“Let’s get one thing absolutely clear: Robin isn’t gay.”
April 4, 2016 6:43 PM Subscribe
Glen Weldon, writing in Slate: A Brief History of Dick: Unpacking the gay subtext of Robin, the Boy Wonder.
NYT review | NPR interview | ComicsAlliance interview: “He’s not really who he is until Robin shows up.”
“Intention doesn’t matter when it comes to gay subtext. Imagery does. Remember: Queer readers didn’t see any vestige of themselves represented in the mass media of this era, let alone its comic books. And when queer audiences don’t see ourselves in a given work, we look deeper, parsing every exchange for the faintest hint of something we recognize. This is why, as a visual medium filled with silent cues like body language and background detail, superhero comics have proven a particularly fertile vector for gay readings over the years. Images can assert layers of unspoken meanings that mere words can never conjure.”Weldon is the author of The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture.
NYT review | NPR interview | ComicsAlliance interview: “He’s not really who he is until Robin shows up.”
Boy wonder with benefits.
posted by The Whelk at 7:04 PM on April 4, 2016 [17 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 7:04 PM on April 4, 2016 [17 favorites]
Batman wears black and dark gray, in a costume which is good for camoflage. Robin, meanwhile, wears bright red, which stands out.
I always thought his job was to draw fire. After all, over the course of the canon there have been five Robins, two of which died violently.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:12 PM on April 4, 2016 [28 favorites]
I always thought his job was to draw fire. After all, over the course of the canon there have been five Robins, two of which died violently.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:12 PM on April 4, 2016 [28 favorites]
Fred Wertham, people. Surely one of history’s first ’shippers.
posted by anastasiav at 7:13 PM on April 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by anastasiav at 7:13 PM on April 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
...the final line of that essay is epic.
posted by Deoridhe at 7:23 PM on April 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Deoridhe at 7:23 PM on April 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
Ummm, just how 'sub' is this 'text' exactly?
posted by jonmc at 7:24 PM on April 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by jonmc at 7:24 PM on April 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
Batman wears black and dark gray, in a costume which is good for camoflage. Robin, meanwhile, wears bright red, which stands out.
Except that, from the very beginning, Batman also wore a bright yellow utility belt; so much for camouflage. (I have no idea what the purple gloves were about.) No, Robin was pretty much exactly what every kid sidekick has ever been: an audience identification character standing in for every kid who would rather be learning to do something cool like fight criminals or solve crimes rather than learning stuff in school that they would never use, or that bored them to tears because they read the textbook on the first day of class.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:45 PM on April 4, 2016 [4 favorites]
Except that, from the very beginning, Batman also wore a bright yellow utility belt; so much for camouflage. (I have no idea what the purple gloves were about.) No, Robin was pretty much exactly what every kid sidekick has ever been: an audience identification character standing in for every kid who would rather be learning to do something cool like fight criminals or solve crimes rather than learning stuff in school that they would never use, or that bored them to tears because they read the textbook on the first day of class.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:45 PM on April 4, 2016 [4 favorites]
I'm so glad he brings up Wertham. It's a nuanced and thoughtful analysis of why readers read into the imagery, but I'm relieved that he's reminding readers that the same kind of thing had a darker side back in the day, as well.
posted by shmegegge at 7:48 PM on April 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by shmegegge at 7:48 PM on April 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
I always thought his job was to draw fire. After all, over the course of the canon there have been five Robins, two of which died violently.
It was one of the mid-80's big Batman books where he says that the reason he wears the gigantic yellow target on his chest is to draw fire to the most easily armoured part of his suit. I wish I could remember which one.
So, basically, yes.
posted by GuyZero at 7:57 PM on April 4, 2016
It was one of the mid-80's big Batman books where he says that the reason he wears the gigantic yellow target on his chest is to draw fire to the most easily armoured part of his suit. I wish I could remember which one.
So, basically, yes.
posted by GuyZero at 7:57 PM on April 4, 2016
Glen is fantastic on the NPR Podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, and I've heard his book is quite good. I loved this!
