Batman Returns and Antisemitism?

[The Laughing Fish]

When the movie came out in 1992, the New York Times ran an opinion piece titled "Batman and the Jewish Question", which was written by a couple of college students who made a series of observations connecting elements in Batman Returns with Antisemitism. It was apparently a big deal at the time.

I can't, for the life of me, find the actual article itself online, but judging from this excerpt from this conservative website looking back at the fuss, this is what the NY times piece said:

The evidence for this, they argued, was scattered throughout the film, including its music, which "makes indisputable the influence of Richard Wagner"; the "Gothic" sets; allusions not only to Wagnerian themes but also to German-expressionist vampire movies; and some plot twists that have parallels in the Old Testament (the Penguin's abandonment in the sewers adrift in a canoe like Moses, his revenge plan to murder Gotham's aristocratic firstborn, as in Exodus). But the most explicitly anti-Semitic element was the character of DeVito's Penguin, who is "not just a deformed man, half human, half-Arctic-beast. He is a Jew, down to his hooked nose, pale face, and lust for herring."

Source: https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2012/10/01/racism-racism-everywhere/

I reckon the opinion article was ridiculous. Forget about the fact Batman was created by people of Jewish descent, I don't see any Antisemitic influences, just because the Penguin had a "hooked nose".  To me, that says more about the college kids who wrote this piece than the creators of the movie, and the movie itself. On top of the fact they are rather ignorant about Tim Burton had always incorporated Gothic, expressionist imagery in his movies.

[The Laughing Fish]

I found other transcripts of letters to the editor talking about the opinion piece, most of the replies had mocked it.

Wesley Strick, one of the screenwriters who had an uncredited role for the movie, wrote a reply to the editor of the NY Times:

To the Editor:

I did the final rewrite (uncredited) for "Batman Returns." As the lone Jew among director, producer and credited writer, and as the architect of the Penguin's scheme to murder Gotham's first born, I feel obliged to answer "Batman and the Jewish Question" (Op-Ed, July 2).

Some of the points by Rebecca Roiphe and Daniel Cooper are obvious -- of course, I was referring to Exodus. Others are clever: the love of herring, parodic Wagner. Still, more metaphors seem a stretch: Penguin's umbrellas and Moses' magic staff? Alas, arguments are won by omission or distortion; for example, the "eye for an eye" line (in the movie, it's "die for a die") is spoken by Catwoman, whose subtextual meaning the authors oddly skirt.

Though we're bashing Tim Burton, the director, let's give him a point for replacing the first film's grating Ed Koch surrogate with a feckless gentile mayor. And, as for "Jewish-sounding names," Batman, pronounced a bit differently, would sound as Semitic as Schreck.

None of this really matters -- until the creators of "Batman Returns" are accused of turning "one faith against the other." Here, the authors are like the patient in the old joke who tells the analyst about the Rorschach test: "I'm perverted? Who's got all the dirty pictures?"

It's your article, not our film, that is divisive.

WESLEY STRICK Los Angeles, July 2, 1992

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/20/opinion/l-anti-semitism-in-batman-returns-be-serious-who-s-really-divisive-122392.html

The most scathing response came from the leaders of the Anti-Defamation League:

To the Editor:

We are bewildered that you gave a major portion of the July 2 Op-Ed page to "Batman and the Jewish Question," a bizarre and ludicrous pseudo-analysis of the allegedly anti-Semitic implications of the blockbuster movie "Batman Returns" -- produced by the lurid and overheated imaginations of two college students. One suspects that what began as a satire for the campus newspaper took itself too seriously somewhere along the way. Students are often earnest, but unaware of their own limitations. Yet for you to publish it is (or ought to be) an embarrassment.

It should be left to the movie's creators, if they so desire, to rebut the article's many fatuous and overreaching analyses. The point is that examples of real anti-Semitism are all too plentiful -- rap and rock artists and other cultural figures with sizable followings among our youth scapegoat Jews in their music and public statements; a former neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan leader is nearly elected as a state governor; a member of Congress, fighting a tough primary battle, lists the Jewish-sounding names of contributors to his opponent's campaign to the loud applause of his own supporters; reports of anti-Semitic assault and vandalism increase for years running, and an anti-Semitic killing takes place in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.

We must not squander the precious currency of concern, as well as our limited resources, on nonsense like the authors' convoluted misperceptions of biblical imagery or Wagnerian chords in the film score. One hopes the students will learn to recognize the difference.

