Talk:Homosexuality in the Batman franchise

Link Corrected
The link in the reference to the Batman character of Holly Robinson incorrectly pointed to the article on actress Holly Robinson-Peete. I am correcting this.CLBeilby (talk) 15:03, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

OR template
I rved this template, as:
 * There was no discussion of its addition.
 * The majority of the content is spun of from the Batman FA and LGBT themes in comics GA, so was already checked for OR and verifiability.
 * Almost everything left here is directly from a source.

You have to admit, him and Dick sharing the same bed in the 50's, that was kinda gay. You can see where all the talk started. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.28.56.90 (talk) 21:51, 20 November 2009 (UTC)


 * If that's an actual frame from the comic, there's almost no question about it. While sharing space might have been common in Europe, or among the poor in tiny living quarters, these two dudes were slicked back, wearing tights together in the same room, same bed, of a vast underground structure that certainly had room for two bedrooms, had only the dominant Batman been willing to allow the construction of one. Of course, that would have meant private space for his submissive but rowdy sidekick, who would likely have then been far less available for whatever it was they were up to in there.
 * Let this serve as a warning to the conservative right wing in America: when the gay's are oppressed, they'll do creepy stuff, like sneak homosexuality into kids comic books, after getting all pent up. Let 'em out of the closet, protect them from discrimination in the workplace, etc, and the really subtle stuff like that just doesn't happen anymore; instead, when they want to express themselves, they can do so openly, which ought to make it much easier to identify content these conservatives might wish to shield their children from. You know, assuming they actually stick around to supervise their kids instead of plopping them down in front of FOX... Zaphraud (talk) 10:39, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * You're deliberately reading erotic homosexuality into innocence. Remember the time period in which that comic book panel was first printed. The Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson characters had a father/son relationship. Its was not at all odd, or sexual, for the time period (of even arguably today) for father and young son to share close sleeping arrangements. Young children often sleep with their parents, its natural and healthy, unlike your homoerotic fantasy of a man and young child, which is most decidedly unhealthy.
 * Let THIS serve as a warning to the liberal/progressive left wing in America. No gays were oppressed (either in America or Batman comics), but they will do creepy stuff, like give innocent comic panels like this, a homoerotic interpretation - no matter how far fetched. Gays have never been widely discriminated in the workplace or elsewhere, which the children of liberal/progressive would know, assuming their parents actually stuck around to supervise their kids instead of plopping them down in front of MSNBC. 173.209.110.231 (talk) 15:05, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

If there are remainging OR concerns, sentence tagging would be more helpful from here on in. Thanks! Yob  Mod  17:56, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

My work/additions
I don't usually do this, but I'll make an exception. I'm commenting on a few edits I've made here tonight (or today, depending on your locale). I added a section I call the dissent and changed up the "creators response" section. Basically, I wanted to add this important statement by Ray Tate--a nobody, I guess, but still--to the article: fucking a kid isn't "gay" it's pedophilic. Shame more people don't point that out. Also, I re-added the comment by Clooney (from 2006), and improved the stuff about Schumacher's sequel.