I believed it was "The Ten Cent Plague" that was arguing this, but I've heard a theory that part of Wertham et. al's fear and reaction was based on was the fact that Comic Books were kinda the first thing that "the youth" could purchase with their own money. Before records, before the rock'n'roll revolution, Comics were the only medium of expression that was affordable to kids and teens. So when the parents got scared about their kids' independence, Comics were identified as the thing to fear and persecute, and because the industry was weaker than radio, Comics caved to The Man.
But it's always a fun counterfactual to imagine: What if Wertham hadn't killed comics? Would comics have assumed a place of dominance in youth expression? What if Batman & Robin got to just have their gay subtextual adventures, and horror and romance comics continued to sell by the millions to high schoolers, what would those have evolved into?
posted by DGStieber at 8:00 PM on April 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
I believed it was "The Ten Cent Plague" that was arguing this, but I've heard a theory that part of Wertham et. al's fear and reaction was based on was the fact that Comic Books were kinda the first thing that "the youth" could purchase with their own money. Before records, before the rock'n'roll revolution, Comics were the only medium of expression that was affordable to kids and teens. So when the parents got scared about their kids' independence, Comics were identified as the thing to fear and persecute, and because the industry was weaker than radio, Comics caved to The Man.
But it's always a fun counterfactual to imagine: What if Wertham hadn't killed comics? Would comics have assumed a place of dominance in youth expression? What if Batman & Robin got to just have their gay subtextual adventures, and horror and romance comics continued to sell by the millions to high schoolers, what would those have evolved into?
posted by DGStieber at 8:00 PM on April 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
I'm stealing that subtext/domtext joke.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:00 PM on April 4, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by middleclasstool at 8:00 PM on April 4, 2016 [5 favorites]
It didnt take much squinting to read Chuck Dixon's long-running Robin series as a coming-out parable (at one point his parents discover his secret identity, hidden in the closet). Which is ironic since Dixon is apparently rather homophobic.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 8:05 PM on April 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by sevenyearlurk at 8:05 PM on April 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
It was one of the mid-80's big Batman books where he says that the reason he wears the gigantic yellow target on his chest is to draw fire to the most easily armoured part of his suit. I wish I could remember which one.
The Dark Knight Returns, I want to say issue #1 or #2-- He's still wearing the yellow outlined "New Look" Bat Symbol with the blue and gray costume when says that line (as he's getting shot!). He switches to the original black and gray costume with the plain black Bat Symbol later in the series-- midway through issue #3, I think?
posted by KingEdRa at 8:11 PM on April 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
The Dark Knight Returns, I want to say issue #1 or #2-- He's still wearing the yellow outlined "New Look" Bat Symbol with the blue and gray costume when says that line (as he's getting shot!). He switches to the original black and gray costume with the plain black Bat Symbol later in the series-- midway through issue #3, I think?
posted by KingEdRa at 8:11 PM on April 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
The gay subtext in the comic is of a kind with gay subtext that you saw in the 40s and 50s, where manly men did manly things with each other. The Batman writers were living in this world, too.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:18 PM on April 4, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:18 PM on April 4, 2016 [10 favorites]
The Comics Alliance interview brings up something that I never really realized before-- the character of Robin is a way for the writers to emphasize Batman's detective skills by having Batman explain to Robin just how he figured out the mystery. In that regard, Robin stands alongside Watson from Sherlock Holmes as the neccesaary narrative tool to help understand the genius of the hero. Otherwise, you just have a bunch of panels of Batman examining something, going "A-HA!" and running off to beat the shit out of the Joker.
posted by KingEdRa at 8:19 PM on April 4, 2016 [18 favorites]
posted by KingEdRa at 8:19 PM on April 4, 2016 [18 favorites]
Seconding that Glen is indeed great on Pop Culture Happy Hour.
