VARIETY
113
the greater intrinsic interest in the character because he is mortal, if not
quite normal-he cannot fly or move faster than light or turn himself
into a flame thrower or other handy things
in
the ongoing struggle against
evil. The Batman stories were far better plotted, better villained, better
drawn than rival entries, and far scari'er, Feiffer points out. But he errs
again in handling the basic sexual configuration.
Even before Leslie Fiedler was disrobing the subject
in
Love and
Death in the American Novel,
others of us Were exploring it in its hardly
less pertinent manifestation in the comic book (see my unpublished
paper, "Come Back to the Batmobile, Robin, Honey"). Feiff'er dismisses
serious consideration of the homosexual undertow in Batman and, in
effect, sneers at the insights of psychiatrist Frederic Wertham, who
pointed out in his
Seduction of the I n'nocent:
" ...
Sometimes Batman
ends up in bed injured and young Robin is shown sitting next to
him.
At
home they lead an idyllic life. They are Bruce Wayne and 'Dick' Gray–
son. Bruce Wayne is described as a 'socialite' and the official relation–
ship is that Dick is Bruce's Ward. They live in sumptuous quarters, with
beautiful flowers in large vases. . .. Batman is sometimes shown in a
dressing gown. . . . It is like a wish dream of two homosexuals living
together." Feiffer argues that Batman and Robin were no more or less
queer than their youngish readers, "many of whom palled around to–
gether, didn't trust girls, played games that had lots of bodily con–
tact...." But Wertham's insights abide. Mter all, what kind of boy is
called "Dick"? What kind of man has flowers around-and wears a dress–
ing gown? (To answer "a rich socialite" is to beg the question.) Why
was "Dick" sitting next
to
Bruce's bed (and was it only Bruce's)? And
why, Wertham might have asked, were there no women around? And
what about those snug briefs that daring duo used to flit around in?
Mr. Feiffer's naivete is showing. (One should note in defense of what–
ever perversions in fact constituted Batbliss that, clearly, they were not
debilitating: the pair of them fought at least as well as Cassius Clay,
though Batman
was
always getting knocked down.)
Where Batman was anti-feminine, Wonder Woman was anti-mas–
culine, but here, too, Mr. Feiffer fails to see what should have been
transparently clear to any serious interpreter of the comics. Feiffer writes:
"My problem with Wonder Woman was that I could never get myself
to believe she was that good. For if she was as strong as they said, why
wasn't she tougher-looking? Why wasn't she bigger? Why was she so
flat-chested? ... Wonder Woman wasn't dykey enough." Right. And
she wasn't dykey enough for the same reason she wasn't chestier, and
Feiffer comes within a hair of figuring it out but fails disappointingly
