Batman, Batman -- How I do Love my Batmans

[maggie2]

Batman was my first true television love. Back when I was seven, I just loved Batman, Robin, and their battle with all those diabolical villains.  When I was older, I realized that Batman was a spoof and I still loved it.  Great that it could work for a literal-minded seven year old.  Great that it could amuse her when she got older.  Adam West and Burt Ward linger in my heart with the warmest affection.

I loved Tim Burton's Batman with Michael Keaton.  Mostly because batman was back and I am and always will be pro-batman girl.  I liked the serious tone, along with the cartoonish tone from the original show.  I'm not sure they worked together very well, though.  I loved that first Batman movie a lot, but more as a really cool failure than as a spectacular success.  The sequels just got worse from there.

I really like the new Batman with Christian Bale.  Oddly, I've only seen the first one once.   It's a bit long and takes itself too seriously.  But I like Dark Knight a lot.  It makes you think a bit.  It's definitely got some of that essential darkness that the TV show didn't have and that Burton couldn't quite blend with the cartoon sensibility..

Folks, these are three very different approaches to the source material which is batman.  If you want to take one of them and canonize it and say the other two don't measure up, that's your perogative.  But I'd like to be free to like all the batmans.  I don't want to live in a world where embracing Christian Bale means I have to renounce Adam West.  I want to live in a world that celebrates them both and which recognizes that the source material for batman is just that rich that it works well as serious brooding drama and as spoofy cheese.

Batman and Robin is a bad movie because it doesn't have the zany cheese of the series, or the weird combo that Burton tried.  It's not a fun movie, or a serious movie or any kind of good movie.  So of course, it's worse that Dark Knight.  But NOT because it fails to be properly serious.    Batman the series is NOT worse than Dark Knight.  It's just different.  Difference is good. 

To the argument in question, season 8 might well be an abject failure -- but at least let it be a failure of Joss to do justice to his own schtick, not a failure to do something he isn't even trying to do.  And please don't tell me that for any given set of ideas there is One True Way.  (Or less snarkily, any subject worth doing well is worth doing in multiple tones.  Literature is a conversation, not a dictatorship).

Comments

[simonf.livejournal.com]

I remember when season 7 was about to air, some fans got into their heads that Joss was ripping off Lovecraft and that the Elder Gods would be making an appearance. So that fan assumption went astonishingly well.

As for the current round of accusations, I'm not seeing it. To me Buffy season 8 is on a bigger scale with Joss solely at the helm. And with that comes change from what has gone before. It's not some grand attempt to duplicate a particular comic book that has caught some fan's eye.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Maybe you should write a book about all the foibles of fandom! It's reassuring in a weird way that this sort of thing is old news. I just find it all rather perplexing.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I remember when season 7 was about to air, some fans got into their heads that Joss was ripping off Lovecraft and that the Elder Gods would be making an appearance. So that fan assumption went astonishingly well.

Well, they were only off by one season... ;)

[owenthurman.livejournal.com]

Wait. Batman was a spoof? I took it totally seriously.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Me too! I was pretty old before I cottoned on to the possibility that it wasn't serious drama.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I can't actually say much about the Batman and Robin movie because I fell asleep during it! :)

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I don't think I even went to see it because the reviews were so bad, and because whichever sequel came before it was already pretty disappointing.

[local-max.livejournal.com]

I've seen Adam West talking, and he discussed a little bit how the show gradually (gradually = more in production stage, I think) became the parody it was. Adam West really pushed for it. He also indicated that Burt Ward (who was from "serious" Westerns--he was in The Searchers!) wasn't comfortable with it at first. As a kid, I used to make fun of the Batman when it was on in reruns, and took it as proof that 60's TV was bad (entertaining, but bad). It took me until I grew older to realize that, hold on, it was deliberately funny. Great stuff.

Among other things, I think the problem with season eight conversations is that it used to be at least somewhat clear what Joss was trying to do, at least on the surface level. Twilight, the arc, in particular, is bat-feces insane. Is Joss doing parody, homage, both, neither, some new form of writing hitherto unimagined? Writing erotica or a doomed romance novel or a deliberate effort to tear down Bangel in his fans eyes or, or, or....

