Kevin Swanson is railing about movies, again. This time, he’s linking the Austin bomber with Superhero flicks. Once again, I’ll note that Mr. Swanson seems to be very familiar with all these evil movies which spell the end of civilisation as we know it. Mr. Swanson spends a bit of time going on about how the Avenger flicks are all anarchy vs tyranny, which never represents a solution for society. Well no, they don’t, because that’s not what they’re about. They are always about some sort of imminent threat, which requires superheroes to deal with, and they get to do much fighting, and rampaging about in the process. Superheroes don’t sit around, form committees, and pretend to get something done. And of course, there’s always another threat around the corner. Did you never read a comic book, Mr. Swanson?
Anyroad, after the rantiness of anarchy vs tyranny, he moves on to Batman, and he has a very specific complaint:
“This is what happens with the Batman movies as well,” he added. “Batman himself is an anarchist, he is a vigilante setting against other forms of anarchy, as in the Joker … Batman is an anarchist, he is setting himself against other forms of anarchy in an attempt to prove man as God.”
“That is the essence, the very essence of the Batman movies. It was humanistic to the core,” Swanson said. “What they wanted to do was prop up faith in people, they wanted to prop up faith in man instead of turning man to God and submitting to the true and living God. So, again, my friends, these forms of anarchy, these forms of vigilantism, et cetera, et cetera, very much advocated by the chaotic forms, the anarchical forms found in the Batman movies, the Avenger movies, many of the superhero movies.”
Humanistic to the core! Oh no, woe is us! There’s the worst thing of all to a fucking fanatical christian: someone is behaving in a humanist manner. Someone has faith in humankind. Wow, just couldn’t be worse, could it? As the Austin bomber was raised a christian, I’m not altogether sure how this ties in, but Mr. Swanson never has any trouble frothing out over movies, and he’ll use the thinnest of threads as an excuse. As for Batman being a humanist, eh, I don’t know about that. I expect you’d get a lot of people arguing otherwise, Mr. Swanson.
You can read the whole rant at RWW.
I’ve always thought of Batman as more of a psychopath than a humanist.
Yeah, me too. At least the comic book/latter movies one. The humanistic and idealist batman was Adam West.
Yeah, right? Batman spends an awful lot of time and energy punching, kicking, choking, roping, gassing, exploding, blinding etc., etc. his enemies to be like a really really humanist. Should a humanist even have a bat cave?
Yeah, I think a humanist can have a batcave. What’s wrong with that? All depends on what you use it for, I suppose.
“Batman is an anarchist, he is setting himself against other forms of anarchy in an attempt to prove man as God.”
Well no, despite what the movies have done to the character, Batman traditionally has not been a mass murderer as Yahweh has repeatedly been. Now the Joker, he acts like Yahweh.
I never knew that, when I watch superhero movies, I’m actually watching educational documentary films on how to deal with life issues. Huh!
Bruce’s parents were humanists. What happened to them resulted in Batman, the product of all the damage their murder did to Bruce, all the anguish and rage made manifest.
If that’s what Kevin Swanson thinks about Batman of all superhero flicks, I’d like to see his head explodes as he watches Star Trek -pretty much any Trek especially the one’s with women and black leaders running the show!
Or see what he makes of The Last Jedi and The Force Awakens with its Poe Dameron / Finn gay romance!
Or if he watched the Birds of Prey spin off franchise :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birds_of_Prey_(TV_series)
Oh the Humanity! (Go Humanism!)
@1. chigau (違う) : I think it has always been a staple of Batman’s character that he arrests rather than kills his opponents in all series (even trying to save his enemies on occassion) but I could be wrong about that. Batman is clearly a deeply troubled character but I don’t think I’d call him a psychopath or a murderer. Must admit I haven’t seen all the later movies or read even close to all the comic versions so could be missing quite a bit here. Did watch the old Adam West series as a kid and the first few movies and read the ocassional Batman comic as a boy.
StevoR:
You could always try clicking the link I provided, in the very first sentence.
Ah! Thanks!
I liked the Christopher Nolan’s batman movies, but I would not want to live in them. And Batman as “troubled character” is kinda the point in them. I never read any superhero comic ever, so I know nothing ’bout those.
But using “humanistic” as an insult is a whole new kind of hilarious stupidity on the side of he religinuts.
Swanson’s tirade is… interesting. And not much consistent, or well-thought.
Superheroes/vigilantes stories are the very definition of ‘might make right’.
As in, ‘it takes a good man with a gun to stop a bad man with a gun’.
I guess Swanson would also ditch all the ‘good guy in a bad place’ and other ‘cowboy cop’ movies. Bye, Bruce Willis, bye, Chuck Norris…
@ StevoR #8
Re: Batman as a humanist -- back in the 50’s, he was sometimes waving a gun around, but ditched it at some point to evolve into Adam West’s batman. He will effectively go to subdue and even save his opponents if they put themselves in harm’s way. That’s that I remember from the TV cartoons in the 90’s.
A comics in the 2010’s had a crossover story between the Batman and pals, and some carbon-copy superheroes who believe in being ‘practical’. The latter got brainwashed by some uplifted psion gorilla, and since they were open to the idea of killing their opponents in the first place, the gorilla’s work was that much easier.
It was actually a general trend across superheroes stories. Beating opponents is OK, killing is not. Except if thrown in a real war, like WWII, by example. Nazis were acceptable targets, back then. Nowadays, there are good guys on both sides (sorry, one of my many pet peeves against 45).
Frank Miller had Batman kill the Joker. There may be other occurrences, that I don’t know of.
Let’s mention the latter Superman movie -- as I understand it, the scenarists went for the lazy ‘the bad guy was so evil, even a dedicated humanist wants to kill him’.
It may be a general trend started in the 2000-2010 years, when stories took on a more gritty take, and bloodthirsty anti-heroes started to come to the fore (Punisher, Deadpool, Suicide Squad, Wolverine without a Pr Xavier as positive model…).
Actually, the latter superheroes would fit the ‘anarchy’ description.
@ ^ Athaic : Okay, didn’t know about most of that. Not the Batman I thought I knew then.
Guess I’m pretty out of date here and not familiar with so many later developments.
Don’t like what it seems they’ve done with the character either. Sigh. Thanks for letting me know, I guess. :-(
@9. Caine : Sorry. I’d forgotten about that &, yeah, that was him. Good article and spot on.
FWIW. & in case I haven’t mentioned here before (?) Daniel Fincke from ex- FTB now Patheos Camels with Hammers blog has a good blog post and also an fb discussion group on the Last Jedi movie too :
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/camelswithhammers/2017/12/religion-philosophy-last-jedi-nietzschean-take-spoilers-galore/
If anyone’s interested & doesn’t already know. There are quite a few good (& also lots of bad sadly) items online on that movie too frex :
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/04/luke-skywalker-isnt-supposed-to-be-nice/
Plus :
http://robinrowland.com/writing/luke-skywalker-hero-jedi-flawed-classic-completes-mythic-cycle/
With some good points made there about a movie I have to admit I have mixed feelings about but think is a lot better than its (often horrific people) critics unfairly claim it it to be.