Interesting points, Bob, I never thought about it that way... Admittedly, I still love the Rifftrax commentary for "Batman Forever" and "Batman and Robin", especially since the former involves Doug Walker AKA the Nostalgia Critic and his compatriots... go figure.
You know, I don't like Batman Forever, and never saw and Robin, but you forget one thing -
Flatliners, Falling Down, A Time to Kill, and The Client were all praised for their performances under - well - you know - Joel Schumacher. So be fair to him, too. There's probably more to it than just him, too.
Yes, Schumacher has also made some good movies, and elicited some good performances. At the helm of B&R, he did neither.
I won't deny that there was probably some pressure from on high, and Schumacher has said some things regarding the toy line tie-ins that MB makes some minor allusions to with regard to the "OMG this isn't a kids' movie!" reaction to Batman Returns and the "need" to make the new movies more marketable.
But that's hardly where it begins and ends. Schumacher himself seems to have admitted responsibility in various interviews, and noted that at the time he had never done a sequel. Contrast B&R with, say Spider-Man 3, a movie with some of the same alleged backstage drama (studio meddling, an excess of villains, possibly franchise fatigue on the part of actors and director alike). Yet Spider-Man 3 still managed to pull an over-all positive score on Rotten Tomatoes and make back its budget in domestic take. I think most people who saw it, pushed to the wall, would admit it was a movie with some good bits and some bad bits, with the final say resting on whether one felt the "bad bits" were sufficiently jarring or important to overshadow the film as a whole. However one might feel about Spider-Man 3, one generally gets the impression that those involved tried to make lemonade, so to speak.
Batman and Robin starts with a reprise of the "chicks dig the car" joke from Batman Forever, and that pretty much sets the bar. Toy lines didn't make the action scenes indecipherable neon messes, and while studio "push" might have had a role in the sheer number of villains, it didn't dictate how badly they were handled, or where the emphasis would lie. Whether it was director fatigue, director mistakes, director "couldn't be bothered to give a shit" or some combination of the above, it still ultimately falls to the director who quite clearly agreed to take the job and thought he was up to it. And wasn't.
ms_sunlight said:
Callate said:
Don't you dare suggest that anger at Schumacher is nothing but poorly-disguised homophobia. It's nothing of the sort.
It's not, but I (like you) am old enough to remember when the film came out and although there are a lot of legitimate reasons to criticise the film, I remember a lot of the criticism at the time of its release being expressed in a homophobic manner.
All right, fair enough, I should have clarified. While MovieBob often has a lot of interesting, thoughtful, and worthwhile things to say, perhaps the single greatest flaw in his segments to date is the wholehearted willingness to lump all dissension with his views under a single line of thought or stereotype, usually one that can be dismissed or condemned with a minimum of effort. I probably should have said something more along the lines of "there's plenty of legitimate criticism of Schumacher, especially regarding Batman and Robin, that has absolutely nothing to do with homophobia."
I haven't seen Forever in a long time. I don't know what the Batman aesthetic is as I've never read a Batman comic book before.
Trishbot said:
Terramax said:
Would you agree if I said that maybe the first 2 films were targeted more to boys/ men whilst, with the butt-shots, etc, Forever could've been shot to tantalise more of a female audience?
Fair enough. The women in the office I work with would drool over those bum shots. They only went to see the new Batmans to see Bale with his shirt off.
Where else would you go? There was certainly nothing else about Batman and Robin that gives you any real substantial material to talk about that you haven't already brought up three times and if all you wanted to produce was a video complaining about how bad B&R is . . . Nostalgia Critic already beat you to that punch and, really, it's not good for much beyond a few cheap yucks.
I've developed a soft spot for Batman Forever/Batman and Robin over the last few years.
Sure, they're both terrible, badly written films (though Forever does have a few surprisingly decent scenes), and sure the acting is absolutely awful throughout. But both those films have done something that no other Batman film has ever managed to do, and I've developed a new found respect for Joel Schumacher because of it. They've highlighted the inherent hypocrisy that lies at the heart of the superhero fandom.