Aycheb said shortly after 34 came out in a comment to me that the internet hadn't yet decided whether 34 was too porny or not porny enough, and now there's an argument over whether it's too much like Promethea or not enough like it, or, etc. Because it's so difficult to work out what he was trying to do, it's natural to speculate. I think it's even reasonable to make guesses. I'm not really convinced though that any of the guesses are right.

Of course, Simon points out that this has happened before; and I think that many fans were also not just offended but baffled by later seasons. (I found a contemporaneous review site, and the person seemed bright and open-minded but absolutely had no clue how to parse the Trio-as-villains, Spuffy, or Hell's Bells.) On TWOP they didn't understand that the Hellmouth scenes in "The Zeppo" were satire. It's nothing new, but Twilight is so much weirder than anything that came before that things are probably more intense....

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I very much agree that it's not clear what Joss is trying to do. Twilight just is baffling. People can say it's bad writing because it's utterly baffling, and all I can reply is that I'm going to hang on to see if it's still baffling after Last Gleaming. It's the next step that I don't get -- slapping on some interpretation and declaring that it fails to live up to whatever that interpretation should be living up to. You'd think that the fact that it entirely fails to be that would constitute evidence that whatever Joss is trying to do, it's not that.

Anyway, sometimes a mood develops where people start making what I regard to be unfair complaints about whatever is the target of a generally-agreed on ire. I usually bristle when I think that is happening (not that complaints are made, just that some of the complaints start to be unfair, alongside all the perfectly fair ones). The problem is that the people making the complaints obviously think they are being fair and don't much like hearing me say they aren't. So I should learn to just step out of the way when that happens.

I'm glad you got to a place where you could enjoy Batman!

[local-max.livejournal.com]

Yeah. The thing that really got me in the Promethea comparison was the "Buffy/Satsu happened because there was lesbianism in Promethea!" argument. But I do at least understand the comparison in general--because as flake-sake points out, the two share a motif (world-ending space frakking!) and one apparently worked and the other didn't.

The fact that Meltzer states that #35 was philosophy gives some more ammunition. But I don't really take Meltzer's interviews seriously, so it doesn't bother me much. I think signs point to aycheb's interpretation.

I wonder if the reason Meltzer got this arc is that Meltzer is a total fanboy? If Joss is mocking fan expectations as you have suggested, it might actually be that Joss used Meltzer as a fan to propose increasingly outlandish fannish ideas (all Buffy needs to do to be with Angel is get over herself! Bangel reunite and have sex immediately! Buffy is so awesome she goes to a higher plane! Giles gets to be exposition guy!) to skewer. I'm a bit worried even suggesting this, because the argument against this aesthetically is, what did the fans do to deserve being skewered canonically, at the expense of the story's internal consistency? Lots of questions.

Oh, and I always enjoyed Batman :). I just used to think it was "so bad it's good," whereas now it's "so good it's good."

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

World-ending space frakking. On what basis are we saying that Joss's version didn't work? Because it didn't live up to Joss's intention for the use of that motif? If so, why compare it to Promethea? Or because Moore did it better? If so, I call foul on assuming that Joss intends what Moore intended and judging him by a standard he wasn't even aiming at. Aycheb spells the specifics on this out quite well. Joss doesn't want you to be transported by the sex; Moore does. They are after different things. Moore's sex was supposed to be moving in a way that Whedon's sex was not.

I share your temptation about how to view Metlzer's role, and your very good objection to it. I'd rather it not turn out to be that.

I do think Twilight needs to work internally to the story. I think I can see, with Aycheb, what was being aimed at in terms of Buffy turning to Angel. He's always been what she had to give up, it makes sense that beaten down so hard she might go ahead and grab it. I think the tone of the sex actually works with the theme because the actuality probably falls well short of what she long yearned for. That's true to life. We get what we want and we never want it again. The tone on the frakking doesn't bug me. On the contrary, if it had been beautiful and transporting I'd have been devastated and disappointed. Devastated because I don't want twu wuv Bangel validated. Disappointed because I read BtVS as not being about to validate a hearts and flowers view of love. I'd much rather leave that junk to Meyer's Twilight.

