Danny DeVito plays the Penguin as the perviest nut imaginable, feeling up a girl's boob when giving her a campaign button, referring to Catwoman as "pussy" and talking about "naked sexual charisma."
How did this get through the censors at the time?
People weren't as uptight as they are now? I don't know...maybe.
shareBatman '89 was a phenomenon. It made piles of money and was super-huge, so Warner Bros. wanted a sequel and Tim Burton probably wanted to get darker, explore more adult themes, and generally do more of what he wanted to do. Because he hit a home-run, WB probably rubber-stamped a lot of stuff that Burton might not have been able to get away with otherwise.
shareI think so. Also, I saw Batman Returns in the cinema when it first came out and it didn't strike me as that outrageous. And I wasn't a kid.
shareIt might have appeared outrageous to a lot of people, though. Up until Burton, mainstream audiences weren't familiar with Batman as an adult property. They mostly thought of him in terms of Adam West. Comic fans had already been digging on the Dark Knight for awhile as something more than "for kids", with stuff like The Dark Knight Returns, but that was just the comic fans. So, Returns might have appeared stranger and more "adult" than it is.
It does get pretty dark, particularly with the subversive sexuality roiling around throughout the movie. That stuff might not be articulate in the mind of kid watching the film, but I think a lot of them might get uncomfortable watching Catwoman heavy-breathe her way down Batman's suit and then stab him with her cat-claws. There's an S&M thing she's got going on, a weirdness to that relationship...it's not on the surface, it's underneath. It's really excellent storytelling, but I could see why somebody might think the movie was twisted.
I do remember the 'parent backlash' over the shift in tone (these days I'm sure it would have been on Twitter!).
shareTeens like finding out (soft) sexual contents.
shareSexual suggestion isnt rated-R.
Especially since it’s in the content of a superhero.
They upped it because Penguin is an allegory of real politicians and how they seem to help people but really lie and destroy them. How they seem nice and noble but are really sex crazed and partying gallas.
Catwomen herself was added as sex appeal. Why else would they tighten Michelle Pffieffer so much she could barely breathe. Or have her sit on Bat’s cock and scratch his chest as she slobers on him. I mean any any man would get rock hard for that.
Batman 1st wasnt so innocent as you think. Joker sleeping with the bosses wife. Making passes at Bassinger. Beating his girlfriend.
The whole Latex falls into sexual fetishes like bondage. In the later batman’s they showed his puffed up chess, fist, legs, and buttocks. Same with the girls.
I think they also upped it because obviously Penguin's a virgin so anything related to a woman drives him wild.
Ironically, because they knew they could only push things so far, he's curiously not interested in doing anything sexual with the Ice Princess when he's with her in the tent or after kidnapping her.
And on the original film, don't forget Vicki strongly implying she's going down on The Joker😂
Well it's not some G-rated kids movie.
shareTim Burton got free reign to do anything he wanted after Batman '89s success.
shareNot entirely. He wanted to leave it open to interpretation if Catwoman survived or not but the studio told him that last shot of her where she's in the frame with the Bat signal must be added because they wanted a Catwoman spin-off which never happened because of the disappointing box-office success of this film.
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