See, as much as people whine about putting nipples on the batsuit, there was nothing inherently new about it. Comic book characters had been putting up with that sort of ridiculous fetishisation for decades, and prior to Forever very few people had complained at all. The reason? Because prior to Forever, all the characters who were on the receiving end of that sexualisation were women.
As far as I'm concerned, Joel Schumacher pulled off one of the greatest trolls in movie history with his Batman films. He took an established character, subjected him to the same levels of objectification and sexualisation that female characters undergo on a regular basis, and managed to get a rise out of every Batman fan in existence. And in doing so, he proved once and for all just how inherently sexist the comics medium has become. The response from the fanbase sent an overwhelmingly clear message: if you're a female comic book character, then you will be portrayed in the most flagrantly sexual ways possible, and you'd better get used to it. Any chance there is, you're going to be subjected to ass shots, bent over in a variety of pornstar poses, and generally made to look like a streetwalker with a mask. But if you're a male character, and you even think about showing a bit of nipple, we're going to cause such a stink that you won't be able to get movies made for the best part of a decade, and you will regularly top worst movies of all time lists. Because as we all know, it's ok to objectify established female characters, but not male ones.
Seriously, when this is deemed A-OK:
...but this is seen as a crime against cinema:
...then there's something fundamentally fucked up in the standards that comic-book fans hold. And I'm actually glad Joel Schumacher managed to point that out...
Okay. Hold the bloody phone. As one of the rare breed of female comic book readers, I take issue with a lot of this.
I think your heart's in the right place, but there's some big differences between female exploitation and Batman's hilariously out-of-place butt shots and rubber nipples.
I'd say first and foremost, for better or worse, highly sexual characters like the ones you picked (Red Sonya, Catwoman, Black Cat) began their comic life as buxom beauties and eye-candy and, over time, actually obtained more dimensions than being just sexy vixens. But that's how they BEGAN, while Batman was never truly fetishized at any point in his long and storied comic career.
Now, I'm not saying it's FAIR that Batman is treated as a serious character, while Catwoman is reduced to cheesecake at times. In fact, as a female comic reader, I was entirely and utterly disgusted with the "New 52" relaunch of Catwoman that spent TWO DAMN PAGES focusing on her breasts and ass before we ever saw her face. Naturally, that issue ends with her having sex with Batman on a rooftop somewhere... and don't get me started on how they turned the formerly sweet and strong Starfire into a dimwitted sex-fiend with loose morals and zero inhibitions.
But while you brought up three of the most sexual examples of comic book women, it's a huge disservice to ignore and dismiss the dozens upon dozens of strong, powerful, independent, marginally-sexualized female leads in comics. For every Catwoman, there is a Big Barda, Batgirl, Batwoman, Huntress, Manhunter, or Hawkgirl. For every Black Cat, there's a Storm, X-23, Elektra, Wasp, or Squirrel Girl. Even Aunt May is a powerfully important character in the Spider-man mythos, and she's hardly the black-leather-wearing sexpot that Catwoman is presented as.
But, most importantly, there is this weird, and WRONG, concept that "sexual" is "bad". It is NOT. To be sexual is empowering, for both men and women. I enjoyed the living hell out of the early 90's Sensational She-Hulk book, and it was a raunchy, hilarious trip through Jennifer Walter's wardrobe malfunctions, dating, professional, and superhero issues, and her own bizarre self-image issues that come with being a 7-foot-tall green-skinned Amazon. She was insanely sexual in that comic, and she knew it, but that sexuality was a key part of her appeal. And it was a GOOD thing. The writers took her sexuality and wrote it smartly into her very character, but she was more than that. She was a smart lawyer, a kind-hearted heroine, and, even though she could crush a car with her bare hands, she loved her very-human boyfriend opening a door for her or pulling out her seat at dinner. She was, well, a WOMAN.
