Batman’s money can’t save Gotham, please stop asking

polygon.com:

Midway through The Batman, mayoral candidate Bella Reál (Jayme Swanson) confronts Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) with a criticism you’ve likely heard before: Bruce is a rich guy in a struggling city. Why isn’t he helping more? In the film’s election subplot, Reál is Gotham’s progressive candidate up against a now-murdered incumbent with possibly corrupt ties, yet despite her likely very good policy ideas, her Bat-takes are downright banal.

This is an argument that has come up over and over again when Batman is discussed by adults who have to think about things like “rent” and the thematic implications of the art they consume. Trouble is, it’s a load of guano.

Put simply, this is a shortsighted criticism that merely sounds incisive. The billionaire class is finally coming under popular scrutiny after decades of art that reinforced their unearned feelings of greatness, a sentiment certainly bolstered by the mythology of Batman and Bruce Wayne, right?

This is correct. The Bruce Wayne version of Batman as he is most often portrayed is the “good guy with a gun” argument for billionaires, a fact that any half-decent analysis will almost immediately clock. This also makes it a boring read, because the answer to this question — which is usually wielded as a weird gotcha — presumes that there is a better way to spend his money and achieve his goals other than “punching the mentally ill.” This is nonsense, because none of this is real.

Bruce Wayne is not a real billionaire, he is a childish imagination of one where there’s a butler who can do everything you don’t want to and a giant T-Rex in your clubhouse. Gotham City is a fake city cartoonishly broken to the point where vigilante superheroes are the only logical option