Batman as Object of Religious Awe

Musings on a “Sense of Religiosity”

With the passing of Pope Francis and the subsequent inundation of media coverage on him, the Church, and the election of a new pope, religion has been on my mind a lot. I currently see myself as an atheist who revels in the absurdity of existence, but at times I also have what I might call a “religious yearning” or an ineffable feeling of awe and inspiration. The idea that there must be more to this life than say for example, applying to 100s of jobs online that won’t even pay me enough to afford rent and getting radio silence… well, except of course the narrative going on in my head which is not always a good place to be.

Recent examples where this has occurred include showing some friends visiting New York City St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Midtown Manhattan, a rewatch of the film Conclave, and the real-life papal election proceedings. It’s hard not to be in awe at the ritualistic aspects of everything. The amazing architecture and art, the things the human mind, hands, and labor can create. A glance at one statue can give you a flood of history and meaning. The rituals and traditions tell a story of human history reaching back centuries and connecting us to those who came before. All of it is so inherently human. Dogs don’t prescribe some abstract meaning to an image of another dog and then enshrine that meaning in art which is then passed down through the generations, building layers of meaning and becoming tradition. All of it is quite beautiful.

Inevitably though, this “high” comes crashing down almost as quickly as it started and is replaced with feelings like sadness and anger. Because as beautiful as it is, in many ways I (and many others like me) are not currently welcome in the Catholic church and many others. Even if I suddenly began to believe in God and became a devout Catholic believer, I would not be allowed to fully participate. Not only am I gay, but I am in a same-sex marriage which is doubly bad. I also couldn’t convince myself to abide by many of the church’s other teachings as well as the church’s treatment of other groups like women–watching how the nuns are treated in Conclave makes me want to vomit, but the main nun is badass (Berger, 2024). In the eyes of the church, my life is smothered in sin. 

Needless to say, my relationship with religion is complex and contentious. I grew up in a family of fire-and-brimstone Christians. Being gay was not only a sin, but gay people were an abomination who would burn in the fiery pits of hell because God hates them. My attempts at praying the gay away never worked, as even though I tried to date the opposite sex, I never felt romantically or sexually attracted to them. I can’t lie to another person like that (and personally I think honesty is a high priority). I pored over scripture that supposedly condemned me to try to find the answers I so desired but never found anything satisfactory. I have tried to be religious throughout my life but have always failed. I investigated other religions but found that most weren’t too friendly to us gays. Even the Dalai Lama has made some disparaging remarks (news article for this). Although most religions have the “sanctity of life” at their center… my life didn’t feel so holy or deserving of respect.

Religious Trauma and The Mass Media’s Effects on Development on “The Self”

In addition to all this religious condemnation, gay marriage was at the forefront of a national debate when I was a young child. Hawai‘i threw it into the spotlight when the state’s supreme court ruled that abridging marriage laws based on sex was unconstitutional in 1993 (the year I was born). This led to an immediate reaction across the country with many states feeling the need to “protect” the sanctity of marriage and act on other gay rights issues. 1993 also saw the promulgation of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” News pundits everywhere began to debate the value and worth of gay lives. In 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act was signed into law by Bill Clinton. Yes, the more progressive party of the nation I was born into felt it necessary to “defend” marriage against people like me by not recognizing same-sex marriages even if lawful in an individual state. Front and center in these debates were religious leaders arguing everything I’ve said above, comparing homosexuality to bestiality and pedophilia, and more (Issenberg 2020).

Being surrounded by this rhetoric does damage to a person’s self-concept and overall mental health. Think about it: you are told repeatedly that not only are your actions bad, but who you are as a person is bad. So much so that this almighty being that created you in his image and is supposed to be known for forgiveness cannot forgive you: your soul has a one-way ticket to eternal damnation. Perhaps because of their religion, even your family may reject you. In fact, studies show that if pervasive enough this messaging can lead to C-PTSD or Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Although not yet an official diagnosis separate from PTSD in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5), it is recognized as a separate condition in the ICD-11 (International Classification of Diseases) (Larsen, n.d.). There is also discussion among experts about whether Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS) deserves its own diagnostic classification (Singh et al. 2024). Personally speaking, I’m still dealing with the damage. In their Netflix standup special Nanette, Hannah Gadsby shares the same sentiment from a similar situation growing up in Tasmania when the legality of homosexuality was debated (Parry and Olb 2018).

