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Shut Up Already About Batman Not Spending All Of His Money To Help Gotham City

By Brian Richards | Social Media | March 11, 2022 |

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Header Image Source: Warner Bros.

We all know Batman, the silent and shadowy protector of Gotham City who puts the fear of all deities in criminals everywhere. Who admittedly is not really a people person, and doesn’t play well with others. And who can (allegedly) beat anyone in a fight, as long as he’s given enough prep time.

Then there is Bruce Wayne, Batman’s true identity. He publicly comes across as an irresponsible, fun-loving, and slightly dimwitted multibillionaire who enjoys living the lifestyle of a playboy. But in reality, he’s a compassionate and thoughtful person who cares very much about his employees and colleagues at Wayne Enterprises, who makes sure that every single one of them is generously compensated for their work, and who regularly donates large sums of money to people and organizations who really need it.

A lot of people on social media have become convinced in recent years that Batman/Bruce Wayne is really nothing more than a lazy and misguided billionaire who is just like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg. (Who all served as inspiration for director Zack Snyder when casting Jesse Eisenberg to play his version of Lex Luthor in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, with also a little bit of Max Landis.) When regular people talk about how we need to “eat the rich,” it applies to Batman as much as it does to every other millionaire and billionaire, and they’re quite fond of being on social media and repeating the opinion (either as a very played-out joke, or saying it with absolute sincerity) that Batman does nothing more than dress up in a full suit of body armor so he can go out every night, and beat up on the poor and the mentally ill, instead of opening his wallet and using his riches and his resources to help them turn their lives around.

This is not the first, second, or third time that this sentiment has been expressed on Twitter, but it was the most recent tweet that grabbed the attention of others and made them either laugh along, or nod their heads in agreement, or respond like this:

Let’s take a look at Batman’s rogues gallery, and just some of the numerous crimes that have been committed by them:

The Joker kidnapped a large number of babies during the events of No Man’s Land, and when Sarah Essen-Gordon (a detective with the Gotham City Police Department, and wife of Commissioner Jim Gordon) attempted to rescue one of the babies he was threatening at gunpoint, The Joker immediately killed her with a gunshot to the head. Then there was the time he shot his daughter, Barbara Gordon, a.k.a. Batgirl, a.k.a. Oracle, in the spine. It was an injury that left her paralyzed for life, right in front of Commissioner Gordon before Joker had him kidnapped so that he could torture him psychologically with countless photos of Barbara lying naked and bleeding on the floor, all in an attempt to prove that, just like him, “all it takes is one bad day to drive the sanest man alive to lunacy.” Poison Ivy released deadly spores that would suffocate nearly everyone in Gotham City unless her demands were met.

Two-Face fell in love with Renee Montoya, and when she refused to reciprocate his feelings, he forcibly outed Renee before framing her for murder in an attempt to destroy her life and make her want to be with him. Ra’s al Ghul’s idea of ridding Gotham City of crime and corruption involved using a weaponized microwave emitter to expose everyone to Scarecrow’s powerful fear-inducing toxin, and drive them all to panic and insanity so they would destroy everything around them and burn their hometown to the ground. And the list goes on and on and on.

When it comes to why Batman’s enemies are who they are, what they are, and why they do the things that they do, poverty has nothing to do with any of it. They wreak havoc on Batman, and all of Gotham City, because they want to, because they like it, because they just want to see the world burn, and because they feel that their methods are the only way to make Gotham (and the rest of the world) a better place. In Penguin’s case, it’s to prove that he’s better than the rest of society because he’s an absolute snob. Nearly all of them are far past the point of no return when it comes to their mental health, and becoming law-abiding citizens who are on the side of good, no matter how much Batman may think or hope otherwise.

One example of this is courtesy of Batman: The Animated Series. In the episode “Trial,” Batman and Janet Van Dorn, the newest District Attorney for Gotham City ever since Harvey Dent’s transformation into Two-Face, are both kidnapped by the inmates at Arkham Asylum and held hostage, as Joker, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, etc. hold a kangaroo court within Arkham’s walls, and place Batman on trial (with Van Dorn defending him, despite her strong disapproval of Batman’s methods and his very existence) to prove he is responsible for the fact that they all broke bad, and became the criminals that they are.

As for Batman/Bruce Wayne, whenever he’s accused on social media of not doing enough financially to help others (and those accusations seemingly appear and go viral every couple of months like clockwork), there are countless examples of his philanthropy that are brought up in response. And the people who keep making this accusation about Batman are then told that they need to go read some more Batman comics.

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The final chapter of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, even ended with Batman (Christian Bale) faking his death, passing along the Batsuit to Officer John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), leaving his estate in the care of Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine), and donating Wayne Manor so that his home could be turned into an orphanage. This happened after Bruce was called out by Selina Kyle, a.k.a. Catwoman (Anne Hathaway), for having far too much, doing not nearly enough with it, and leaving everyone else with so very little. (Granted, she said this to Bruce before discovering that he was really Batman, but her point was still valid.)

