Yep. Again, I agree with your perspective. As a child, this film sufficed. As I am now, though?
*struggles not to roll my eyes as I think back to the last time I watched this in 2018 or so*
Now, nothing really makes any sense to me in this film. And in retrospect, even for the kind of "Adam West-style" vibe this film was shooting for, it still missed on all marks. Adam West-style Batman was colorful in a COLORFUL way. Forever... honestly, the only analogy I can think of is a rinse cup that a painter uses for their paintbrushes. Murky and wild at the same time, and a literal eyesore. Yeah, it actually pains my eyes when I look at it, and Batman & Robin wasn't much of an improvement, even when I first saw it as a child.
I may not have paid attention to the Batsuit "wardrobe issues" as a kid, but in retrospect I really have to question what the motives were here. Schumacher supposedly gave an explanation for it, but I only remember coming across it once and don't really care to look it up again -- my reason being that I'm sure the same kind of dudes who dogged the original Robin (Dick Grayson's) costume for having short-shorts and implying some sort of pedophilia fetish within Batman probably went to town on him for doing so. If I remember correctly, that controversy happened around Frederick Wertham's crusade against comics with his essay Seduction of the Innocent, which led to the creation of the short-lived Comics Code Authority. In my opinion, stuff like what Schumacher did in modern times is the kind of fuel that overbearing and super-strict "model citizens" need to attack entertainment in such a way that stuff that's harmless to even children becomes forbidden/taboo material. It leads to attempts to censor things that even a 5-year-old would say, "Mister, excuse me but... are you freaking serious?!"
I also feel you on the mental illness thing. Chase Meridian's character violated the chief rule for psychiatrists: she violated the Hippocratic Oath more times than I can count. How does a psychiatrist get off literally trash-talking the people she studies? Shit, if I were Bruce standing there listening to her describe people with mental illness issues as monsters with no moral compass, I'd ghost her fast. She's basically a purveyor of the very stigma her profession is supposed to combat. Even Batman saying "You need help, Harvey -- give it up" is more reassuring than how smugly Chase disparages people like Dent with her "professional words" and such. In this day and age, from some of the stories I've recently read, a psychiatrist talking like this to their client could very well find themselves liable for emotional and psychological abuse -- and from what I've read, that shit is serious. That's a person's mind -- it can do a LOT of damage. One story went as far as to describe how one client felt so traumatized by how cold their psychiatrist had treated them that they not only stopped coming to appointments -- but they also ended their lives.
As I tell so many of my friends and family, especially in this day and age: mental illness is not a label, and it's not a permission slip for stigmatization. That goes for ALL stigmatization, and several researchers have claimed that entertainment media that portrays the mentally ill as rabid murderers is dangerous and egregiously discriminatory. My last word on this is a commercial I saw around the early 2010's, in which a relative of actress Glenn Close, whose first name was Calen, called out to society to understand that not every person who struggles with schizophrenia is a "lunatic on a rampage", obviously referencing the statistics which prove that the mentally ill are far more likely to be VICTIMS of violence rather than PERPETRATORS of violence. Glenn Close then stepped up and firmly demanded that people talk honestly about mental illness. The commercial was for something called "Bring Change 2 Mind" and given that I had been diagnosed with schizophrenia three years earlier, the whole clip really spoke to me and was probably the spark that would eventually lead to me accepting myself and becoming an advocate and helper to the disabled in my community.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2024-11-29 07:31 am (UTC)*struggles not to roll my eyes as I think back to the last time I watched this in 2018 or so*
Now, nothing really makes any sense to me in this film. And in retrospect, even for the kind of "Adam West-style" vibe this film was shooting for, it still missed on all marks. Adam West-style Batman was colorful in a COLORFUL way. Forever... honestly, the only analogy I can think of is a rinse cup that a painter uses for their paintbrushes. Murky and wild at the same time, and a literal eyesore. Yeah, it actually pains my eyes when I look at it, and Batman & Robin wasn't much of an improvement, even when I first saw it as a child.
I may not have paid attention to the Batsuit "wardrobe issues" as a kid, but in retrospect I really have to question what the motives were here. Schumacher supposedly gave an explanation for it, but I only remember coming across it once and don't really care to look it up again -- my reason being that I'm sure the same kind of dudes who dogged the original Robin (Dick Grayson's) costume for having short-shorts and implying some sort of pedophilia fetish within Batman probably went to town on him for doing so. If I remember correctly, that controversy happened around Frederick Wertham's crusade against comics with his essay Seduction of the Innocent, which led to the creation of the short-lived Comics Code Authority. In my opinion, stuff like what Schumacher did in modern times is the kind of fuel that overbearing and super-strict "model citizens" need to attack entertainment in such a way that stuff that's harmless to even children becomes forbidden/taboo material. It leads to attempts to censor things that even a 5-year-old would say, "Mister, excuse me but... are you freaking serious?!"
I also feel you on the mental illness thing. Chase Meridian's character violated the chief rule for psychiatrists: she violated the Hippocratic Oath more times than I can count. How does a psychiatrist get off literally trash-talking the people she studies? Shit, if I were Bruce standing there listening to her describe people with mental illness issues as monsters with no moral compass, I'd ghost her fast. She's basically a purveyor of the very stigma her profession is supposed to combat. Even Batman saying "You need help, Harvey -- give it up" is more reassuring than how smugly Chase disparages people like Dent with her "professional words" and such. In this day and age, from some of the stories I've recently read, a psychiatrist talking like this to their client could very well find themselves liable for emotional and psychological abuse -- and from what I've read, that shit is serious. That's a person's mind -- it can do a LOT of damage. One story went as far as to describe how one client felt so traumatized by how cold their psychiatrist had treated them that they not only stopped coming to appointments -- but they also ended their lives.
As I tell so many of my friends and family, especially in this day and age: mental illness is not a label, and it's not a permission slip for stigmatization. That goes for ALL stigmatization, and several researchers have claimed that entertainment media that portrays the mentally ill as rabid murderers is dangerous and egregiously discriminatory. My last word on this is a commercial I saw around the early 2010's, in which a relative of actress Glenn Close, whose first name was Calen, called out to society to understand that not every person who struggles with schizophrenia is a "lunatic on a rampage", obviously referencing the statistics which prove that the mentally ill are far more likely to be VICTIMS of violence rather than PERPETRATORS of violence. Glenn Close then stepped up and firmly demanded that people talk honestly about mental illness. The commercial was for something called "Bring Change 2 Mind" and given that I had been diagnosed with schizophrenia three years earlier, the whole clip really spoke to me and was probably the spark that would eventually lead to me accepting myself and becoming an advocate and helper to the disabled in my community.