At nearly 10:30 on a Tuesday night, when you`d think adults would be safe home in bed, the Loews West 84th Street theater in New York City was packed for ”Batman Returns.” Numerous arms draped around numerous shoulders.
”Batman Returns” is a date movie in more ways than one. There are villains, to be sure, but mostly the film rolls from scene to scene with Batman and Catwoman a deux at night-in their way, dating.
Gotham City has always been a sexy place. Rooftop assignations traced by moonlight. Hidden identities. All that leather and molded polymer.
”Who`s the man behind the bat?” Catwoman purrs, running her hand low down Batman`s carapace. He can`t answer. She toys with his famous gallantry, then attacks, leaving fake claws in his side.
She crouches over him when he has fallen and, poised for dalliance, gives a long, feline lick. Batman, a confounded Narcissus, licks his own lips in response. When overcoming his enemies, he`s on firm ground. But can Batman survive a date?
These lovers are modern; ergo, they are conflicted. Selina Kyle, a girlishly insecure executive assistant, snaps her whip with confidence as Catwoman. The millionaire Bruce Wayne-Batman-is perplexed by sex, as he has been for decades.
I was in 5th or 6th grade when I read a comic book in which an auburn-haired vamp named Poison Ivy wooed Batman to a life of crime. He could not get his mind off her until Robin, his preteen, he-man, woman-hating pal, shook him free.
Poison Ivy came back to mind that night at the movies. I wondered, what can the sex-educated youths of today, just about ready to date, make of Catwoman and the ambivalent Batman?
A few days later, Ilene Lebowitz welcomed me to P.S. 75 on West End Avenue. A group of girls, then boys, joined me in the hall to discuss the sexual side of the movie.
Troy Allison, 13, defended Catwoman`s right to lick Batman, not kiss him. ”That makes the woman more exciting,” he said.
”Sexy,” Ralph Francois, 12, said with a shy smile.
Dominick Alba, 12, would not go even that far. ”Not sexy,” he said.
The girls liked Catwoman`s style, her power, her cartwheels, her curves and the way she caressed them.
”When Catwoman is in her house,” Stephanie Cheng, 11, began to recall,
”and she puts her hands all over her body.” All the other girls giggled.
”They should get married, like,” said Andrea Ortiz, 12. ”They made a good couple together. I think they would make a good family.”
Medori Jewett, 11, chimed, ”They would have good kittens and bats.”
Batman seems to side with Andrea and Medori. Late in the movie, in underground Gotham, he tries to reshape the relationship that had flourished on the rooftops.
He rips off his mask and asks Catwoman to join him. He`s in love. He doesn`t want to fight her anymore.
Such romance is apparently for 6th-grade girls. Catwoman spurns his offer.
Bereft, befuddled Bruce Wayne adopts a stray kitten and heads home. Try as he may, he can`t find Catwoman.
The audience sees her one last time, though, rising up to scan the Gotham City skies. She is looking for the Bat-signal, to track him down, to play again. The date`s not over.
But the movie is.