And there-in lies the HUGE difference between sexual identity and sexual pandering. If a Wonder Woman film came out and it had insanely leering camera shots of just her cleavage and her suit had rubber nipples, it would be utterly ridiculous. And Wonder Woman is already a beautiful and sexual heroine. If you did the Avengers movie with Black Widow's costume having rubber nipples and her suiting up with a key camera shot of just her butt crack, it'd be entirely tasteless and distracting.
What Joel Schumaucher did with Batman, with the nipples, the butt shots, the cod-piece lingers... that was distracting in all the wrong ways. It took you out of the picture, made you laugh AT it, and disrespected its source material and its hero by focusing on the parts of him that did NOT define him. I've said before that Dick Grayson is my favorite DC hero, and he's a total dreamboat that I'd sleep with if he were real, but I'd laugh right to his face if he tried to appeal to me by wiggling his butt and baring his big rubber nipples at me.
And I wager that men would feel the same way if a woman was presented in that manner. I mean, the backlash DC got for Catwoman and Starfire's portrayals in the New 52 indicates that many men felt this. Or, hell, look at Metroid: Other M. There is a massive number of MALE fans that absolutely despised how the formerly strong, independent, self-confident bounty hunter of prior games was presented as a weak-willed, man-dependent, mewling dimwit in Other M.
It's not all perfect, but it's not a "double-standard" with the Schumaucher films. If he had given Batgirl rubber nipples and vagina-camera-shots, I'd have rolled my eyes just as hard as I did with Batman. Male, female... doesn't matter. Stupid is stupid, and Joel's Batman movies are very, very stupid.
Sorry, but I really don't think so. The sort of sexualisation that female characters go through in comics tends to be of exactly the same type as what Batman went through in the Schumacher films: out of place ass shots, and emphasis on sexual characteristics such as nipples. It's objectification of exactly the same kind as female characters get in comics, because it focuses on the physical aspects of the character that emphasise sex and virility, not strength and self reliance.
Where to even begin. Let me be clear, straight up: I'm not saying there isn't a problem in modern comics with the way many heroines are portrayed. However, if you can find me a single female costumed heroine with rubber nipples in a Marvel or DC book, I think stating that all female characters have their sexual characteristics emphasized over their strength and self reliance the majority of the time is both misguided and wrong. From my reading experience, that's absolutely not the case, and I want to know what comic books you've been reading that are devoid of self-reliant, strong female protagonists... because you're simply reading the wrong books then.
What's that? A plant-woman wearing clothing made from plants?! What next? Squirrel Girl wearing FUR?! Hulk wearing nothing but teeny-tiny purple pants?! Captain America wearing red, white, and blue?!
First off, I wish my butt was that firm. Secondly, I had to look REALLY hard to find butt-shots of Wonder Woman. Turns out the vast, vast, vast majority of her appearances have her looking exactly like how she looked in since she was created in the 40s.
This argument further loses weight when you consider DC has fully covered her from nearly head to toe in her newest costume.
And yet Huntress spends most of her time looking like this:
(Look at all that skin! Cover those ears, woman! We have Amish boys present!)
There isn't a difference between 'good' exploitation and 'bad' exploitation. Batman's objectification isn't different by virtue of him being 'Batman'. As much as I loathe objectification in principle, I can at least see the humour in seeing Batman being treated exactly the same as your average female superhero, and the lengths people will go to try and justify why it's ok to sexualise one set of comic book characters but not another.
