Rob out as gay new Batman ic, addg to DC’s LGTBQ characters - Polygon

Contents:

• BATMAN’S LONG TIME SIKICK ROB COM OUT AS GAY
• THE 20 TIM BATMAN AND ROB GAVE US THE SECRET GAY WK
• DELVE TO BATMAN AND ROB GAY CHARACTERS ONLE
• GAY INNUENDO BATMAN AND ROB

BATMAN’S LONG TIME SIKICK ROB COM OUT AS GAY

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. 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.

THE 20 TIM BATMAN AND ROB GAVE US THE SECRET GAY WK

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.

DELVE TO BATMAN AND ROB GAY CHARACTERS ONLE

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:. Although the show beme extribly associated wh the notn of mp, s pop-art sensibily never me off as particularly gay spe the prence of gut villas played by such fierce divas as Tallulah Bankhead and Liberace. They shuffled Dick Grayson off to llege 1970, effectively endg the Bce–Dick partnership that had grown so weighted wh gay meta-meangs over the s.

GAY INNUENDO BATMAN AND ROB

Which, really, was all took for heteronormativy to reassert self, bee while separately Batman and Rob me hardwired wh vague gay associatns (the fear of one’s secret inty beg exposed, for example), was only ever their stat as a bond male–male pair that had tly raised eyebrows. In recent s, certaly seems as if his wrers have grown more self-aware about untend gay readgs and hence more circumspect. Batman has self-policed himself, and his optics, much more thoroughly sce Dick left; ’s que rare to see any subtextual gay elements bubblg up to the surface.