The Most Offensive Moment In The Batman (2022)
It’s not the first film about the Dark Knight to make this mistake
Finally, a movie where Batman functions as the world’s greatest detective.
Finally, a movie where Batman faces an opponent who challenges his intellect more than his money.
Finally, a movie where Batman spies on a girl without her knowledge or consent as she undresses…
Ah, there it is. I knew if I looked hard enough, I’d find a flaw in this otherwise nearly-perfect movie.
Well, since you’re here…
NOTE: This article was written in support of Kelly Johnson and the 2022 WRITERS FOR HOPE auctions (including mine among the donors). Every bid helped sexual assault survivors find the help they need. Auction items were unveiled March 28, 2022.
This event began in 2014 and is held every April in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Each year, members of the publishing & entertainment worlds — editors, agents, producers, and published and/or agented authors and screenwriters contribute their time and resources to raise money to support survivors of sexual violence. Donations include work critiques (ranging from queries to FULL manuscripts), consultation calls or Skype sessions, and signed books.
DUBIOUS CONSENT: part 1
Imagine this…
You’re a girl.
You come home. You relax. You undress.
But then you look out the window and see that someone is watching you.
You have no idea how long they’ve been there.
You have no idea who they are.
Just that they’re watching.
You’re as good as naked.
And they know where you live.
HOW DARE YOU
Listen, beyond this one thing, I dug the relationship between Batman and Catwoman. Zoe Kravitz has a natural charisma that made me believe she could instantly charm Bruce Wayne’s upside-down heart.
BUT MATT REEVES WHY?!
It happens so early in the movie that Batman and Catwoman, Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle, whatever you prefer to call them, they don’t yet know each other.
There isn’t even the implied consent two people can establish after discussing their boundaries and limits. Batman and Catwoman can’t have that dynamic , not when they don’t know each other that well.
Not yet.
So when Batman drops down, takes out his spy stuff, and watches Selina undress…it’s a problem.
DUBIOUS CONSENT: part 2
This isn’t the first Batman movie to explore the concept of dubious consent. Years ago, Christopher Nolan explored the same concept in The Dark Knight.
It’s just that yeah, it was a little more obvious in The Dark Knight. And I don’t just mean because Nolan had the characters literally tell the audience the whole thing was evil.
SEE ALSO: “Storytelling Hacks: the Christopher Nolan Method” by Stephenie Magister for Script Magazine (offsite link)
It felt wrong because of the SCALE of the surveillance. Lucius told Batman just as much: finding Joker may be one of the few catalysts for heroes to compromise their heroism, but once that crisis actor had been stopped, Lucius would resign.
This was, as he said, too much power for anyone to wield.
AND YET THE DARK KNIGHT GOT IT WRONG TOO
It’s easy to defend the surveillance system Batman created in order to catch Joker. Countless people would die, and countless more would watch their humanity die first. Least of all those who broke their deepest morality in order to stop a greater evil.
Batman believes that as a symbol, he can be the one who does such things. A man can be broken. Their reputation tarnished. Their power diminished by virtue of their identity.
Batman can be more than a man.
Batman can continue to do what must be done.
And there’s the problem. Batman wants to have his bat-cake and eat it too.
BAT-CAKE BETTER BE DELICIOUS
Whereas normal people have to worry about looking themselves in the mirror, Batman can do whatever stops the bad guys.
But at that point, is this really a fantasy of heroism? A man whose primary difference from Joker becomes merely whether he’s on our side?
On one hand, the movie tells us that vast surveillance system is wrong. Evil. Must be destroyed as soon as Joker is found.
But then the music swells, Batman rides off into the shadowed recesses of an interstate highway, and we’re left feeling like however questionable his methods, Batman proved he’s a true hero.
Who spies on people without their consent.
DUBIOUS CONSENT: Part 3
I edited so many romance novels that for a while, people thought that’s all I did. And I don’t mean in the way it kind of was all I did for five or so years. As an author, I published short stories in horror, romance, sci-fi, contemporary. As an editor, I acquired or developed across just as many genres.
