![]() ![]() For adults, it’s camp.” Lynn Spigel and Henry Jenkins, in a cultural study of Batman, noted that at the time the show aired:īatman precipitated a questioning of critical hierarchies because it self-consciously placed itself within the Pop art scene. When Batman was all the rage in ’66, it was said, repeatedly, that “For kids, it’s real. (Swenson 42)īatman was Pop art in reverse instead of fine art being made out of the brands and images of industrial capitalism (like Warhol’s Brillo boxes), it was the height of industrial capitalism-a TV show-made out of fine art. Europe will be the same way, soon, so it won’t be American, it will be universal. America was hit by industrialism and capitalism harder and sooner. ![]() Everybody has called Pop art “American Painting,” but it’s actually industrial painting. the use of commercial subject matter in painting, I suppose. Roy Litchenstein in 1963 explained that Pop art is: Hello Kitty is worth billions because we look at Hello Kitty and say “Yay! Cute!” and Batman has value because we look at Batman and say “Tough” or “Cool” or “Funny” or “Hero” or “Bad-ass.” We are responsible for giving the trademark meaning. Trademarks get their power in the same way-the consumer’s participation in the culture of consumption is what makes a trademark valuable. Getting some experience out of Andy Warhol’s Brillo boxes depends on one having seen Brillo boxes lined up on supermarket shelves. The author hasn’t created anything rather the author is simply collecting the pop cultural elements we’re all already soaking in, and (re)presenting them as art. Susan Sontag noted in “The Aesthetics of Silence” that Pop is a form of art where authorial perspective essentially disappears. The Dozier-produced Batman is the ultimate in branding. Because Batman is nothing but a logo, and because we are all soaking in logos and commercial messages and not-quite-real (or too-real-to-be-real) realities, the campy TV Batman of the 1960s is the most compelling version of the Caped Crusader of them all. William Dozier, the producer of the TV show, actually detested comics and felt that the show would only work as Pop art. The show, featuring Adam West as Batman, was explicitly campy and humorous, with a sensibility in design, plotting, and cinematography that was pure Pop art. I am speaking, of course, of the live-action TV show, which aired twice weekly on ABC from January 12, 1966, to March 14, 1968. Batman is not a hard-ass vigilante, nor is he a duly deputized crime fighter he is a stamped silhouette on a box of cereal.Īnd that is why I am here today with a proposition: of all the decades of Batman stories in a huge variety of media, there is only one that will forever be tied to the character. Batman is a Pez dispenser he is a bat-shaped belt buckle. In “Holy Signifier, Batman!” from Batman Unauthorized, Nick Mamatas argues that Batman only works as Pop art, and that of the many iterations of Batman that exist, the campy TV Batman of the 1960s is the most compelling version of the Caped Crusader of them all.īatman, as one of the most iconic and enduring of comic book heroes, is ultimately nothing more than a bundle of images that have proven themselves to be far more valuable and compelling than any storyline, movie, or book of essays on the character. In the Smart Pop Classics series, we share greatest hits from our throwback essay collections. ![]()
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