MELVIN SALBERG ABRAHAM H. FOXMAN New York, July 6, 1992 The writers are, respectively, chairman and director, Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/20/opinion/l-anti-semitism-in-batman-returns-be-serious-119392.html

But there was one letter that agreed with in the opinion piece, despite initial skepticism:

To the Editor:

As a recent graduate of Columbia College myself, I was strongly tempted to dismiss "Batman and the Jewish Question" (Op-Ed, July 2) by Rebecca Roiphe and Daniel Cooper as the product of a pair of intellectually overheated, pretentiously affected and politically correct undergraduates straining to ferret out all the nonexistent sinister motives lurking deep within our decadent popular culture. Then I saw "Batman Returns" for myself. Although I acknowledge the pitfalls in reading an overintricate analysis into such things, I cannot in good conscience gainsay the Roiphe-Cooper observations. Please allow me to add a few of my own:

One of the Penguin's chief underlings -- whose duties include driving the train on which the Penguin hopes to cart off Gotham City's first-born children -- strongly resembles the stereotype of the haggling Jewish peddler, who holds nothing sacred save the making of a profitable deal. Certainly, Tim Burton's vision of the Penguin, with hooked nose, absurdly bloated body and plutocrat's attire, bears more than a passing resemblance to Nazi caricatures of manipulative Jewish financiers, down to the ghoulish, perverted lust for fair, fresh-faced gentile maidens.

Furthermore, Max Schreck, the putatively Jewish villain, complains that he suffers persecution merely for being an honest businessman -- when he is a duplicitous manipulator, as anti-Semites assert Jews are. Shreck, of course, owns a major department store, through which he squeezes profit out of the innocent gentile community by selling them Christmas merchandise. He attempts to buy the crowd's loyalty at Christmas by throwing them a few free trinkets. Quite a creepy -- and not particularly subtle -- insinuation, given the number of department stores established by Jewish entrepreneurs.

Alone among the film's characters, Shreck uses Yiddish words ("schmo" for example) and speaks with an obvious caricature of a New York Jewish accent.

It amazes me that this vile motion picture could have been produced without anybody along the line noticing -- or caring -- about the gratuitous bigotry embedded in its script and characters. The most charitable explanation I can devise is that those responsible simply knew no better.

That my fellow Columbians noticed these shenanigans when professional film critics failed to do so is a resounding endorsement of a solid liberal arts education. If nothing else, however, "Batman Returns" gives the lie to the shibboleth that Jews control the entertainment industry and use it to manipulate the American public. NICHOLAS CORWIN Dallas, July 6, 1992

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/20/opinion/l-anti-semitism-in-batman-returns-be-serious-gratuitous-bigotry-120792.html

^ That particular letter observing how Max Shreck is an allegory of "the Jewish villain" is quite bizarre, in my opinion. I never got the impression his ethnicity played a part in his scheming or deceitfulness. I just took it as Shreck was just your typical morally corrupt businessman who had the impunity to get away with anything. Nothing more, nothing less. Saying a word like "schmo" doesn't mean anything to me, and besides, it's natural for Chrisopher Walken to speak in that New York accent given that he grew up there.

Finally, there is one brief letter that makes his point across effectively:

To the Editor:

Re "Batman and the Jewish Question" (Op-Ed, July 2) by Rebecca Roiphe and Daniel Cooper:

Sorry to break it to you folks but, as Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. NEIL WENGER Los Angeles, July 3, 1992

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/20/opinion/l-anti-semitism-in-batman-returns-be-serious-as-freud-said-121592.html

If only I could find the actual article. Nonetheless, I had no idea the backlash against the movie was taken this far.

[thecolorsblend]

^ That particular letter observing how Max Shreck is an allegory of "the Jewish villain" is quite bizarre, in my opinion. I never got the impression his ethnicity played a part in his scheming or deceitfulness. I just took it as Shreck was just your typical morally corrupt businessman who had the impunity to get away with anything. Nothing more, nothing less. Saying a word like "schmo" doesn't mean anything to me, and besides, it's natural for Chrisopher Walken to speak in that New York accent given that he grew up there.

This is a rather sensitive subject.

So I'll say that while the similarities between Batman Returns and these theories about jews were most likely unintentional, they are nevertheless similarities. I'm not accusing anybody involved with the production of anything. Merely noting that the people who cried out about this had data on their side.

[The Laughing Fish]

I finally found the "Batman and the Jewish Question" opinion article.

Batman's new adversary, the Penguin, played by Danny DeVito in "Batman Returns," is not just a deformed man, half human, half-Arctic-beast. He is a Jew, down to his hooked nose, pale face and lust for herring. No, Mr. DeVito's not Jewish, but that's just it: Man in penguin costume, Christian in Jew face.

"Batman Returns" is not anti-Semitic. But the director, Tim Burton, repeatedly uses imagery and cultural stereotypes that are rooted in Judeo-Christian culture. Mr. Burton relies on these allusions to give historical depth and mythological resonance to his unreal technological extravaganza. And he depicts the Penguin as one of the oldest cliches: the Jew who is bitter, bent over and out for revenge, the Jew who is unathletic and seemingly unthreatening but who, in fact, wants to murder every first-born child of the gentile community.

The film is not a biblical allegory. It is a fantasy of good versus evil in which good is the indisputable victor. But it draws on the depiction of good and evil in the Western world as a conflict between Christian and Jew, between the doctrine of the Old Testament and the teachings of the New.