In The Batman, Robert Pattinson’s version of Batman/Bruce Wayne cares a lot more about terrifying everyone in the criminal underworld, and taking down as many of them as he can, than he does about doing … well, anything else. Including using his fortune and his resources to help others. Hence why mayoral candidate Bella Reál (Jayme Lawson) confronts Bruce about how he’s not doing nearly enough with what he has, and how she hopes to collaborate with him in doing much more if and when she is elected. It’s also why Zoë Kravitz’s version of Selina Kyle/Catwoman calls Bruce out by name for being one of the “white privileged a—holes” who are being targeted by The Riddler (Paul Dano) for their corruption, and for contributing to Gotham being the dank, urine-soaked hellhole that it is. The latter callout is one that has particularly angered the f-ckboys and Pick-Mes of ‘Get Woke, Go Broke’ Twitter, who didn’t appreciate her trying to make this Batman movie so damn woke (a word that obviously carries no racial connotations whatsoever when used by white people on the Internet), and who didn’t appreciate this coming from a Catwoman that is played by a Black woman.

There are also numerous branches of Wayne Enterprises that provide all kinds of services to Gotham City, and the rest of the world. The Wayne Foundation is the holding company for the Thomas Wayne Foundation — which is for medicine and medical help, gives awards for medical breakthroughs, and funds dozens of clinics around Gotham, including the Thomas Wayne Memorial Clinic in Park Row — and for the Martha Wayne Foundation, which is for arts, education, families, and tolerance; supports and assists the operation of orphanages and free schools and soup kitchens; and provides teachers for those who have learning difficulties. Wayne Technologies not only provides cutting-edge technology for Batman to personally use in his war on crime, but through its subsidiaries (Wayne Biotech, Wayne Pharmaceuticals, Wayne Healthcare) and its access to alien technology, amazing breakthroughs have been made in medicine (particularly for reconstructive plastic surgery, development of vaccines and medicines against difficult diseases, and research into neurosurgery), cybernetics, pharmaceuticals, and avionics.

Wayne Construction built and maintained several resort hotels located around the world, and was also largely responsible for the construction of a free railway system so that Gotham City residents can travel around the city. Wayne Medical is the sister company of Wayne Biotech, and manages Gotham City’s healthcare system while also focusing on the treatment of illnesses, operation/maintenance of many hospitals in Gotham, and assisting the Wayne Foundation with their orphanages. Wayne Security supplies protective measures for lucrative Fortune 500 companies to working-class people who want to safeguard their homes from intruders and their personal information from identity theft. Wayne Entertainment not only owns arenas and stadiums in Gotham, but also owns The Daily Planet in Metropolis. And these are only just some of the Wayne Enterprises branches that not only provide Batman with what he needs to stay informed and prepared, but also provide jobs, services, and opportunities for countless others who may not be able to find them anywhere else.

There are many reasons for people on the Internet to take shots at the huge and easy target that is Batman. He’s a white male billionaire, and considering the way we see white male billionaires act in real life, that right there is reason enough. He is portrayed far too often in Bat-God mode, as the insufferable genius who knows more than everyone else, is more physically capable than almost everyone else (how else to explain Batman dodging an Omega Beam from Darkseid?), and mouths off like an a—hole to others because he believes this to be true, as if he’s the DC Comics version of Chuck Norris. Then there’s the fact that Batman has had seven solo animated series (and an eighth one on the way), whereas Superman, in recent years, has only had one, and Wonder Woman has had none whatsoever. (I blame this on Warner Bros. and their incredibly annoying habit of leaving money on the table when it comes to DC and taking full advantage of what they have. And also sexism when it comes to studios looking at entertainment that’s centered on girls and women, and viewing it as unappealing and unprofitable.) But Batman not doing enough with his $9.2 billion fortune (yes, you read that number correctly) definitely shouldn’t be one of them. If any fictional multibillionaires deserve to be put on blast for not doing nearly enough with their money or their resources, it’s Lex Luthor. And the person who did exactly that to Lex was, of course, none other than Superman.

(Oh, and depending on which Marvel fans you speak to about it, Tony Stark is a multibillionaire who deserves to be put on blast, and called out on his sh-t even more than he already does for everything that he contributed to in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.)

At this point, cracking jokes about Batman not doing enough with his wealth to go viral on social media is about as original and funny as tweeting about how you were made to be railed in a sundress, and not made to work 9-to-5. Or tweeting about how funny it is that Two-Face (who is disoriented from suddenly being awakened, and who is still ignoring the intense pain caused by his third-degree burns that he refused to take any painkillers for) doesn’t recognize Joker in his disguise as a nurse until he takes his mask off. So it would be nice if and when the next time someone feels the need to make yet another “Batman only beats up on the poor and the mentally ill, and he doesn’t do enough with his money” tweet, this friendly warning comes up on the person’s screen right before they can tweet:

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P.S. If you’re reading this, and wondering why such an article even exists in which one of the writers feels the need to go this hard over a fictional character? Please remember that Pajiba is the very same website where one of our writers talked about how she wanted to f-ck Pennywise The Clown (a sentiment that seems to be shared by many here on Beyoncé’s Internet, because there truly is a lid for every pot), and that a lot of you have proudly spoken of how the Disney version of Robin Hood is largely responsible for your sexual awakenings. So put down the stones while you’re standing in that glass house.