Boys Have Nipples

June 6, 2022 3:44 PM

I Am the Man Responsible for Batman’s Rock-Hard Nipples in Batman & Robin "Perhaps no controversy better defines the Batman franchise than the inclusion of ultra-pointy nips when George Clooney donned the batsuit in 1997. Here, costume designer Jose Fernandez explains why the Dark Knight had such dank teats"

With Val Kilmer’s suit in Batman Forever, the nipples were one of those things that I added. It wasn’t fetish to me, it was more informed by Roman armor — like Centurions. And, in the comic books, the characters always looked like they were naked with spray paint on them — it was all about anatomy, and I like to push anatomy. I don’t know exactly where my head was at back in the day, but that’s what I remember. And so, I added the nipples. I had no idea there was going to end up being all this buzz about it.
...
Well, in the first one, they were just a little blob of clay. It was subtle — it was a blip. But for Batman & Robin, Joel Schumacher loved the nipples, so he said, “Let’s showcase them.” Schumacher wanted them sharpened, like, with points. They were also circled, both outer and inner — it was all made into a feature of the batsuit. I didn’t want to do it, but he’s the boss, so we sharpened them, circled them and it all became kind of ridiculous.
...
I don’t even know that I finished the film, to be honest. I was at the screening, but I was thinking to myself, “This is not good.” To me, it was like a stage musical, but without the music, more than it was a Batman movie. The movie was just all over the map — it was silly and bombastic, and there are times where you got shots focused on just Batman’s ass. It was all a little much for me.

Post title from my young friend Fiona, age 8.

posted by kirkaracha (53 comments total)

Why don't we fixate on the codpieces, as we should have all along?

Yours truly,
Cameo
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:52 PM on June 6, 2022 [21 favorites]

Bats, as it turns out, have two nipples per bat with a nipple per creature ratio remarkably like that of humans and their nipples.
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 4:07 PM on June 6, 2022 [13 favorites]

Metafilter: a nipple per creature ratio remarkably like that of humans
posted by mhoye at 4:11 PM on June 6, 2022 [31 favorites]

I haven't had a chance to push my anatomy in years
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:12 PM on June 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

Bats, as it turns out, have two nipples per bat

Sure, on average.
posted by aubilenon at 4:15 PM on June 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

STOP CALLING ME NIP!
posted by Saxon Kane at 4:21 PM on June 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

I, for one, appreciated the hypernipplization.

It was as if the homoerotic subtext that had been clawing it’s way to the surface of the franchise over the years finally popped forth in black rubber aureoles to announce, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it, Gotham!”

Anyway, Clooney‘s suit really never attracted so much of my attention. But in 1997, I was just about to turn 30, and fetish-suited, 20-something Chris O'Donnell, complete with erect nipples, codpiece, Vee-cuts and glistening lips, definitely caught my eye. Even in the earlier Batman Forever, Robin’s suit was already screaming “Call me Dick!”
posted by darkstar at 4:40 PM on June 6, 2022 [13 favorites]

Even beyond the codpieces and Bat Nipples there's a whole world of fetishy and kinky stuff going on in almost all of the Batman movies and the costume design, and I'm not just talking about Catgirl. There's a little of everything from bondage themes to cosplay and damsel in distress motifs and so much more.

Even the super campy 60s TV show had some major fetish vibes. I mean really, satin capes, gloves and satin underpants over tights? Wowza.

I'm sure this exists because Rule 34 and I just don't know about it but I'm earnestly surprised there has not been a best selling Twilight fanfic turns into Fifty Shades moment for the Batman universe.