Even the comic strip rendered large cannot avoid these symbols -- they worm their way into fairy tales and fantasy, reality and virtual reality. The biblical allusions and historical references woven into the plot of "Batman Returns" betray a hidden conflict between gentile and Jew.

The movie opens with shots of distressed parents of a child who is not quite right. The baby is kept in a cage where it ignores the ornate Christmas tree and stalks a kitten through the wood slats of its prison. The parents take this child, a sort of beastly Tiny Tim, to a small bridge in an icy wood. They dump the black wicker carriage into the river, and the camera follows the basket downstream. The Penguin is Moses, Moses in black, the anti-Moses.

For the remainder of the film, Christian and Jewish images are apparent, if somewhat overwhelmed by the Gothic sets, gangster costumes and stylized speech. The Penguin's underground den, a cavern of ice and toxic waste, is a modern version of the last circle of Dante's hell. His umbrellas that transform into bayonets, machine guns and helicopters are Moses' magic staff. The flipper hands he holds at his chest are Moses' hands, which in Exodus become "leprous as snow."

As a mayoral candidate, the Penguin claims he will save Gotham from corruption and violence. The Penguin feigns assimilation into society and gains the citizens' trust for a time. But eventually even the ignorant masses understand this false prophet for what he is, a primordial beast who seeks retribution, "an eye for an eye." This Old Testament saying is heard in different forms throughout the movie. It is not the way Jews govern themselves, but it is the way others have perceived Judaism.

The conspiracy against Gotham begins when the Penguin teams up with Bruce Wayne's adversary, the corrupt businessman Max Shreck. This Jewish-sounding name is borrowed from the actor who played the first bat-man of the silver screen, the vampire in F.W. Murnau's 1922 film "Nosferatu." What better partner for the Penguin in his fight against Batman than the vampire Jew.

The Penguin blackmails Shreck with an artful presentation of toxic waste, a severed hand and shredded documents: the Penguin-Jew is a bargaining maven. The pact is sealed, and the Penguin and Shreck become brothers in crime, a Moses and Aaron team gone sour. In Tim Burton's fantasy, Aaron is Moses' campaign manager, press agent and image consultant.

Max wants only power, but the Jew who has suffered wants to punish others for the crime that was committed against him. The Penguin pretends to be searching for his parents, seeking reconciliation, but he no longer cares about his own lineage. He seeks a greater destruction, a kind of Armageddon instigated by the orphan-Satan-Moses himself.

He spends long hours in the archives compiling lists of first-born sons. Though clearly a reference to the final plague in Exodus, it is also an echo of the accounts of Nazis and anti-Semites throughout history as well as reinforcing the myth that Jews drink the blood of gentile children. The Penguin's evil plan is the enactment of a paranoid notion that Jews' effort to preserve their heritage and culture is a guise for elitist and hostile intentions.

Compounding the Jewish question in "Batman Returns" is the film's music. Mr. Burton's dense kaleidoscope of shiny rings, dark rivers and bird boats, underscored by composer Danny Elfman's use of leitmotifs, altered chords and chromatic progressions, makes indisputable the influence of Richard Wagner.

Mr. Burton's horde of penguins are like Wagner's aquatic elves, the Niebelungen. The Penguin-Jew-villain is also Wagner's Alberich from "Das Rheingold," wheezing uncontrollably, scheming from the murky banks and escaping to his underground cavern.

The Penguin sails the sewers in a giant rubber duck, a parody of the "Schwan der Schelde" from Wagner's "Lohengrin." Though Wagner was, of course, an anti-Semite, the music -- dark, passionate and mysterious -- is not in itself anti-Semitic. But in the context of this movie, with its Jew-monster, Hitler's appropriation of Wagner's operas and the composer's own politics re-emerge.

"Batman Returns" takes place at Christmas time. The Christmas tree, the lights and the mistletoe serve a thematic purpose. They represent the Christian ethic, which will save Gotham City (and New York, Los Angeles and Chicago) from the false ideology of the Penguin.

Denied his own birthright, the Penguin intends to obliterate the Christian birth, and eventually the whole town. His army of mindless followers, a flock of ineffectual birds who cannot fly, is eventually converted to the side of Christian morality. They turn against the leader who has failed to assimilate. In the final scene, Batman articulates the distinctly Christian moral of this film: "Merry Christmas and good will toward men . . . and women."

The Christian ethic, like the faces beneath the heroes' masks, is eventually revealed. Batman and Catwoman put their costumes on and rip them off. They are both marginal and integrated, freaks and functioning citizens.

But the Penguin's mask is no disguise. It is his face, his deformity, his ethnicity. And Tim Burton has his own mask. His movie is cloaked in extravaganza, fantasy and allusion. Behind the multimillion-dollar movie set is old fear and prejudice. Moses becomes Satan, Jew becomes vengeful and Christian faith conquers all.

Since the Judeo-Christian tradition provides many of our myths, we should be careful not to let our fiction turn one faith against the other. There is enough of that in real life.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/02/opinion/batman-and-the-jewish-question.html