Page - 85 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 03/01

Shadows of the Bat | 85www.jrfm.eu 2017, 3/1, 75–104 scene, selina transforms into a black beast and now has claws of her own: “i am Catwoman. hear me roar!”24 for her empowerment against a chauvinistic busi- ness world she adapts the symbol of her oppression – the cat – and reframes it (see fig. 7). The grinning cat turns into a furious panther that lives out its sexual autonomy in its animalistic ferocity in the spirit of Jacques tourneur’s Cat Peo- ple (Us 1942).25 Selina destroys her stuffy apartment, which is filled with the slav- ish insignia of her old life, and tailors the skin of her new identity – a skintight, black-leather outfit whose seams remain all too visible. The emphasis on the fragmented self refers to the construction and performance of gender roles; as a pop-cultural condensation of post-feminist theories, Catwoman reveals the corre- lation between sexuality, power and identity. her rebellion against masculine rule is doomed to failure, however, as Catwoman is killed again and again throughout the movie by every male protagonist. even though she exposes on the screen the uneven power relationship between men and women, she cannot change it. Lo- cated between the poles of fetishized male fantasy and a feminist avenger model, Selina’s self-search reaches an impasse. Objectified by the male’s gaze, her riot is smashed by hollywood’s patriarchal semiotic system.26 While the Penguin and Catwoman reign over Gotham’s streets with terror, another beast man is fielded to restore the order: Batman (Michael Keaton). Batman, too, has been maimed by the outside world and left with emotional scars, but his revenge is directed not at the causes of his pain, but at its symp- toms – the criminals. He fights the freaks and monsters of the town, with whom he has ore in common than with the sane citizens he swore to protect. Burton draws the disrupted psyche of the Dark Knight as a hopeless case of a trau- matized individual who has lost his own identity within the whole superhero masquerade. Batman is no longer the mask of Bruce Wayne; Bruce Wayne is the mask of Batman. Burton’s Batman is a deeply introverted character, trapped within his inner trauma. he puts on the mask of the monstrous in order to shield himself from the outside world. He does not even flinch from killing, but takes lives with a casualness and malice that make you shudder. first he scorches the fire breather with his Batmobile, then he slips a strong thug a bomb and sends him to hell with a diabolical smile. is Batman a gruesome sadist? there is a revealing shot in Burton’s first Batman movie where the protagonist looks down from the roof of the Axis Chemicals factory, with “Axis” in big letters shin- ing above his dark figure (see fig. 8, next page). While Batman fought bravely against the Axis powers in a propagandistic movie serial from 1943, he now seems to adapt their relentless methods to control Gotham City as in a fascist 24 Batman Returns (1992), 00:42:13–00:42:17. the line is an obvious reference to helen reddy’s hymn of the women’s right movement from 1972: “i am woman. hear me roar!” see heger 2010, 200. 25 see Doty/ingham 2004. 26 see Mulvey 1999.