You and I agree a tiny bit on this... but not entirely. See, "exploitation" is always bad. "Sexual attraction", however, is not. A character can be very sexy and still be badass. A character can even be sexualized and it be totally okay. In fact, let me bring up my favorite DC hero, and object of fantasy for nearly half the DC universe (and pretty much 100% of its female readers):
Hot Nightwing is hot
Mmm, mmm, mmm. Hot damn is Nightwing hot. That sexy, skin-tight black bodysuit. Those smoldering good looks. There's a good reason every girl in the DC universe has a thing for him. He's sexy. He's drawn sexy. His spry body always posed so dashingly, his hair always tussled just right... he's a dreamboat. AND he's a badass with loads of depth, charm, strength, and intelligence. Hell, Nightwing is the only male hero I know that was sexually assaulted by a female character, so talk about equality there, and his sexuality is heavily emphasized in many stories he's in. He doesn't even need the rubber nipples to be a highly erotic hero, and I'm thrilled as punch he's a playable character in the upcoming Injustice fighting game. But, well, he's sexual. His sexual attraction is even exploited. And yet he's regarded with respect and admiration from both male and female readers and fellow heroines and villains within the comics. To be "sexualized" is not always a bad thing, especially when characters like Nightwing can use that very reputation to their advantage, just as James Bond often does.
Batman was never fetishised? He began his comic book career as a man who got off on dressing up in black, fetishy gear and beating up criminals. The entire premise of Batman could be read as the story of a repressed man taking out his sexual aggressions by exerting his male dominance over the other 'weaker' men he beats up in the street.
Lol. Did you ever read the original Batman comics? Like, the Bob Kane detective comics from the 30s? You're really seeing subtext that simply isn't there. Batman never "got off" on beating up villains any more than ANY superhero derives sexual thrills from beating up badguys. That argue is so poor, you could try applying it to every hero in existence to say they dress up in fetishy leather and spandex and "get off" beating up criminals. Captain America? Gets off beating up criminals. Iron Man? Techhnophilia and he gets off beating up criminals. Hulk? Literally gets larger the more excited he becomes.
Batman beats up badguys out of a sense of duty and justice to protect the innocent and atone for his parents senseless murder. He does not "exert his dominance over the weaker men". Rather, the Police System exerts its dominance over their criminal endeavors. And, er, Batman has a laundry list of FEMALE villains he deals with all the time.... and in the case of Catwoman and Talia Al Ghul, they're often presented as his equals, or many times they get the better of HIM.
And even ignoring this, why is it ok to objectify some characters but not others?
Go outside sometime. Believe it or not, some women do, in fact, act and dress sluttier than others. That isn't even comic book fantasy; even I bring out my Daisy Dukes on occasion.
Would it have been better in Forever/B&R if Batman had continually flirted with other characters...
No, because that doesn't fit his character profile. Tony Stark's Iron Man, however? Flirt away. Hell, Nightwing again would be a total flirt with dozens of women.
Last I recall, I don't remember the movie versions of Elektra, Supergirl, Black Widow, Maria Hill, Invisible Girl, Storm, Jean Grey, Rogue, Mary Jane, Pepper Potts, Lois Lane, Betty Ross, Sif, or Amanda Weller ever breaking their backs. Actually, I don't recall that many "back-breaking" poses in general. I DO remember these heroines and even love-interests kicking a lot of ass (or trying to) though.
If Schumacher had made Batman act like a man-slut, would that have made the objectification ok?
If Batman's personality in the comics was that of a man-slut, then, yes, yes it would have. Hell, that's why Tony Stark's man-slut personality works and resonates so very well, because that's how he is in the comics! Batman, however, is not Tony Stark.
That's a fan drawing. That's totally invalid. Here's how Big Barda looks MOST of the time.
Your Google search should have listed that as the FIRST search result, an official depiction of her, in costume, fully clothed in battle armor. The image you used was some person's fan-fantasy depiction and has never been her costume in the comic. Ever.
That's not that bad. At all. I see zero skin (literally). You can't even see the back of her behind, and her breasts are the size they've always been. She's crawling over a ledge. I'm sure there's a "woman crawls over ledge" fetish somewhere.
But that again ignores the fact that Batgirl was mostly presented like this:
Terrifying Batgirl
Holy crap, that's TERRIFYING. If you saw this coming your way in a dark alleyway (and bare in mind, this Batgirl was MUTE), I'd run for the hills, hide under a rock, and rethink my life lest my eternal soul be sucked out by this she-demon in tangible form.
