And thus we begin a new round of Weekly Cultural Critic! Each week I will be over-analyzing an aspect of pop-culture. These short essays are written by Eric Shorey, each in under an hour, with little to no editing. If you have suggestions for future essays: email me at eshorey88@gmail.com or leave them in our ask box!
Psychoanalytic criticisms of literature, as Andre Green often notes, are usually met with reticence. Most literary critics tend to find that this critical lens ties the work too closely to the author, or, instead, is just plain obsolete or representational of an alternative system of hermeneutics. Much to many peoples surprise, psychoanalytic literary criticism is not a hunt for penises and vaginas: not all oblong objects are phallus and not all concave things are wombs. In fact: it might be helpful to re-examine some of the cannon of our contemporary western mythologies utilizing the lens of psychoanalysis. In this short essay, I will attempt to understand the character of Batman / Bruce Wayne through Freudian psychoanalysis. I will not refer to specific works or authors, but the general mythology of The Bat – in the same way that psycho-histories of mythological characters were once interpreted by Freud, I, too, will offer up my own psycho-history of this character.
Batman and the Super-ego
The super-ego, in Freudian theory, is a part of the mind that is partially conscious and partially unconscious. The super-ego acts as a persecutory force or a kind of categorical moral imperative in the mind. While, technically, in service to the Id, the super-ego keeps the id in check by preventing the realization or inaction of carnal desires such as sexual or violent lusts. The super-hero is the result of the precipitated (imagined or real) punishments enacted upon a child by his (usually paternal) authority figures. While we know little about Bruce Wayne’s parents other than their un-measurable wealth, we can probably assume that little Bruce had a slew of nannies, butlers, and guardians to watch over him. These paternal and maternal authorities may or may not have enacted punishments upon him but, because of his undertaking of crime fighting, we might be able to retroactively extrapolate that his father was somewhat of a tyrant: having enacted severe punishments upon his son, the voice of Bruce’s father becomes internalized and then externalized into/as (Batman) a hyper-moral authority. The loss of his parents is critical to understanding the internalization of hyper-morality: when a person is lost the memories of that person, through the process of mourning, are incorporated into the ego. Batman took the punishments of his father into himself, they became parts of him, when his father died, so that now he has the ability to punish others. His super-ego has now become corrupted, it is too powerful, and allows for him to violently punish others for their transgressions.
Batman and the Fetish
Freud stated in his essay on Fetishism that a fetish is a replacement for the penis the child assumed the mother once had but then lost. The child, upon seeing the mother’s vagina, fixates on the object right before this traumatic scene: shoes are a common fetish because they are often the last thing a little boy sees before looking up his mothers skirt. If a person can fixate on an object before a scene of trauma, so much so that it can obliterate the potential for hetero-normative sexuality, can a scene of trauma like the death of (a) parent(s) be equally as affecting? Bruce Wayne becomes Batman because, as he sees his parents die, bats fly around him. This is the transitional object of his trauma (half self and half other) and he holds on to the symbol of the Bat for the rest of his life. The fetish is a symbolic replacement for a penis believed to be lost – the bat is a symbolic replacement of his parents. The Bat is a kind of anti-fetish for Batman. It exists as a psychical memorial to his parents, erected in his unconscious for eternity.
Batman and Reaction Formation
Numerous jokes and inquiries have been made about the lascivious relationship between Batman and Robin: are they gay? Writers of the comics avoid this issue altogether. Batman would probably make more psychoanalytic sense if we assume that he is gay, or if we consider the idea that his entire identity is formed around his repressed homosexuality. (A close reading of Joel Schumaker’s Batman films will be offered in the future.)
Bruce Wayne, supposedly, retains his personality as a playboy to cover up for the fact of his secret identity. And yet, could we see his playboy-ism as a Reaction formation against homosexual desires? Even Batman, the hyper-masculine crime fighter, is a way of fighting accusations of homosexuality: he forecloses the possibility of criticism by way of brute force. That is to say: Bruce Wayne/Batman display prominent hyper-masculinity and misogyny in order to defend against (accusations of) homosexual desires. Like the politician who fights against gay marriage but secretly solicits males: reaction formation works through by way of a strong over-compensatory denial of desire.
If we look at the women Batman has fallen in love with, his inability to understand femininity qua femininity becomes clear: Bruce Wayne has a penchant for picking hyper-feminine mates. Selena Kyle, Poison Ivy, Talia Al Ghul: these women are closer to drag queens (or, more accurately, faux queens: women dressed as men dressed as women) than actual females. (I fully recognize that this kind of analysis posits the male/female binary as a kind of fact, which it isn’t, but bear with me.) Bruce Wayne / Batman has a complete inability to access the feminine, his object choices must either be masculine or hyper-feminine (in order to compensate).
This kind of defense mechanism ultimately fails: Batman does end up having an inappropriate relationship with a number of boys. I am not saying that Batman is sleeping with any of the Robins, in fact he probably isn’t, his super-ego is too strict to allow such a sexual transgression, but simply that the presence of these boys allows him to procure a bizarre homosexual voyeuristic pleasure, under the guise of hyper-morality (crime fighting).
Conclusion
The genesis of the persona “Batman” by Bruce Wayne would not make sense unless fueled by a modicum of traumas and repressed desires: If Batman were to exist in reality, we would label him a megalomaniacal schizophrenic. If, instead, we consider the creation of The Bat as a result of the cataclysmic psychic facts of Bruce Wayne’s hyper-moral super-ego, his repressed homosexual desires, and the failure of the repression of scenes of childhood trauma we can better understand the pathology of the character.
-eric
[hope you enjoyed this one guys! As always: Damage into MP will be taking your requests! do you have any cultural curiosities you want to see addressed? any theories you need sussing out? let us know!]
Red zippered mini skirt, from 
