The Strangely Conservative Politics of ‘The Batman’
Warner Bros
Director Matt Reeves’s gritty The Batman involves a newish Bruce Wayne AKA Batman (played by Robert Pattinson) battling against the criminal elements of Gotham City while simultaneously trying to stop a serial killer named the Riddler (Paul Dano). This Batman is a darker, arguably mentally unwell person, saying lines like “I am vengeance” to random street thugs and criminals. The trauma of his parent's death is still fresh in his mind, and he has not had the years of training to smooth over the rage bubbling below his black, military-grade spandex.
The character of the Riddler places the viewer into an interesting dilemma because this villain initially wants to stop the corruption and hypocrisy of the “system.” His victims are unscrupulous public figures like the Police Commissioner and the DA, who allegedly let crime fester in the city. “The truth” is the Riddler and his supporters' rallying call. While Batman is defending these systems, the Riddler is tackling them head-on.
It seems (again, initially) that this film wanted to critique past iterations of Batman to say something substantive about politics and criminal justice. We then get a third act that not only undercuts all the goodwill the film had been building towards, but pushes the viewer to support the very institutions that it initially criticizes.
From Frank Miller to Matt Reeves
Batman has had many iterations, but a very influential one comes from the comics of Frank Miller, notably his series Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. In it, a retired Batman jumps back into the fray to clean up the streets of Gotham. This comic has served as inspiration for every iteration of the Bat on the Silver Screen, from Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman to Zack Snyder’s Batman vs. Superman.
If Miller’s version could be defined in a single word, that word would be vengeance. Criminals are not only depicted as irredeemable — often taking advantage of more liberal services to evade accountability (see Two-Face) — but are dealt with brutally by the 55-year-old vigilante. Batman treats these criminals as undeserving of redemption, even at one point threatening to let one bleed out to death if they don't tell him the information he needs.
Miller was profoundly impacted by the crime wave in New York City in the 70s and 80s. He was allegedly mugged several times and even found himself with a gun in his face after unknowingly working for a coke dealer (see the story here). As he told CBR on the partial inspiration of the series: “I got mugged. I’d always wanted to visit Batman and see what I could bring to him. But living in Manhattan and getting mugged once or twice gave me a much better view of the character. It made me, at least for a little while, as angry as he was.”
Miller’s Batman is not only angry at these criminals but acutely focused on them as the source of the problem. “You don’t get it, boy,” Batman says in the series’ arguably most famous line. “This isn’t a mudhole. It’s an operating table, and I'm the surgeon.” Batman sees criminals as people that must be cut out of society to instill order and lawfulness in Gotham. It’s overwhelmingly a fascist philosophy that is not just prevalent on the pages of comics but with policing in general.
America is heavily focused on the concept of law and order, often prosecuting minor offenses instead of bothering to address the underlying causes of crime (e.g., hunger, systemic racism, wealth inequality, etc.). This is sometimes referred to as the “Broken Window Theory,” popularized by a 1982 essay written by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling arguing a link between incivility and crime. Wilson and Kelling use the metaphor of a broken window to symbolize community unrest. Miller’s Batman may be fictional, but many men and women in positions of authority continue to think like this, preferring to hand out tanks to police officers than to give would-be criminals the resources needed to eat.
Matt Reeves’s The Batman initially critiques this outlook. This Batman isn’t some unshakable figure who enacts justice with cool lines like “I'm the surgeon,” but instead is a man out-of-his-depth. He glides out of buildings only to crash his head into the pavement below. Batman prioritizes beating up random twenty-somethings rather than focusing on the city's more serious problems. He is reclusive, unwell, and ultimately out-of-touch.
When for example, Batman describes a person who was killed by the mob as “making her own choices,” the character Selena Kyle AKA Catwoman (played by Zoë Kravitz), rightfully calls him out on his bullshit. “You know, whoever the hell you are, you obviously grew up rich,” she chastises, and she's right. We are repeatedly told that Batman’s conception of justice or “vengeance” is naive and wrong. Although Director Reeves would never admit it directly, this is a direct repudiation of Miller's conception of the Dark Knight (and is honestly refreshing). As Matt Reeves says of the films in a recent interview:
“[I wanted you to] feel the suspense in a way where you’re on the edge of your seat because you get emotionally connected to the jeopardy of what’s happening and you question even the morality of what’s happening. This idea of the movement of our character in this story from vengeance to realizing that maybe that message that he’s projecting into the world might not be what he’s hoping it’s achieving, and that that would shake him to his core.”
Adding even more complexity, the Riddler is partially correct: the system of Gotham is incredibly corrupt on a systemic level. The alleged Renewal Fund established by Bruce Wayne’s late father, Thomas Wayne, to “help people” has become nothing more than a way for officials to funnel funds for their off-book endeavors. The leadership of the police is mainly in the pocket of Carmine Falcone — a criminal mastermind who is using the Renewal Fund to buy people off. Even Bruce Wayne’s billionaire philanthropist father, a man who is considered a tragic martyr figure following his death, is revealed to have secretly ordered a hit on somebody (more on this later).
The film's first two acts do a great job setting up the moral ambiguity Reeves wants us as the viewer to reflect on. It’s subverting a lot of well-worn expectations in a positive way, and then Act 3 hits, and all that work comes crashing down.