I... see no issues. The pose isn't very sexy. She's fully covered. She looks like she wants to cut my face off. Apart from all that red. It sort of ruins the darkness camouflage. But at least she's not a signal flair like Robin.
I've already covered Huntress. I'll add in the fact that Gail Simone, one of the most feminist and respected female writers in the entire comic industry, wrote Huntress comics for years... and she didn't have a problem with Huntress showing thighs (OMG, THIGHS! Hide Chun-li!).
This girl is wearing more than Nightwing, Flash, Green Lantern, and 99% of male superheros. She's covered head to toe in costume and armor. Her body shape is moderate. Her pose is non-sexual. Nothing about this page says "sleep with me". I have no idea what you're trying to prove with this image.
For characters who are supposed to 'subvert' the Tits&Ass approach of comic book characterisation, that sure is a lot of tits and ass.
I see very little T&A, actually. Or do you simply mean that they, as women, actually HAVE T&A? In that case, I agree. Shame on them for not removing their tits and asses. And don't think covering them up under costumes and NOT showing us skin and cleavage is helping either, you sexually exploited women, you.
Incidentally, having browsed through google for images, is it even worth asking why so many of these female characters feel the need to fight crime while wearing high heels?
By that logic, you could also claim that any superhero with a cape is a moron, since, in reality, capes are far more trouble than they're worth, get caught on things, provide hindrance and drag when moving around, and generally serve zero purpose. Seriously, what's the point of Superman having a cape? It just "looks good" on him is all.
I've seen girls simply going out for a drink who kill their ankles wearing massive heels. I couldn't possibly imagine how painful it must be to run around jumping off buildings, beating up criminals, fighting aliens, etc, all while wearing six inch stilletos.
FYI, you can get used to heels if you wear them often. I'm okay wearing heels for long periods. Though, again, it's suspension of disbelief. Human beings would also break their hands punching someone in the face, yet Batman punches a hundred people unconscious every time he takes down a crime gang. Also, concussions are life-threatening, which makes Batman punching someone so hard they get knocked out a serious hazard to his "no kill" code. Basically, high-heel combat, fist punching, capes, and every hero, even the nerds, having big muscles is all part of the comic-fantasy universe. Most people are okay with these tropes, in fact, 'cause they're pretty damn cool (I know I wish I could fight crime in stilettos).
Or indeed, why you would feel the need to wear them in the first place...
Same as capes. And cowls. And bright neon spandex (seriously, Robin, you can't sneak up on anyone...)
There's nothing wrong with 'sexual'. What is wrong is when you make up 90% of your female cast centred around 'sexual' stuff and claim it's still empowering, while completely refusing to do the same for male characters.
90% of ALL casts, both male and female, are "sexual". Wolverine, despite being a 5'3" hairy old man, is often presented in a sexual manner. As are mutants ranging from Nightcrawler to Beast. Both men and women, almost universally, look like Calvin Klein models.
Again, "Sexual" is only bad if that is their DEFINING characteristic. If all other traits are secondary to titillation, then, yes, there's a problem. And that problem does exist (grr, new 52 Starfire, grr). But by and large, many female characters are NOT written as purely sexual creatures in some sexual fantasy land. Heroines like Rogue, Storm, Big Barda, and even Catwoman are deeply complex and personally traumatized heroines with strong and independent, self-reliant personalities, emotional issues, incredible strengths, and far, far more to offer than just "my outfit makes my boobs look awesome". It's up to every single writer to play to those strengths, and it can be done while still keeping a female character very sexually attractive. Again, Gail Simone wrote some of the best female-led books on the market (Catwoman, Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman, etc.) and she did so while respecting the characters yet keeping them sexy. Because "sexy" is not bad.
Unless you're not sexy. In which case, sorry. Tough luck, kid. We can't all be Venus and Adonis.
Because it's blatantly obvious that it's not empowering at all, you're simply selling stuff based on sex appeal while throwing out a term to hide behind like a shield.
