I’m not a conspiracy theorist (you can just hear the ‘but’ coming, can’t you?) and I am not an ‘anti-vaxxer’ (refer to previous material in parentheses). This is despite penning two large essays—The New Conservative passim—on the origins of globalism and its current manifestations with Dr Niall McCrae. I have also been very critical of the Covid-19 vaccines both in terms of their purported efficacy and, concomitantly, their potential for harm. But (there it is!) I have to conclude we have been being softened up for a massive vaccine rollout like the one we have just witnessed—and which proceeds apace—for decades. Moreover, Hollywood has played its part. Now over to Batman.
When I was young, I loved Batman. Given that I am now past my mid-sixties this says a lot about the enduring appeal of the franchise. As a Scot, it gives me some pride to think that the original comics I read were published by DC Thomson in Dundee. I had a PVC batman cape and hood (I can smell it now) and ran about the house and the garden tackling baddies. This mostly involved shooting my mother on the backside with missiles from my remarkably powerful Batgun (would never get to the shelves of Toys’R’Us these days) and earning a jolly good Batclip round the ear. Strangely, I never found a use for the cape and hood in adulthood (honestly, I didn’t), but I still like Batman and some of the films have been masterpieces.
When I was a lad, we had the TV series Batman (dadadada dadadada dadadada…Batman!) where Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin camped it up on a Saturday morning with many a ‘Biff!’ and ‘Kapow!’ as they quelled the assorted madmen of Gotham City. This was a far cry from the comics and the dark brooding, square-jawed Bruce Wayne. In later life I actually wondered if the pair of them were gay. Apparently not. In a recent interview with Ward (West has predeceased him) they were, by all accounts, tipping young ladies on their back on an industrial scale, and probing their Batcaves. I guess those were the days, and I also guess that some of those young ladies were not old enough to consent. Still, what happens in Gotham City stays in Gotham City.
This brings me to the more contemporary manifestations of the Batman franchise in the prolific series of Batman films that have emanated from Hollywood since 1989. Some better than others, admittedly. This week, along with one of our grandsons, my wife and I watched the 2015 Batman Begins. Many a knowing glance was cast between my Covid sceptical wife and me with the conclusion, out of earshot of our grandson, that you could not have made it up. Batman Begins, as the title suggests, traces the origins of Batman, his struggle between good and evil, his initial friendship with Commissioner Gordon, and tells the story, as always, of how he saves the day. With regards to what we have recently experienced, see how many triggers you can spot as I describe the plot.
Gotham is under threat from a dreadful lurgy (OK it’s an hallucinogenic gas, but you get my drift). The substance from which the gas emanates is found to have been poured into the Gotham water supply but that is not the problem; it does not affect you if you come into contact with it that way, it has to be inhaled. It is a respiratory threat. That sounds awfully familiar to me. The analogies are not perfect, but the baddies intend to create a microwave pulse which will release the gas from the water and ‘hey presto’ all of Gotham is on a massive hallucinogenic trip. I hesitate to say that the microwave pulse is analogous to 5G, because I have nothing in common with the swivel-eyed 5G nutters who infiltrated the Covid and lockdown sceptics movements. My approach to 5G is to ask: “when will we have 6G?”
Back to Gotham. The baddies duly release the gas and how come they don’t succumb to it; they wear face masks of course. Finally, who saves the day. It is a rich philanthropist, and I swear I am not making this up. It is Batman naturally, but how does he do it? Of course, he invents an antidote; one that must be injected, “almost like a vaccine” I hear you say. And he recommends that it be mass produced and ‘rolled out’ (he doesn’t actually say that) to the whole of Gotham. If this is not a series of cinematic rabbit punches designed to inculcate into the minds of the young and vulnerable that danger is ever present, the elite will save us, and we must all obey, then, Holy Smoke, I’m Catwoman. Now, Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman…
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.
