I think one issue of confusion is what one means by “detective story”. That genre generally has two different off-shoots. There’s the Sherlock Holmes/Hercule Poirot-style stories, where the genius detective uncovers the mystery and is the main force in solving the crime. But there’s also the film noir-style stories, where the protagonist doesn’t necessarily solve anything until it is already too late (having been drawn along through the entire plot by a femme fatale and/or other sinister figures). The Batman is pretty clearly meant to be the later type of detective story.
I really enjoyed The Batman because I appreciate how they made the darkest, grittiest, most "I am vengeance" Batman movie to date; and then proceeded to make its entire theme about how stupid it is to be a dark, gritty, "I am vengeance" Batman. How the thing that would actually happen if someone got famous for putting on a mask and beating up bad guys is that a bunch of other, (more) unhinged people would put on masks and do even worse.
RE the film noir detective story, where the detective is ineffective and is simply dragged along through the plot. Something to consider here is that plot elements and genre generally should dovetail with the themes of the work. The theme of an ineffectual, noir-style detective story is often something along the lines of “the system is hopelessly broken, the world is immoral and chaotic, and I can’t fix it” (e.g. “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown”). So, the literal plot elements of the detective being ineffective match the theme that trying to set the world right is futile.
Now, let’s consider The Batman. There are indeed threads that 1) Gotham’s institutions are corrupt and 2) Batman has so far not been effective at helping the city. However, the way things are tied up at the end tells us that 1) Actually, there is hope for the city and its institutions and 2) Batman has been ineffective because he’s been focused on vengeance instead of hope. So, the setup matches a film-noir style detective story, but I don’t think the conclusion does. Batman was ineffective previously for basically spiritual reasons, not because the corrupt institutions were too powerful or because he was a crummy detective. One could argue that the movie is intentionally subverting noir conventions here, but I’m not convinced of that. I’m not sure how Batman being a crappy detective adds to the theme here - actually, the spiritual aspect would land even harder if the move showed us that even the *best* detective work is inadequate if it neglects to give the city hope.
Well, you make some really good points, but I wouldn't call him a "crappy" detective for failing to solve the case. He is depicted as being very quick to crack most of the riddles themselves, even if he fails in the end. I was just pointing out that this "Clue A + Clue B = aha! Solution C, It's elementary, my dear Watson"-style is not the norm for a large amount of 20th century detective fiction. And I guess that you could say that he succeeds, in the sense that the Riddler is trapped in Arkham, but the city is flooded. (In the overwhelming majority of noir, both film and fiction, the bad guys are busted or thwarted in the end. So in that sense, it's also not a deviation from those themes or style.)
I was a big fan of the movie but would need to give it a closer viewing if I really wanted to give the points you make a more thoughtful answer.
Whoa! I wrote a response without reading your comment and now it sounds like I've plagiarized you, right down to the Sherlock Holmes / Hercule Poirot reference! 😮
Isn't that just trying to reinvent The Watchmen for the millionth time? I like Matthew's take more since it feels more like the Batman identity that actually makes me interested in its universe.
How familiar are you with 1930s-era hard-boiled detective fiction? A lot (though not all!) of those novels feature the detective as a tough-guy stand-in for the reader who descends into a morass of crime and corruption as the story unfolds around him. Even when the detective plays a more active role (as in Hammett's work), he is not aggressively piecing the clues together al a Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot. Also, I think Batman's failure to solve the puzzle is the point. This is a movie about Batman's flaws -- the Riddler addresses that very issue when he discusses how disappointed he is, when he talks how he overestimated Batman's abilities and how Batman has failed him as a hero. At the same time, Batman must confront the fact that an obvious villain mistakenly believes that they are on the same side, and what that implies about his own motives and methods.
Also, spoilers suck! But I'll save that argument for another comment.
I briefly misread "Even when the detective plays a more active role (as in Hammett's work)" as "Even when the detective plays a more active role (as in Hamlet)" and thought there was some version of the play where there's a detective hard at work tracking down clues to who killed the King...
I am no expert on this, but it seems to me that one key reason that war worked as a focusing mechanism in Ukraine but not Afghanistan could be the sense of nationalism. I’m curious if anti-corruption was part of the nationalist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries.
I'm not sure anti-corruption was explicitly part of such movements, but I can easily imagine it at least playing a large implicit role in that many nationalist movements of that period emphasized removing or diminishing local elites, which in a lot of political systems would also have the natural effect of reducing people's day-to-day experience of corruption in the short term at least.