Again, I want to know what comics you're reading. Because I just mentioned last post how She-Hulk's self-exploration of her own sexual identity in her book was absolutely empowering for her as she came to love and appreciate her own "flaws" and turn those into sexual strengths. She had to overcome her own self-image issues and, through the process, matured and evolved as a human being, a professional lawyer, and a professional heroine. She was damn sexy through the entire ordeal, and the issues she tackled where erotic and often naughty, yet the cusp of it was backed by a strongly-written female heroine with deep and complex emotional issues and versatility that actually far surpassed that of her cousin, the Hulk, himself.
When practically every major female comic book character is apparently a strong, self-empowered, independent woman who also just happens to enjoy dressing up in fetish gear and posing like a porn star, then it becomes patently obvious that it's not female empowerment that's at play here, it's simply the male gaze at work.
As opposed to EVERY major male character being a strong, self-empowered, independent man who just HAPPENS to enjoy dressing up in skin-tight leather and spandex and "getting off" on fighting crime (as you claimed)? Beyond that, not every female character has to be a feminist icon. They really don't. That's why we don't need every character to be gay or a gay sympathizer, why we don't have just all-black superheros or villains, and why conservative and liberal heroes and villains exist. There are sexual heroines out there, absolutely, and yet there exists Squirrel Girl and Big Barda and Manhunter and Maria Hill and Marrow and dozens upon dozens of others. We have gay heroes, handsome dreamboat heroes, ugly heroes. We have ugly female heroes too, you know (love you, Big Bertha!).
Especially considering how many male heroes I would also assume are sexually liberated and empowered, yet they don't feel the need to walk around bending their hips out of place and thrusting their crotches in everyone's face.
Most male heroes are not as flexible as Nightwing is, sadly. And, on the contrary, many of the best male heroes are NOT "sexually liberated". Peter Parker is still a dork around women, Captain America treats women like a perfect gentleman, Batman is utterly paralyzed by relationship commitment, Superman never treated Lois Lane badly (apart from that weird phase in the 50s and 60s), Gambit utterly respected the living hell out of Rogue despite knowing he couldn't sleep with her let alone touch her, Hulk can't even sleep with a woman for fear of "hulking out" and hurting her, and even sexually liberated Wolverine has been dealing with the real-life consequences of sleeping around and having illegitimate children resent him and even try and kill him. If anything, the allure of "sexual liberation" for male heroes hasn't given them any attraction or appeal. Or, as She-Hulk rightly tells Tony Stark, "if I sleep around, I'm a slut. If you sleep around, you're a playboy", blatantly calling them out on that double standard IN THE COMICS.
Except, of course, in Batman Forever/B&R, which is the point I was trying to make in the first plce...
And I maintain that it's stupid and silly, and I would have balked and laughed if Batgirl was given the exact same treatment. If they did a Wonder Woman movie with rubber nipples and shots exclusively of her ass, you'd bet I'd complain about that too, because rubber nipples don't fit her profile. And neither does flirting with everything in sight (she's actually rather chaste).
It only disrespected the source material because comic book writers, including those who have written for Batman, have clung to the notion that female characters can be sexually objectified while male characters cannot.
If 'respecting' the source material means pandering to adolescent teenagers while refusing to include female characters in anything less form-fitting than a jumpsuit, then I'm sorry, but mainstream comics don't deserve respect.
When Batman, Superman, Spider-man, Wolverine, DareDevil, Flash, Green Lantern, Mister Fantastic, and all the other most popular male heroes of all time ditch THEIR form-fitting spandex and leather jump-suits, maybe I'd agree. They haven't. Thus I don't.
Again, a female character can be self-empowered, liberated and independent without waving their ass in your face.
I agree. And I don't recall Big Barda wiggling her ass at anyone. Besides, she was an upstanding married woman that wore the pants in the marriage anyway.
In fact, I personally believe that a girl is pretty empowered when she doesn't feel like she needs to have her tits in your face for attention, regardless of whether she could or not.
