BATMAN AND PSYCHOLOGY

Batman And Psychology

Robert Taylor
Salt Lake Community College

BATMAN AND PSYCHOLOGY

For this report, I selected Batman and Psychology (A Dark and Stormy
Knight), written by Travis Langley. I selected this book because I have long
been a fan of the Batman films, and I just bought A Killing Joke soon after
this class began, so I thought that this might be the perfect medium to get
me to relate a little better with the terms and disorders we touch on in class.
This book takes a unique look on a rather simple question, Is Batman
Crazy? The book looks at it in a few unique ways, from Freuds
Psychoanayltics to Maslows Hierarchy OF Needs. They look at the villains
that Batman duels with throughout his now almost 80 year history, and how
they relate to different parts of his own persona. For example, The Joker is
the Shadow of Batman. Always in character and always willing do what is
takes to bring the Dark Knight down off of his unbreakable code. The Joker
refuses to ever even care who is under the mask. If he ever got the mask off
then the game wouldnt be nearly as fun for The Joker. And, to be honest, I
had a huge hope for what this book would say about the Joker, and was
disappointed when is basically said that he has a bit of basically everything.
And I honestly dont know if that takes away from the character, or makes
him that much more terrifying, that there is no purpose to what he does in
the comics or in the movies. I havent gotten through that thought process
yet. The profile on Jason Todd #2 I thought was so fascinating however, as
they had created a new version of Robin too close to Dick Grayson, and had
to basically restart him as a punk from the streets. Then decided to have a

fan vote on whether to have him killed off or not. The fans of the comics
voted to have him killed, but this is the land of comics, and no one stays
dead for long. Todd would later return as Red Hood, an homage to the Joker,
who was also the one who killed him. But Todds death at such a young age
caused him to miss many of
BATMAN AND PSYCHOLOGY

His Early Life Development Stages, causing him to come back with anger
towards Batman for not avenging his death, and replacing him with Tim
Drake.
I believe this book will help me with this class and the application of
the things I have learned from the class and the book, because I have a way
to relate characters to disorders. Now in class I can relate fear to the
amygdala, because its broken down in the book that Scarecrows Fear Gas
would most likely attack that part of the brain, trying to cause an overload of
Epinephrine, and increasing the fight or flight instinct. The book also went
into great detail about the damage caused by seeing his parents gunned
down in front of him at 8 would do to his development, and the different
adults that would come in and out his life to play a parental role at that
moment in time, relating in easy to remember terms the emotional state. He
would have just entered his Concrete Operation Stage when his parents died.
How many different villains they created to accurately describe different
emotional states or disorders I thought was interesting. In class I can now

related a lot of the things we would talk about into Batman characters. I also
found Mr. Freezes Profile rather interesting, as it relates to being possibly
Adult Antisocial, and how his wife had managed to find a way through to
bring him back to society. Only to get sick and then, in response to that,
Freis gets stuck in the bargaining stage of coping with her illness. It will also
change not only how I watch these movies, but everything in general.
Watching and trying to understand why a character is doing what they are
doing, then possibly understand what exactly within them is causing it to
happen, I feel like, will make a lot of movies have more substance to them. I
wish I had actually read it before I saw Batman vs. Superman. It will remind
me to be an Authoritative parent, like Alfred later becomes. As
BATMAN AND PSYCHOLOGY

opposed to an Authoritarian parent, like my father was. I try real hard to

explain to my children why they should or shouldnt be doing a certain
activity, instead of just giving them the Because I said so response I got so
much when I was a child. I dont need my son being as angry as Jason Todd
or Damien Wayne. It also pointed out a Ninth Stage of Life that I didnt know
what those about that was related to extreme old age that talked about the
difference between looking back at your life and knowing that you will be
remembered, through children or a contribution to the community, things of
that nature. And the despair of not accepting immortality in the
aforementioned ways, but instead giving in to the fear that death and

nothingness are all thats left for you. I feel like when in doubt, try to default
to optimism, it makes life brighter.
Is Batman a loose cannon then? The answer from this book is actually,
no. Not in his comic book universe anyway. It was admitted at the end of
the book that Not for the world in which he lives. (Langley, 2012) From the
duality of Batman and Harvey Dent/Two Face, to the unstoppable dance that
Batman and the Joker spin to for all time. I ask the question while reading
this book, did the appearance of Batman create all the masked villains as
well? Would that have still appeared if the Dark Knight hadnt? From reading
this book, and having read comics and watched the animated series, I would
have to say that they wouldnt. The Joker, The Riddler, Two Face, all
happened as a way of the worlds balancing itself out. But what fun would a
comic without masks be?

BATMAN AND PSYCHOLOGY

Works Cited

Batman and Psychology (A Dark and Stormy Knight), Pg. 271, Copyright 2012