Batman Crucifction Rationale

We were sitting in a dim lit restaurant overlooking Oakland Bay when the idea first began to gel. I had flown down from Seattle to make a portrait of Valentin for my "Heroes" series. Things were going well. Valentin had shown me several powerful new pieces that afternoon and they in turn had shown me the way to picture him.

We were taking a break for food and relaxation before the actual shoot. Red wine was flowing freely, a deep musky merlot as I recall, and Valentin seemed to be feeling voluble. Both of us were in the mood for laughter. So you see, no one can be blamed. Not really.

"Have you seen this movie, Batman?" Popov asked me with a twinkle.

I nodded yes, smiling.

"And what did you think?" he queried. "Personally, I found it very, very strange."

"I absolutely loved it!" I said. "I went to see the Seattle premier downtown. It was a midnight showing and there was a huge crowd lined up around the block. What a gorgeous head trip of a movie!"

We agreed that the film was surprisingly powerful, both visually and philosophically, and that somehow it had touched something deep inside each of us. Something unexpected. Conversation lagged momentarily then and we each wandered off into our own thoughts.

Suddenly Valentin began speaking in staccatto, exploring cultural aspects of the story that would never have occured to an American like myself, a delightful bit of perestroika at work.

"In Russia," he began, "we have come to think of America as a country where freedom is the number one priority. You know, innocent until proven guilty, trial by jury, things that only seem right and fair.

"...things we can only dream of." his voice trailed off wistfully.

"Then I come to that very same America I have always heard about and discover that their number one hero is a masked vigilante. Think about it. Batman is not an elected official. He is not the police. He answers to no one, really. But every time the police and mayor cannot solve a crime they shine that big light in the night sky and cry for help. ‘Batman, please... Save us!’

"This is very odd, don’t you think?" he asked, glancing sideways at the white-jacketed wine steward approaching our table.

I leaned back in my chair, mind racing. Harbor lights danced in our glasses as the wine steward refilled them. When he’d finished, Valentin leaned secretively toward me again and began to whisper.

"Very soon Mr. Batman shows up and catches the bad guys, killing any who try to stop him. No trial. No jury. No questions. Neat, yes? And not unlike my country in the past. If Batman says you’re guilty, then you’re guilty. Time to die."

"Yes, but the weak and the stupid are once again saved from evil." I observed cynically.

"Perhaps Batman is like new Jesus Christ." he smiled then, as if the thought had just dawned on him. "Yes! I think he is the American Jesus Christ! Crazy huh? What do you think?"

While we talked the velvety blinders of my childhood familiarity with Batman fell away and I began to see the comical nature of this pop hero from Valentin’s fresh Russian perspective. We laughed a great deal over the next hour and with the help of yet another bottle of merlot and an amazing raspberry torte, our conversation began running back and forth across the intersecting themes of sugary, carbonated pop culture and humanity’s need for saviors. We carried our exploration happily into the wee small hours of morning, through the photo shoot, whose results you can see in the "Heroes Project" section of this site, and then onward over the next several months, via telephone.

Each time we talked our mental playground grew more playful, until we were batting new Batman ideas and jokes around like kittens with winged mice. Valentin had since begun exploring this "Batman as Savior" theme with an artful vengence in paintings, monotypes, collages, drawings and icons, but we decided it would be fun to try this avenue photographically, and to produce it together.

"Of course there’s something pathetic about this masked crusader, yet that’s part of his appeal, don’t you think?"

"I mean what does he have to hide really, behind that pointed mask and the rubber suit."

"Maybe he has a miserable little dick and he’s using the big car and killer toys as compensation."

"But why does Alfred encourage him so?" we asked one day in unison.

"You realize of course that he must be punished." said I.

"After all he is dealing with human nature," said he. "And it is practically a law of human nature that we must destroy him."

"Somehow we end up killing nearly every savior." I winced on cue. "I fear it is the pathetic human way."

"Well, he is guilty of trying to save us after all?" Valentin roared in a commanding Russian tone.

>From playful conversations like these our project began to take its shape. Cynical projections of humanity run amok. Duality and blood lust in all their painful glory. Was it loyalty or hatred that motivated the rubber suited one, we asked. Was he more savior or victim, messiah or vigilante, romantic hero or just another mean-spirited bully?

We decided to expand our discussions, to create a broader forum by actually creating scenes from an imaginary future where hero worship would have run its logical course and another soda-pop-messiah would be made to pay for the arrogance of trying to save humanity. Batman crucified, first captured, then stripped like the very Jesus he mocked. The poster boy of black rubber and existential duality finally brought low.

Of course we tried to frame our observations and questions in a way that nothing could be taken too seriously, while still providing a thoughtful and provocative means of exploration. And from the beginning we suspected that some of you would actually understand. Some of you do understand, don't you?

What really makes a hero anyway, and at what cost, and to whom?

Judge the results for yourselves.