Batman Unmasked: Analyzing a Cultural Icon

367 Pages·2001·17.26 MB·English

by  Will Brooker

Batman Unmasked
A L S O A V A I L A B L E :

Gray:

Song and Dance Man, 3rd Edition

Harper:

Women in British Cinema

Jones and Jolliffe:

The Guerilla Film Maker's Handbook, 2nd Edition

Macnab:

Searching for Stars

Ravner:

The Films of Peter Weir

Vincendeau:

Stars and Stardom in French Cinema
B A T M A N U N M A S K E D

Analyzing a Cultural Icon

Will Erooker

B L O O M S B U R Y

LONDON • NEW DELHI • NEW YORK • SYDNEY
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc

1385 Broadway
New York
NY 10018
USA 50 Bedford Square
London
WC1B3DP
UK

www.bloornsbury.com

Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Pic

First published in 2001 by the Continuum International Publishing Group Inc

© Will Brooker 2000

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publishers.

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or
refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication
can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN: HB: 978-0-8264-4949-8
PB: 978-0-8264-1343-7
EPDF: 978-1-6235-6752-1
EPUB: 978-1-6235-6019-5
Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: 1978

vii

1

1 1939-1945: Origins and Wartime

2 1954: Censorship and Queer Readings

3 1961-1969: Pop and Camp

4 1986-1997: Fandom and Authorship

Conclusion: 1999 308
Bibliography 3 34
Index 353

v.

33

101

171

249
This page intentionally left blank
Acknowledgements

Thanks to:
Denny O'Neil and Alan Asherman at DC Comics, who generously
shared their time, their archives and their memories.
Roberta Pearson for her support, her encouragement and her example.
Deborah Jermyn for buying me Roberta's The Many Lives of the Batman
second-hand in 1995.
John Hartley for his inspiring background presence and for always
finding the money.
David Barker at Continuum for his unflagging faith and enthusiasm.
Fiona Graham for the index.
Justine Davis, who loyally assisted with the New York research.
Liz Brooker, who proofread my first Batman story in 1978.
Pete Brooker, who brought home The Dark Knight Returns in 1985.
Joe Brooker, boy wonder.

Will Brooker
Cardiff — New York — London
May 1999

v ii
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bat
How I Wonder what You're at

(Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)

Gloria Hunniford: Do you regard yourself as a cultural
icon . . . Adam?
Adam West: . . . it ... doesn't matter.

(Adam West with Will Brooker and Gloria Hunniford,
Open House with Gloria Hunniford, Channel 5, 14 April
2000)
Introduction

1978

What are now called 'Departments of English' will be
renamed departments of 'Cultural Studies' where
Batman comics, Mormon theme parks, television,
movies and rock will replace Chaucer, Shakespeare,
Milton, Wordsworth and Wallace Stevens (Harold
Bloom, The Western Canon, London: Macmillan (1994),
p. 519)

1. Hunt the Dark Knight

I have kept a diary consistently since I was very young — since the age
of seven, but more of that below — and on 29 July 1992 I pasted in two
photographs, one from the Guardian and one from the Greenwich and
Woolwich Mercury. The first is a snatched image of a man and a woman
running, hand in hand. The woman clutches a bag and seems to be
panting; the man is grim, focused, wearing shades and a jacket. Beneath
his jacket, half-concealed, is a Batman t-shirt. The caption explains:
'On the run: a couple sprint across a Sarajevo intersection where
snipers often attack civilians.'
The second photograph is a posed portrait. A boy of about five
vears old sits on a hospital bed, slightly cross-eved and bewildered,
bravely giving a thumbs-up at the camera. To his left is a figure in a
Ninja Turtle outfit, bending over the bed: to his right is a teenage boy

1