Batman, the Police Officer
The problem with The Batman is that the film doesn't want to truly commit to this systemic critique of Gotham's institutions. For example, Wayne’s father is not scrutinized for being an exploitative capitalist but ultimately for having a moment of weakness. As Alfred Pennyworth (Andy Serkis) confides to Bruce Wayne after the latter learns his father had ordered someone's death:
“[Thomas] was a good man…He made a mistake…It wasn’t to protect the family image and he didn't have anyone killed. He was protecting your mother. He didn't care about his image or the campaign, any of that. He cared about her, and you, and in a moment of weakness, he turned to Falcone. But he never thought Falcone would kill that man. Your father should have known that Falcone would do anything to finally have something on him that he could use. That’s who Falcone is. And that was your father’s mistake. But when Falcone told him what he had done, your father was distraught. He told Falcone he was going to the police. That he would confess everything. And that night, your father and your mother were killed.”
See, it was those cowardly criminals after all.
A more brave movie would have left the audience with the tension that Bruce Wayne’s wealth is built on the exploitation of others, but we can’t have that ambiguity, can we, Reeves? In the end, Bruce’s father may have done something bad, but in one of those movie ways where he’s not as bad as you first thought.
Even the corrupt institutions destroying the city have a champion — a Black mayoral candidate named Bella Reál (Jayme Lawson) who, harkening to Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, runs under the vague promise of “hope.” She’s a very likable character who refuses to evacuate as her city is attacked. We don’t know what reforms she wants to push for or how she will achieve that change, but the movie wants us to believe that a real transformation is possible through her. This is a nice thought, but it rings very hollow without criticizing specific systems like our police state or predatory capitalism.
How are you going to do that, Reál? By being likable?
It’s not like you hear Reál asking to break up the corrupt police department. She’s standing with them at the end of the film as she monologues about restoring faith in our institutions. We are supposed to believe this department is better now that the newly minuted Commissioner James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright), someone Batman explicitly calls a “good cop,” is in the lead. We are meant to believe this even though no policy changes to the department have happened other than swapping out a corrupt white commissioner for a nice-seeming person of color — a good cop seems to be the solution here. The movie does seem to be playing with the aesthetic of progress without indicating what that means.
This promise of change is further complicated by a shift the antagonist has in Act 3. We learn that the Riddler doesn’t want just to remove problematic people from power, which has had a positive impact on the city of Gotham (including the election of Bella Reál after he killed her chief competitor), but to wipe it all away. He plants bombs across the city to blow up the damn protecting Gotham from the ocean so that it starts to flood. The Riddler then works with a group of radicals to gun down the survivors waiting out the flood in an indoor arena. In the film, this event happened right before November 6th, making it a transparent reference to the January 6th riots when conservative extremists occupied the US Capital Building.
Do we see the problem here?
Where earlier in the film we had a populist figure working against deeply corrupt and ingrained leaders for the public's benefit, now he’s being linked to radical conservatives (people who historically have no interest in stopping corrupt DA officials who hurt people of color). The movie then shifts the symbol of Gotham’s leadership from conservative white guys to progressive-seeming Black people while doing little else. We have marginalized community members now representing a discriminatory government without changing all the corrupt systems ruining Gotham.
This bait-and-switch happens while simultaneously demonizing the one force advocating for systemic change in the film. After all, without the Riddler taking out the corrupt officials throughout the movie, neither Mayor Reál nor Commissioner Gordon would have advanced to their current roles. It’s not like Batman was going to do it. He was too busy beating up twenty-somethings in masks. We are asked to believe in Reál when in the end, she’s still standing proudly in front of a historically corrupt police force, many officers undoubtedly still on the payroll of Falcone’s successor Penguin (Colin Farrell).
Not even the “Broken Window Theory” style of policing that Batman represents has changed. While he does distribute aid and monologue about the need to be a symbol of hope, he ends the movie ruminating about how he will have to stop the criminals and “looters” that will emerge from the chaos of the flood. He says: “…martial law is in effect, but the criminal element never sleeps. Looting and lawlessness will be rampant in the parts of the city no one can get to.”
To be clear, when supply chains break down, property rights shouldn’t matter as much as getting people the resources they need to survive. Looting is not a thing when society has broken down and everything is underwater, but that’s what the movie chooses to end on. Batman may want to be a “symbol of hope,” but his worldview is still heavily constrained by the Broken Window Theory of policing.
This focus on individual crime, rather than on the welfare of people, is a mindset that has been detrimental to disaster relief in the real world. The fear of looters infamously led to the militarization of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, which prevented survivors from getting the necessary supplies they needed to survive. As a consequence, people died (see my piece I’m So Sick of Stories Blaming Humanity for The End of the World). Batman fretting about property rights when they don’t matter during disasters speaks to a level of conservatism that is frankly disturbing.
Conclusion
Recently the YouTuber Kay and Skittles, in their video The Batman: Critiquing Power Fantasy, described this film as a “liberal power fantasy” — one where just getting the right people to lead the system will result in change. Kay argues:
“[The Batman] invites you to not be a monster at all. To opt-out of the struggle …and just trust in the system that's currently in place to sort it all out. To dress up inaction as pragmatism and to buy into pretty words from political actors who, at best will be ineffective, and, at worst, will actively work against you.”
Despite the aesthetic of change, this narrative is conservative in that it doesn't want anything to change. Although Batman intends to abandon his gritty Punisher-style aesthetic at the end of the film, he’s still clinging to a worldview of stopping criminals and looters. One that ultimately values preserving property rights over people's lives — and that’s not changing the system. It's merely the same status quo with a nicer finish.
Matt Reeves came in wanting to tell a story that departed from the conventions of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, but he ended up making a narrative that changed the aesthetic of the Batman while keeping everything else in place. He may want Batman to be a symbol of hope, but he continues to be a guardian of the status quo.