Neither here nor there but a phenomenon that has always made me think that there is a bit of justice and fairness built into the world is that often when inhumanly beautiful celebrities have kids, there is some genetic reversion to the mean and those kids end up being reassuringly normal looking: think Lourdes Ciccone or either of David Bowie’s kids.
So with that as the framework it’s a little aggravating that Zoe Kravitz appears to be exactly if not a smidge _more_ good looking than you would expect the child of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet (my god) to be, and a ferociously talented actress on top of it.
As a note, one of the things that made Islamism so attractive to regular people was basically the idea that secular governments are extremely corrupt, and the Islamists not only 1) believe very deeply that God is watching everything they do so they might be less likely to do corruption but also 2) are very willing to just casually execute someone for violating public morality.
No idea whether or not Islamist governments really are/were less corrupt (in the personal self-serving way) than the secular governments in the same countries, but the political effects of corruption tend toward whichever group seems the most sincerely moralistic and the most willing to enforce that morality.
Personally, I think the United States, and the Democratic party in particular, would benefit from a religious crusader figure. Make him an Episcopalian so he doesn't hate gay people and such. #1 policy proposal: massive IRS and DOJ programs designed to root out and severely punish white collar crime and public corruption.
I think it was just the professionally annoyed Twitter discourse class, but it doesn't help him get good press, which is important when you are a relative unknown in national politics.
I don't think it bothered either of them; I think it bothered me, specifically, a gay atheist, commenting on this Substack, and possibly only me. I certainly don't think he was "doing gay wrong" but his religiosity made his candidacy less appealing to me (again, just me, as far as I know).
I always understood the basic pillars of the "doing gay wrong" argument to be him being a) masc and b) monogamous as far as anyone knows.
I think it's a little ungenerous to say that the left hated Pete for being "a success". I don't think the left hates people who go to Ivies (Nathan Robison is a Yale JD and was a PHD candidate at Harvard) or become mayors. I think they do believe that specifically corporate consulting is inherently corrupting, like working for Mckinsey poisons your brain or makes you evil.
If consulting is a waste of money, why is someone who makes bank doing it considered a success? It seems a weird definition to me. I disagree with "The Squad's" policy ideas, mostly, but I actually respect that (Tlaib excepted) they all had normal, real jobs. Cori Bush was a nurse, Jamaal Bowman was a middle school principal, and, little known fact*, AOC used to be a bartender! For non-progressives, Jon Tester taught high school music, and Val Demmings was a cop for 24 years. I'd like more politicians with normal resumes, fewer credential-hunters who've been shooting for the White House since prep school. I want people who's pre-election income was $50K per year, not per month. I wish we'd stop putting so much trust in the "best and brightest," regardless of their ideological bent.
Would love a post on spoiler culture! I often spoil things for myself because I have poor impulse control but then enjoy finishing the book/show/movie anyway. We only tell ourselves so many stories, it's really the artistic details that matter.
I can't even be fussed if someone spoils a mystery, where the reveal is the whole point. There are so many other ones I can read to get the same aha! moment.
I spoil these things for myself so I can enjoy the details without being distracted by obsessing about the plot. I'm not much of a movie fan since I don't enjoy most of the currently popular genres, but I like a good mystery novel and pretty much always spoil the ending as soon as I really get into the story.
I haven't seen the movie yet but the part about the hand wavy solution of just removing one person solves the corruption problem highlights one of my biggest problems with a lot of people's political analysis. There are so many "it's the system, man" people who when asked for a solution say just replace the leader whether it's the president, mayor, DA or whatever.
To Matt’s point about the detective work, Batman is good at cyphers and decides that the villain is giving him important clues, so he follows the Riddler’s lead instead of trying to find the Riddler. It’s definitely an odd choice.
The Batman is a boring movie.
The Batman is a pointlessly long movie.
The acting and cinematography are excellent.
It’s difficult to tell where people are located during certain fight scenes, not because it’s dark, but because they can apparently and inexplicably teleport.
I’m disappointed that it’s a huge hit, because now we’ll probably get more movies that are slow and dull.
This is actually one thing where "The Dark Knight" trilogy did a good job showing how hard true reform is, and also does a good job showing how each villain either has a point, or at least an understandable motivation:
-Batman Begins: Bruce Wayne comes into his own and saves the corrupt city from destruction, rejecting the "burn it all down and start over" idea pushed by his enemies.
-The Dark Knight: Bruce & the police start actually attempting to root out corruption but...they get pushback from the people themselves. Gordon attempts to use corrupt cops to push his agenda and, despite being relatively pure himself, winds up falling victim to his cops betraying him. Batman eventually defeats the madman hired by the corrupt crooks and politicians who attempt to keep the system in their thrall, but it comes at a cost. At the end of the day, the best Batman can do to reform the system is to create a hagiography.