I think there had been a prior failure to really make Buffy's despair palpable. I had to think it through rather than feel it. It might have worked better if I hadn't read it month by month -- but the way I did read it just wasn't a very powerful emotional experience. I wonder what it will look like when I step back and read it all like a novel, but that doesn't fix the lack of impact it's had on me reading it this way.

I think the universe evolution stuff is baffling. Like I said to Flake Sake, I am willing to believe that the jumbled explanation is intentional -- no character serves as the authorial voice of true exposition. When you think of the various explanations given you can see why each one fits the character who is giving it. We started one of the issues with the Rorschach blot. This is what we have. Anyway, if (as I suspect) we are meant to experience the same confusion and temptation to fill in the blanks according to our own prior templates, I think the arc works very well. But if we *still* don't know what's going on by the end of Last Gleaming, then the best I could say for Joss is he was trying some avant garde deal of telling a story by not acutally telling the story. But I'm hoping that he is telling a story and we'll know what's happening by the end.

Angel seems be setting up as nothing but a puppet. He's been there before. I'm not sure how it works dramatically to find out he's a puppet -- but it does get rid of the motivation problems that are otherwise legion.

Have I covered all the bases? I still don't know what the big picture is -- which means it's all up in the air. But I don't see that it must necessarily fail based on what we have so far.

Maybe I'm being too forgiving. I'm a shark who smells blood in the water and at the end of the day, maybe that's all I care about.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Hm, I like composite and derivative art, it takes an old story and breathes new life into it. That's the way I feel at least, when I casually like something.

I'm at best a casual Batman fan, I like what Frank Miller did with it and consequently like the movies that were influenced by his take on Batman, while I find a lot of other things about the francise dispensable or so bad it gets good again.

Thing is when I get fannish about something derivatives often feel like they are "traitors" to the original work.

As kid I felt like that about musketeer movies, I had read the book at an early age and nearly all movies made butchered the material in my mind, they left out the good parts and invented silly new ones I wasn't interested in.

S8 is to me no part of Buffy, it's a follow up made by different people and I judge it as a new work that works with source materials I love. Buffy for one and the comic book medium.
I get the same vibe I got for the musketeer movies. It doesn't do justice to Buffy the tv show. The comparison to Promethea (or Kabuki, or Watchmen, or Fables, or 20th century boys) does not so much illustrate that Joss tried borrow from one of them too much, but more how you can tell similar stories (by accident or by intention) in a much more interesting way in the comic medium.

I literally hurt every time, someone blames the badness in S8 on it being a comic, like those are inherently unable to do better, that's why I think it's important to compare S8 not only to Buffy, but also to other comics with similar motives.

I agree with you in general in the sense that I think derivative are is important and interesting , but I disagree that there are no differences in quality. I think S8 should be out there, same as tons of not so good fanfic stories are out there, but I will judge them as individual pieces of art not indiscriminately put them on the same stage, because they work with the same source material.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to tread lightly here, because I keep getting in trouble for trying to explain myself.

I totally get your point that the problem with season 8 isn't the medium, and it makes sense to point to examples of comics that you like as an answer to those arguments. I have always thought your comparisons were clearly of that nature, and fairly made.

I remain on the fence about whether season 8 is a worthy follow up to the show. As I just said above, I agree with Max's observation that Twilight is baffling -- and until I figure out what Joss really is doing here I won't have any opinion one way or the other. But I also can see why people would just feel fed up and not willing to wait around to see whether Last Gleaming will make sense of it all. I can say I'm hanging on, but I don't think that means all people need to hang on. Twilight is asking a lot of folks -- and that comes after Retreat, which comes after us waiting around for 3 years for this story to get told. Really, I do get why people have bailed.