I think that’s why I started to truly dive into (obsess about) Batman when I was a teen. All of this religious and cultural mess really started to hit and coalesce internally and in my external environment. So I hid. Escaped into Batman. Since I didn’t feel welcome in religion, Batman effectively became my religion. What I could get my hands on here and there was my liturgy. Batman’s story was my gospel. I ascribed deep meaning to him in every aspect. What is he if not a hero/savior and moral exemplar? What in certain situations is termed a God or Saint. With his central tenet being life. With certain exceptions in “Elseworld” stories and his very early days, Batman does not (directly) kill. It’s an ongoing debate why he doesn’t kill the Joker despite how heinous he can be for example. What is that if not a religious moral lesson? Meanwhile Old Testament God has been known to destroy nearly all of existence (the flood in Genesis 6-9 is a prime example) when he gets angry and half the world still worships him…

Giving Batman Meaning

To me, Batman is an encapsulation of the human-divine experience in the same way that I imagine a saint statue in St. Patrick’s Cathedral is an encapsulation of the human-divine experience to the devout. While I do feel awe when looking at a statue like this, it’s an exotic kind of awe. I’m unfamiliar with the full history and context, so it is a beautiful intricate piece of art that I don’t fully understand. This idea hit home for me during a Zen sesshin (intensive meditation retreat). I was waiting to reenter the main meditation hall after talking to the roshi (teacher). The waiting area had a large picture of a Bodhisattva called Kannon (AKA Quanyin, Avalokiteshvara) in front of the area where students sat meditating until we could all reenter the main hall together so as not to disturb the meditators there.

A very common figure in Mahayana Buddhist tradition, Kannon is a Bodhisattva (a figure who forgoes the rewards of enlightenment to save suffering beings) of immense compassion and believers are known to call out her/his name (various cultures depict the figure differently) when suffering. There are chants about Kannon, and meditations on the figure and their qualities with the idea that it will hopefully bring out more compassion in the practitioner. As I sat in front of this image meditating on her and her qualities… it just felt empty. I appreciate the Bodhisattva and the ideals he is supposed to embody, but I have no true connection with it. Not only do I not believe the figure ever existed in real life, I didn’t grow up learning about her, I didn’t study his scriptures, there are no significant memories attached to the Bodhisattva. So whatever emotional response I have is purely one of exoticism: a sense of awe at an object and imagery so foreign to me.

Shortly after this, I started to wonder why we are so focused on these traditional figures. Why are we forced to develop a relationship with figures and objects we don’t really know anything about and have no tangible connection to? Instead of meditating on the compassionate vow of Kannon to stay in the world or the suffering, why can’t I meditate on the compassionate vow of Bruce Wayne/Batman to dedicate his life to helping people? Or contemplate the light and dark sides of the human condition using examples of how Batman can sometimes overreact? What a believer sees and feels for a Saint or a Bodhisattva seems a lot like the same sense of awe I get when looking at an image of Batman. A sense of awe and wonder at the history, the filtering through so many lenses. The memories that I have and connections with my personal life. How he got me through a rough patch in my life. Let me provide an example.

On the top of my bookshelves I have a small Funko POP! figure of a rainbow Batman. I bought it in mid-2020 when it was released for Pride Month in support of the It Gets Better Project, something that helped me when I was growing up. In a new city and a barren new apartment during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, I thought why not bring a bit of Batman joy in my life? It was a worthwhile purchase, because when I see it, it gives me a little boost of inspiration to keep going because that’s what Batman would do. After all, it gets better!! Not only that, the meaning-making part of my brain starts going haywire thinking about my love for the Silver Age Batman stories, waxing nostalgic for books like Detective Comics #241 where a rainbow Batman suit made its first appearance. I remember how in the story, Batman uses colored suits as a way to help someone he loves–an example we could all follow. I contemplate the irony of how this figure saw the light of day despite all the haters of campy Batman and any suggestion of Batman as homosexual. I think about subsequent appearances of the suit in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, the 2008 Trinity comic series, the Lego Batman video game series, among others. I am hopeful for its future reappearance(s). I think of all the places the figure has followed me, all the ups and downs we’ve seen together and how Batman has helped me through it all. I feel grateful for all the people (writers, artists, designers, factory workers, activists, etc.) that have come together over the past several decades to make this cute little figure possible.

