sends out a very negative message about the women's movement.  If, 
for a moment, we take the view that she represents a positive image of 
woman (ie strong and powerful, knowing what she wants) this scene 
completely negates all of her strong attributes.  She has reverted to 
a meek stereotypical woman.  It trivializes the feminist movement.

Taking a quick first look at this scene you may think that it was
just put in to grab a few laughs.  When I saw it though, I heard
only a few groans.  The groans could have come because the audience
recognized the horribly cliched line or, as in my case, because the
audience recognized the trivializing effect it had.

Also, in and around that scene there is a lot of sexual tension 
between Cat Woman and Batman.  Then they start fighting.  This
immediately caused me to cringe for I recognized the association
of sex and violence.

> Like the security guard said, "I don't know whether to open fire or fall in
> love!"  (As Catwoman was destroying a display case.)

This is so G__ D___ed corny and such a cliche.  In this scene
also, the cat woman uses her whip to disarm the guards.  She makes some
comment about their guns which is an allusion to their penis.  This to
is such a cliche.  Sociologits are quite aware of the association of
a gun and the penis in popular culture.  There are hundreds of articles
written about it.  Its very old, very tiresome.

There are theories that argue that men's greatest fear is of castration.
When she removes the guns, she is symbolically castrating the men.  This
is effective (but none the less, cliched) method of raising feelings
of resent in the male viewer.  There are other scenes that do this also.

Michelle Pfeifer's line through out the film were just stupid.  

And when the Penguin says that line about "pussy".  (I think it was
something like "Just the pussy I've been waiting for").  I, nor any of my 
companions, could beleive that they used such an obvious dumb line.
The writer's attempt at sexual innuendo is overdone as if no one would
get the association of woman and cat/pussy.  It is so overdone and
poorly done that it becomes painful to watch.

I have no idea what to make of the (obvious) parallel of the Penguin
being dropped in a basket to float down the creek and the story of
Moses.

I've really confused about the message in the films and what they
are trying to say.  After hearing the last line in the film: "Peace 
on earth, good will towards men... and women.", I knew that all the 
gender specific aspects off the film were no accident.  

As you can imagine, the last line of a film is the writers attempt
to draw a conclusion or to deliver the final message of the film --
to summarize the message.  With a line like that I feel no doubt
that the central message of the film has something to do with
equal rights for men and women.  This line confuses me though.

I feel that the film had nothing positive to say about women, yet
the final utterance in the film draws attention to the notion of
equal rights for women.  Why would they draw atention to equal 
rights (a women positive notion) when the film was filled with
women negative messages?  I might be interpretting all the symbolics 
incorrectly.

For example, recall that scene discussed earlier where Cat Woman
says "How could you, I'm a woman." after Batman knocks her down.
If we take the view that view (Cat) woman as a compitent adversary 
for (Bat) man -- a positive image of women, this line emphasizes
that fact that she is actually a women and not androgynous.  It
emphasizes that women are equal adversaries.  Unfortunately, it 
does so in such a blatent way that it is annoying.  Maybe 
this blatency is the writers way of assuring the layperson 
gets the messages -- what ever they may be.

What I mean by "adversaries" is that women can successfully compete 
with men in the real world.  My limited view of the "real world" 
centers around attaining success in the work place.  Therefore
the message is:  women are (should be) (can be) (will be) entitled
to equal pay for equal work because they are men's equal.

You may think that I have over analysed the film.  Or you might
think that it is unlikely that the writers wanted to send out all
these messages so they wrapped their point of view up in a
popular movie so they could disseminate their ideas.  The 
former may or may not be the case.  The latter is a warrents
a little more discussion.

Remember that nothing in a movie is arbitrary.  Every scene and
every camera angle and every dialog is carefully planned and has
a purpose.  It is true that there is no conspiracy among Hollywood
writers to disseminate their views subversively through popular
film.  On the other hand, it is true that their point of view,
their way of seeing the world, will be reflected in their work.

Its like art or doodling.  When you doodle, your drawing reflect
how you feel, your point of view, whats on your mind, etc.  The
creator of a film may not be trying to disseminate his/her views 
but they are evident in the product.  When we watch the product, 
his/her views reach us, thus reaffirming his/her ideologies as
acceptable.  This is disturbing because his/her ideologies are 
most likely conformant with dominant ideologies -- capitalism 
and patriarchy (male dominant society, hateful of women).

The majority of typical popular culture films reaffirm dominant 
ideology.  The key word here is "typical" and "popular".  "Popular" 
means a product of modern (popular) culture.

