This post contains spoilers of an existential nature.
“Do you think God stays in heaven because he too lives in fear of what he’s created?” Steve Buscemi’s Dr. Romero asks in the 2002 modern cinematic masterpiece, Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams.
It’s a valid question. One that I’ve been asking myself a lot this week as the “does Batman eat pussy” discourse continues across various social media platforms. It just got another shot in the arm from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League director Zack Snyder as it happens, because we live in a society. A society that refuses to let DC besmirch the good name of Batman when it comes to orally pleasuring someone, apparently. That’s where we draw a line in the sand and say “not today.”
Your response to seeing the words ‘Zack Snyder Adds to Batman Oral Sex Discourse’ grouped together in a headline may go one of several ways. “Of course he did” could be one, but “wait, what?” could certainly be another if you’ve been off the grid long enough this week to avoid the story so far.
In that case, here’s a little background that I’ll keep as brief as possible:
On Monday, Variety published an article with several superhero series creators discussing how their projects subvert the superhero genre. This included Harley Quinn co-creator Justin Halpern, who opened up a little about the kind of broader creative control they have on the show when they’re writing for DC villains.
“It’s incredibly gratifying and free to be using characters that are considered villains because you just have so much more leeway,” Halpern explained. “A perfect example of that is in this third season of Harley [when] we had a moment where Batman was going down on Catwoman. And DC was like, ‘You can’t do that. You absolutely cannot do that.’ They’re like, ‘Heroes don’t do that.’ So, we said, ‘Are you saying heroes are just selfish lovers?’ They were like, ‘No, it’s that we sell consumer toys for heroes. It’s hard to sell a toy if Batman is also going down on someone.’”
“Heroes don’t do that.” Well, the internet wasn’t about to let that slide (you can see some of the previous reactions to the notion right here if you like) and now, Snyder has added his own mic drop to the ongoing saga.
“Canon,” the ousted DCEU puppet-master typed into the Compose Tweet box today, adding an image of Batman and Catwoman going at it that he may or may not have spent the last few days drawing himself for all we know, before finally hitting Send.
Sweet Lord.
Harley Quinn boasts a strong voice cast includes Kaley Cuoco, Lake Bell, Alan Tudyk, Tony Hale, Ron Funches, Jason Alexander and J. B. Smoove. Season 3 is heading to HBO Max soon, but no release date has been made available just yet.