And many female characters don't. Again, Big Barda, Cassie Cain, Squirrel Girl, Rescue, and dozens upon dozens of other heroines don't have tit-focused costumes or personalities. Using someone like Power Girl to exemplify the entire gender in comics is Glenn Beck levels of reaching.
You wouldn't be able to tell this from mainstream comic books though. Female characters as a rule have their assets that don't define them focused on until, well, they do define them.
When I think of Cassandra Cain, my first thought is not "she has a great ass", I think "damn, she's a messed up child." When I think of X-23, I don't think "wow, what great boobs", I think "she's a really troubled teenager". When I think of Manhunter, I don't think "she's got a great body", I think "she's a fantastic single mother". When I think of She-hulk, I don't think "she'd look great naked" (she would), I think "she's hilarious! AND she's a great lawyer and highly effective superheroine!"
If YOU think of a woman like Big Barda, Squirrel Girl, Manhunter, She-Hulk, Rogue, Wonder Woman, or even Catwoman and YOUR first thoughts are "their assets define them", the problem is YOUR thinking, because I've read more than enough comics in my lifetime to know better.
I don't care that Forever and B&R are badly directed films which distract me with their atrocious quality.
Except while female characters can be both well-developed, sexy, and attractive to men, Schumaucher's portrayal was poorly developed, ridiculous, and unattractive to me (and, again, I LOVE me some Dick Grayson... so you have to do something seriously wrong to make me laugh AT his butt instead of drool OVER it).
Whether the film is shit or not is irrelevant to this discussion.
Actually, the film being "shit" is ENTIRELY relevant to this discussion. Like, completely. Well-executed beefcake fantasy can work great (Hello, Christian Bale's workout scenes!) while badly-executed beefcake can be utterly ridiculous (why can't Jacob keep his shirt on in Twilight? It's gone if someone so much as sneezes his way).
The fact is that there is nothing about the way Batman was portrayed in those films that hadn't already been done to hundreds of female characters before.
In movies? Again, I want to see the rubber nipples on another female character. Seriously. I'm waiting. ... ... ... back? Yeah, I couldn't find anything either. I guess rubber nipples on female character has not, in fact, been done a hundred times before.
If Batman fans just chalked this up as another example of sexual pandering, then I wouldn't have a problem. But the fact that they caused a huge stink about this one male character being exploited, while choosing to ignore the decades of comic book history where female characters have gone through the same, is just incredibly blinkered and hypocritical. If you're against objectification, you're against it wherever it occurs, not just when it occurs to one character that you quite like.
Um, no. I'm not actually against objectifying. There is a time and place for it, in fact. It is not some ultimatum where "we must erase all objectification forever because all of it is wrong!" I mean, would you say that James Bond is objectified? Women want him, men want to BE him. He's the perfect man; handsome, charming, sexy, confident, and he knows how to handle his loaded weapon (innuendo! Hi-yo!). The objectification of James Bond is fun, light-hearted, and completely in character with who James Bond is, and the fact he even uses his own sexual objectification to help him on his job only makes his sexual traits MORE important to his character.
And I think you're tripping over a big issue, that "objectification" sometimes crosses over with actual "attraction". Does Aladdin "objectify" Jasmin in the Disney movie? Does Superman get "objectified" when Lois Lane gets hot for him? To be an object of desire is not wrong, and having sexual desire for someone else is entirely natural. There is NOTHING wrong with being sexy and nothing wrong with WANTING to see something sexy. The only problems that arise are when the person doing it and receiving it become defined exclusively by it, and I disagree that that's the case. Black Widow in the Avengers was damn sexy, but she had so much more going on that her sexual appeal was basically a footnote, just as important to her character as the color of her eyes. It's a trait she possesses, but she is not defined by that.
Incidentally, why is it that recent comic book films have tried to play up the whole 'realism' angle by dressing their main characters in bulky riot armour, military gear and such rather than rubber and latex (Batman, Iron Man, Captain America), yet female characters are still dressed up in the same revealing, form-fitting outfits that they've always been in? Does 'realism' only apply to these costumes only when they're dressed on a male body?
