Batman is the perfect bourgeois fantasy. All is right with the world except for a few malevolent souls. Take them out and we all can live happily ever after. Forget about the Banksters continuing to loot the country. Forget about Democrats & Republicans acting like organized crime-families. Forget about the underlying race war hurdling us toward Civil War Two. Just have Bruce Wayne don his Batman suit and take out Ra and the League of Shadows, and we achieve Nirvana.

In this fantasy, there’s no need for anyone to get off their butts and do anything. Couch potatoes can remain prone and wait for a corporate billionaire to save society–since only wealthy capitalists can save us from worldly threats. Never mind that in the real world, Wayne Enterprises would be complicit in creating economic downturns. Also, Wayne Enterprises is part of the Military-Industrial Complex; how else did Bruce Wayne as Batman get that armored car & fancy weaponry? Our erstwhile savior is a war profiteer.

Am I taking this too seriously? Perhaps. I do enjoy the Batman comics and the last 2 Batman movies.

But who’s taking all this too seriously? Then think of the conservative/libertarian tribe embracing Obama as The Joker. He then becomes the malevolent force f*cking up an otherwise ideal system. The anti-socialist Obama now becomes a communist who’s also a Muslim born in Kenya. And couch potatoes can remain couch potatoes simply by voting Republican in the next election.

For liberal airheads, the opposite scenario is in play. Obama IS Batman and he’s saving us from the real life League of Shadows known as the Republican Party. Never mind that in the real world he’s in bed with the Neocons getting porked to his heart’s content.

I continue to hope the message of Batman is more subversive than this.