Hrnnngggg! You're so dark! Are you sure you're not from the DC universe?
posted by loquacious at 5:05 PM on June 6, 2022

zero ao3 search results for "dank teats"?! internet, you disappoint me
posted by Gerald Bostock at 5:09 PM on June 6, 2022 [6 favorites]

i liked when the man said, of the original, "it looked like they sculpted the batsuit with oatmeal" and (presumably) some internal link-promoting script hyperlinked "oatmeal" to a MEL article about a health benefits showdown of Bowl of Oatmeal vs Oatmeal Bar
posted by glonous keming at 5:17 PM on June 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

I have nipples, you know.
posted by AndrewInDC at 5:47 PM on June 6, 2022 [10 favorites]

What was the swords and sandals parody with the men twitching their nipples at each other? Possibly MST3K?
posted by clew at 6:00 PM on June 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

Tom of Gotham.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:00 PM on June 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

Bats, as it turns out, have two nipples per bat
Sure, on average.

(insert obligatory Nipples Georg joke)
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:08 PM on June 6, 2022 [9 favorites]

The statistic is in error, Batnipples Georg is a bat with 10000 nipples
posted by sixswitch at 6:49 PM on June 6, 2022 [11 favorites]

(thank you)
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:51 PM on June 6, 2022 [3 favorites]

in the comic books, the characters always looked like they were naked with spray paint on them

Some comics artists would draw women characters naked and then add in the costume in the inking stage. When the X-Men started getting really popular, then-artist John Byrne would make it clear that at least some of the women characters (Phoenix, at least) had erect nipples when seen in profile. The real problem that people had with the Batnipples was that guy superheroes were finally getting that treatment.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:52 PM on June 6, 2022 [12 favorites]

What was the swords and sandals parody with the men twitching their nipples at each other?

Hercules Returns (Australian 1983 dub of the 1964 Italian muscle-dude movie.) I remember it as ... sort of funny in places? Judge for yourself [YouTube] though, without remembering any specific awfulness, a content warning for "shit that was funny to Australians in 1983" is probably merited.
posted by Pallas Athena at 7:55 PM on June 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

MetaFilter: Georg is a bat with 10000 nipples.
posted by loquacious at 7:57 PM on June 6, 2022

Any well-known parody of this specifically out there, that I might have missed? It really calls out for something mostly tasteless but not 100% gross like breaking into a building by the Waynester moving his torso to cut a perfect circle in a glass window with one of them or the like. Collegehumor, I know you lurk here, and I know you love you some batman spoof, get on this plox
posted by mcrandello at 8:00 PM on June 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Hercules Returns was an excellent parody and, yeah, funny to Australians in 1983 is a good way to warn of what it's like. I doubt people from anywhere other than Australia or maybe New Zealand would get it. It's kind of like British humour, but with different accents, less reverence and more swearing.

loquacious, I'm glad to see someone else pick up the vibes that seem to be mostly exclusive to the Batman world. Even way, way back in the early comic days, the vibe was there. Maybe it's just because Batman has always been a much 'darker' superhero than most, which has given license to explore that darkness in a way that (eg) Superman could never do. The pointy nipples thing is something I never even really noticed until it was pointed out to me here and it still seems like nothing more than an evolution of where Batman has always been.
posted by dg at 9:09 PM on June 6, 2022

Why don't we fixate on the codpieces, as we should have all along?

The Cool Quotes YouTube channel claims that the Catholic League of Decency did become obsessed with the codpieces of both Batman and Robin on the original TV show, and that Adam West pranked them by stuffing a Turkish towel down his pants for one episode — and ended up causing a furor!

Which somehow devolved to focus more on Robin's crotch, and so panicked show executives that they pressured then 19 year old married father Burt Ward into visiting their tame physician and accepting a prescription for a chemical castration agent that would shrink his testicles and cause the offending bulge to subside.

Ward actually took 4 pills before he came to his senses, or perhaps to his absence of sensations, and refused to go any further. Editing out crotch shots and strategic positioning of Robin's cape became even more of an emphasis, and coincidentally or not, the controversy died down.
posted by jamjam at 9:56 PM on June 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Is it weird that an article about batnipples is where I learned Joel Schumacher died?
posted by The Power Nap at 10:40 PM on June 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

I always assumed the Batnipples were there so he could feed Robin.