Wonder Woman's new outfit disagrees. As does armor-clad Rescue. The new outfits for Scarlet Witch and Rogue also are more military-style body suits. Batgirl's new costume is more military-grade body-armor as well. Even the outfits of Black Widow and Black Cat have become more realistic and military-designed over the past several years. You're complaining about a problem that actually doesn't exist. Trust me, I've been reading the comics. Those old suits are being replaced bit by bit by bit, just as frequently as the men's outfits are.
Yet they remain oddly silent about the fact that your reward for completing the older games was to see Samus strip out of her body armour and in as little clothing as possible. That's really empowering that, stripping off for your male audience.
Oh, that 8-bit bikini is so damn hot! Oooh! OOOOOH! Look at those blocky sprites! WOW! Is that... I think that's an arm... is that an arm? It's either an arm or a weird shoulder. But, wow! We get to see her in as little clothing a possible!.... if by "as little clothing as possible you mean this:
That's... um, totally sporty and practical? I have outfits in my closet that cover less.
Seriously, there are main male characters in games that show more skin than that...
I hope to high heavens he doesn't think we hate the Schumaucher films because of some bizarre homophobic tendency, instead of hating the films for being, well, stupid, crappy films in their own right.
Of course that's what he's going to do. It's what he always does. Bob latches onto something hardly even tangential simply because it's a hot topic so that he can take a moral highground that doesn't exist and talk down to everybody to justify what he likes and invalidate other people's praise. He did it with the whole Halo nazi bullshit, almost making a legitimate comment on it then crashing to the ground and nearly accusing halo fans of being nazis and he's going to do the same sort of thing here.
Batman Forever, and Robin, weren't bad because they're gay...because they're NOT GAY.
Gay doesn't equal "bright, garish neon colors, flashing lights and stupid dialogue". If that were the case why doesn't Brokeback Mountain look like Batman Forever?
Forever and Robin were bad because they were STUPID.
They were just bright colors, flashing lights, blaring sounds and stupid poorly written dialogue with no point...which, I guess, is why Moviebob likes them so much because that's basically how I'd describe most Nintendo games.
Plus the director doesn't even "seem" very gay, just loud and obnoxious. I guess if you're a douchebag that's your definition of gay, but me I call that "loud and obnoxious".
I wasn't even AWARE that Joel whatshisname was gay until my mom mentioned it while we were watching one of his later movies on TV. THAT'S how gay is is--so gay I was completely unaware. So you'll excuse me if I feel offended Bob would call everyone who disagrees with his aesthetic fetishes a homophobe. More so I've never heard anyone accuse the movies of being "gay". I've heard them called stupid, childish, garish and the literal definition of style over substance but never "gay"...
Until I saw bob's Twitter, when SOMEONE ELSE said this to him, which means it's not even HIS idea he took it wholesale from some OTHER guy on his fucking Twitter.
Jesus Lord, give me strength. Bob is the stupidest fucking man alive. I know that now.
Captcha: what to see
Yes what IS there to see here? Besides bob making an ass of himself.
now bob while i love these shows and you have the nice anolitical brain i wish i had for this kind of stuff i find you timing a little funny you go from "is it possible maybe just maybe we have finaly reached the point where theres been enough batman for a while" to 3 weeks in a row with a 4th next week. with only a single epesode in between.
She really got a terrible part in Batman and Robin. At least she did "Blast From the Past" after that, proving she could still be fun to watch. I haven't seen, "The Art of Getting By" yet, but that may be good too. I do lament that she hasn't had as much work as she should have. Batman and Robin just wasn't her fault. She had to work with the Drek they gave her.
I think if you hated Schumacher's because there were no Penguin trying to be sleazy and no Catwoman in kinkylatex suit, it says more about your fetishes than anything. For all I don't care for them they were better than the second movie for that alone.
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