But when it came to romance, I felt like I was coming home.
Until I encountered the trope I can’t get past. It’s not entirely the trope’s fault. My own long history of surviving sexual abuse in my family, then in mental institutions, then from my siblings and the ones they called friends…makes me admittedly sensitive to the topic of consent.
I’m just being honest, because you’d be fair to say my feelings on this are a little stronger than yours might be. You’d also be right to say those traumatic experiences motivated me to think on the topic of consent more deeply than most — the ways I was destructive, the ways I was destroyed.
Those experiences gave me unique insights into The Batman (2022) and the trope at the heart of this problematic scene.
The trope that made me walk away every time — in publishing, we call this a DNF (Did Not Finish) — was Dubious Consent.
JOSEPH GORDON LEVITT DESERVES YOUR CONSENT
Let’s say one of your characters is a guy. The other is a girl. The girl is staying over.
The guy gets up to take care of business. Or watch his favorite scenes. I’m having trouble remembering the movie — I mostly skip to the parts of Don Jon where Julianne Moore invites Joseph Gordon-Levitt to chill in her car. And wasn’t that just so they could watch his YouTube clips from Dark Knight Rises?
But there is this moment that stands out — maybe this moment is the real reason I don’t like to remember much else about the movie — where Scarlett Johansson’s character wakes up, discovers Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character in media res, watches in secret for the briefest moment…and then explodes.
I SLEPT WITH YOU
That’s before we even get to whether ScarJo’s character has anything to be upset about (lol, no; well, yes, but you have to watch the movie to find out what’s really at stake).
She spied on him.
The character didn’t consent to her watching or walking in on him.
Consent matters just as much for men as it does for women.
And I’m not making an exception just because you’re Batman.
NO ONE CAN PREPARE FOR BATMAN
There is one counterargument I can’t talk myself out of.
Because what am I really saying here?
Am I saying it’s never okay to compromise your morals to achieve a higher goal? To respond to a crisis? To manifest goodness in a way you can’t describe but feels absolutely necessary?
Superheroes by their nature act beyond the confines of normal people. Sometimes outside the bounds of physical prowess, sometimes outside the bounds of the law, sometimes outside the lines of conventional morality.
FIGHTING CRIME OUTSIDE THE LINES
Writing for Fandom, freelance journalist Eammon Jacobs noted that acting outside the law both empowers and constrains Batman as a hero. He has to decide where the line is. The conflict over where that line is — and what compels him to cross it — defines what kind of Batman story the audience will receive (and how they will receive it).
SEE ALSO: YOU 100% DON’T UNDERSTAND YOUR GENRE (THERE’S A VIDEO!!)
In some sense, all lines are arbitrary. We choose our boundaries based on what works for us, even our justifications for them don’t quite satisfy the intellect of a traumatized billionaire.
But then again, Batman draws his own lines based on that core part of him beyond his control. He can’t violate it any more than he can will his lungs to stop breathing.
Is it possible? Maybe. But the instinct to breathe is so natural that it comes to us as naturally as Batman fighting crime. It would take everything we have not to do it.
BATMAN HAS NO LIMITS
Each person has their own limits. Those limits determine where we draw our lines.
And while Batman declares he will be more than a man — a symbol — he’s not referring to the man underneath the cowl. He’s referring to the public’s PERCEPTION of the Batman.
SEE ALSO: Wait…Batman Is Trans??
There’s still a man inside. A man who must contend with the same kinds of limits as the audience who came to see him jump off a building in a wing suit.
So show us Batman’s limits.
Show us where Batman draws the line.
Then show the fantasy of what happens if he’s tempted to cross it.
That fantasy is in part what compels us to dive in. What if this one thing were possible that we fear we might otherwise never see occur?
What if manifesting it in that fantasy is the first step to making it real?
Doesn’t that make it worth it?
Even if it’s a little…well…evil?
FIFTY SHADES OF BATMAN
Audiences across the world devoured Fifty Shades of Grey (offsite link) with the same fervor long-time fans of BDSM fiction had enjoyed as long as there have been people sharing those stories.
