Bam! Smack! Pow! You see the words jump up on the screen, and your favorite crime-fighting team clobbers some crazy criminals trying to disrupt the society of Gotham.
Though an inarguably corny take on DC’s “Dark Knight” persona, the Batman series (1966-68) maintains a fixed place as a cult classic among all of American science fiction television. Starring Adam West in the titular role alongside Burt Ward as Dick Grayson/Robin, the series prompted an early feature-length film with the original cast members – Batman: The Movie (1966).
The movie follows our heroes battling a gang of super villains and shows off some of the efficient albeit zany bat-tools employed in their fight against evil. Despite its often cheesy external circumstances, the storyline also allows for an exploration of the dignity of human life and, really, of what the role of a just superhero is meant to be.
Even in the sixties series, Adam West’s Batman tends to get a little preachy at times. But this makes the Batman character uniquely his own. He attempts to instill in his young companion a sense of moral hierarchy. He will share with Dick the need for virtue and the benefits of common life lessons. So too in Batman: The Movie, there are times when he feels called to explain himself to his youthful sidekick.
In the film, an iconic sequence portrays Batman running frenetically about on the dock, attempting to dispose of a lit bomb. First, he evacuates a bar, on the upper floor of which he discovered the bomb. From there, he runs around trying to leave it somewhere that will result in few to no human fatalities. But he is continually running into other people – a marching band, a pair of Catholic nuns, a mother with her baby in a stroller – and he knows he can’t risk injuring any of these.
Finally, he gets rid of the lit explosive, but not without endangering his own life. Robin runs up and can’t find Batman and fears that the daring feat might have cost him his life. Luckily, he was spared by some quick thinking. Nevertheless, Robin is still shocked and tells his friend he is surprised that he risked his own life for the “riff-raff” at the bar. The prior scenes depicted men and women gratifying themselves in the extreme, turning to gluttony and intoxication. Calmly, the masked Bruce Wayne responds by taking a defensive stance.
“They may be drinkers, Robin,” Batman says. “But they’re also human beings – and may be salvaged. I had to do it!”
This highlights the fact that he could not play God and look down on these fellow human beings who, like Wayne, were also made in the imago Dei, in the very image of God. Even though it is clear most of the people at the bar exemplify our fallen human nature struggling in the deep quagmire of moral depravity, Batman would not forsake them, just as he wouldn’t forsake the lives of the nuns or the little baby being pushed about by his mother. In his mind, he sees the dignity of the human person as universally applicable.
Respect for human life and the laws of nature permeates other areas of the movie as well. Not long after the whole bomb incident, the Penguin is brought to the Batcave, where he unleashes several of his minions. Once dehydrated (yes, this is a scientific long-shot, but recall the program’s overall tone), these pirates are reconstituted as men. However, they find themselves in a molecularly unstable condition. When they confront Batman and Robin in hand-to-hand combat and come into contact with another person or object, they are instantly disintegrated, plunged into a state of “anti-matter” as Batman explains. They simply cease to be. The Caped Crusaders are noticeably crestfallen when this botched job performed by Penguin caused the needless demise of about half a dozen men. Once again, the sense of loss felt by the superheroes shows an acute sense of acknowledging the human dignity of everyone – even their enemies, a very Christian-flavored notion in itself.
Lastly, the idea of human dignity and of safeguarding it can be found in the highest stakes proposed in the plot. The gang of super villains, comprised of Penguin, Joker, Catwoman, Riddler, and their cronies, also dehydrate members of the security council who have come from all corners of the world and have assembled at the United World Organization. Once dehydrated, these international delegates are reduced to little more than different colored piles of sand, an image reminiscent of the scriptural description of man being born of the earth and, in death, reducible to the dust of which he was made.
However, the story takes this physical alteration only as a bizarre reduction of the human beings into grains of sand (since their moisture has been removed) and not an actual death. Batman and Robin must try to save the dehydrated delegates. Meanwhile, the villains plan to sell the remnants of the security council members for the highest price they can get.
Through a series of events, the Dynamic Duo get their hands on the vials of dirt, each vial containing in it the only physical matter left of one of the delegates. Even though these vials can’t be distinguished as individual persons, Batman and Robin treat them with the sanctity owed to human beings via their inherent and God-given dignity.
One could say that this imagery displays how even if a human person is “merely” a zygote or fetus, someone as yet without the form of an adult man or woman, the living being shares the same human dignity held by any one of us. Just because we can’t clearly see the shape of a typical human body within the human person doesn’t deny that creature’s personhood. Similarly, Batman recognizes the unique personhood contained within each of the vials he holds in his hands.
Eventually, Batman and Robin are able to rehydrate and thus reconstitute the lost delegates. It is this high note on which the film ends. Throughout Batman: The Movie, we see glimpses of a rather Gospel-themed message regarding the sanctity of human life.
Regardless of whether or not you don a pair of tights and a cape to serve justice, no matter whether or not you’re a superhero, we are all called to show respect, courtesy, and charity to those around us.
*Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
John Tuttle
John Tuttle is a Catholic journalist, blogger, and photographer. He has written for Prehistoric Times, Culture Wars Magazine, Those Catholic Men, Catholic Insight, Inside Over, Ancient Origins, Love They Nerd, We Got This Covered, Cultured Vultures, and elsewhere. He can be reached at jptuttleb9@gmail.com.