George Clooney (and Everyone Else) Needs to Stop Apologizing for ‘Campy Batman’

When Batman Begins came out 20 years ago, almost to the day, I was a high school nerd. Which is to say that I was (of course) obsessed that someone had finally taken Batman seriously. And to be honest, I remain a great booster for what Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale achieved across all three films in their Dark Knight trilogy (yes, even that third one). But in 2005, as a kid desperate for a “gritty” depiction of the Caped Crusader, Batman Begins felt like a cool drink of ice water after the barren wasteland that was Batman & Robin—an admitted irony given all of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ice puns.

Twenty years on, however, and after a whole lot more grim and dour cinematic Batman-ing, it might be time to put away childish things, which includes a nigh adolescent aversion to all things “campy” when it comes to the guy dressed up in skin tight underwear designed to resemble a flying rodent. And that goes for Batman & Robin star George Clooney, too.

The Oscar winner and current star of Good Night and Good Luck on Broadway is indeed making the rounds again on his 30-year tour of apologies for that time he starred opposite Schwarzenegger and Uma Thurman in Warner Brothers’ fourth Batman flick. 

“My son, the new guy that he loves is Batman,” Clooney recently told Entertainment Tonight (via Culture Crave). “And I said to him, ‘You know, I was Batman.’ And he’s like ‘not really.’ And I was like “you have no idea how right you are!’”

It’s a good line delivered with the maximum charm and winking self-effacement that Clooney mastered long before donning the cowl in the Joel Schumacher Bat-monstrosity. It also is very much of our current moment since the man creatively in charge of the new cinematic DC Universe, James Gunn, has similarly announced a distaste for “campy Batman.” While chatting with Rolling Stone on a wide range of DC topics, Gunn offered an intriguing morsel about how much the studio is grappling with differentiating their version of Batman from what’s come before, including Matt Reeves’ take on the Dark Knight in The Batman and the forthcoming The Batman 2 (two movies that exist outside the DCU’s purview).

“Batman has to have a reason for existing, right?” Gunn said. “Batman can’t just be ‘Oh, we’re making a Batman movie because Batman’s the biggest character in all of Warner Bros.,’ which he is. But because there’s a need for him in the DCU and a need that he’s not exactly the same as Matt’s Batman. But yet he’s not a campy Batman. I’m not interested in that. I’m not interested in a funny, campy Batman, really. So we’re dealing with that.”

Without knowing exactly what Gunn has planned, it’s intriguing to notice how vocal the producer is about his resistance toward a campy Batman. After all, this is the man who made audiences fall in love with a talking raccoon and tree. Sure, Rocket and Groot had their sentimental earnestness, too, but there will never not be something slightly campy about a baby tree with the face of an angel grooving to the Jackson 5.

All of which makes me wonder if the Batman also couldn’t use a little Motown funk these days if we must return to the strange phenomenon of there being two guys playing Batman in different franchises at the same time.

To be clear, I appreciate the “dark” Batman still. Which is a good thing since we’ve had nothing but that since 2005, whether it be of the Bale/Nolan variety, Reeves and Robert Pattinson’s even more brooding and despairing take on Bruce Wayne (this one wears enough guyliner to join the Black Parade!), or that strange detour into Frank Miller’s fascism-adjacent vision of the Dark Knight in the Zack Snyder and Ben Affleck years.

Through it all, Gunn is also right that we’ve explored just about every era of the character’s history—his origins and “first year” on the job (twice); his middle age and retirement era (also twice); and ironically only one movie where he’s in his prime fighting the Joker. The Bat/Cat dynamic has been embraced repeatedly, as has his complex relationships with Jim Gordon and Alfred Pennyworth. We even got a to see him both pummel and pal around with Superman.

The only thing we haven’t witnessed in the last 25 years or so—other than notably the Bat-Family—is a Batman that can have some fun with his schtick.

For the record, this is not a demand for a campy Batman. But it is an acknowledgement that there is plenty of room for that aspect in the character’s legacy. While the Bill Finger and Bob Kane template was initially shrouded in pulp era mystery and melodrama, the character’s most popular years before Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams came along (never mind Frank Miller) was when Adam West and Burt Ward were going “POW” and “BAM” on ABC. And for all of Schumacher’s foibles, the truth is that he made Batman movies a seven year old can enjoy. I know that because I was about that old when Batman Forever came out. Meanwhile some parents very well shudder at the thought of letting an eight-year-old today watch Pattinson pummel an incel’s face half to death in the three-hour movie that begins with Paul Dano’s the Riddler going the full Zodiac on a father in his home with a lead pipe.

Mind you, all that carnage came out to a great Batman picture. Three years ago, I even called The Batman one of the finest superhero movies ever made and the best of this decade. That hasn’t changed in the interim. Nevertheless, there is more than just one valid interpretation of this character. Even Clooney’s Bat-Nipples count as a valid when you’re dealing with a character that was introduced to 1960s TV audiences doing the “Batusi” opposite a woman unironically dressed as Cleopatra VII.

Gunn himself has proved that “silly” does not necessitate bad. It doesn’t even necessitate a lack of sophistication. Consider that there is far more emotional investment and earnest attachment to his traumatized raccoon that has a penchant for swiping prosthetic limbs than there ever was in the total dourness of Affleck’s humorless Ayn Rand ideal.

Whether dark and “serious,” or light and “campy,” what really tends to matter is the execution and the ability to convince the audience to buy in. Whether or not that means the DCU gets a campy Batman or not, I do suspect that a Batman who has a family and a child—a la Damian Wayne—might be a step in the right direction toward the only cinematic ground not trodden well with the Dark Knight. Fortunately on that score, Gunn’s already said Damian is one of his favorite Bat-characters.