Personally, I hate that this article even exists, but I'm still a Wikipedian. I'd rather see a great article about a crappy topic than the reverse. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 03:11, 3 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Pedophilia, as defined, wouldn't encompass a relationship between Bruce Wayne and a teenager like Dick Grayson. The allegation of child molestation now in the article, as well as the "fucking a kid" description here, verges on the histrionic. No one's view on this issue is less sincerely held than another's, and all are deserving of the benefit of the doubt. In my view, painting the topic using terms like "child molesters" and "kid fuckers" doesn't advance the discussion in a meaningful way. --SSBohio 20:15, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Heh. Time to geek-out a little. *Ahem!*
 * Firstly, a note of Dick's age. Pre-Crises, Dick meant (and was fostered by) Bruce Wayne at age eight. Only later did they bump his age, at introduction, to twelve. The former age definitely qualifies as pedo (child), and the latter is on the borderline. Either way, this is mostly splitting hairs. Regardless of whether you, I, or Elliot Stabler) should use the words "[[hebephilia and ephebophilia in place of the common pedophilia, it all relates to an adult having a romantic/sexual relationship with a minor. And it all would be illegal (rightly so, say most US citizens).
 * Secondly, I would most certainly argue that a view held by either a mocking non-fan or a casual pontificator is worth less—see what I did there?—than that of an avowed fan. I could say all kinds of things in the same vein as "Batman is gay," but I'd expect to be rebuked and dismissed. In my view, it's the same as people saying "Ryan Seacrest is gay". Worse, actually. I don't recall anyone claiming Seacrest had a thing for someone Justin Bieber's age. Which brings me back to...
 * Pedophilia is widely considered a crime worse than murder. Recognising this fact, along with what Dr. Wertham (the Jack Thompson of his day) was really alleging, is key. Saying "Batman and Superman are lovers" is fine. Unfounded, but fine. Saying Batman has sex with a minor? And erroneously calling this behavior "gay"? that just insults everyone involved (Bruce; Dick; and real, consenting gay men).
 * P.S. child molester can be applied because child" is a blanket term. I'd call them "minor molesters," but that implies a decrease in the severity of the crime itself. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 19:30, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree, this article is a complete waste of space with most of the resources coming from an analysis of the comics from a complete idiot wanting every charactor to be gay. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.10.223.81 (talk) 17:03, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree as well, If someone actually reads the damn article, a Batman comic book writer who has legal connections with the character and DC Comics who clearly knows what the opinions COMPANY AND PEOPLE WHO CREATED BATMAN are on his sexuality, here's a quote from the article. Writer Alan Grant has stated, "The Batman I wrote for 13 years isn't gay. Denny O'Neil's Batman, Marv Wolfman's Batman, everybody's Batman all the way back to Bob Kane... none of them wrote him as a gay character..." BOB KANE and BILL FINGER who CREATED him did NOT make a gay character. That should be the only answer to this idiotic debate. The only people who make the arguments that The Batman is gay, are either directors like Schumacher, actors like Clooney, who both took CREATIVE LIBERTIES with the character and put their take on the character, psychologists who have absolutely no connection to the development of the character and formed their own OPINION of him and make ludicrous comments like "he is gay" instead of saying something like "in my personal opinion, batman gay", and people who want to believe he's gay. This article is ridiculous and should be torn down immediately and whenever someone such as myself who have tried to do it, such as myself, (I removed the "Homosexuality in the Batman franchise" section from the Batman article.) gets hit with a stupid message from the user saying how its "completely unacceptable" and gets told to familiarize themselves with a certain policy, and my only argument to that is, fine, we will read that policy and study up before we do something, but maybe you should familiarize yourself with the Civility policy which states "editors should always treat each other with consideration and respect..." and I dont feel they even considered what I did and instead got angry and threatened to block me, and all I really did was remove something that was opinionated and wanted to leave only the facts.THEFIGHTINGAVENGER (talk) 05:27, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
 * As the person in question, can I please request that you respond to me directly instead of leaving snarky comments on other articles? Euchrid (talk) 05:29, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
 * In response to your comments about the article, I feel that I should point out that nowhere does it say that Batman is gay, as that's a matter of opinion. What it documents is the variety of sources who have, throughout Batman's long and varied history, found a variety of homosexual subtexts. You obviously have the right to disagree with them - I certainly don't agree with all of them myself - but that in no way means that the article should be removed.Euchrid (talk) 05:35, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Your right. The only real reason I didn't contact you directly is because I didn't know how I've never had an account on Wikipedia before. I apologize for coming across as snarky, but I wasn't very happy with getting hit for vandalism, when I had no idea it was vandalism at the time.The Batman article states only facts about The Batman, this article displays opinions, maybe this shouldn't be a section on the Batman article and instead be a "see also" link. what do you think? I Think it would make people settle down a bit. I understand your reasoning for keeping this up, though I would also just like to know your personal opinion on the matter or just what exactly you don't agree with. Again I apologize for anything that offended you. THEFIGHTINGAVENGER (talk) 06:30, 25 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for saying so. I know what it's like to be new here - we all were at one time. As far as opinion vs fact on the Batman pages, everything here is a fact, or should be. It's a fact that Wertham wrote Seduction of the Innocent and accused Batman comics of having homosexual overtones, it's a fact that Burt Ward said that he thought the same. It's also a fact that Alan Grant said that there aren't any homosexual elements to the character. These people are stating their opinions, but the Wikipedia article doesn't (or shouldn't) endorse any of them, merely report on them. As I said before, the article doesn't say that Batman is gay, what it DOES say is that people have said that he is gay. And there's a huge difference there.Euchrid (talk) 08:37, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

