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Holy Homo Sub-Text! A Gay Boy’s Dream of the Dynamic Duo

Holy Homo Sub-Text! A Gay Boy’s Dream of the Dynamic Duo

In the ‘50s, my childhood farm-town Ft. Lupton produced little excitement except for one event: a monthly pilgrimage to Deason’s Drugstore, mecca of comic book imagination. I reverently approached the wire rack to make a dime purchase of thrilling devotion: The Adventures of Batman and Robin!

If I still had them today, I could retire. At the time, I would not have traded my treasure for a ton of  Bazooka Bubble Gum. The Dynamic Duo represented a relationship I dreamed of: mentor and mentee, artistic and intellectual, nurturing and courageous, dangerous and fun. Bruce was the handsome, masculine, moody nihilist, Dick the cutie-patootie, chipper pixie. They had no superpowers, which I always thought were unfair advantages, but they possessed cool vehicles: the Bat-mobile, -plane, -coptor, -bike, -boat.

And capes! Forget the inefficiency of a uniform dragging you willy-nilly. Forget they were essentially criminal vigilantes. Batman and Robin wrapped themselves in cloaks of noble advocacy and wore their fluttering mantles of justice with panache.

Tying a towel around my neck, I would zoom around and jump off the sofa, defending the downtrodden, defeating fiendish foes. When Mom yelled, “Richard Lee!” I knew to knock it off and continue my escapades in the yard.

When I was four years old I knew I was gay. Peeling the pentimento of memory reveals that adult declaration. What emerged was an awareness that I was different. So young, I had no context of gay language and experience. Church, society, and family ensured boys and girls like me learned that these longings and behaviors defied accepted norms.

I was not an orphan like Bruce and Dick. Right off the er,bat, I want to declare that I had wonderful parents. Sarah and Reuben gifted me a great childhood: loving, safe, value-filled, all the necessary comforts of home.

But like Batman and Robin, I had a secret identity. To know you are a pervert — again, an adult judgment — at such a tender age would thrust a heavy load of shame upon any child.

Though publishers and creators of Batman, Bob Kane and Bill Finger, always denied a homosexual relationship between mature guardian Bruce Wayne and young ward Richard Grayson, they did not control the imaginations of young gay kids everywhere. With no positive role models around, we found our own, intended or not.

When the TV series starring Adam West and Bert Ward began in 1966, I relished every campy POW! BAM! and WHAM! so much so, that I painted those interjections on my condo’s bathroom, like a technicolor comic panel with memorabilia and posters. In the ‘90s, I added a life-size cutout of George Clooney as Batman (Clooney, by the way, told Barbara Walters in 2006 he “made Batman gay”).

In his autobiography Boy Wonder: My Life in Tights, Ward suggested that a sexual interpretation could be applied to the duo’s ambiguous relationship. But I never thought of them sexually. I yearned for their companionship.

In 1989, a long-awaited film was announced with a disappointingly miscast Michael Keaton. To me, the hero should have combined the suavity of Cary Grant, the integrity of Gregory Peck, the sensuality of Marlon Brando. But no Robin?! Sherlock has his Watson, Kirk his Spock, Lucy her Ethel, Juliet her Romeo, Salt her Pepa.

Robin did not appear until 1995’s sequel Batman Forever, directed by openly gay Joel Schumacher. Which might explain the duo’s costumes. They suggested for the hero a milieu of a leather/rubber fetish nightlife in Gotham City. I picture New York City, the shadows of a cowl and swaying cape, the Dark Knight on the prowl, cruising the greasy streets of its meatpacking district. Holy Codpiece, Bat-nips and Bat-butts!

Schumacher’s innuendo would never have survived the Lavender Scare, the paranoid ‘50s witch hunt and mass firings of gay people in the U.S. government. Riding its waves, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham proclaimed in his book Seduction of the Innocent, “The Batman type of story may stimulate children to homosexual fantasies… a subtle atmosphere of homoeroticism … pervades the adventures of the mature Batman and his young friend Robin.”

In 1954, Wertham presented his findings to the U.S. Senate, which was launching an investigation into juvenile delinquency that focused on comic books. Rather than face governmental regulation, the Comics Magazine Association of America created their own de facto censor, the Comics Code Authority (CCA). Homosexuality remained anathema until 1989.

The gay subtext may have begun with Robin’s 1940 debut cover. A lettered scroll announced that Batman “takes under his protective mantle an ally in his relentless fight against crime.” Crowded text made “an ally” appear as “takes… anally.” Tee-hee.

Wertham’s evidence of the Dynamic Duo’s immoral relationship centered on interpreting double entendres and salacious suggestions with a dirty mind:

Bruce rowing a boat on a romantically moonlit night while Dick languorously reclines (1942); pajama-clad Bruce and Dick waking in the same bed (1954); large vases of flowers filling Wayne Manor; Bruce spanking Robin; Bruce taking Robin to a wrestling club (1954); Robin reminding Batman of teeth marks in a leather thong; Robin and Batman leaving a closet, Batman complaining of “wobbly knees;” both wearing tights; Robin standing with his genital region thrust forward; Robin constantly afraid of being replaced and jealous of Batman’s rare dates with women; pursuing women as criminals, not potential wives; Bruce gliding through his manor in a dressing gown, not a bathrobe; Batman getting married with a gangster saying he “never thought he’d fall for a girl” (1940s).

“It is like a wish-dream,” Wertham wrote, “of two homosexuals living together.”

Batman and Robin seem destined to anger homophobes. According to The Advocate, two conservative pundits criticized this year’s LEGO Batman Movie for depicting two men sharing joint custody of Dick: Bruce Wayne and Batman. Uh, they are the same person. Holy Same-sex Paranoid Parenthood!

And those “Holy…” exclamations? In the TV series, Robin uttered more than 360. Like, “Holy Priceless Collection of Etruscan Snoods!”

In 1957, The Rainbow Batman story told of the hero wearing a different colored suit every night to protect Robin’s identity. Fifty years later, a complete rainbow six-pack of action figures sells for about 70 bucks. And released exclusively to the 2016 New York Comic Con, Funko POP! produced a limited edition of rainbow vinyl dolls in solid colors or stripes.

Maybe Wertham’s wish-dream was not off the mark. As a kid, I dreamed of living with Bruce/Batman and Dick/Robin, wishing I was as far from humdrum Ft. Lupton as sex was from my mind. Filling that fantasy? Jonny Quest under the protection of Race Bannon.

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