STEPHENIE SUGGESTS: Jenny Trout Reads Fifty Shades So You Don’t Have To
The books became a phenomenon not because they were amazing — that’s up to each reader — but because through the nature of their incredibly expensive marketing campaign, an otherwise sorta-vanilla story about a traumatized rich guy seducing and abusing a young woman became so well known that it became more than a book. It became a symbol.
The popularity transformed the book (without speaking for all readers) into a mechanism through which readers could safely engage with their fantasies of being abused and coming out alive.
In some of those fantasies, a savior comes for us. You don’t need to be a woman to hold that fantasy close.
But if you’re the person typically in the position of the abuser, the fantasy of heroism no longer relies on saving the victim.
It’s about saving yourself.
So when Batman sexually harasses a woman in the name of solving a crime, he needs redemption as much as anyone else in Gotham.
The movie’s failure isn’t merely that it never gives him an opportunity for redemption. It’s that as far as The Batman (2022) is concerned, spying on a woman as she removes her clothes leaves nothing to be redeemed.
WAIT…BATMAN IS THE BAD GUY?
No. He’s not the bad guy. He’s a good guy who did a bad thing.
He spied on a woman as she undressed without her consent.
Now I know what you’re thinking. It’s what I’m thinking, anyway. I can’t help but play devil’s advocate.
Isn’t a detective by nature REQUIRED to do a little spying?
DO NOIR HEROES SPY ON ELECTRIC SHEEP?
You’ll recall the concept of “implied consent” from at the beginning of this article.
In a story about Batman — particularly one branded as the first truly detective noir story featuring this superhero in a live-action movie — the audience enters the story with a kind of implied consent about spying.
SEE ALSO: And the Oscar goes to…Benevolent Chauvinism
Movies are an established art form with established conventions. And for better or worse, audiences have formed a para-social relationship with movie makers that cultivates it’s own boundaries and limits. They’ve been working on their relationship for years and years and years.
So when we go see The Batman (2022), we agree before the first preview plays that the world’s greatest detective may bend the rules here and there in order to, you know…investigate.
He will eavesdrop on people. He will spy on them. He will do that and much more without their consent.
But spying on a woman as she undresses? Doing so without her consent?
That single moment didn’t have to be in the movie. Not like that — not at all.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Heroes might make mistakes, but hypocrisy breaks even Batman’s back.
I’ve thought at least a little about how to fix this scene — and then what would happen even if you could. Because where would you start?
We’ve been all across Gotham since the start of the article. My issue was that there’s no good reason to include the main character in a story — the presumptive HERO of the story — watch a woman undress without her consent.
You might have the character deliberately look away, but then Matt Reeves would hear from creeps who can’t stand for anything — not even a movie — to inhibit their pleasure to look at their leisure. They’d say the moment Batman watches Catwoman begin to undress but then looks away…feels dishonest.
And while I wouldn’t agree that the scene falls flat because it becomes a teachable moment, the problem isn’t in the solution. It’s that this moment shouldn’t be there at all.
Watching Selina undress without her consent doesn’t contribute to the story. Batman doesn’t suspect that watching her will unveil a vital clue. He doesn’t even FIND a clue that would in hindsight diminish the harm of what he’s done.
Would Batman spying on a vulnerable woman wittingly or unwittingly serve a greater good? All arguments claiming they do may as well now fall into a dark cave. Except this time, there’s no way out for Batman. Not if he wants to stay a hero.
He is, instead, a dark knight ready to break rules that suit him. A caped crusader prepared to force the world to make sense.
Much as I hate to say it, whenever I think of that scene as a woman, The Batman (2022) turns into a painfully dark night.
AND NOW FOR…
SOMETHING SERIOUS: And The Oscar Goes To…Benevolent Chauvinism (by Stephenie Magister, legendary storyteller whose high school short film deserved better than a B-)
SOMETHING FUN: Robert Pattinson’s Batman Is The Most Miserable Caped Crusader Yet, And That’s Why He’s Perfect (written by the legendary Hoia-Tran Bui)
The end
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