On a tangent, I remember being somewhat distracted from the plot of the first Star Trek movie by the fact that none of the male cast's uniforms seemed to offer any support for their genitals. This led to a lot of loose jiggling everytime they walked along a corridor, and was impossible to unsee once you'd noticed it. Perhaps they'd all decided to go commando?
posted by Paul Slade at 11:52 PM on June 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

Honestly, I thought the sculpted-rubber suit looked more natural with nipples than without. If you're gonna try to replicated the shape of the naked body, leaving the nipples off looks weird.

I'm assuming most MeFites are already aware of Wonder Woman's bondage roots.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:07 AM on June 7, 2022 [6 favorites]

It really calls out for something mostly tasteless but not 100% gross like breaking into a building by the Waynester moving his torso to cut a perfect circle in a glass window with one of them or the like.

Stan Lee's Godawful Stripperella character had this covered. Here's an extract from her Wikipedia page:

Glass Cutter Nipples
The pasties fit over her actual nipples and turn into metal drill bits, elongate, and start spinning. This power is given to her by technology. She controls this power mentally. Mentioned in Beauty and the Obese: Part 2 and seen in Cheapo by the Dozen, to get out of a trap, and in You Only Lick Twice, to get into the hideout.

Nipple Camera
Mentioned in The Wrath of Klinko. Given to her by technology. The pictures it takes are very small, which she doesn't like.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:13 AM on June 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

I for one appreciate the nipples, stylized like little WWII RAF roundels.
posted by michaelhoney at 4:44 AM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

the Catholic League of Decency

I love the idea of a league of decency, especially one whose concerns are exactly as petty as the name suggests
posted by cubeb at 4:56 AM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

Wonder Woman's bondage roots

Now there's a phrase that's funny to Australians in 1983.
posted by flabdablet at 6:33 AM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

Do I look for Wonder Woman's Bondage Roots in the produce section? or...
posted by xedrik at 6:57 AM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

No, organic supplements at Whole Foods.
posted by Night_owl at 8:06 AM on June 7, 2022

(The Catholic League of Decency eventually begat the Catholic News Service, which is still rating movies O for Morally Offensive to this day.)
posted by box at 8:14 AM on June 7, 2022

Nipple Camera
Mentioned in The Wrath of Klinko. Given to her by technology. The pictures it takes are very small, which she doesn't like.

So the solution is bigger nipples for a larger lens, or perhaps since the other nipple is already taken, storing a magnifying glass in the belly button.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:08 AM on June 7, 2022

Gotham is always a little chilly
posted by gottabefunky at 9:18 AM on June 7, 2022 [4 favorites]

Do I look for Wonder Woman's Bondage Roots in the produce section? or...
No, organic supplements at Whole Foods.

They're considered an aphrodisiac in traditional Chinese medicine.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:47 AM on June 7, 2022

Even the super campy 60s TV show had some major fetish vibes. I mean really, satin capes, gloves and satin underpants over tights? Wowza.

That show is...indeed.

Now this is in no way a complaint, but look... it does seem like the producers of the show must have had some idea that a lot of viewers were first going to realise they were perverts during an episode of 60s Batman.
posted by howfar at 11:00 AM on June 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

While generally a crime fighter, Batman is most certainly guilty of smuggling peas.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:06 AM on June 7, 2022

Even the super campy 60s TV show had some major fetish vibes. I mean really, satin capes, gloves and satin underpants over tights? Wowza.

The Siamese Human Knot says hello.

Incidentally, legend has it that Adam West (Batman) and Frank Gorshin (Riddler) attended a Hollywood orgy on one occasion, but were kicked out because both of them obstinately refused to break character and stop speaking in their Bat-voices.
posted by delfin at 1:21 PM on June 7, 2022 [7 favorites]

Perpetrial to Brian in what they did to princess paragon
posted by brujita at 2:42 PM on June 7, 2022

Is it weird that an article about batnipples is where I learned Joel Schumacher died?