I could go on and on, but you get the point: I have a unique moment of awe when seeing the figure. Some people may hate Batman and therefore could care less about the figure. Others may have my “exotic awe” experience. Other fans may see the meta-textual meanings, but relate to them in a different way. A straight person may not connect with the gay sides like I do. My experience is not a universal experience by any means. But then again, nothing is a universal experience. Even for a supposedly “universal” truth like God, people have different connections and ideas on him/her/it. That’s why “truth” is difficult to pin down sometimes.

One Flew Over the Bat’s Belfrey

In my research, I randomly came across a quote in a Ken Kesey interview where he discusses Batman that I keep coming back to. Kesey is perhaps most famous for writing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a book that takes place in a psychiatric hospital and is essentially an interrogation on power and how we as a culture define normality. In the interview, he is discussing truth and says “A single Batman comicbook [sic] is more honest than a whole volume of Time magazines… because of their [comic books’] honest, open-handed bullshit” (Lish 1963, 17).

This is the beautiful thing about Batman. He isn’t a figure that is set in stone for eternity, a “God” that people can use to define an inflexible infallible truth that can be used to justify abuse and war. He is flexible to the needs of the people and time. As our culture changes and what we define as good and bad as well as what we deem heroic evolves, so does Batman. He is not masquerading as complete and total “truth.” For Kesey, it’s not necessarily that Time magazine is totally dishonest and completely inaccurate, the issue is that it (and other media) presents itself as totally objective fact. However, ANYTHING filtered through a human being cannot be objective “truth.” It is written by humans and therefore inevitable that our biases enter the fray.

I also think this is why many fan communities in essence cling to their favorite characters. They can be seen as moral/ethical and/or religious in nature, but they do not have the baggage of religions and “truth.” Like how if the pope says something, the church’s 1.4 billion followers are expected to take this as God’s word. This then influences real world actions and the policies of nations, even affecting the lives of those following other faiths or no faith at all. Take a country like the Philippines, a majority Catholic country as an example. Largely because of Catholic doctrine’s influence, divorce is illegal even in cases of severe abuse (Walden 2024).

For Batman, it is quite clear that he is a fictional character created by humans, so any potential argument that he provides some kind of timeless and unquestionable “truth” falls apart. Besides, Batman isn’t out there condemning women or gays. Even if he did, he is just filtering the thoughts and ideas of the individuals who are creating him. He may be a moral exemplar but not a law that is set in stone. You can agree with and choose to follow the example or not. There is no priest guilting you into believing everything. In fact, disagreement is a place of learning. I’m not necessarily the biggest fan of what can sometimes be construed as excessive violence in Batman stories. From here though, I can begin interrogating that idea: Is violence ever an acceptable response? What is excessive? Why? Why might someone feel the need to use that kind of violence?

Sometimes questioning your beliefs and heroes is a good thing. Nobody is infallible, and to believe so can be extremely problematic (e.g., all the priestly sex scandals). So although imperfect, I find that whenever I start to feel that sadness after a religious awe moment, I try to connect with my inner Batman fan. Because he isn’t laden with all the trauma and trappings of traditional religions, and it isn’t harming people that might not be all that into him. He is what I and others make of him (or don’t)—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and that’s it. I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty religious to me. I’m certainly not the only, nor the first to think so. I’ll leave you with a quote from Alex Ross, creator of the famous Kingdom Come story—one that touches on superheroes as Gods—that not only sums up this article, but leads nicely into an upcoming one. 

“I grew up with comics as a main source of entertainment and sometimes companionship, something I share with many of my contemporaries. I think we all found ourselves basing our belief systems on those of the colorful heroes whose adventures we read, and we were instructed by their sense of right and wrong. The thing that separated the DC heroes from the rest was that they were truly icons of virtue, and represented the best that we could be. Their deeds were great not because of how fantastic they were but because of how good they were.” 

~Alex Ross in Absolute Kingdom Come (2018, 222)