Batman and Rob Were Never Gay, Acrdg to Director Joel Schumacher – IndieWire

Contents:

• JOEL SCHUMACHER ON BATMAN & ROB: "I NEVER THOUGHT IT WAS AN IMPORTANT MOMENT GAY CEMA, BUT I’LL TAKE IT"
• BATMAN’S LONG TIME SIKICK ROB COM OUT AS GAY
• BATMAN AND ROB WERE NEVER GAY, ACRDG TO DIRECTOR JOEL SCHUMACHER

JOEL SCHUMACHER ON BATMAN & ROB: "I NEVER THOUGHT IT WAS AN IMPORTANT MOMENT GAY CEMA, BUT I’LL TAKE IT"

Former Batman ic wrer Grant Morrison even told Playboy magaze that “gayns is built to Batman.”. Acrdg to a ep-dive to the topic by Slate, an anti-ics psychiatrist even ttified before a Senate Submtee on Juvenile Delquency 1954, slammg the Batman ics as “a wish-dream of two homosexuals livg together. ” Ocsnally, Batman ic wrers seemed to slyly embrace the ia of Rob beg gay, even as DC Comics officially mataed the character was straight.

The news a few months after a versn of Marvel’s Capta Ameri ma headl by g out as gay. GQ spoke to the director about Batman & Rob’s legacy gay cema and his real fal words about the I saw that you jt apologized aga for Batman & Schumacher: I didn’t! Unpackg the gay subtext of Rob, the Boy Wonr.

Gay subtext managed to suate self to the Dynamic Duo’s dyad om the very start. Let’s get one thg absolutely clear: Rob isn’t gay. So have wrers like Frank Miller, Denny O’Neil, Alan Grant, and Dev Grayson—though Grayson admted that she uld “unrstand the gay readgs.

BATMAN’S LONG TIME SIKICK ROB COM OUT AS GAY

After all, if a character isn’t wrten as gay, then that character n’t possibly be gay, right? Gayns is built to Batman.

Batman is VERY, very gay. … but the whole basis of the ncept is utterly gay.

BATMAN AND ROB WERE NEVER GAY, ACRDG TO DIRECTOR JOEL SCHUMACHER

But gay subtext managed to suate self to the Dynamic Duo’s dyad om the very start. “It is like a wish-dream, ” he famoly wrote, “of two homosexuals livg together. This is the issue wh gay readgs.

Any given bond between mal n be homosocial whout beg homoerotic, and even the most explicly homoerotic bond n exist whout ever bbg up agast homosexual sire. Intentn don’t matter when to gay subtext. This is why, as a visual medium filled wh silent cu like body language and background tail, superhero ics have proven a particularly fertile vector for gay readgs over the years.

That panel of a be-toweled Bce and Dick loungg together their solarium, for example, would not rry the potent homoerotic charge do, were the same scene simply scribed borg ol’ prose. But gay subtext, like rmatn, longs to be ee, and the universe doggedly nspired to keep droppg advertently hilar panels like this one, om a 1966 Jtice League of Ameri ic, to Bat-non:.