-The Dark Knight Rises: in the final film the hagiography's issues come back to bite Bruce and Gotham. The sins are revealed, and the systems problems are laid bare. Now, here is likely the weakest part of the series in terms of reform, Nolan never made it clear how the city reformed itself after Batman dies. But...I choose to believe that Batman became an actual symbol which inspired the city, not the fake one which he was in the second film.
Just my 2 cents. I have not seen "The Batman" yet.
I appreciate the spoiler alert (I didn't read beyond that) but I deeply resent the anti-anti spoiler footnote. As a left leaning, big government, class firster, I often disagree with MY but I respect and admire his perspective. However, being effectively pro-spoiler is an indefensible and frankly disgusting position. FOR SHAME!
I definitely thought Matty was advocating for more Phoenix Jones-like vigilantes when I saw this in my inbox. Maybe Matt himself is dressing up as a costumed superhero, to fight NIMBY crimes on the streets of DC!
Lady Shiva. (What Matt doesn't know is that she's framed him for the murder of another martial arts master whose disciples are even now relentlessly hunting him down and will push him to the breaking point by forcing him to confront his most deeply held moral beliefs when they tell him they will leave him alone if he just agrees to advocate for federal legislation mandating a minimum of 2.25 parking spaces for each unit of new residential construction.)
"What about that tattoo on your chest? Doesn't it say, 'Die Batman, Die'?"
"No, that's German for, 'The Batman, The.'"
Take this heart and get the hell out of here for making me giggle at 6:40 AM.
I think one issue of confusion is what one means by “detective story”. That genre generally has two different off-shoots. There’s the Sherlock Holmes/Hercule Poirot-style stories, where the genius detective uncovers the mystery and is the main force in solving the crime. But there’s also the film noir-style stories, where the protagonist doesn’t necessarily solve anything until it is already too late (having been drawn along through the entire plot by a femme fatale and/or other sinister figures). The Batman is pretty clearly meant to be the later type of detective story.
I really enjoyed The Batman because I appreciate how they made the darkest, grittiest, most "I am vengeance" Batman movie to date; and then proceeded to make its entire theme about how stupid it is to be a dark, gritty, "I am vengeance" Batman. How the thing that would actually happen if someone got famous for putting on a mask and beating up bad guys is that a bunch of other, (more) unhinged people would put on masks and do even worse.
RE the film noir detective story, where the detective is ineffective and is simply dragged along through the plot. Something to consider here is that plot elements and genre generally should dovetail with the themes of the work. The theme of an ineffectual, noir-style detective story is often something along the lines of “the system is hopelessly broken, the world is immoral and chaotic, and I can’t fix it” (e.g. “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown”). So, the literal plot elements of the detective being ineffective match the theme that trying to set the world right is futile.
Now, let’s consider The Batman. There are indeed threads that 1) Gotham’s institutions are corrupt and 2) Batman has so far not been effective at helping the city. However, the way things are tied up at the end tells us that 1) Actually, there is hope for the city and its institutions and 2) Batman has been ineffective because he’s been focused on vengeance instead of hope. So, the setup matches a film-noir style detective story, but I don’t think the conclusion does. Batman was ineffective previously for basically spiritual reasons, not because the corrupt institutions were too powerful or because he was a crummy detective. One could argue that the movie is intentionally subverting noir conventions here, but I’m not convinced of that. I’m not sure how Batman being a crappy detective adds to the theme here - actually, the spiritual aspect would land even harder if the move showed us that even the *best* detective work is inadequate if it neglects to give the city hope.
Well, you make some really good points, but I wouldn't call him a "crappy" detective for failing to solve the case. He is depicted as being very quick to crack most of the riddles themselves, even if he fails in the end. I was just pointing out that this "Clue A + Clue B = aha! Solution C, It's elementary, my dear Watson"-style is not the norm for a large amount of 20th century detective fiction. And I guess that you could say that he succeeds, in the sense that the Riddler is trapped in Arkham, but the city is flooded. (In the overwhelming majority of noir, both film and fiction, the bad guys are busted or thwarted in the end. So in that sense, it's also not a deviation from those themes or style.)
I was a big fan of the movie but would need to give it a closer viewing if I really wanted to give the points you make a more thoughtful answer.