I always wonder how much of this subtext was authorial in origin... the whole thing about Wonder Woman basically being a bondage fetishist's fantasy life seems to have come to light only recently. It's hard to image the original Batman authors didn't see the subtext, even allowing for changes in idiomatic language and such ("I'll show them how many boners the Joker can make!!") So what was up with that?
posted by GuyZero at 8:19 PM on April 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
I always wonder how much of this subtext was authorial in origin... the whole thing about Wonder Woman basically being a bondage fetishist's fantasy life seems to have come to light only recently. It's hard to image the original Batman authors didn't see the subtext, even allowing for changes in idiomatic language and such ("I'll show them how many boners the Joker can make!!") So what was up with that?
posted by GuyZero at 8:19 PM on April 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
Otherwise, you just have a bunch of panels of Batman examining something, going "A-HA!" and running off to beat the shit out of the Joker.
That sounds like an awesome version of Garfield Minus Garfield.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:21 PM on April 4, 2016 [13 favorites]
That sounds like an awesome version of Garfield Minus Garfield.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:21 PM on April 4, 2016 [13 favorites]
But it's always a fun counterfactual to imagine: What if Wertham hadn't killed comics? Would comics have assumed a place of dominance in youth expression? What if Batman & Robin got to just have their gay subtextual adventures, and horror and romance comics continued to sell by the millions to high schoolers, what would those have evolved into?
Ideally it would have allowed the American comic market to mature and blossom into something more like the European or Japanese markets are today, where there is a wide variety of genres for a variety of ages, and comics have some level of respect as art. Instead in America, for the general public, we're firmly stuck in the "comics are cultural trash for kids" mindset.
posted by Sangermaine at 8:32 PM on April 4, 2016 [6 favorites]
Ideally it would have allowed the American comic market to mature and blossom into something more like the European or Japanese markets are today, where there is a wide variety of genres for a variety of ages, and comics have some level of respect as art. Instead in America, for the general public, we're firmly stuck in the "comics are cultural trash for kids" mindset.
posted by Sangermaine at 8:32 PM on April 4, 2016 [6 favorites]
“Let’s get one thing absolutely clear: Robin isn’t gay.”
That Bucky Barnes-Steve Rogers-Tony Stark triangle, on the other hand...
posted by My Dad at 8:57 PM on April 4, 2016 [6 favorites]
That Bucky Barnes-Steve Rogers-Tony Stark triangle, on the other hand...
posted by My Dad at 8:57 PM on April 4, 2016 [6 favorites]
The problem with declaring comics character as not-gay is that most of the gay ones aren't right up until they are.
Hell, Alan Scott was not-gay for 71 years.
posted by seraphine at 10:16 PM on April 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
Hell, Alan Scott was not-gay for 71 years.
posted by seraphine at 10:16 PM on April 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
Has anyone been watching Gotham? My friends and I had a theory that Robin was actually Jim Gordon's son that Bruce was compelled to take care of.
posted by adept256 at 10:27 PM on April 4, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by adept256 at 10:27 PM on April 4, 2016 [5 favorites]
That Bucky Barnes-Steve Rogers-Tony Stark triangle, on the other hand...
Only makes sense if you ignore the fact that Tony is a complete asshole to Steve at every turn and Steve doesn't seem interested in that.
I'm not gonna trash anyone's Steve/Bucky shipping 'cause that actually works if you wanna read it that way. But putting Steve & Tony together only works if you willfully ignore (or actively revise or repair) everything in the text of the MCU.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 12:10 AM on April 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
Only makes sense if you ignore the fact that Tony is a complete asshole to Steve at every turn and Steve doesn't seem interested in that.
I'm not gonna trash anyone's Steve/Bucky shipping 'cause that actually works if you wanna read it that way. But putting Steve & Tony together only works if you willfully ignore (or actively revise or repair) everything in the text of the MCU.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 12:10 AM on April 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
"Something something boner something something"
- 1950s Batman expositing to Robin about the Joker's latest plot.
posted by Nanukthedog at 1:10 AM on April 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
- 1950s Batman expositing to Robin about the Joker's latest plot.
posted by Nanukthedog at 1:10 AM on April 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
The gay subtext in the comic is of a kind with gay subtext that you saw in the 40s and 50s, where manly men did manly things with each other. The Batman writers were living in this world, too.