You have got to read this posthumous tribute by Anthony Oliveira in Hazlitt, which includes this gem:

I will tell you the secret of why Batman’s nipples so enrage its critics: because the charade is over. The swells and dips of the lovingly sculpted male torso can be explained, and therefore explained away: these muscles are the site of masculine power; they speak, surely, of strength, of solidity and unremitting training. It is no accident that every femme fatale in Batman’s cinematic rogues gallery fans her hands across these rubberized zones, seeking the chink in the armor.

But the male nipple has no such function, no exculpatory capacity for war; the nipple is the site of weakness, of sensitivity—and of pleasure. Plausible deniability is gone. Put a nipple on the batsuit, and you admit to having fun.

posted by Pallas Athena at 4:13 PM on June 7, 2022 [5 favorites]

Even the super campy 60s TV show had some major fetish vibes. I mean really, satin capes, gloves and satin underpants over tights? Wowza.

Sure did. Here's a fanvid for you: Kinky Neighbors (Lyrics NSFW)
posted by sencha at 4:45 PM on June 7, 2022

Is it weird that an article about batnipples is where I learned Joel Schumacher died?

My thought process while reading the article was literally this:

He even joked that he expected to see bat nipples on his headstone.

Haha, yeah, I can see why he'd—

when Schumacher died in 2020,

—he WHAT?
posted by chrominance at 5:20 PM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

—he WHAT?

Anthony Oliveira wrote this very poignant eulogy to Schumacher (I came across it when it was linked to at the end of this obit thread about Schumacher).

So as not to derail from the topic of this thread, it's probably important to mention that it spends a bit of time on the nipples, and what they mean:

Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin (like Batman Forever, the film that preceded it) is a film in delirious love with its subject, and that subject is the goofy, gay beauty of the modern myth of the superhero. Overt in its desires and its delights, the film stares with incredible, lingering longing at Chris O’Donnell’s bedewed lips, submerges the cold, aloof Bruce Wayne beneath the warm, kind smirk of George Clooney (a Batman who smiles!), and—most unforgiveable of all—it put nipples on the bat-suit.

I will tell you the secret of why Batman’s nipples so enrage its critics: because the charade is over. The swells and dips of the lovingly sculpted male torso can be explained, and therefore explained away: these muscles are the site of masculine power; they speak, surely, of strength, of solidity and unremitting training. It is no accident that every femme fatale in Batman’s cinematic rogues gallery fans her hands across these rubberized zones, seeking the chink in the armor.

But the male nipple has no such function, no exculpatory capacity for war; the nipple is the site of weakness, of sensitivity—and of pleasure. Plausible deniability is gone. Put a nipple on the batsuit, and you admit to having fun.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:02 PM on June 7, 2022

His Achilles' nipples, if you will
posted by Kabanos at 7:15 PM on June 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

That raises some uncomfortable questions about how Batman's mother dipped him into the River Styx.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:10 PM on June 7, 2022 [7 favorites]

Speaking of the Greeks, a Vox article claims that Ancient Greek armor featured nipples on breastplates, and reproduces a photo of a ~700 BC cuirass which is like a sculpture of a muscular male torso complete with nipples.

And speaking of comic book heroes, the original Thor wore a costume with two large lighter circles approximately where nipples would be on a human being, and four more below those about where additional nipples would be on an animal.

I’ve known a couple of men who had rudimentary extra nipples on their chests about where the first two lower circles are on Thor, and one of them had two more below those which were even more attenuated.

