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seriousficIt's funny that Batman is usually conceived of as, if not expressly celibate, then emotionally closed-off to love. There's Selina Kyle and Talia, but they're as much defined by the reasons they can't be with him as they are the reasons they "belong" with him. Other love interests, your Vicki Vales and Vesper Fairchilds, tend to fall to the wayside as canon marches on. In any case, there seems to be little interest in developing a relationship in the same way that, say, people would like Peter and Mary-Jane to get together. For plot purposes, Bruce Wayne is seemingly asexual.
It doesn't help that in the prevailing Nolanverse interpretation, his decidedly weak love interest is Katie Holmes, who seems to exist solely to berate Bruce for failing to live up to her arbitrary standards. Makes it a real shame that Halle Berry made Catwoman toxic for the foreseeable futures. *fingers crossed for Batman 3*
In the place of the usual romantic partnering, Batman has Robin. I'm not talking about slash, I'm talking about canon. As the famous phrase does, "Batman needs a Robin." Robin tends to occupy a netherspace between son and partner, like a much healthier H.W. to Daniel relationship in There Will Be Blood. Robin is described as the person who represents hope and light to Batman, as the one who understands him, as the one who highlights positive qualities and downplays negative ones. In short, he could occupy the same "space" as a traditional romantic interest.
Think of it like Nick Angel and Danny Butterman in Hot Fuzz.
So in placing this much importance on the sidekick, does any woman in Bruce's life get shortchanged. Will it never be "Batman & Catwoman" the way it is "Batman & Robin"?
And if you've gone this far without putting on your slash-goggles, thanks. Now... there are some who would read homophobia into someone who dislikes the character of Robin. By definition, Robin is an adolescent character. His age is given as anywhere from sixteen to eight years old. His defining characteristic, across all incarnations, is his youth. Without that, those shorts would lookeven more silly. Now in recent years (for a broad definition of recent), some of the Robins have matured. Dick Grayson went from Boy Wonder to Teen Wonder to Nightwing, construed as a young man in his early twenties. Jason Todd came back as a young adult too, making it really weird when 1. His guest appearance in Teen Titans had him putting back on his old costume, hot-pants included. and 2. when slashbunny Judd Winick wrote Batman and Red Hood so that their past relationship could be construed as a sexual one... ignoring the fact that their past relationship occurred when Jason Todd was unable to consent!
So, Batman/Robin is chan, unless you go into all sorts of convulsions to find either an above-age Robin or an underage Batman. And yet there's this meme which says if you don't like Robin, and by extension his possible relationship with Batman, you're a homophobe. To put it in fandom terms, people who don't like chan are being told they don't like slash.
The most commonly accepted meaning of slash would be a homosexual relationship, specifically male/male. Alternate definitions, such as *any* ship and any non-canon ship, tend to fall by the wayside for being too damned confusing. Now, male-male pedophilia is no more about homosexuality than male-female rape is about heterosexuality. But by referring to chan as slash, there's an automatic linguistic conflation between homosexuality and pedophilia.
It's the old saw of all homosexuals being pedophiles. We may laugh at this now, when we see old public service announcements about how you shouldn't get into cars with homosexuals, but if you think this isn't damaging, ask yourself why the Boy Scouts won't let gay men be troop leaders.
Given that I think fandom as a whole wants to be sensitive to these issues, wants to be (if not politically correct, then at least) politically savvy, I don't think it's too much to ask that we think about the words we use and the stereotypes we perpetrate... even when we do something as simple as label a fic. Someone who objected to a romantic relationship between Batman/Robin would not be a homophobe, he'd be someone who dislikes pedophilia. Big. Difference.
It doesn't help that in the prevailing Nolanverse interpretation, his decidedly weak love interest is Katie Holmes, who seems to exist solely to berate Bruce for failing to live up to her arbitrary standards. Makes it a real shame that Halle Berry made Catwoman toxic for the foreseeable futures. *fingers crossed for Batman 3*
In the place of the usual romantic partnering, Batman has Robin. I'm not talking about slash, I'm talking about canon. As the famous phrase does, "Batman needs a Robin." Robin tends to occupy a netherspace between son and partner, like a much healthier H.W. to Daniel relationship in There Will Be Blood. Robin is described as the person who represents hope and light to Batman, as the one who understands him, as the one who highlights positive qualities and downplays negative ones. In short, he could occupy the same "space" as a traditional romantic interest.
Think of it like Nick Angel and Danny Butterman in Hot Fuzz.
So in placing this much importance on the sidekick, does any woman in Bruce's life get shortchanged. Will it never be "Batman & Catwoman" the way it is "Batman & Robin"?
And if you've gone this far without putting on your slash-goggles, thanks. Now... there are some who would read homophobia into someone who dislikes the character of Robin. By definition, Robin is an adolescent character. His age is given as anywhere from sixteen to eight years old. His defining characteristic, across all incarnations, is his youth. Without that, those shorts would look
So, Batman/Robin is chan, unless you go into all sorts of convulsions to find either an above-age Robin or an underage Batman. And yet there's this meme which says if you don't like Robin, and by extension his possible relationship with Batman, you're a homophobe. To put it in fandom terms, people who don't like chan are being told they don't like slash.
The most commonly accepted meaning of slash would be a homosexual relationship, specifically male/male. Alternate definitions, such as *any* ship and any non-canon ship, tend to fall by the wayside for being too damned confusing. Now, male-male pedophilia is no more about homosexuality than male-female rape is about heterosexuality. But by referring to chan as slash, there's an automatic linguistic conflation between homosexuality and pedophilia.
It's the old saw of all homosexuals being pedophiles. We may laugh at this now, when we see old public service announcements about how you shouldn't get into cars with homosexuals, but if you think this isn't damaging, ask yourself why the Boy Scouts won't let gay men be troop leaders.
Given that I think fandom as a whole wants to be sensitive to these issues, wants to be (if not politically correct, then at least) politically savvy, I don't think it's too much to ask that we think about the words we use and the stereotypes we perpetrate... even when we do something as simple as label a fic. Someone who objected to a romantic relationship between Batman/Robin would not be a homophobe, he'd be someone who dislikes pedophilia. Big. Difference.
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 11:20 am (UTC)I've mostly given up trying to understand comic book aging.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 12:15 pm (UTC)I'm waiting for someone to bring up college concerning Tim. I don't think he's the kind to go as reluctantly as Dick did, and I don't seem him wanting to drop out. Yet, that would significantly interfere with his Robin duties.
At the rate they're compacting Tim's age, it'll soon seem that he only spent a few months with Young Justice rather than at least a year. Personally, to keep things linear in my brain, I believe he joined YJ when he was 13. Then I'm amused to think how Kon would have felt realizing that he, at 15-16, was taking orders from such a lil' squirt the whole while.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 12:51 pm (UTC)Seeing as even Bart was fifteen, or at least fourteen, I think, that'd be particularly amusing. Though since Bart was mentally very young, he wouldn't have cared.