Whoa! I wrote a response without reading your comment and now it sounds like I've plagiarized you, right down to the Sherlock Holmes / Hercule Poirot reference! 😮
Great minds think alike. Great commenters comment alike. ;)
Isn't that just trying to reinvent The Watchmen for the millionth time? I like Matthew's take more since it feels more like the Batman identity that actually makes me interested in its universe.
How familiar are you with 1930s-era hard-boiled detective fiction? A lot (though not all!) of those novels feature the detective as a tough-guy stand-in for the reader who descends into a morass of crime and corruption as the story unfolds around him. Even when the detective plays a more active role (as in Hammett's work), he is not aggressively piecing the clues together al a Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot. Also, I think Batman's failure to solve the puzzle is the point. This is a movie about Batman's flaws -- the Riddler addresses that very issue when he discusses how disappointed he is, when he talks how he overestimated Batman's abilities and how Batman has failed him as a hero. At the same time, Batman must confront the fact that an obvious villain mistakenly believes that they are on the same side, and what that implies about his own motives and methods.
Also, spoilers suck! But I'll save that argument for another comment.
I briefly misread "Even when the detective plays a more active role (as in Hammett's work)" as "Even when the detective plays a more active role (as in Hamlet)" and thought there was some version of the play where there's a detective hard at work tracking down clues to who killed the King...
Now that you mention it, a film noir reimagining of Hamlet could be pretty good....
Agreed. And if you're Philip Marlowe, your main contribution to detective work is constantly being knocked unconscious.
Anti-spoiler culture is a drag until you don’t have it, then you’ll regret not having it. Fund the spoiler police.
I am no expert on this, but it seems to me that one key reason that war worked as a focusing mechanism in Ukraine but not Afghanistan could be the sense of nationalism. I’m curious if anti-corruption was part of the nationalist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries.
I'm not sure anti-corruption was explicitly part of such movements, but I can easily imagine it at least playing a large implicit role in that many nationalist movements of that period emphasized removing or diminishing local elites, which in a lot of political systems would also have the natural effect of reducing people's day-to-day experience of corruption in the short term at least.
Definitely this - Afghanistan’s divided polity ensures that any strong central government would be corrupt.
Wait, Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same guy? Damn spoilers!
Neither here nor there but a phenomenon that has always made me think that there is a bit of justice and fairness built into the world is that often when inhumanly beautiful celebrities have kids, there is some genetic reversion to the mean and those kids end up being reassuringly normal looking: think Lourdes Ciccone or either of David Bowie’s kids.
So with that as the framework it’s a little aggravating that Zoe Kravitz appears to be exactly if not a smidge _more_ good looking than you would expect the child of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet (my god) to be, and a ferociously talented actress on top of it.
"Lisa Bonet (my god)"
Don't be selfish, she's my god as well.
As a note, one of the things that made Islamism so attractive to regular people was basically the idea that secular governments are extremely corrupt, and the Islamists not only 1) believe very deeply that God is watching everything they do so they might be less likely to do corruption but also 2) are very willing to just casually execute someone for violating public morality.
No idea whether or not Islamist governments really are/were less corrupt (in the personal self-serving way) than the secular governments in the same countries, but the political effects of corruption tend toward whichever group seems the most sincerely moralistic and the most willing to enforce that morality.
Personally, I think the United States, and the Democratic party in particular, would benefit from a religious crusader figure. Make him an Episcopalian so he doesn't hate gay people and such. #1 policy proposal: massive IRS and DOJ programs designed to root out and severely punish white collar crime and public corruption.
Isnt that Mayor Pete? Amongst other things that annoyed people who thought he was doing gay wrong is that he was pretty comfortable with God talk.
Was this something that bothered actual normal voters, or just the professionally annoyed Twitter discourse class?
I think it was just the professionally annoyed Twitter discourse class, but it doesn't help him get good press, which is important when you are a relative unknown in national politics.
I don't think it bothered either of them; I think it bothered me, specifically, a gay atheist, commenting on this Substack, and possibly only me. I certainly don't think he was "doing gay wrong" but his religiosity made his candidacy less appealing to me (again, just me, as far as I know).
I always understood the basic pillars of the "doing gay wrong" argument to be him being a) masc and b) monogamous as far as anyone knows.
I think it's a little ungenerous to say that the left hated Pete for being "a success". I don't think the left hates people who go to Ivies (Nathan Robison is a Yale JD and was a PHD candidate at Harvard) or become mayors. I think they do believe that specifically corporate consulting is inherently corrupting, like working for Mckinsey poisons your brain or makes you evil.
