Batman: The Killing Joke animated movie from Bruce Timm
- Thread starter Turtletrekker
- Start date
This is what happens when you listen to people who didn't like the original and won't be satisfied either way.
That's what feels wrong to me. Age difference. He's at best older brother (and at worst, second dad). And he HAS been/is her mentor, too. Teacher and student...
I don't know, as awkward as it may seem, in the end Bruce is only human. In a moment like that, in the heat of passion, when an intelligent, capable, beautiful, well endowed, blue eyed redhead comes at you like that...
Well, the late, great Robin Williams once said words to the effect of, "men have two heads but only enough blood to use one at a time".
Well, the late, great Robin Williams once said words to the effect of, "men have two heads but only enough blood to use one at a time".
For me it's not their relative ages so much as the relationship dynamics (to say nothing of the very dicey power dynamic.) Barbara is practically family. Not just as part as the "Bat Family" but as Grayson's on-and-off girlfriend and as Jim Gordon's daughter.
Regardless of which "brain" a man may be thinking with at any given moment, I think most with any sense whatsoever have a built in override switch when it comes to your student, you best friend's daughter or adoptive son's paramour. All three at once? I'm sorry but "she's really hot" is a pathetic excuse.
So again I come back to: Bruce really should know better.
Regardless of which "brain" a man may be thinking with at any given moment, I think most with any sense whatsoever have a built in override switch when it comes to your student, you best friend's daughter or adoptive son's paramour. All three at once? I'm sorry but "she's really hot" is a pathetic excuse.
So again I come back to: Bruce really should know better.
My thing is, I'm not bothered by the idea of Bruce and Barbara having a relationship, or the idea of them having sex. Fit people running around with each other in skintight clothing are bound to have physical reactions to each other at the very least. And for those of you worrying about her age, Barbara couldn't be a librarian if she wasn't old enough to be a consenting adult. Librarians need college degrees.
My problem is The Killing Joke is not about Bruce and Barbara. It is not about anybody but Batman and Joker. The opening of the original story pretty much solidifies that with Bats's dialogue, but I think it got diluted by them tacking on what's essentially a 'ship before we even get to it. And the reasons for including it are either weak or just stupid. It's not a long enough story without the add-on? Do it right anyway, then add a couple of animated shorts to the DVD. Hell, make one of the shorts about the Bruce/Babs ship. Go ahead and show her "controlling the men in her life"...just do it in another damn story.
My problem is The Killing Joke is not about Bruce and Barbara. It is not about anybody but Batman and Joker. The opening of the original story pretty much solidifies that with Bats's dialogue, but I think it got diluted by them tacking on what's essentially a 'ship before we even get to it. And the reasons for including it are either weak or just stupid. It's not a long enough story without the add-on? Do it right anyway, then add a couple of animated shorts to the DVD. Hell, make one of the shorts about the Bruce/Babs ship. Go ahead and show her "controlling the men in her life"...just do it in another damn story.
Of course Bruce should have known better. He made a mistake. A big one. It goes back to him being only human. He's allowed to make mistakes.
Agreed . It's not like we havent had short animated movies already. The people griping about the source material werent going to care about this anyways.S o all they've accomlished is pissing off the people that loved TKJ who will now have second thoughts about purchasing this. Way to go WB!
Having the sexual tryst motivating Batman more in the second act and having a bed-side confession/heart pouring to her while unconscious could have gone a long way to making that first part more relevant. If they weren't going to do anything with it beyond a form of shock-value and not really have it tie to the second part then it was pretty needless. It should have been a more motivating factor in the second part and had some kind of counter or pay off.
The first part is pretty much Chekov's gun and it never gets used as Batman in TKJ part isn't driven by revenge for Barbara but mostly just in order to get the Joker because he needs to be stopped.
The first part is pretty much Chekov's gun and it never gets used as Batman in TKJ part isn't driven by revenge for Barbara but mostly just in order to get the Joker because he needs to be stopped.
I think this is a bit beyond the realms of "he made a mistake", even "a big one". It's the next worse thing to doing it with your own child. Regardless of how old they are, that just flat wrong and no amount of "human weakness" can either justify or excuse it.
Calling it "a mistake" implies that there was an aspect of his behaviour that is beyond his control and when you have a character who's defining characteristics include self mastery of body and mind, it just doesn't seem even remotely credible.
I know she is an adult, but some age differences still aren't reasonable or at least are considered creepy by most. I'm 50+. I wouldn't have a relationship with a 20-something. I wouldn't if I were 10 years younger. Maybe I'm a stick in the mud, but that's how I see it. I will admit that they have more to talk about, though, than the average 20-something and 40-something (he's about that age, yes?).
I'm actually in the process of watching it and am getting ready to be dazzled by Hamill. That's really the draw here.
Arguing how wrong it is for Bruce to have sex with Barbara because he's a mentor/surrogate father is a moral argument, which is problematic, because it assumes that Bruce is otherwise a strictly moral person.
