I think people are questioning the ethics of Batman more these days given how discussions around poverty and crime has changed. Given how crime is more often than not a result of poverty and a lack of social safety net than greed or lack of morals, the ethics of Batman bypassing the justice system1 and beating the shit out of henchman comes into question.
My exposure to this line of thinking was FD Signifier’s video on edge lords, but I haven’t seen other people talk about it until now.
1. the justice system also fails these people but we’ll ignore that for the sake of argument
In early depictions of Batman, there were times in which he freely killed criminals and times where he was an officially deputized state agent. In contrast, most depictions since at least the late 80s and 90s were much more progressive, with Bruce Wayne being the biggest philanthropist in Gotham, helping to provide low cost housing and healthcare, as well as funding criminal rehabilitation and direct job placement for ex-cons with Wayne Industries. Writers were aware of the other aspects of justice that Batman needed to embody long before it was trendy on the internet to edgily portray Batman as a billionaire who enjoys beating people up for fun.
Plenty of people will say that. This is a really good dismantling of the whole concept by thoughtslime, where he basically points out how contradictory and malleable the entire character is, and he can be written as an authoritarian but usually isnt, plus some other stuff I don’t remember: https://youtu.be/73M2sq9zK-I?si=GoJ4paPDgqBskdos
Also it’s unlisted because it’s in the raft of videos thoughtslime has decided are outdated, bad, or have problematic elements. Idk what it is about this video that got it on the list, but I feel it’s important to mention.
Do people genuinely think this about Bruce Wayne or just fucking around? I honestly can’t tell anymore.
Alan Moore’s brand of nihilist contrarianism has really done a number on the discussion.
Thank you for this
Damn, yall need to watch ‘under the red hood.’ Batman just hits different now.
I think people are questioning the ethics of Batman more these days given how discussions around poverty and crime has changed. Given how crime is more often than not a result of poverty and a lack of social safety net than greed or lack of morals, the ethics of Batman bypassing the justice system1 and beating the shit out of henchman comes into question.
My exposure to this line of thinking was FD Signifier’s video on edge lords, but I haven’t seen other people talk about it until now.
1. the justice system also fails these people but we’ll ignore that for the sake of argument
In early depictions of Batman, there were times in which he freely killed criminals and times where he was an officially deputized state agent. In contrast, most depictions since at least the late 80s and 90s were much more progressive, with Bruce Wayne being the biggest philanthropist in Gotham, helping to provide low cost housing and healthcare, as well as funding criminal rehabilitation and direct job placement for ex-cons with Wayne Industries. Writers were aware of the other aspects of justice that Batman needed to embody long before it was trendy on the internet to edgily portray Batman as a billionaire who enjoys beating people up for fun.
Plenty of people will say that. This is a really good dismantling of the whole concept by thoughtslime, where he basically points out how contradictory and malleable the entire character is, and he can be written as an authoritarian but usually isnt, plus some other stuff I don’t remember: https://youtu.be/73M2sq9zK-I?si=GoJ4paPDgqBskdos
Also it’s unlisted because it’s in the raft of videos thoughtslime has decided are outdated, bad, or have problematic elements. Idk what it is about this video that got it on the list, but I feel it’s important to mention.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/73M2sq9zK-I?si=GoJ4paPDgqBskdos
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.