"Is Batman gay? Well, no: Batman, after 73 years of publication, with appearances on TV, in video games, movies and comics, can never be tied down to any one identity. Batman has been a ridiculous boy-scout, a fearsome vigilante, a protective father, a loner, a clown. Batman is a myth and a mosaic, an icon who catches the light at different angles at different times, and takes multiple forms. But gayness – from high camp to intense homoeroticism – is an important aspect of that icon. This reading is nothing new. Media scholar Andy Medhurst outlined it in an important 1991 article, Batman, Deviance and Camp. In the 60s, George Melly remarked of the Adam West TV show: "We all knew Robin and Batman were pouves." And in the 50s, young boys supposedly confessed to psychiatrist Fredric Wertham that they fantasied about sharing a bedroom with Batman. Whenever that interpretation raises its head, it meets resistance. In the 50s, the accusations that Bruce and Dick "Robin" Grayson represented "a wish-dream of two homosexuals living together" went to a Senate subcommittee hearing, and the comic-book editors responded by bringing in Batgirl and Batwoman, double-dates for the dynamic duo. In the late 60s, DC Comics commissioned a new team to rebrand Batman with hard-boiled, street-level stories intended to wipe out the memory of Adam West's TV show."
Batman

January 1, 1970