That doesn't make the character gay because some people like to read gay sub texts in his stories. You asked what was the problem with Batman being gay. The answer is because he's not gay. George Clooney playing the character as gay is wrong.
It ain't the context, it's the image. If people saw something like that in a Batman movie, there would be an uproar. Not even Joel Schumacher would put a scene like that in a Batman movie.
It is the context. The panel is edited so it looks like Robin is going to hump Batman in the shower or something, telling him to hold still and it won't take long. It's cut out so you can't really see he's strangling him.
Strangling a man in the shower isn't gay, and doesn't have a gay subtext to it.
It's possible the word "*****" doesn't have the same meaning today as it did back then.
That is my point. It was a more innocent time back then. Just like two guys sleeping in the same bed fully clothed is not homosexual or had a homo erotic meaning back then, nor is two guys sun bathing in the same room together. People didn't read these comics and complain about homosexual under tones back in the 40's. Probably because there wasn't intended to be any. But nowadays people would look at that and say gay subtext. Just like with the word *****.
But times changed. By the 60's it was more self aware. That's why they put Aunt Harriet into the Adam West show to dispel any ideas that three men living together was inappropriate in any way. Aunt Harriet kept them proper.
But gay people existed in the 1940s.. so I don't know what you mean by "more innocent an naive time".
I mean people didn't look at two guys fully clothed in bed, or sun bathing in the same room as a homosexual type of thing.
First pic is from a movie released in 1986. Second pic is from a Saturday Night Live appearance in 1992. Roughly around the same time Keaton played Batman.
1986 is 3 years before Batman 1989, and SNL was in 1992, but Batman Returns would have been filmed in 1991. But even in those pics he doesn't look that buff. He just looks slightly buffer than he usually does.
Because actors buff up or lose weight for a movie or role doesn't mean they always look like that:
Michael Keaton never looked like a physically buff man in his Batman movies.
Yeah, the guy in the film could be a stunt actor. But it still shows Batman's physique regardless. And he wasn't skinny like Peter Parker.
It's not Batman's physique if that's not the actor playing Batman. Don't you think it's odd that's the only scene in the two Tim Burton movies where we get a glimpse of Batman's physique, it is shot from the back, at a distance, which could be anyone.
Even when he is lying in the bed with Vicki Vale after they had sex he is not shirtless. He is fully clothed in a pyjamas and dressing gown.
