The Philosophy of Tim Burton

Culture, Hermeneutics,and the Batman

131 Culture, herMeneutiCs, and the BatMan Kevin S. Decker In Tim Burton’s Batman (1989), the Caped Crusader’s arch-nemesis, the Joker (Jack Nicholson), tries to make Batman (Michael Keaton) drop his guard by claiming that the hero is responsible for creating him. But Batman —the orphaned millionaire Bruce Wayne—can make the same claim on the Joker. The Joker, formerly known as Jack Napier, murdered Wayne’s parents in a Gotham City alleyway one night after the opera. Batman hisses at the Joker, “I made you? You made me first.” Then he knocks the stuffing out of him. The Joker seems to be implying that the Dark Knight has no one but himself to blame for the Clown Prince of Crime’s rampage through Gotham. The implication is that evil is an unhappy and unexpected by-product of society’s best efforts to do good and maintain order. Similarly, Batman suggests that crime creates the conditions for its undoing. Without the Joker, there is no Batman. Can it also be true that in the absence of a Batman, there would be no Jokers?1 What follows is an exercise in “philosophical hermeneutics,” an inquiry into how we understand ourselves through our past and through our anticipation of the future by interpreting popular texts such as the Batman films. Its central presupposition is that any cultural artifact of the popular imagination with the longevity of the adventures of the Dark Knight expresses something about the collective self-consciousness of its society. Just as Jack Napier made the Batman, who made the Joker, some of our deeper presuppositions and desires are reflected in the various incarnations of the Dark Knight. Likewise, the fable of the Batman, told and retold like a latter-day Odyssey, informs the way in which we see ourselves both as individuals and 132 Kevin S. Decker collectively, as members of a society in which law and order and the distinction between good and bad often seem quite fragile. The focus of this chapter will be on what the philosophical theory of understanding, or hermeneutics, discloses about the motivations of the Batman and his foes. I also want to emphasize some changes over time in the depiction of the impacts of heroes and villains on social order. To do this, my focus will be squarely on Burton’s Batman and Batman Returns (1992), but in establishing context, a brief look at the 1966–1968 Batman television show on ABC will be in order. This, in turn, can shed light on how we, the Batman’s audience, have changed in the expression of many of our deepest convictions. In particular, I want to suggest a historical parallel between Burton’s interpretation of social and cultural order and those of the German Expressionist movement of the 1920s. This is the same time period in which philosophical hermeneutics was gaining new ground in the philosophy of an up-and-coming philosopher from Freiburg, Martin Heidegger (1889–1976). The parallels between Expressionism and Burton ’s unique interpretation of the Batman suggests that Burton is a type of prophet interpreting malaises of modern society. Burton’s favored malaise is the plight of what I call the “expressive outsider,” the lead character type in virtually all of Burton’s films. Wholly Hermeneutics, Batman! Modernintellectualliferepeatedlyreinforcesthelessonthatcriticalexamination of the cultures in which we live encourages greater self-understanding, educated social consensus, and individual growth. In doing this, modern arts and social sciences engage in hermeneutics. This theory of what constitutes human understanding is the basis for the logic of anthropology, sociology, political science—in short, the “human,” as opposed to the “natural,” sciences . The methods of the human sciences can’t simply be based on passive observation of a shared culture or the creation of a value-neutral, objective theory about human motivations. This is because humans are “self-interpreting animals,” in the words of philosopher Charles Taylor.2 Being selfinterpreting , we can’t help creating concepts and models for describing the behaviorandsocialpracticesofindividualsandgroups. Publicdissemination of these concepts and models, in turn, creates the background conditions for the way we view ourselves and interpret our actions and those of others. Culture, as a form of human self-understanding, is an unending series of Culture, Hermeneutics, and the Batman 133 feedback loops, both informing and informed by our interpretations as well as the actions we undertake on the basis of those interpretations. Ultimately, these insights rest...