Such supernumerary nipples are amazingly common (0.2% or more), most studies find them to be more common on men than women, and occasionally they have some of the underlying tissues of breasts as well. The linked BBC page mentions an amazing 1827 report of a French woman who had a fully functional breast on her left thigh that her five children were perfectly willing to nurse from. It also mentions that some Ancient Greek representations of Diana show her with extra sets of nipples.
posted by jamjam at 2:45 AM on June 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

Incidentally, legend has it that Adam West (Batman) and Frank Gorshin (Riddler) attended a Hollywood orgy on one occasion, but were kicked out because both of them obstinately refused to break character and stop speaking in their Bat-voices.

That sounds like a feature, not a bug, and a very good reason to NOT kick them out.
posted by asnider at 11:15 AM on June 8, 2022 [5 favorites]

Seriously, you could get free drinks for the rest of your life at any gay bar in the country with that story.
posted by darkstar at 11:49 AM on June 8, 2022 [4 favorites]

I remember being in an AOL chat interview with Joel Schumacher at the time that Batman Forever was released, and a joke about Batman's rubber nipples kept coming up. I was a teenager at the time, and didn't really understand how or why it was funny, or why the filmmakers felt the need to add visible nipples to Batman's costume in the first place. I probably should have realized it was Joel Schumacher, who directed The Lost Boys, and put two and two together, but that's innocent youth for you.

This really explained a lot to me now, all these years later. Thank you.
posted by Down10 at 12:17 PM on June 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

It was only after I’d seen the movies and done some further digging that I learned that Schumacher was outspokenly gay throughout his career. And then put two and two together on why The Lost Boys was my kind of vampire flick.

Interesting article on Schumacher as an unabashed gay auteur:

Schumacher's texts stand out today not due to the controversy they incurred during their time or for the cult following they've developed over the years but because they're the finest examples of Schumacher forcing heterosexual audiences to reckon with queer material. Batman Forever and Batman & Robin function as Trojan horses for explicitly gay aesthetics and theming, even if the famously gay director was unable to make the narratives themselves explicit in their queerness.

There's something particularly exhilarating about watching a gay man be handed the reins and hundred-million-dollar budget of an international blockbuster franchise with a fanbase made up primarily of straight men and use that money to piss those straight men off. Schumacher didn't give a shit what anybody else thought Batman should be. He's made his passion for the character clear in interviews over the years and, once given the opportunity to create his own vision of the character, did just that. Schumacher's Batman films are, in that sense, vital queer texts even setting aside the subtext of the relationships between the men in the films (Riddler's crush on Bruce Wayne, the tension between both Batman and Robin as well as, if you as a certain kind of viewer, Batman and Alfred).

His heroes don rubber-molded suits depicting an idealized male form, with chiseled biceps and sculpted abs — even, rather infamously, nipples on the pecs, making Schumacher's intent clearer than ever: he wants you to see the male form in these suits, he's forcing you to engage with his adoration of the male form. His villains draw from queer camp and drag culture, with men and women alike donning sequined bodysuits, make-up, and hair dye. The world of Batman Forever and Batman & Robin bears zero resemblance to ours, instead resembling a party that never ends. Streets are bathed in strobe lights and neon and even gangs of criminals seem to come equipped with a signature dance number. Schumacher's Gotham is a gay bar and nobody checks IDs at the door.

posted by darkstar at 12:37 PM on June 8, 2022 [6 favorites]

...both of them obstinately refused to break character and stop speaking in their Bat-voices.

That sounds like a feature, not a bug, and a very good reason to NOT kick them out.

Yeah, if they’re not doing the voices I’m putting my clothes back on and calling an Uber.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:43 PM on June 8, 2022 [5 favorites]

Superfluous third nipple: who wore it best?

Krusty the Clown
Francisco Scaramanga
James Bond disguised as Francisco Scaramanga
posted by kirkaracha at 2:18 PM on June 8, 2022 [4 favorites]

Speaking of third nipples:

And speaking of comic book heroes, the original Thor wore a costume with two large lighter circles approximately where nipples would be on a human being, and four more below those about where additional nipples would be on an animal.

One wonders about Xandarians.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:24 AM on June 9, 2022