One of my favorite lines in the Drew Carrey Show comes from the episode where Drew wins the Batmobile and then loses it because he violated the morals clause associated with owning it. Lewis commented: "Batman's car has a morals clause? He kept a little boy in a cave!"
Look at the life of Bruce Wayne. In public, he has built up a reputation of being a dilettante playboy who regularly acts counter to how moral society expects a young responsible man to act. He's a womanizer, a partyer, a spendthrift and an arrogant bastard. In his secret life, he flouts even more moral rules in a more violent fashion by dressing up like a bat and beating the snot of criminals with no more authority to do so than any other private citizen, and while doing this he's used kids as cannon fodder (the various Robins), tortured snitches for information and had dalliances with thieves (Catwoman) and terrorists (Talia al Ghul).
So yeah, let's stop saying that he made a mistake, because I'm pretty sure he doesn't see it as one. A beautiful woman offered herself to him and he simply did what Bruce Wayne has probably done hundreds of times and accepted. You can stand there and argue he should have and could have refused, but what have you seen in any of the Batman lore made you think he would refuse? Both his personas have been objects of desire to beautiful women. He's bedded several. He's not a monk. I'm sure his only regret is getting that close to someone he might have to use as cannon fodder someday, which is likely why he was so hot to get her off the case they were working.
But let's also drop this "surrogate father" thing, because surrogate father is not the same as "Father." Bruce Wayne is not Barbara Gordon's parent, godparent or legal guardian and no amount of moralizing from us will change those facts. Is it wrong to have sex with a friend's daughter? That's up to the friend to judge, and Gordon can't judge an action nobody involved will tell him about.
As for the mentor thing...please. Isn't that always a gateway? You act like Bruce is the first teacher who ever had a romance with a student. Isn't that the whole point of the musical My Fair Lady? Again, the term doesn't make Bruce Barbara's parent. They are both consenting adults with no familial ties. There is nothing wrong with them hooking up past the romance has no business in this particular story.
One of my favorite lines in the Drew Carrey Show comes from the episode where Drew wins the Batmobile and then loses it because he violated the morals clause associated with owning it. Lewis commented: "Batman's car has a morals clause? He kept a little boy in a cave!"
Look at the life of Bruce Wayne. In public, he has built up a reputation of being a dilettante playboy who regularly acts counter to how moral society expects a young responsible man to act. He's a womanizer, a partyer, a spendthrift and an arrogant bastard. In his secret life, he flouts even more moral rules in a more violent fashion by dressing up like a bat and beating the snot of criminals with no more authority to do so than any other private citizen, and while doing this he's used kids as cannon fodder (the various Robins), tortured snitches for information and had dalliances with thieves (Catwoman) and terrorists (Talia al Ghul).
So yeah, let's stop saying that he made a mistake, because I'm pretty sure he doesn't see it as one. A beautiful woman offered herself to him and he simply did what Bruce Wayne has probably done hundreds of times and accepted. You can stand there and argue he should have and could have refused, but what have you seen in any of the Batman lore made you think he would refuse? Both his personas have been objects of desire to beautiful women. He's bedded several. He's not a monk. I'm sure his only regret is getting that close to someone he might have to use as cannon fodder someday, which is likely why he was so hot to get her off the case they were working.
But let's also drop this "surrogate father" thing, because surrogate father is not the same as "Father." Bruce Wayne is not Barbara Gordon's parent, godparent or legal guardian and no amount of moralizing from us will change those facts. Is it wrong to have sex with a friend's daughter? That's up to the friend to judge, and Gordon can't judge an action nobody involved will tell him about.
As for the mentor thing...please. Isn't that always a gateway? You act like Bruce is the first teacher who ever had a romance with a student. Isn't that the whole point of the musical My Fair Lady? Again, the term doesn't make Bruce Barbara's parent. They are both consenting adults with no familial ties. There is nothing wrong with them hooking up past the romance has no business in this particular story.
Just FYI, when my parents got married my dad was 42 and my mom was 21. They are still together 38 years later, so it's not like age difference alone is always a problem.
With that said, it's super weird for Batgirl to be with Batman, because I think of him as being 35ish and her as being 16ish, which is super rapey.
With that said, it's super weird for Batgirl to be with Batman, because I think of him as being 35ish and her as being 16ish, which is super rapey.
And, for me, the "surrogate father" only works if the "father" has prolonged, meaningful, contact with the surrogate child and had an involvement in their development and raising and/or it's usually require for a true father to not be present and Jim Gordon was very much a present father in Barbara's life so she has no need for a surrogate father.
Bruce/Batman only comes into Bab's life when she's an adult by which point any "raising" of her is complete or near-complete in the case of her being in her late teens. So, Bruce played no fatherly role in her life unlike, say, Dick Grayson whom he was an adoptive/foster parent of. So any sexual relationship between Bruce and Dick Grayson would be "wrong" in the "surrogate father" sense, since Bruce was very much a father to Dick after he lost his own parents.
Babs, Bruce meets and trains when she's an adult and a relationship between adult students and adult teachers happen all of the time. Now, we as a society sometimes see that is wrong because of the imbalance of power present and in the case of college professors there's the possibility of misuse of power on the part of the professor's treatment of the student's work but when it comes to Bruce and Barbara they're hardly practicing under any formal institution where the disparity of power can be abused to determent of the student or other students.
