Finally — a takedown of Batman, who puts the whole thing in perspective in about three minutes. I have wanted to do an analysis of Batman but I have never got into this genre, and I have been reluctant to expose myself to the film. This is presented by The Rev. Billy, who surfaced in New York City during the Occupy protests last year. I’ve been impressed by this guy and his message — curious to know what you think. And excellent musical number at the end.
16 thoughts on “The Rev. Billy Explains Batman”
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There are ways that Hollywood edits, and uses sound, and designs shots, that are all disturbing. There are ways the plots are developed…and so on.
This is why I love David Lynch. he turns the whole thing inside out. Nothing is nice and neat. Not everything is resolved. It’s a lot of fun and leaves room for imagination.
I haven’t seen any of the Batman movies. I dislike violent movies in the first place and dark movies in the second unless they are dark for a reason (think Sophie’s Choice).
Having said that…I watched this clip and was both sickened (I vehemently hate such show-off preachers) and confused. To me, his message and the song the people sang didn’t resonate together at all. He seemed to be condemning the hero-story films while the kids seemed to be saying that fundamentalism is bad for them and their parents’ teachings are bad for them. Disconnect in the messages or did I miss something because I didn’t hear it right?
Thanks Eric, I’ll take your words to heart. It’s important to me to write and create films that don’t leave anyone feeling like they’ve been hit with a shot of Dioxin. Unless that’s the intent of the story, of course. Not that all stories have to be uplifting to make their point, but if they are not, then where/what is the message?
I’ve noticed/been given feedback that films I make (that are entirely mine) have that “foreign” flavor. I’m not sure what the difference in expression is, but your thoughts here give me pause to help identify it.
I saw the first two batman films in this regurgitation cycle. The first wasn’t so bad as far as explosions and people doing crappy things to one another, Hollywood’s main obsession these days. The second turned my stomach. Batman is an asshole. So what if he doesn’t kill his prey , so what if he has good intentions- the shit he does to people in real life would be worse than death in some cases the way he maims his enemies.
Shadow work is good and healthy, but I had enough of the Batman vibe in the first two. I’ve had enough of Hollywood and big screen adrenalin abuse. Our culture is so whacked out on adrenalin that people think they need this kind of thrill just to feel anything at all. Pain killers, anti-depressants (anti emotion in some cases), alcohol, sugar, caffeine, tobacco, and sedentary lifestyles that give the adrenalin nothing to do but consume our organs steal our imaginations and our humanity. I agree with Eric’s idea that to consume this kind of entertainment is to explose oneself to toxicity. The poster alone shows me that it’s another movie with a ghost of a story supporting an abuse of explosive effects. Considering the elephant in the room called Global Warming Hollywood is doing us no favors consuming so many resources to whack our adrenal glands out even worse than they’re already whacked. All those explosions…cool it off please. The planet is already burning by our actions.
Our culture is truly stuck when our heroes are comic book characters. Where’s the other people in our lives who should be our heroes? I guess they’re watching movies too.
Linda,
I meant expose as in … expose myself to dioxin by strolling around SUNY New Paltz dorms. I often experience Hollywood films as a toxic substance. I know, because I sit there in my seat, and can be hating myself, paranoid, disgusted with life and myself and feeling inferior to everyone and everything, which sensation ends promptly when the Hollywood movie ends.
I know I have more Pisces in my chart than Neptune himself…and I am sensitive.
Note, this does not happen in most Canadian or Australian or otherwise foreign films. It is something about Hollywood.
“I have been reluctant to expose myself to the film”
really Eric? Too “expose yourself”? Something vaguely sexual in that, and not sensual. Sorry, but you just fell off your pedestal.
Here we are, discussing heros, people we can look up to. Those that I can look up to are people who look what they fear straight in the eye; they do not avoid looking directly at the things they criticize, then hop onto the bandwagon of stir-the-pot opportunists like “Reverend” Billy.
“Reverend” Billy strikes me as a Cultish “hero/leader” if ever I saw one. Interesting that he chose a comic-book archetype to be his (Joker Trickster)Nemesis since he strikes me as something of a comic-book type himself.
SPECIFICALLY, “Reverend” Billy is criticizing a movie poster in NYC. A Movie Poster. So let’s not get carried away. A spade’s a spade. He’s stirring the pot of revolution against the movie industry by way of a movie poster….hm….to what end do you think? Should I run out and burn my comic books? Get all uptight about our traditional American Comic Book Heros? Maybe we should ban them all.
Yes, Batman IS the Joker. Dark and Light. Remember?
Maybe I’m the one who’s uptight today, but this one irks me. Thanks for the space.
sorry didn’t know that posted itself I wasn’t quick enough to unplug it: – the monkey then her family, her clan, her island and finally suddenly all the island monkeys of Japan.
Heros are often after they dead? Always a work in progress in life, several successes, no one superhuman.
I could offer several people of integrity…
Who do we know who is an actual “hero”? I don’t mean de facto (allegedly, any fireman). I mean, someone who is actually a hero, every day, or often enough. Let’s try that one…and I will share my thoughts.
Also it is fair to study the manifestation of a symbol in context — i.e., the poster of Batman in Times Square, with the city burning behind him. That is a combination of intentional placement and a kind of synchronicity. It is open season for analysis as a stand-alone, as we find it, with no other knowledge.