If consulting is a waste of money, why is someone who makes bank doing it considered a success? It seems a weird definition to me. I disagree with "The Squad's" policy ideas, mostly, but I actually respect that (Tlaib excepted) they all had normal, real jobs. Cori Bush was a nurse, Jamaal Bowman was a middle school principal, and, little known fact*, AOC used to be a bartender! For non-progressives, Jon Tester taught high school music, and Val Demmings was a cop for 24 years. I'd like more politicians with normal resumes, fewer credential-hunters who've been shooting for the White House since prep school. I want people who's pre-election income was $50K per year, not per month. I wish we'd stop putting so much trust in the "best and brightest," regardless of their ideological bent.
*Sarcasm, obviously.
Isn’t this why supposedly a lot of FBI officers are Mormons? The other reason being they’re so clean they get security clearances either.
Would love a post on spoiler culture! I often spoil things for myself because I have poor impulse control but then enjoy finishing the book/show/movie anyway. We only tell ourselves so many stories, it's really the artistic details that matter.
I can't even be fussed if someone spoils a mystery, where the reveal is the whole point. There are so many other ones I can read to get the same aha! moment.
+1 on spoiler culture post!
I spoil these things for myself so I can enjoy the details without being distracted by obsessing about the plot. I'm not much of a movie fan since I don't enjoy most of the currently popular genres, but I like a good mystery novel and pretty much always spoil the ending as soon as I really get into the story.
I haven't seen the movie yet but the part about the hand wavy solution of just removing one person solves the corruption problem highlights one of my biggest problems with a lot of people's political analysis. There are so many "it's the system, man" people who when asked for a solution say just replace the leader whether it's the president, mayor, DA or whatever.
The stock foto used to the article is from right around the corner from me (Madrid, Spain) which I find quite funny
To Matt’s point about the detective work, Batman is good at cyphers and decides that the villain is giving him important clues, so he follows the Riddler’s lead instead of trying to find the Riddler. It’s definitely an odd choice.
The Batman is a boring movie.
The Batman is a pointlessly long movie.
The acting and cinematography are excellent.
It’s difficult to tell where people are located during certain fight scenes, not because it’s dark, but because they can apparently and inexplicably teleport.
I’m disappointed that it’s a huge hit, because now we’ll probably get more movies that are slow and dull.
I liked the movie a lot, my only real problem was with the Penguin car chase scene where the editing made things a bit confusing.
With respect to spoiler culture, I’m a libertarian in that regard - avoiding spoilers is an individual, not a collective responsibility.
This is actually one thing where "The Dark Knight" trilogy did a good job showing how hard true reform is, and also does a good job showing how each villain either has a point, or at least an understandable motivation:
-Batman Begins: Bruce Wayne comes into his own and saves the corrupt city from destruction, rejecting the "burn it all down and start over" idea pushed by his enemies.
-The Dark Knight: Bruce & the police start actually attempting to root out corruption but...they get pushback from the people themselves. Gordon attempts to use corrupt cops to push his agenda and, despite being relatively pure himself, winds up falling victim to his cops betraying him. Batman eventually defeats the madman hired by the corrupt crooks and politicians who attempt to keep the system in their thrall, but it comes at a cost. At the end of the day, the best Batman can do to reform the system is to create a hagiography.
-The Dark Knight Rises: in the final film the hagiography's issues come back to bite Bruce and Gotham. The sins are revealed, and the systems problems are laid bare. Now, here is likely the weakest part of the series in terms of reform, Nolan never made it clear how the city reformed itself after Batman dies. But...I choose to believe that Batman became an actual symbol which inspired the city, not the fake one which he was in the second film.
Just my 2 cents. I have not seen "The Batman" yet.
I appreciate the spoiler alert (I didn't read beyond that) but I deeply resent the anti-anti spoiler footnote. As a left leaning, big government, class firster, I often disagree with MY but I respect and admire his perspective. However, being effectively pro-spoiler is an indefensible and frankly disgusting position. FOR SHAME!
I definitely thought Matty was advocating for more Phoenix Jones-like vigilantes when I saw this in my inbox. Maybe Matt himself is dressing up as a costumed superhero, to fight NIMBY crimes on the streets of DC!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Jones
That *would* explain why part of Matt's strategy for getting into shape involves working out with a legendary martial arts master....
Wait, who is he working out with?
Lady Shiva. (What Matt doesn't know is that she's framed him for the murder of another martial arts master whose disciples are even now relentlessly hunting him down and will push him to the breaking point by forcing him to confront his most deeply held moral beliefs when they tell him they will leave him alone if he just agrees to advocate for federal legislation mandating a minimum of 2.25 parking spaces for each unit of new residential construction.)
My god....they *are* evil.