They're two adults who often like to don tight, leather, outfits and do heavy exercise together involving physical encounters. I think the sexual tension is a given. They're both adults they have no formal relationship either in a familial relationship or a professional one and most importantly Barbara forced herself on Bruce and from the clips above seems like she's often the aggressor in their relationship. Who's Bruce to turn down a cute, nubile, college girl forcing herself on him?
Their age disparity is somewhere around 10 years which while big isn't highly unusual or bad (So long as the younger party is past the Age of Consent.) If you go with the "half your age plus 7" rule Barbara is likely within that range putting their relationship in line with 25% of married couples in the U.S. (This assumes Bruce is 35 and Barbara is 25.)
It's odd to me how many have such a problem with this because there's really no reason to think there's a strong father/daughter connection between the two since they didn't know each other until Barbara was much older and Bruce never played a paternal role in Barbara's life she had a father who was very much a part of her life.
You can't tell me that if, as a straight male, an attractive young woman of age forced herself on you; you'd be "Nah, go away. There's like 8 years between us which is kind of icky even though such age gaps exist in numerous relationships."
Do we know what the Age of Consent is in Gotham/the state Gotham is in?
It's one thing to think of her as "16ish" but the movie makes it fairly clear she's not 16 considering she lives on her own, has a job in a library, and operates a motorcycle which depending on any number of factors under Gotham's civic laws she may not be old enough to operate one yet when 16 and if she is she'd be too young to operate it as skillfully as she does.
The movie is pretty clear that she's not 16 and is very much a young woman capable of making her own decisions.
Bruce/Batman only comes into Bab's life when she's an adult by which point any "raising" of her is complete or near-complete in the case of her being in her late teens. So, Bruce played no fatherly role in her life unlike, say, Dick Grayson whom he was an adoptive/foster parent of. So any sexual relationship between Bruce and Dick Grayson would be "wrong" in the "surrogate father" sense, since Bruce was very much a father to Dick after he lost his own parents.
Babs, Bruce meets and trains when she's an adult and a relationship between adult students and adult teachers happen all of the time. Now, we as a society sometimes see that is wrong because of the imbalance of power present and in the case of college professors there's the possibility of misuse of power on the part of the professor's treatment of the student's work but when it comes to Bruce and Barbara they're hardly practicing under any formal institution where the disparity of power can be abused to determent of the student or other students.
They're two adults who often like to don tight, leather, outfits and do heavy exercise together involving physical encounters. I think the sexual tension is a given. They're both adults they have no formal relationship either in a familial relationship or a professional one and most importantly Barbara forced herself on Bruce and from the clips above seems like she's often the aggressor in their relationship. Who's Bruce to turn down a cute, nubile, college girl forcing herself on him?
Their age disparity is somewhere around 10 years which while big isn't highly unusual or bad (So long as the younger party is past the Age of Consent.) If you go with the "half your age plus 7" rule Barbara is likely within that range putting their relationship in line with 25% of married couples in the U.S. (This assumes Bruce is 35 and Barbara is 25.)
It's odd to me how many have such a problem with this because there's really no reason to think there's a strong father/daughter connection between the two since they didn't know each other until Barbara was much older and Bruce never played a paternal role in Barbara's life she had a father who was very much a part of her life.
You can't tell me that if, as a straight male, an attractive young woman of age forced herself on you; you'd be "Nah, go away. There's like 8 years between us which is kind of icky even though such age gaps exist in numerous relationships."
Do we know what the Age of Consent is in Gotham/the state Gotham is in?
It's one thing to think of her as "16ish" but the movie makes it fairly clear she's not 16 considering she lives on her own, has a job in a library, and operates a motorcycle which depending on any number of factors under Gotham's civic laws she may not be old enough to operate one yet when 16 and if she is she'd be too young to operate it as skillfully as she does.
The movie is pretty clear that she's not 16 and is very much a young woman capable of making her own decisions.
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Yeah, true true.
This might be the creepiest sentence ever posted on this board.
Definitely in the top five.
Shouldn't be anything creepy about if both parties are of age and legally able to consent to sex, which a college-aged girl would be able to be.
Legality isn't the issue, it's poor characterisation. Plain and simple.
Barbara's end of things makes sense. I get why there's tension, I get why she'd have a moment and make a move to jump his bones. The problem occurs when Bruce doesn't say "no". It's out of character and only happens because someone on the production crew *really* wants to see Batgirl f*ck Batman. That's very poor story telling. Doubly so since literally none of this has anything to do with the rest of the movie. It's entirely separate.
Barbara's end of things makes sense. I get why there's tension, I get why she'd have a moment and make a move to jump his bones. The problem occurs when Bruce doesn't say "no". It's out of character and only happens because someone on the production crew *really* wants to see Batgirl f*ck Batman. That's very poor story telling. Doubly so since literally none of this has anything to do with the rest of the movie. It's entirely separate.