Bruce Wayne is literally the kind of .1%er that can only live in fiction: an actual good one, that uses his wealth ethically in all the ways no one with that degree of wealth would ever do in the real world.
Not unlike how Batman is the ideal fantasy vigilante taking the law into their own hands (i.e. uncorruptible, unbiased, and uncompromising in his ethics), Bruce Wayne is the ideal fantasy billionaire that isn’t a drain on humanity.
Neither are realistic, neither exist in real life, and that’s the whole damn point. It’s aspirational and escapist.
It’s the reason why Lex Luthor is a villain and Bruce Wayne isn’t.
People are exactly as intent on imagining Batman as a real world evil billionaire, as they are on imagining Elon Musk as a comic book superhero billionaire.
A lot of people consuming superhero media are kids who don’t know how the world works. They’re learning about the real world from paying attention to the mundane parts of comics and movies. I learned what an insurance agent is from watching The Incredibles. Most kids these days know what a Walkman is because of GOTG.
Kids know Batman isn’t real because they don’t see anyone talking about real batman in real life. But they hear grownups saying billionaires have their best interests at heart, so they don’t question Bruce Wayne.
If your argument is we can have any unreasonable myth we want in comics, why not have Aryan Man, the genetically perfect superhero created by white supremacist eugenics? Batman is a problematic myth on par with Aryan Man.
How do you know he uses his wealth ethically? When you’re a billionaire, your money is not sitting in a bank. Your money is out there working for you, growing.
Just off the top of my head. During the cataclysm arc when Gotham was destroyed by an earthquake and the government and all the other corporations pulled out Bruce was going to fund everyone to start businesses by himself in order to rebuild . For an entire city. That’s not just “some philanthropy”. He wouldn’t have had the resources to do that if his corporation was not highly profitable.
It’s not like they put the balance sheets in the comics but generally it’s due to being widely diversified and into cutting-edge technologies and Lucias Fox being a good manager.
He was trying to save his love by freezing everything and she wanted plants to become the dominant lifeform on the planet. So yes, we’re rooting for the billionaire that has a better adjusted moral compass than those two yahoos.
Why are people so intent on this meme?
Bruce Wayne is literally the kind of .1%er that can only live in fiction: an actual good one, that uses his wealth ethically in all the ways no one with that degree of wealth would ever do in the real world.
Not unlike how Batman is the ideal fantasy vigilante taking the law into their own hands (i.e. uncorruptible, unbiased, and uncompromising in his ethics), Bruce Wayne is the ideal fantasy billionaire that isn’t a drain on humanity.
Neither are realistic, neither exist in real life, and that’s the whole damn point. It’s aspirational and escapist.
It’s the reason why Lex Luthor is a villain and Bruce Wayne isn’t.
People are exactly as intent on imagining Batman as a real world evil billionaire, as they are on imagining Elon Musk as a comic book superhero billionaire.
A lot of people consuming superhero media are kids who don’t know how the world works. They’re learning about the real world from paying attention to the mundane parts of comics and movies. I learned what an insurance agent is from watching The Incredibles. Most kids these days know what a Walkman is because of GOTG.
Kids know Batman isn’t real because they don’t see anyone talking about real batman in real life. But they hear grownups saying billionaires have their best interests at heart, so they don’t question Bruce Wayne.
If your argument is we can have any unreasonable myth we want in comics, why not have Aryan Man, the genetically perfect superhero created by white supremacist eugenics? Batman is a problematic myth on par with Aryan Man.
How do you know he uses his wealth ethically? When you’re a billionaire, your money is not sitting in a bank. Your money is out there working for you, growing.
If you have a billion then the very act of keeping it all means you are making someone else life harder.
Exactly. And where did these billions come from if not the exploitation of the working class by his parents?
The many examples of him doing so in the source material?
Sure, every billionaire does some philanthropy. But most of their money is out there being invested in high profit industries like war and oil.
Just off the top of my head. During the cataclysm arc when Gotham was destroyed by an earthquake and the government and all the other corporations pulled out Bruce was going to fund everyone to start businesses by himself in order to rebuild . For an entire city. That’s not just “some philanthropy”. He wouldn’t have had the resources to do that if his corporation was not highly profitable.
How is his Corp profitable then, huh?
It’s not like they put the balance sheets in the comics but generally it’s due to being widely diversified and into cutting-edge technologies and Lucias Fox being a good manager.
Sounds like propaganda to me. You just can’t accept that everything you see in the comics about batman is carefully calculated PR.
Yet that’s the source of so much suffering because the system is incapable of confining super villains. Yeah comic code rogues gallery etc.
He was trying to save his love by freezing everything and she wanted plants to become the dominant lifeform on the planet. So yes, we’re rooting for the billionaire that has a better adjusted moral compass than those two yahoos.
Thats just billionaire propaganda.
The whole movie changes if it’s a puff piece commissioned by Bruce Wayne after the fact…
I would watch a Batman movie that’s framed as propaganda by Bruce Wayne. At least it would be better than the trainwreck that was Batman & Robin.