Batman is Gay—No, Not That Kind of Gay: A post about the recent Batman movie with a focus on watching superhero movies with your children.

So, it’s no secret that I love superheroes. They’ve been a huge part of my life since I was a kid. When Christopher Nolan announced that he was going to make a serious Batman movie, I was thrilled. When he cast Heath Ledger as the Joker, my enthusiasm increased exponentially.

I’ve seen The Dark Knight twice now, and I’m still not done processing it. It’s so good. Heath Ledger is amazing in it in pretty much every way you can imagine (and some ways you can’t). The story is intense and compelling; the action sequences are incredible; the script is well-written with interesting characters and good dialogue; and the music is awesome, too. It’s basically just one big win all around.

But what does any of this have to do with gayness? Well, during my viewing experiences, I noticed something about myself and the other people watching the film: we were laughing at things that weren’t intended to be funny.

I don’t want to give away any spoilers here, but let me just say that Batman and Catwoman have a few scenes together

When I was a kid, superheroes were gay. No, not that kind of gay. I mean they were happy, silly things that made you feel good when you read them. They didn’t take themselves very seriously. Spider-Man cracked jokes while he was fighting bad guys. The Fantastic Four told each other that they loved one another all the time (awww). Superman and Lois Lane would get married in every other issue. It was like watching a cartoon.

Cartoons, you see, are for kids. Superhero books aren’t for kids anymore. They’re dark and grim and gritty now. If a superhero book isn’t about how hard it is to be a superhero, it’s about how hard it is to be human or something equally unpleasant. And Batman doesn’t even have any superpowers! He’s just an ordinary guy who has to work really hard at being a superhero and who feels very guilty about it all the time!

That’s what it means to grow up, apparently: to lose your sense of fun and become humorless and self-important instead, to stop telling people you love them because that might make you look uncool.

One of the most frustrating things about watching superhero movies with your children is how you never get the movie you thought you were going to watch.

For example, last weekend my seven-year-old daughter and I bought tickets for The Dark Knight Rises. We sat down in our seats, ready for a nice family movie about a guy who dresses up like a bat to fight crime. Instead we got a nearly three-hour film filled with bloody gun battles and explosions, as well as people being tortured, maimed, and murdered. Not even the popcorn was safe: At one point a bad guy bashes another man’s head into a bucket of buttery goodness.

“That’s not really Batman,” said my daughter as she clutched my arm during yet another scene where Christian Bale’s Batman eviscerated some poor hoodlum with his Batarang (which appears to be made out of adamantium this time around).

This wasn’t the first time that I’ve been duped into taking my kids to see something that was much more violent or sexual than I was led to believe it would be. In fact, after years of sitting in darkened theaters watching men in tights beat each other senseless while scantily clad women prance around in the

My son and I went to see Batman & Robin on opening night. When we got home, he asked me if I thought Batman was gay.

I said that I didn’t think so, and asked him why he asked that. He said “Well, he wears a dress.”

I answered that Batman is a hero who dresses in black to frighten the bad guys and doesn’t wear anything that looks like a dress. He wears a costume, which everyone in the movie knows is just pretend, and it isn’t a dress.

He accepted this pretty easily. The next morning, however, he piped up from the back seat of our car about how Robin was gay too.

“Robin is not gay either,” I replied. “First of all, the actor who plays him is straight—and second, why do you say that?”

“Well,” my son said reasonably, “he’s always hanging out with Batman—they’re roommates and everything—and he doesn’t ever get a girlfriend.”

I was not a big fan of Batman Returns when it came out. I thought the movie was too dark and violent for kids, and that it contained too much sexuality and innuendo. When I saw Batman Begins in the theater few years ago, I enjoyed it so much that I bought the DVD the first chance I got.

I recently watched Batman Begins again, this time with my six year old son. We were both into it, but about two thirds of the way through the movie he started to shift in his seat and look at me whenever there was a fight scene or an explosion. At one point he said, “I don’t like this part.”

Afterwards he wanted to know why they had to have all those fights, explosions and stuff getting blown up. I told him that’s just what they do in movies like this, but we don’t have to worry about it because we know it isn’t real. He seemed to accept that explanation and did not ask any other questions.

The next day he asked if we could watch another Batman movie. We watched Batman Forever with Val Kilmer on Netflix streaming video. After a few minutes my son said, “This is not as good as the other one.” While watching that movie I remembered why I

Despite the title, this post is not about Christian Bale’s true sexuality. It is, however, about how many Christians are uncomfortable with the idea of a homosexual Batman and Robin. But as we’ll see, homosexuals are not the only ones who will have to deal with some troubling aspects of recent superhero movies.

As a father of two small boys and a pastor in the SBC, I am somewhat torn over what to do when it comes to movies like The Dark Knight. As much as I would like my children to be protected from all evil, I also know they cannot be raised in a bubble. What’s more, as my sons grow older and begin to spend more time away from home, I want them to have some ability to distinguish between right and wrong on their own.

One thing that has helped me in this area is to think about how I teach my children about sex. Of course I want them protected from pornography and sexual abuse for as long as possible. But at some point they will begin interacting with the opposite sex in ways that can lead to sexual temptation and sin. How do I help them prepare for this?

By teaching them what God says about sex in His Word, of course! Though it may seem odd or even wrong at times (