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So… I’m really pleased to find a reading of 200 lbs and I think your connection between the film and broader Korean society is spot on, but, I’m concerned with the moralistic overtones that shape the piece. Your use of the word obsessive bothers me and it makes me wonder who the audience is of your piece and which dominant culture you’re responding to–a Korean one or an American perception of Korean surgery. Thank you for posting.

I really love your inclusion of the two cops kissing. I’d be interested in reading more interpretative work on the piece itself. Knowing the context would help me situate the piece in both time and space. Thank you for sharing.

Just to play devil’s advocate…

In defense of Mathew I think that he is attempting to make a valuable distinction between two different modes of reception: interpretation and entertainment.

Admittedly, Matthew’s claim is false but his categories are valid. There is a mode of reception common to art films and mysteries which finds pleasure in association, interpretation, and clarifying obscurity.

Likewise there exists a mode of reception common to romantic comedies, horror films, and thrillers which engages the body, stimulating thrills, chills, and arousal in the bodies of viewers.

I think that the categories need to be thought through in more details; but I think it is fair to assert that they are distinct viewing experiences: bodily arousal (thrills, chills, and heartache) vs. cognitive arousal (interpreting, associating, and theorizing).

I feel like the language of Ancestry, (i.e., Descent), in the title gives the reader the impression that this essay is in some ways a genealogy, à la Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault.

I’m in agreement with @Twila that this this project could benefit from a study of the “roots,” i.e., Judeo-Christian, Greek, and Roman hero narratives.

I think that the assertion, “The elements that created Batman are scattered through the human consciousness,” sounds an awful lot like a Foucauldian claim that Batman is a body of discourse in the same way that notions of gender, race, and the primitive Other are discursive constellations.

Methodologically, I think that this essay would benefit from an explicit nod to either intertextuality theory or Foucauldian genealogy, (which are both articulated, (to an extent), in Foucault’s essay “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History.”

In general, I think that this essay is fantastic and opens up a possible inquiry which could easily fill an entire book. Thank you.

I have to agree with Jamie. I think that you have a solid claim that the character we have come to identify as Batman is an amalgamation of several dark heroes, i.e, Holmes, Dracula, and Zorro.

However, I think that your argument is complicated by the many reiterations and reinventions of Batman that we’ve seen over the last eight decades, i.e., Batman played by Christian Bale is not the same Batman seen in “Batman: The Animated Series.”

I think there is interesting room for inquiry into the nature of Batman retellings; there seems to be a correlation between Batman portrayals and America’s economic development over the last eighty years.

More importantly, if you want to make a claim to the original Batman’s character, it would be fruitful to dig into the cultural history of 1920s and 1930s Noir detective stories to get a better sense of the literary tradition from which Batman emerges.

Meghan Kelly,

I don’t mean to be an asshole, but you might want to copy edit the essay published online. There is a minor typo in the second sentence:

“after jut earning a Bachelor’s Degree from an unnamed Northeastern college,”

On the close of your article you seem to abnegate the authority of your interpretation writing,

“These readings, however, are just that: readings, inferences influenced by the opinions of an individual perspective. […]

The film is, it would seem, exactly what you make of it.”

I don’t know if this conclusion is necessary, especially since the first half of your essay builds substantial evidence for a coherent and authoritative reading of the film, which roots the images within a history of romanticist paintings and which verifies your impressions with quotes from Tarkovsky.

I think that you’re right to allow other viewers their own interpretations, but I was under the impression that your research process granted you particular insights and a sense of intimacy with the film that justify authoritative interpretations.

For example, you highlight the role of nostalgia for Tarkovsky which evinces an intimate knowledge with his on going obsessions in other films. When you write,

“Indeed, Stalker’s remark upon entering the Zone, ‘home at last’, and his consternation upon returning to his family home, embody the term ‘nostalgia’, ‘the pain of the return home’ so central to Tarkovsky’s films”

I get the impression that you are speaking from a place of authority, as one who has entered into the unique symbolic framework of Tarkovsky, as one who understands the particular meaning of ‘home at last,’ ‘nostalgia,’ and ‘the pain of the return home.’

I think that your intimate understanding of those three senses, experiences, or categories is more than enough basis from which you can establish an authoritative interpretation of the film. I think that you do enough work for me the reader, such that I can now look at your evidence to contest and accept claims.

While I respect your restraint and your use of understatement to describe your work as a series of “inferences,” I wish that you had taken the risk of putting yourself out there, to make claims that can be defended underneath the scrutiny of others.

Thank you.

This was an excellent piece. Thank you for demonstrating care and rigor in your thinking.