Malay Batman Returns Blog

Batman admits that there are two truths about himself. What are those two truths and how do they apply to Catwoman and Penguin as well? Make sure you discuss all three characters and scenes to support your blog.

Batman Returns Movie Poster

The two truths that Bruce Wayne admits about himself are as follows:

1.  He is actually Batman which is the most obvious and

2. He has never come to terms with the death of his parents, which is why he feels almost obligated to be Batman.

How these two truths relate to Catwoman is that he is not able to progress in his quasi-relationship with Catwoman because it would violate the idea that superheroes remain celibate and do not become involved with romantic types of relationships.  During the scene when Catwoman and Batman are on the roof there is obvious chemistry between the two and Catwoman acts on her desires more than Batman does by instead of kissing him, licking him like a cat would. This concept can also be applied when Catwoman becomes Selina Kyle during the day. The relationship between Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle is still not completely romantic because there is still any air of wanting to remain celibate from Bruce, but the chemistry is still evident between the two and funny enough more so from Bruce. By night Catwoman seems to be more wanting of a serious relationship and by day it switches to Bruce. Also to be noted is the fact that there seems to be a sense of distance between both Bruce Way and Selina Kyle as well as their alter egos. The distance is not just the desire to remain celibate, but for Bruce specifically the fact that he lost his parents so young contributes, if not the sole reason, for he fact that he is so lonely and distant. Here is a single guy with his butler in a house that could easily fit 20 plus people.  The might also parallel Penguin in that he lives in a huge penguin exhibit and the sewers which themselves are huge and he is still all alone outside of his penguin “family”.

            Penguin, like Batman, was also without parental figures in his life and he grew up as an outcast of society. His motives to find his parents can be paralleled to how Bruce Wayne needs to find closure to the loss of his. Penguin cannot function in society because he is disfigured physically and thus takes his anger out on the society that never accepted him where as Batman is emotionally and psychologically disfigured, however instead of causing destruction and chaos, he prevents it because he feels a moral obligation to. Penguin feels no moral obligation to help society because they rejected him and his own parents failed their moral obligation to love their son and accept him even with his disfigurement. 

Malay Batman Blog Entry

The Joker is a trickster character. Discuss what makes him that and show how Burton both supports and undermines the idea of the trickster.

The Joker is a character that, unlike Batman, is very one-dimensional and Burton supports the concept of a trickster character by making the Joker this way. The fact that his only goals are to not only get rid of Batman, but also destroy Gotham city are classic qualities of a trickster whose ultimate purpose is to destabilize society. What also is very supportive of the notion of a trickster character is how greedy he is. In the movie his greed is shown in several ways, a few of them being his desire to have Vicky Vale all for himself and also the fact that he kill his boss. By having that intense amount of greed within himself, the Joker is able to do the tricks he wants because he knows that ultimately there is something in the end for him whether it be having Vicky all for himself of destroying all of Gotham. The trickster character is very self interested and highly motivated to get what they want, even if it means to going to the extremes of destroying an entire city.

Jack Nicholson's Joker

Burton’s use of film noir elements helps to further bring out the darkness of the Joker and not just the actual setting itself. The film noir elements help to highlight the true disturbance that lies within the Joker’s consciousness and further add to the fact that he is as evil as he comes off being. There were a few moments where Burton undermines the trickster character, namely the fact that he does not make a deal with anyone. No one is asking him for something and he expects anything in return, the Joker is pulling his pranks solely for his own entertainment. There is no bargaining involved and if anyone does decide to question his authority the Joker has no problem with killing that person right on the spot. This adds to the idea that he is very self interested, but also undermines the idea of a trickster because he is not willing to make deals with anyone who questions him.  Another part of the film where Burton undermines the idea of a trickster character is in the fact that the Joker has henchmen where as the traditional trickster character works alone. This goes to show that the Joker is not able to function without the help of others and does not completely rely on his cunningness to get his way.

