Thinking Like Batman Might Just Help the Bay Area
Batman in the Bay Area sounds not great. But can we learn anything about pitching in from a cynical rich guy? (Emmanuel Denier, Jesse Collins)
Let me get ahead of this straight away: I am the same person who wrote about One Piece and that series’ important anti-imperial messages, who praised How to Read Donald Duck for sticking it to the United States neoliberal agenda in Chile, and who said getting the Rohirrim together for a Lord of the Rings-style rallying in downtown San Francisco would be paramount in 2023. I know myself. But, if you’re new to this pop culture-as-it-pertains-to-the-Bay beat, don’t get me wrong. Vigilantism and rich white guys taking strangers to task is not what I’m talking about.
What I am talking about is Frank Miller’s now-classic 1986 Batman run The Dark Knight Returns. The increasingly problematic writer gave birth to a gritty, hardened version of Bruce Wayne fans longed for after Adam West’s goofy camp and in a political moment wherein Ronald Reagan hollowed out urban communities from coast to coast. What I’m talking about are the moments in that run, specifically, where we see a wealthy cynic rallied to action by his home’s needs, casting away his own doubts and misgivings. There are ways the enormous amount of well-off Bay Area residents can find similar motivation, such as volunteering with Oakland’s People’s Programs or supporting San Francisco’s beautifying movement Refuse Refuse.
Throw a stone and you’re bound to hit a wealthy cynical white man who takes issue with current events in San Francisco. And small business owners in The Frisc and newcomer police chiefs in Mission Local would like to see these prototypical uber-powerful characters in the city if they could, the trope relying on someone who has no need to accept responsibility but does. Critical race theorist and educator Dr. Bettina Love writes about leveraging privilege to do good in her book We Want to Do More Than Survive. In that spirit, what I’m talking about is accepting responsibility wherever you live in the Bay by leveraging the privilege you do have for the betterment of this beautiful area.
Batman is absolutely a problematic character, much like Frank Miller, much like the superhero-obsessed media moment we’re stuck in. Beating people up who are against the intense moral code one ascribes to is not the thrust of this argument. But the brutalist rendition of the DC protagonist in Miller’s comic might be useful. He’s encouraged by a new Robin to come out of retirement to help bring a renegade group of mutants to heel. Moreover, this new take on Gotham was full of political commentary — Reagan himself is openly mocked, celebrity culture is ridiculed, and so too are pop culture psychiatrists that make Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan’s pseudo-intellectual bullshit seem wise.
There are so many issues with blockbuster comics. Still, heroism is nothing to scoff at. (Dev)
It’s a bleak world. Still, the hero gets up again and again to face the music. And by all means substitute a different icon: The relatively new Ms. Marvel is a wonderful role model for young women of color, as is Miles Morales as Spider-Man for BIPOC communities. But in all these characters is the same commitment to making their communities brighter, to finding places to do something, anything. A few of my heroes include Queer Surf, bringing vibrancy to the water for historically marginalized surfers, and Kearny Street Workshop, putting up Asian American art just a block from city hall.
We can all be the versions of ourselves that would inspire the younger us, the ones that might inspire a young person in the Bay Area right now. Dr. Love believes anti-racism is possible through that lens, and the Bay could go for a lot of that — in addition to plenty of other ways to show up and dig in. Speaking to the emptiness of the Batcave, to his own mission, Batman says “I’m dying, but I can’t die. I’m not finished yet. And you’re not finished with me.” In San Francisco, a city destined to die and be reborn over and over, I feel there are loads of cyncical, wealthy white men — probably many who do indeed work in tech — who could get behind this kind of rallying cry.
Howdy! My name is Katy Atchison and I'm an Associate Editor for Broke-Ass Stuart.
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