Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
7
result(s) for
"Batman (Fictitious character) in mass media"
Sort by:
Batman Unmasked
Over the sixty years of his existence, Batman has encountered an impressive array of cultural icons and has gradually become one himself. This fascinating book examines what Batman means and has meant to the various audiences, groups and communities who have tried to control and interpret him over the decades. Brooker reveals the struggles over Batman's meaning by shining a light on the cultural issues of the day that impacted on the development of the character. They include: patriotic propaganda of the Second World War; the accusation that Batman was corrupting the youth of America by appearing to promote a homosexual lifestyle to the fans of his comics; Batman becoming a camp, pop culture icon through the ABC TV series of the sixties; fans' interpretation of Batman in response to the comics and the Warner Bros. franchise of films.
eBook
Hunting the Dark Knight
Publishing alongside the world premiere of Christopher Nolan's third Batman film “The Dark Knight Rises”, Will Brooker's new book explores Batman's twenty-first century incarnations. Brooker's close analysis of “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” offers a rigorous, accessible account of the complex relationship between popular films, audiences, and producers in our age of media convergence. By exploring themes of authorship, adaptation and intertextuality, he addresses a myriad of questions raised by these films: did “Batman Begins” end when “The Dark Knight began? Does its story include the Gotham Knight DVD, or the ‘Why So Serious’ viral marketing campaign? Is it separate from the parallel narratives of the Arkham Asylum videogame, the monthly comic books, the animated series and the graphic novels? Can the brightly campy incarnations of the Batman ever be fully repressed by “The Dark Knight”, or are they an intrinsic part of the character? Do all of these various manifestations feed into a single Batman metanarrative? This will be a vital text for film students and academics, as well as legions of Batman fans.
eBook
Batman
Offers a fresh understanding of the persistent popularity and ongoing value of the original Batman series.
ABC's action-comedy series Batman (1966–68) famously offered a dual address in its wildly popular portayal of a comic book hero in a live action format. Children uncritically accepted the show's plots and characters, who were guided by lofty ideals and social values, while adults reacted to the clear parody of the values on display. In Batman, author Matt Yockey argues that the series served as a safe space for viewers to engage with changing attitudes about consumerism, politics, the Vietnam war, celebrity, race, and gender during a period when social meaning was increasingly contested in America.
Yockey examines Batman' s boundary pushing in four chapters. In \"Bat-Civics, \" he analyzes the superhero as a conflicted symbol of American identity and considers the ways in which the Batman character parodied that status. Yockey then looks at the show's experimentation with the superhero genre's conservative gender and racial politics in \"Bat-Difference\" and investigates the significance of the show's choices of stars and guest stars in \"Bat-Casting.\" Finally, he considers how the series' dual identity as straightforward crime serial and subversive mass culture text set it up for extratextual production in \"Bat-Being.\"
The superhero is a conflicted symbol of American identity—representing both excessive individualism and the status quo—making it an especially useful figure for the kind of cultural work that Batman undertook. Batman fans, from popular culture enthusiasts to television history scholars, will enjoy this volume.
eBook
Batman unmasked : analysing a cultural icon
Over the sixty years of his existence, Batman has encountered an impressive array of cultural icons and has gradually become one himself.This acclaimed book examines what Batman means and has meant to the various audiences, groups and communities who have tried to control and interpret him over the decades.
eBook
The superhero symbol : media, culture, and politics
\"As a man, I'm flesh and blood, I can be ignored, I can be destroyed; but as a symbol... as a symbol I can be incorruptible, I can be everlasting\". In the 2005 reboot of the Batman film franchise, Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne articulates how the figure of the superhero can serve as a transcendent icon. It is hard to imagine a time when superheroes have been more pervasive in our culture. Today, superheroes are intellectual property jealously guarded by media conglomerates, icons co-opted by grassroots groups as a four-color rebuttal to social inequities, masks people wear to more confidently walk convention floors and city streets, and bulletproof banners that embody regional and national identities. From activism to cosplay, this collection unmasks the symbolic function of superheroes. Bringing together superhero scholars from a range of disciplines, alongside key industry figures such as Harley Quinn co-creator Paul Dini, The Superhero Symbol provides fresh perspectives on how characters like Captain America, Iron Man, and Wonder Woman have engaged with media, culture, and politics, to become the \"everlasting\" symbols to which a young Bruce Wayne once aspired.
eBook