Commercial heroes are not the heroic stories themselves. He critiques the film poster and commercialization of superheroes while making misinformed generalizations about them. Batman is one of the only heroes that is somewhat accessible in that his powers are not extraterrestrial, radioactive or genetic mutations, his abilities come from his wealth, knowledge, technology and commitment to social justice (albeit his own version of such). Specifically then it’s not a takedown of Batman persay, but a jab at the commodification of the genre, which is what most mainstream people have based all their information/conclusions about such on – hence, the need for CRITICAL media literacy.
And thanks Jojo, for the link too – I ♥ Grant Morrison!
All in a piece with being disconnected from the land, from our families and cultures and selves, and so not knowing that beef steak is a cow, that life is real and has different facets and stages to it. Integration too and self awareness. Going within like the tarot reading on sunday. Kung fu with David Carradine, Ged and co in the earthsea books – different darknesses embraced, mapped, birthed from, endured, translated: the art of transition. Going towards wholeness and integration not technically but as real people. So many of our films and books dwell in the darkness, as tho there is no story if it isn’t dark. No success if it is not a victory.
Again Claire de luna – if each of us begins with our own enlightenment (again not a technical thing but real) it is like the monkeys in the Japanese Isalnds where only one washed her potato in the sea
I’ve been to hell (or paradise) but I’ve never been to me
Eric- perhaps the dilemma is projecting the hero archetype outside ourselves, rather than recognizing that our individual journey through life requires that we each be the hero in our own story. Our culture has a problem looking within, and owning it’s own shadow we know, but it is useful to remember that the shadow also holds our unclaimed glory. Got that from reading Campbell’s “Hero With A Thousand Faces.”
I think we are all reeling from the Batman and Aurora shootings yet I do not think Rev. Billy’s comments are too helpful. We can still be hero’s even if our past family histories are bleak. In fact that is part of the hero’s journey. This is what I wrote in my blog on the topic.
I finally went to see The Dark Knight Rises. I was quite excited to go see it and then when Aurora happened I couldn’t stomach it. I saw a mannequin in the grocery store which was weird but also reminded me that this is just hollywood capitalist stuff.
I was somewhat relieved that it was hollywood dark-lite. I think they made it lighter because Heath Ledger had died and they felt they were messing with dark stuff. The fact that Aurora happened is both heartbreaking and ironic.
I love the Dark Knight because I believe in the power of the archetypal trickster as exemplified by the Joker. Tricksters have populated mythology forever and they do not have plans, they do not have agendas. “Plan–do I look like a guy with a plan”. Sometimes they are evil as in the Joker but other times they are bumbling. Take the lowly god of the washerwoman in Japanese mythology. Everyone is weeping because the sun-god is mad at her brother and has withdrawn into a cave thus ending the world. But the washerwoman says, “let’s party’! and begin waving her tits in circles. All the other more powerful gods start laughing and the sun god emerges to see how they can be laughing when they are all going to die. Through various machinations they trap her outside the cave so she has to stay and shine.
In our rational society we believe there is nothing to learn from the dark side, from the bumbling side, from the side without a plan. This disregard for the trickster is to our great peril. Katrina was a trickster.
The longer we put off the lessons from the tricksters the more dire and catastrophic the “correction” will be. Robert Bly writes about his little black bag where he has been hiding his shadow stuff since he was four. His bag at 20 was many miles long. Imagine the bag for western civilization. Imagine how long that bag is with our wars and our systems of slavery and genocide and environmental damage. We better adjust for the trickster.
i’ve heard him as far back as the protests against the iraq war on pacifica radio-
around 06-07′
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverend_Billy_and_the_Church_of_Life_After_Shopping
He is talking about the film. He is talking about the contemporary manifestation / interpretation, which is a comment or expression of culture and the unconscious now.
All superheroes are based on Heracles to some extent — the lone actor, who has the blessings of the gods. This is one of the first archetypes it’s necessary to question, in a psychological self-investigation; and our culture is obsessed with heroes.
Stormilarue got the nail on its head.
One of the things that excite us so profoundly in these stories is their archetypal resonance. In their tellings and re-tellings, across generations and by the contributions of some really well plugged into the imaginative type humans, we can begin to be seen as a kind of mythology…which qualifies them for the whole array of Joesph Campbell whistles and bells.
(Which certainly qualifies Batman, in this case, as another expression of our current Modern to Post-Modernist Zombie Apocalypse 2012 Raving In The Dessert While Reptilian Cyborg Martian Overlords Hatch Machinations…obsession. Or, maybe that’s just me.)
Now, given that whole mythic piece, when you quote a comic book character the process is startlingly similar to quoting Jesus (Please, “bare” with me. I gnoe not what I do).
It’s similar in that I’ve heard pro-gay rights and anti-gay rights activists quote from the same chapter to meet the needs of their message. “The devil and cite scripture…” and all that jazz.
I happen to agree with the good Rev up there. But I’d like to bring to your attention a counterpoint in the comic world and a personal spiritual base…Grant (MUTHA TRUCKIN!!!!) Morrison.
I understand busy lives and busy businesses. If you want to delve into these ideas you can’t go wrong with this,
http://grantmorrisonmovie.com/
(At least watch the trailer!)
can we please be specific here, in that he is criticizing the FILM interpretation of a BOOK. batman has been a symbol of the shadow of our psyche for much longer than he’s been pimped out on screen. and neither batman nor spider-man had green gargoyles do a fucking thing to their parents. batman has an authentic origin story, and depending on which writer’s vision you like best of bruce wayne’s development, there are some rather deep and complex insights that get completely sublimated in each of the movies. i highly suggest people read some of the actual stories to get a clue instead of judging one cover version as all he is about. go to the source and think for yourself.