Malay Beetlejuice Blog Entry

America is a country that denies death.  Why do you think Americans refuse to incorporate the reality of death into their lives? Think about death denial in terms of Beetlejuice. How does the film, rather than accepting the reality of death, actually deny it?

Betelgeuse Headstone

Death is something that at one point or another, generally speaking, most people have questions about such as “Is there an after life?” and “How does it feel to die?” along with many others. Americans are afraid to accept the reality of death into their lives simply because it is unknown not only what happens after we die, but also because everyone is just as vulnerable to die as the next person. Death has no clock on which it follows. An example of this can be seen in the movie when the Maitlands die. They had no idea that on their way home that their car was going to fall into the river and they were going to drown to death. More than likely they both had crossed that bridge hundreds upon hundreds of times with out any worries of anything happening to them at all. The thought that something tragic may happen probably never even crossed their minds.

It is well established into the American culture that America is the invincible country, which no one can touch, and if you try and mess with us, they will get back a hundred times what they tried to give (usually in the form of invading said person’s country, but I don’t think I need to get into the details of that.) Furthermore, by denying death we are imposing the ideas that materialism hold causing people to over look the little things in life. There is a fantastic poem by Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer titled April and Silence that illustrates this very fact in however in a not so obvious way. (I’ll post the poem at the end of this blog along with a link to Tranströmer’s biography if you’re interested in reading more about him. Don’t worry if you don’t understand the poem the first time through, It takes a few reads to really grasp what he’s getting at here.) An aspect of the film which denies the reality of death is The Handbook for the Recently Deceased. Any person of sound mind would be willing to accept the fact that the dead cannot read and therefore by having a book for the dead to read about being dead shows how the denial of death is present not only in the movie, but in society in general. When this film first came out I’m sure that not many people understood or realized what the book symbolizes which is ultimately the denial of death in American society.

April and Silence by Tomas Tranströmer





Spring lies deserted.


The dark velvet ditch


creeps by my side


not reflecting anything.


All that shines


are yellow flowers.


I am carried in my shadow


like a violin


in its black case.




All I want to say


gleams out of reach


like the silver


in a pawnshop.

Click here to read Tranströmer's biography. 

Click here for the link to the poem.

Malay Introduction

Hello! My name is Tara and I am a freshman philosophy major from Dallas, Texas. After college I would like to go to graduate school and get my masters in either Philosophy or Psychology. I can speak, other than English, German, French, Swedish and Finnish. Knowing these languages has made my life significantly easier considering my major as well as just communicating with my family and friends who live in non-English speaking countries. My favorite sport is hockey and my favorite team is the Dallas Stars, though I am also a fan of a few European teams as well.

Other than watching hockey, I love reading the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and Edgar Allan Poe. I am in the process of finishing The Lord of the Rings series as well as watching the films which really do not do the books any justice at all as is usually the case with books that are made into films. I am not much of a television watcher however I do love movies; some of my favorites include The Nightmare Before Christmas, Star Wars, Sleeping Beauty (Disney 1959), Sweeney Todd, and all the Christopher Nolan Batman movies. The most recent film that I have seen was Les Misérables and it was truly an astounding piece of work. I have not seen the Broadway production of it, but it is most definitely on my list of things to do in the future. I saw The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway in 2006 as well as the film adaptation and thought that both were very well done for their respective mediums of art. I am an avid coffee and tea drinker and when I am not doing that and have some free time I can either be found on Facebook or Skyping my boyfriend who lives in Stockholm, Sweden. My favorite holiday is Christmas, but not in a religious sense, more that I enjoy the atmosphere of being with the people who mean the most to me. I play many musical instruments such as the bass guitar, the electric guitar and piano. I could read music before I could read words and I thank both of my grandpas and my uncle for instilling a love for the arts in me from a very young age.

I am really looking forward to this seminar class and this semester as a whole. My classes this semester are a lot more of what I am interested in rather than just required courses that I have no interest in. Other than this seminar class I am taking German, French, History of 19^th Century Philosophy, World Civilizations to 1650 and Critical Reading and Writing.