I just don't think season 8 has the same motives as anything Moore is trying to do, and I therefore regard it as unfair to say that season 8 should be compared to Moore's work, using Moore as the standard. And like I just told Max, when I see a criticism that I regard as unfair, I usually will say I think it's unfair. It's fair to ask whether season 8 lives up to Buffy, fair to ask if it's moving or connecting, just not fair to ask whether it lives up to some whole other artistic vision. (At least that's how it registers with my fairness meter, which obviously is not the same one many of you have.) To go back to the comparison that started this mess, I think it's fair to say that Batman and Robin is a bad movie. Unfair to say it should be Dark Knight... especially since one would logically also have to say that Batman the TV show is bad because it's not Dark Knight, and Batman is great, when taken on its own terms for what it's trying to be. Whether season 8 ends up being more like Batman and Robin or more like Batman the TV show remains to be seen.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I think literature is often a chain of new interpretations of often old and similar motives. Take the story of king Arthur that was told over and over in so many different ways. I think retelling a story is a very valid literally cause that transforms a motive and often gives it new sense (not always unfortunately) and not just when it's the same story but also when it's just a certain trope.

Sometimes a new interpretation is brilliant sometimes it only makes you long for the original (The mists of Avalon, for King Arthur).

I agree with you that we can't fully judge S8 yet, because we don't know the conclusion it's coming too. But to my mind it is fair to asses the things we already have on the plate (and some might decide on it, that they'll leave the restaurant before dessert). Such things would obviously be the art and the pacing, but also individual old motives that the story used. For example the mysterious villain that is an old aquaintance of the hero. It's of course an age old motive and there are several modern interpretations of it; 20th century boys and Fables use it too. I think it's fair to compare these modern interpretations on their suspense, pacing and emotional ressonance.

I don't think Joss has even read those books and while he has read Promethea and might have wanted to pay homage to it, don't think he wanted to tell the same story. He does use motives from it though and I think it's fair to compare the two interpretations.

I agree that some of the mentioned Promethea motives are not fully retold on S8 yet, we're still missing some pieces that make it hard to compare. There are similarities, like the heroine being the one who brings about apocalypse, but while on Promethea the apocalypse genuinly is a step in evolution and a positive event, it doesn't seem to be in Buffy.

In S8 it's either a very rotten apple or really a spectacular failure to sell a positive apocalypse.

So in my mind, some of the comparison is premature and will turn out to be so (for example I'm be hard pressed to find any similarities between Batsu and Grace/Stace), some is fair, because it doesn't look like anything will be added to it (for example the emotional resonance of the gateway opening sex or the way to do exposition (letting Giles babble about sentient universes and writing a poem that's an issue long and leads you through history using tarot motives)).

I don't really want to speculate on Joss intentionally chosing motives from Promethea or just fishing from the same pond of collective storytelling, but they do have pulled out some very similar fish, even if I suspect some of Josses might turn out to be red herings.

I'm sitting on another fence here, because I think some shared motives bear comparison very well and some don't really fit like you say.

[treadingthedark.livejournal.com]

Heh. I don't have anything much to add to this conversation but my dirty little secret is that I have never watched an episode of any other Star Trek than the Original Series, out of loyalty.

I think I come to fandom from an entirely different perspective now though. I am much more invested in Buffy than Star Trek but I am able to enjoy au fan fiction, and many novels for what they are.

The comic, not so much. I stopped reading it fairly early on, but I wish the space fucking issue didn't exist. It embarrasses my over-invested self. Not in a prudish way but in a Buffyverse isn't as deep and wonderful as I have been saying way. Hurts.

[sueworld2003.livejournal.com]

"The comic, not so much. I stopped reading it fairly early on, but I wish the space fucking issue didn't exist. It embarrasses my over-invested self. Not in a prudish way but in a Buffyverse isn't as deep and wonderful as I have been saying way. Hurts. "

Ditto. :(

To say I've found the last few issues of the comic incredibly embarrassing is an understatement, Sorry Maggie.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Literature is a conversation, not a dictatorship

I'll take a framed 2'x3' lithograph of this phrase to hang on my wall, please.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I could do a needlepoint of it for you!

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

I guess the pacing also plays a very important role. We found out that Angel is Twilight in January. Five months later we've heard his explanation - which was very baffling and contradicted practically everything we knew about his character. Now we have to wait another four months to find out is there will be/won't be a twist that may reveal a real big bad. In any case we face two pretty frustrating options:

-- somebody drove Angel crazy so he isn't responsible for what he did, and we're back at square A

-- he really doesn't care about the fate of the world as long as he and Buffy can have sex in paradise.