"unintended" rainbow
I'm not quite sure what the quotation marks around the word unintended are supposed to mean. Typically, aren't quotes used to indicate that something is ostensibly "such and such"? As the rainbow symbol apparently wasn't used in an LGBT context until the 1970s, and the rainbow Batman story was from twenty-some years previous (1957), isn't "unintended" truly unintended? Roygbiv666 (talk) 20:23, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Vandalism
Oh good, another round of vandalism. Could it be time for a semi-protection of this page?Euchrid (talk) 23:45, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Poison Ivy/Harley Quinn
Shouldn´t this relationship also be included under the women section? This "Les Yay" is pretty obvious in the derived comic "Batman Adventures" from the TV "Batman: The Animated Series"

You can see enough "proof" (or at least it's heavily implied) about this in http://ladygeekgirl.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/sexualized-saturdays-poison-ivy/ (it´s also something long discussed in several fan sites)

Also, it´s seem Paul Dini confirmed this as "intentional" in an interview (sorry, I couldn´t found any reliable source) MyLastDays 03:15, 4 March 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 181.164.44.28 (talk)
 * I think that you answered your own question when you said that you don't have a reliable source. Euchrid (talk) 04:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Romantic interests
Given this is supposed to be about homosexuality (perceived or otherwise) in Batman, why is there even a list-like section of his female love interests? In terms of the relevance to the topic, isn't it enough to say that Batman/Bruce Wayne has had many love interests and they have all been women? ZarhanFastfire (talk) 19:10, 24 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I completely agree. I'll remove that section, since it is more than covered in Batman's article (actually, there's even more detail here than in the main article). Elideb (talk) 19:20, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Openly gay characters
If this article exists, at least it should provide some information on actual LGBTQ characters in the Batman universe. I've reconverted the absurdly named "Women in the Batman franchise", which makes no sense in this article, and replaced it with "Openly gay characters in the Batman franchise". I've added Selina Kyle's bisexuality in there, but the whole section still seems a little weird.

Should this be turned into a list of gay characters, in alphabetic order with references and short notes? Or renamed to something like "Controversies surrounding homosexual characters" (probably this should be the title of the whole article, since that's what takes most of it). Or "Major openly gay characters", and limit it to Batwoman, Selina Kyle and any other gay character of similar relevance. Elideb (talk) 19:57, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I suppose Batman is bi
All of this camp (involving Robin) and Batman's flirting with Catwoman suggests that Batman is bi, rather than gay or (properly) straight. I note that Bruce Wayne in 'Gotham' comes across as straight (he has at least a couple of flirty relationships with girls, the future Catwoman included). 73.194.9.155 (talk) 04:23, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on Homosexuality in the Batman franchise. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Attempted to fix sourcing for http://www.variety.com/vstory/vr1117925178.html?categoryID=38&cs=1
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20081025052645/http://www.advocate.com:80/issue_story_ektid63952.asp to http://www.advocate.com/issue_story_ektid63952.asp

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 13:54, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Lego Batman
I don't edit Wikipedia pages as a rule, I don't do it very often so will probably run afoul of editors. But someone with the skills should probably add some references to the gay subtext between Batman and the Joker in the Lego Batman movie. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.15.100.50 (talk) 20:02, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Homosexuality in the Batman franchise. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081201072032/http://www.comicsbulletin.com/panel/106070953757230.htm to http://www.comicsbulletin.com/panel/106070953757230.htm
 * Added tag to http://prismcomics.org/display.php?id=1089
 * Added archive http://www.webcitation.org/676ViTj0y?url=http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/14269.html to http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/14269.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 14:00, 4 April 2017 (UTC)