That would make Catwoman all the more appealing, since she’s kind of a dom and sometimes carries that whip…
So Batman is asexual? He appears to have fathered a child in the Son of the Bat graphic novel. Quite clearly hetrosexual in that one.
I can’t believe we’ve gotten to 60+ posts and no one has mentioned the film in which one male character says about the other, “He just like any other man, only more so,” the other one says about the first, “If I were a woman, and I were not around, I should be in love with Rick,” and closes with, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Which led The Tick to flip out on at least one occasion, screaming something about how Carmelita was soft like Arthur but in all the wrong places.
I think it was written tongue-in-cheek (ahem), but this discussion can’t be complete without Case Sensitive’s masterful deconstruction of Toy Story.
More text than sub-text, but I never grasped the context of the oysters/snails dialog in Spartacus between Tony Curtis and Laurence Olivier the first time I saw the fim as a kid.
Outsmart article
Let me guess. You’re a straight woman, right?
Functionally asexual. In spite of my tongue-in-cheek humour above, since the only time in main continuity last I heard, he’d only got close with Catwoman.
Of course, my information on that is pretty old, and I haven’t read any recent Batman (it’s from a scholarly article dating to the early 90s), so they could have changed it. Also, I don’t know Son of the Bat, but if it’s AU continuity, the writers may have been given more leeway than is usual.
Re: Batman - I will have to read up, but IIRC, Robin was introduced at the request of DC (or whatever it was called at the time) to increase readership - they were targeting kids, so they thought having a kid would work. And, again IIRC, it did work - sales increased dramatically.
So, bottom line: Robin was not an invention of Kane (or Bill Finger, who wrote the original Batman stuff and is often overlooked for some reason).
I am all for gay subtext if it is intended and it adds to better understanding of a story - the Spartacus quote above is a perfect example - but in this case, I don’t believe that subtext is there or was meant to be. It was a simple marketing ploy from a more innocent time.
Okay - let the laughter begin and show me how wrong I am…
Sorry for the hijack, but Batman has had several sexual relationships, most recently with Catwoman.
The Haunting of Hill House was full of lesbian subtext and was really just a big metaphor for sexual repression in general.
Subtext hell-in the book, it was right there out in the open. Basically, all Ann Rice characters are bisexual. (BTW, I loathe Ann Rice, although I liked the first two books in the Mayfair series).
In the movie though, it had to be extremely watered down, as you said. So there’s only a little bit of a hint. And this IS a thread about films. But if we can include tv shows, I’d like to nominate the original He-Man: Masters of the Universe. I can’t believe how blatant the homoerotica is, now. Looking back, that completely flew over our heads when we were kids, didn’t it?
What? Secret gay subtext in He-Man? C’mon, that’s just…
Hm.
“I am Adam, Prince of Eternia and **keeper of the secrets ** of Castle Greyskull! This is Cringer… my fearless friend! Fabulous secret powers were revealed to me the day I held aloft my magic sword and said… ‘By the power of Greyskull!’ I have the poooooooower!”
“Only a few others share this secret… The Sorceress, Man-At-Arms ** and Orko. Together** we defend Castle Greyskull from the evil forces of Skeletor.”
Yeah, Arthur was in love with Carmelita. Like Tom Cruise is in love with Katie Holmes.
Pretty In Pink. James Spader’s obsessive interest in Andrew McCarthy’s dating life, and the latter’s need for the former’s approval… really, they should’ve just gone to the prom with each other. (Spader would definitely lead.) A bonus: Molly Ringwald and Jon Cryer would’ve been free to be the perfect oddball couple.
I think a lot of people don’t get the unfolding revelation about the “Withnail Montague” character from Withnail & I, either.
Yes. Does it show?
Can you see how this might not be a complete refutation of the possibility of a homosexual relationship between Sam and Frodo?
Obviously, D.C. forgot to interview Silver St. Cloud (possibly Batman’s most torrid affair) and Talia (daughter of Ra’s al-Ghul, whose bore Batman a son), among others, who would be surprised to learn such a thing.
Are you talking about Withnail or about Uncle Monty? I thought Uncle Monty’s pursuit of … uh … “I” (did he even have a name?) was pretty obvious.
Quite.
That’s an intriguing idea but inaccurate. Alien had early-mid-'70’s stoner roots; Dan O’Bannon was working out some of the core plot elements on John Carpenter’s famous student-film-turned-cult-classic Dark Star. Only then, the “alien” was a big, red, bouncy beach ball with feet! 
re. The Maltese Falcon, the “Joe Cairo” character had, IIRC, a lavender-scented (and colored?) handkerchief. He might also have smelled of violet or lavender-scented water. Lavender was code for gay.