The messages in Batman are blatently stated, and as I said
earlier maybe this blatency is the writers way of assuring the 
layperson gets the messages.  Or, on the otherhand I may have
completely missed the real message of the film by focusing 
on the explicit messages portrayed.

---Shane

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In response, my friend wrote the following message:
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To: poznikof@sfu.ca
Subject: Re:  Batman Returns

Yes, I think you over-analysed the film.  With a little more care to your
spelling and grammar, you could submit that as an essay for your Women's
Studies Course!

However, I think you missed the point.  Batman is supposed to be like that.
If you refer to the comic strip, you will find it full of stupid quips like
"Holy inferno, Batman!  A FIRE!" --Robin, the wonder boy (Boy wonder).

The whole idea is based on senseless violence between Batman and Robin, and
their nefarious adversaries.  One advantage with this movie compared to say,
Terminator, is more realism in the fighting.  Batman is not this ultra-powerful
individual.  He is actually affected by Catwoman's Blows, even though he
can easily over-power her (and he does when she gets out of hand).

Anyway, I have to do some homework today.  (Lots of homework today.) I
just wanted to point out that I though you went into the movie expecting too
much.  Neither of the Batman movies were really "good" in the sense that you
seemed to be looking.  However, it was the creators intent to make it as
much like the original comic as could be done. You have to remember that 
back in the 30s (or whenever it was... near then, I suspect) the movie
would have been considered very progressive to even suggest that women are
nearly equal to men.

It all depends on how broadly you want to look at the script, but I don't
think you can really consider those aspects you mentioned without looking at
the entire picture and the intent behind it.

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To which I would like to add the following comments:
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Hmmm, maybe you are right when you pointed out that the Batman series
was created in the 30's (I don't know the date either!), therefore to
suggest than women are equal to men is a very progressive idea.  This
point leads me to beleive that I have read the symbolic nature of the
film incorrectly (once again).

Still, the image of (Cat)woman (strong, independent), juxtaposed
with her psychotic (feeble-minded) nature seems to be a reflection of
some male's view of the women in the feminist movement.  Someone
pointed out to me that except for her psychotic nature, the Catwoman
may actually represent a strong/powerful female character, without
having to adorn the female with masculine qualities.   Let me explain.

A common "complaint" amoung feminist reviews of film is that in order 
to have a female character that is powerful (not a victim), she is
often given masculine attributes.   For example, in Aliens^3, Ripply
is forced to shave her head (become one of the guys), and she behaves
like a male in all of the Aliens films.  The truth is, I find it
difficult to buy into this theory.  But its got to make you wonder:
Remember, nothing is arbitrary in a film.  Why did the writers 
find in necessary to shave her head?  What does this mean?

[Aside:]
On the other side of the coin, if a male is a victim of an attack,
feminist theorist postulate that the most frieghtening attacks are
those that feminize the male.  For example, in the movie Videodrome,
the hero ends up with a gaping, vagina-like wound in his stomach.
[End of aside]

Catwoman may be what feminists are looking for:  A strong female
character that isn't masculinized.  She is a sexy woman, and she 
knows it.  She is smart so she uses everything she has got, 
including here sex appeal.  She knows that men (are stupid and) are
driven by sex so she uses it to get close enough to her adversaries 
to fight them.

On the other hand, Catwoman can be seen as a negative image of a 
strong female.  It boils down to "she uses sex to get what she wants."
She has no morals.  (Somewhat equivalent to a woman sleeping her
way to the top.)  Taking this interpretation, Catwoman certainly is
not a positive image of woman.  It reflects the common patriarchal 
view that women are morally inferior (to men, of course).

Which one of these interpretations is correct?

Now, as for the *intent* of the writers of Batman Returns:  
people are not only responsible for their intentions.  They are also
responsible for the effect of their actions.  They degree of
responsibility varies of course.  Even though, the writers did not
intend to send out certain messages, they still get sent out.

When looking at a movie like Batman Returns, we cannot simply
consider the fact that the concept was created in the 30's 
therefore any messages that it has today are irrelavent.  We
have too consider that the movie was actually created in
today's social context.  Also, remember that this film is
not disseminating ideas, but rather is reflecting the ideology
of the writers -- assumedly the ideologies of the dominant
social order.  (By presenting these ideas to the audience, 
the ideology is reafirmed, thus ensuring the ideology's servival.)

That is what confuses me.  When I look at certain scenes,
I see some progressive notions, for example woman being
equal to man.  When at other sceens, or if I look at the same 
scenes in a different light, I see very negative, reactionary 
notions, for example, the psychotic nature of (Cat)woman.

What do you think?
---Shane