BVSM: Batman v Sadomasochism

Saving Martha

            Pulled from the brink, Batman redirects his sadomasochistic tendencies towards his more traditional sadistic ones. This time brought about by a new quest, a promise to Superman that he will save his mother, “Martha won’t die tonight.” This is not to imply Batman has stopped being mentally disturbed, quite the contrary according to the action sequence in this section, just that these energies have been turned towards a more productive, less self-destructive, effort.



            A constant talking point around this film and other recent Bat-films was the “realism” that was informing the presentation and production of the film. This memetic point was never really qualified and the end products bear little resemblance to historical film realist movements or contemporary naturalism. It doses however explain the mindset of contemporary action films, such as the Bourne franchise, and what they mean by “realism”. This film and other action films present a highly constructed hyperreality built on technical advancements in regards to sound mixing and its synchronicity with moving images. We are given an audio simulacrum of a bone breaking or thudding impact as Batman smashes henchmen through all manner of object, and we decode this message as “realistic”. Even though these are images of a man dressed as a bat creature taking down two dozen men in five minutes are the epitome of spectacularization. It is in hindsight that the realization comes this is not reality but hyper-realistic fakery being presented.

            This hyper-realistic fakery is a contradiction at home in the extreme style of Snyder. As Batman dispatches many an anonymous henchman the newly implied sanity and sadistic normalcy show signs of slippage back towards destructive masochism as he responds to a stab to the shoulder in kind and then some. The extreme sequence of action and violence in this realm becomes another proving ground for the action hero male subject suggesting “that the hero’s internal damage or frailty exists in virtually inverse proportion to any external damage he suffers.”[1] Batman and action hero masculinity is made superhuman by their insanity. He can save Martha, symbolically stopping the murder of his own Mother and in some way regaining his sanity even if that grip is shown to be tenuous at best.
 
[1] Bruzzi, 252

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