Before I’m massacred by followers and non-fans alike for my really gay studying of Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, let me simply preface by saying that not only am I fully allowed to learn the movie in such a means, however I’d additionally prefer to make it understood—for the skeptics, bigots, and the group about to offer me rather a lot crap—that queer readings, as defined by famend queer theorist Richard Dyer, are completely legitimate and imply an entire lot to these doing the studying. “Because, as gays, we grew up not only isolated by our heterosexual peers but also from each other, we turned to the mass media for information and ideas about ourselves,” Dyer said in his vital guide Gays and Films. That being stated, Batman v Superman is hella gay.
Anyway, close to the close of the movie—which runs at over two and half hours—there’s an important struggle scene that happens between Superman, performed by English actor Henry Cavill for the second time after main Man of Steel (additionally a gay title?) and Ben Affleck’s Batman. The combat is how we get to the “versus” level within the movie, the second the place the 2 heroes are lastly pinned in opposition to each other, the second the place they land punches, launch themselves into one another’s upsettingly giant arms, and shout phrases of disdain all through. This sequence is important as a result of, regardless of it being action-packed and that includes comparatively spectacular choreography, it’s one of many least sensical parts of the movie. It not solely manages to be uninteresting, however it additionally comes throughout as insincere and unearned—suspiciously so.
Much of the movie, as evidenced in its trailer and within the trailer of the porn parody, is build-up, a set of sequences and plot units that get the 2 heroes’ blood boiling. Affleck’s Batman is bitter about how Superman recklessly destroyed a lot of Metropolis in his battle towards General Zod. Batman’s additionally having goals a couple of post-apocalyptic world during which the alien Superman reigns supreme over the people. On the opposite hand, Superman is skeptical of Batman’s intentions, as he sees newspaper headlines and images displaying the vigilante branding criminals together with his bat image. Their rapid rigidity is made all the more severe by Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), who not solely permits Batman to steal the kryptonite he discovered as a preemptive transfer towards Superman, however frames Superman for a courtroom bombing.
So lastly, close to the top of the movie, the 2 have their combat. After Superman is threatened by Luthor, who’s holding the hero’s adoptive mom captive, he rushes to Gotham to attempt to persuade Batman to affix his combat. But it doesn’t work. Batman is enraged and the 2 start to brawl, throwing one another into each nook and cranny of Bruce Wayne’s childhood house. It’s a completely unbelievable sequence, and the hate that Snyder was purported to be constructing between the 2 figures doesn’t really feel earned or palpable. Instead, it feels performative, an affordable reenactment of masculine rage that’s purported to finally convey a fact between the 2. It’s so ridiculous, and sooner or later it definitely introduced the query “When are they going to kiss?” into my thoughts—and doubtless the minds of the viewers at giant.
The query rapidly sparked one other, “Who else feels this way? Who else wants to see Batman embrace Superman in his arms as the fly through walls?” Lex Luthor, that is who.
Snyder frames this scene with this pressure in thoughts, and it turns into not possible to overlook that there is is not a lot time earlier than Luthor’s males kill Martha Kent. So from the beginning of their encounter, the place Superman begins by making an attempt to clarify the state of affairs to Batman, we see how the showdown between the 2 is solely a product of Luthor’s sick obsession and fascination with the heroes. It wouldn’t be completely absurd if we had a second within the movie the place Luthor exclaims, “I want to see them fight!” He’s not solely a creepy voyeur, however Luthor’s mania even borders on erotic as he virtually requires Batman to penetrate Superman with an extended workers of kryptonite. “Bring me his head,” he tells Superman at one level earlier than the hero dashes off to interact with Batman.
Perhaps that’s why the scenes feels so false and involves an in depth so quickly. Batman and Superman don’t have anything to combat about, actually, and the brief time they’re combating speaks to their idiocy, how straightforward it was for Luthor to toy with their fragile masculinity and convey them in a room collectively. They are each heroes, each involved with their respective cities, each dudes who love their mothers. Their struggle, their our bodies mashing into each other, subsequently, is only a fantasy come true for Luthor, whose sick obsession with the heroes and their skills, feels charged sufficient to query his motives. Is he jealous of their varieties and the benefit wherein they save town? Perhaps. But his giddiness at having them brawl to loss of life appears to have this intense sexual undertone to it.
And looking back, I’m like, yeah, I assume I wished to see them fuck simply as badly as Luthor did.
