The Batman is the David Brooks of Batman Movies

Flirting with Wokism is Sexy, but Real Men Invest in Institutions the Movie Says

Today's video is my take on The Batman movie.

I don't do a lot of movie reviews because I haven't watched many movies since COVID, especially in theaters. I went to this one mostly because some younger family members wanted to see it together so I went.

I think I've seen all the major Hollywood Batman movies over the years and very much enjoyed the Dark Knight series. All I knew of this one was what I learned from @TheCriticalDri2 's review.

In some movies Batman is sort of a dark, brooding inspector gadget. In recent combo movies like the Justice League series he's been bringing firepower to try to match Superman. In this movie he's not trying to save the world but just the city again.

Batman has always been more psychological than many superheroes. @benshapiro briefly lays out why Batman is more psychological than most superheroes. Why does a billionaire put on a costume and beat up criminals?

The most common answer is that Bruce Wayne's parents were killed and this left in Bruce a deep wound that motivates him. Each Batman iteration tries to get at exactly how that wound can be healed. It usually begins with vengeance but almost always vengeance proves too shallow.

This movie too begins with "I am vengeance". This is not the blue sky techno wizard like Christopher Nolan's Batman but more of a wealthy angry hobbyist who for two years has been beating up street thugs.

After two years he has now realized that this isn't enough. Batman begins as revenge fantasy and evolves into more religious territory. How can my life/the city/the world be saved?

At the sunset of modernity one of our large questions is the primacy of focus between the first personal and the third personal. That tension always emerges in Batman. Do you "save the city/world" by saving individuals from street crime?

Do you try to save the city through more spiritual means such as fear or inspiration? Do you try to redeem systems? Are you just trying to save yourself from the pain of losing your parents? Batman stories inevitably play on these questions.

Wokism is of course the new feared religion of Hollywood. Western institutions, art and expression are irredeemably corrupted by patriarchy, white supremacy and hetero-normativity which must be addressed.

Many feared that this Batman's cape would have a rainbow lining but that didn't prove to be the case. Even @benshapiro didn't see this as the locus of the film.

I think @benshapiro misses what this film is about. The wokeness is not incidental, it is critical to what this film wants to do which is to continue the woke conversation about how to save the world.

A lot of wokism gets anti-institutional. Burn it all down to allow a new Rousseauian natural goodness to blossom.

This salvation narrative recognizes that institutions will be needed to save the city. The Riddler IS the counterpart of the Batman, smarter even, but you can't save the world by punching Nazis.

Wokism is a branch-line of the main religion of the blue church and it is increasingly being met with skepticism by the blue church stakeholders. Police defunding got memory-holed by the rapid moral updating of the new ascendant regime @Freakoutery

Maybe Bruce Wayne is going to have to give a bit more to charity as admonished by young, charismatic, black Mayor Bella Real. WASPy Bruce Wayne stays with the city. He's a part of it.

The departure of young, hot POC Catwoman is the divorce of WASPy Bruce Wayne religion from that of the woke. She makes the woke profession of faith in the movie but in the end emo-Bruce will trudge along in his white man's burden.

While @benshapiro goes a bit deeper into the film than the other YouTube reviews I saw he completely misses the blue church cultural cognition of this film. This film is @nytdavidbrooks Batman. Opinion | The Strange Failure of the Educated Elite - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

It's also a Batman with very little hope. Establishment Protestant WASP post-millennial eschatology is gone. Batman must fight his lonely battle. Maybe a black woman mayor will help. Maybe a black police commissioner, but Gotham will be Gotham.

Stealing woke kisses is exciting but why would Bruce Wayne rob from hedge fund managers when he's already a billionaire? There must be institutions and virtuous responsible adults must run the institutions we rely upon.

That's the message of the movie and probably a window into the Zeitgeist especially now in the Ukrainain war World.