If it was a TV show, there would be a week between the episodes. We'd get the resolution and we could discuss the entire season's failure or success. Now we have too much time to spec, to rant, to construct crazy theories, to compare s8 to other comics etc.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

This I agree with -- though to be fair, we weren't supposed to find out about Angel in January. Still, we've got this long pause after a crazy arc that has baffled most folks -- especially about Angel, a character a lot of people care about. It's like we're three-quarters of the way through Enemies and then on pause for three months, with a bunch of people going WTF.

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

Ah...I'm reluctant to even wander into this mess because...you know my non-thoughts on the comics. I don't like to try to discuss them since I don't read them.

But I'm seeing a logic mishap with some of these complaints about S8 that's been bothering me. I figure you'd be the most sympathetic to it. :)

Cause...people are saying that S8 is derivative of Source X (though what Source X is seems to vary). Then, S8 is judged on that basis and found to be a failure.

If the latter is true, then wouldn't it be easier to conclude that S8 isn't derivative of Source X and is, instead, doing its own thing (perhaps with a few Buffy-style homages)? Or is the premise of S8 being derivative a hard and settled fact that can't be adjusted?

It just seems that the end result (The conclusion that S8 is a failure) is the primary starting place, and so arguments to prove it are often based on some shaky logic that just doesn't hold up.

I mean, take Normal Again, which uses a pretty standard sci-fi premise (It's all in the character's head!). Let's say some classic sci-fi story used that prior to Buffy used that trope and let's call it Source A. It would be awkward to see criticism of NA on the basis that it's derivative of Source A, but it does so poorly, therefore the episode sucks. If that's the conclusion, wouldn't it be better to attempt to view and judge the episode based on its own merits? Or is the derivation of Source A that set in stone?

Ah, I probably shouldn't even wade into this. But I've done stupider things during my time in fandom.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

You've just well-articulated exactly what I've been trying to say. Right down the line. I've got nothing to add except that I hope Andrew is OK. I'm rooting for you crazy kids.

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

Heh.

Course, the natural continuation of the "judge it on its own merits" train is that some people will decide that, on its own merits, it sucks. But those direct criticisms sit better with me than this odd twisted finagling to compare it to something else just to justify why it sucks. It's kinda odd.

I've got nothing to add except that I hope Andrew is OK. I'm rooting for you crazy kids.

Thanks. He'll be fine. He's just gonna resemble Frankenstein for a while what with the massive metal staples in his head. :)

[next_to_normal]

My Batman story:

It probably won't surprise you that Nolan's Batman is the only one I've ever liked. To be fair, I've never read the comics, so I'm probably missing a lot of iterations, but Adam West never did it for me. I found it boring and too silly. I didn't bother with the 90s movies because they looked awful. When I was in middle school (around when Batman and Robin came out), one of my friends was really into Batman, probably in no small part due to George Clooney, but it was this whole thing with her. We all had to have superhero code names and stuff, and I never understood what the big deal was. I wasn't really into superhero stories at all (again, having never read comics), though I did watch Lois and Clark.

It wasn't until I saw Batman Begins that I went, "OH. Now I see why everyone loves Batman so much." It finally clicked. It's the only version that's ever worked for me (though after this I may give the Burton movies a try).

It's a lot like my experience with Doctor Who, actually. I mean, I liked the first four seasons well enough, but I didn't really see what the big deal was, and I wondered if maybe I was missing something by not having seen Old Who. And then I watched the fifth season, and it just clicked. I got why everyone loved it so much.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Not surprising! I'm not going to apologize for thinking Adam West is great, though. I'm always much happier to be pleased than otherwise. Burton's Batman might actually be my favorite -- but that's because when it came out I had a big lust for Michael Keaton in that role. I like Dark Knight a lot, but really have no love for the first one -- and that surprised me because I had always thought that the true batman would be dark -- but that first Nolan didn't nail it down for me the way I thought it might. Keaton's dark is still my favorite -- but Dark Knight was very good.

Dr. Who hasn't clicked for me either, though I assume that's because I haven't figured out yet how to see it right. I look forward to seeing season 5 -- but I also plan on giving the first four seasons another go. I'm patient on stuff like this. Learning to love opera and jazz took me ages. But I love when that light goes on, so I'm usually willing to wait on it.