In re this: several of the more successful advertising painters of the thirties-fifties were gay themselves and tended to paint well-set-up young fellows in revealing poses. Probably more than several, if all were known. (Also, Coming Out Under Fire is a very readable account of gays and lesbians in the WWII-era army - people were not as totally naive about the presence of the gays as is popularly believed.)
It's possible for an ad (or a piece of writing; just last weekend I happened across a detective story from around 1900 which has a 'gay characters are kind of evil but also kind of tragic' plot that is really pretty much text) to have read as 'straight' to many contemporary viewers while also reading as queer both to queer viewers and to in-the-know straight viewers.
posted by Frowner at 1:27 AM on April 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
Holy letter sequences batman!
Subtext is an anagram of Buttsex!
posted by lalochezia at 5:16 AM on April 5, 2016 [16 favorites]
Subtext is an anagram of Buttsex!
posted by lalochezia at 5:16 AM on April 5, 2016 [16 favorites]
Coming Our Under Fire is an amazing resource and very readable despite being an academic text (surprise I'm writing a book about gay people in the 40s) and full of fascinating "well we know but we don't say it out loud" detail.
The gay bar as it exists is largely an after effect from WW2, etc, etc.
posted by The Whelk at 6:16 AM on April 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
The gay bar as it exists is largely an after effect from WW2, etc, etc.
posted by The Whelk at 6:16 AM on April 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
I wish I was a guest on PCHH just so I could razz Glen about all the terrible puns in this piece. "Why is Dick the butt of jokes" good grief. I know his voice from the podcast too, so I can imagine him delivering them out loud. Finest tradition of the source material and all that but oh man those are bad.
posted by Wretch729 at 6:19 AM on April 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Wretch729 at 6:19 AM on April 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
I always thought his job was to draw fire. After all, over the course of the canon there have been five Robins, two of which died violently.
Three, by my count, but I heard they all got better in the latest continuity.
posted by entropicamericana at 6:22 AM on April 5, 2016
Three, by my count, but I heard they all got better in the latest continuity.
posted by entropicamericana at 6:22 AM on April 5, 2016
Coming Our Under Fire is an amazing resource and very readable despite being an academic text
Everyone should read more Allan Berube. He truly was a remarkable man - a non-academic who published scholarly work, he was virtually single-handedly responsible for starting a boom in gay and lesbian social history. (He met all these lesbians in SF in the seventies who had been there since the forties, started gathering up their memories, photos, etc, and did this slide show up and down the coast. Eventually, he handed it over to women researchers since it was about women.)
He died unexpectedly when in the middle of work on a history of a maritime workers union of the thirties which was openly both anti-racist and anti-homophobic.
posted by Frowner at 6:28 AM on April 5, 2016 [9 favorites]
Everyone should read more Allan Berube. He truly was a remarkable man - a non-academic who published scholarly work, he was virtually single-handedly responsible for starting a boom in gay and lesbian social history. (He met all these lesbians in SF in the seventies who had been there since the forties, started gathering up their memories, photos, etc, and did this slide show up and down the coast. Eventually, he handed it over to women researchers since it was about women.)
He died unexpectedly when in the middle of work on a history of a maritime workers union of the thirties which was openly both anti-racist and anti-homophobic.
posted by Frowner at 6:28 AM on April 5, 2016 [9 favorites]
Also, The Whelk, I hope that you will promote your own work here when it's done - I'd read it!
posted by Frowner at 6:29 AM on April 5, 2016
posted by Frowner at 6:29 AM on April 5, 2016
If you haven't read Dick Grayson's recent underrated comic series Grayson, it's a really wonderful mix of spy-fi, sly camp, good-natured male eyecandy fanservice, and Midnighter voicing what we all think about Dick Grayson. I'm more than a little sad that DC Rebirth is going to put Dick back in the Nightwing costume doing Bat-fighting stuff and completely gloss over the fun "jetsetting around the world in sexy outfits being cheerful James Bond" stuff.
posted by nicebookrack at 3:37 PM on April 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by nicebookrack at 3:37 PM on April 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
More fun with Grayson subtext: Dick Grayson running shirtless on the beach as an excuse for a musical montage with the spy theme song he wrote for himself
If DC had to crush us by breaking up comics queer supercouple Apollo/Midnighter, the least they could do is hook up adult not-Robin Dick/deliberate gay Batman expy Midnighter when the subtext is already there. They don't have to get married, DC! They can just make out occasionally as they fight crime!
posted by nicebookrack at 3:53 PM on April 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
If DC had to crush us by breaking up comics queer supercouple Apollo/Midnighter, the least they could do is hook up adult not-Robin Dick/deliberate gay Batman expy Midnighter when the subtext is already there. They don't have to get married, DC! They can just make out occasionally as they fight crime!
posted by nicebookrack at 3:53 PM on April 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
putting Steve & Tony together only works if you willfully ignore (or actively revise or repair) everything in the text of the MCU
Revision and repair is what subtext/fanwork/fic is all about, y'all; "your ship is not my ship and that's okay." You can pry my AU Clint/Coulson and "SHIP DARCY WITH ALL THE THINGS" bookmarks from my cold dead Pinboard page.
posted by nicebookrack at 4:11 PM on April 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
Revision and repair is what subtext/fanwork/fic is all about, y'all; "your ship is not my ship and that's okay." You can pry my AU Clint/Coulson and "SHIP DARCY WITH ALL THE THINGS" bookmarks from my cold dead Pinboard page.
posted by nicebookrack at 4:11 PM on April 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
(Look everyone needs the one bad boyfriend you get after you get recently unfrozen and have to deal with feelings before you reconnect with your deathless brainwashed assinassan best friend )
posted by The Whelk at 5:21 PM on April 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 5:21 PM on April 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
(Yes I am partly writing a story about gay people in the 40s cause I wrote and read too much Steve Rogers fanfic I am aware of what I am. okay I may have snuck Steve in the story don't tell anyone )
posted by The Whelk at 5:24 PM on April 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 5:24 PM on April 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
If DC had to crush us by breaking up comics queer supercouple Apollo/Midnighter
Wait, what? No! Those two were great.
posted by mordax at 8:44 PM on April 5, 2016
Wait, what? No! Those two were great.
posted by mordax at 8:44 PM on April 5, 2016
I knoooow. Admittedly the Midnighter solo book has been outstanding, and writer Steve Orlando, who is gay, has discussed the several valid and thoughtful reasons he chose to start the series with Midnighter as a single gay guy. (but somewhere my tiny dusty Authority shipper heart is crying)
It appears that the Midnighter solo is is also getting cancelled with Grayson in DC Rebirth. So unless they're being rebooted into a combo title MidNightwinger, with fanservice for all, my heart breaks a little more.
Orlando will be writing the new Supergirl comic in Rebirth, so fingers crossed for A)more queer ladies (and dudes) in the DCverse B)Midnighter showing up in National City to rock Kara's world. Violently.
posted by nicebookrack at 9:18 PM on April 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
It appears that the Midnighter solo is is also getting cancelled with Grayson in DC Rebirth. So unless they're being rebooted into a combo title MidNightwinger, with fanservice for all, my heart breaks a little more.
Orlando will be writing the new Supergirl comic in Rebirth, so fingers crossed for A)more queer ladies (and dudes) in the DCverse B)Midnighter showing up in National City to rock Kara's world. Violently.
posted by nicebookrack at 9:18 PM on April 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
« Older [James Brown] had all the pageantry of the... | It's a... well, you know. Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by kafziel at 6:57 PM on April 4, 2016 [4 favorites]