Week 1

            At the start of the semester I was going through the Book and Blog list and came across Gotham City 14 Miles: 14 Essays On Why the 1960s Batman TV Series Matters.  I almost jumped out of my chair as I immediately downloaded the title to my kindle.  As a comic book reader for 25+ years now, I can give a first-hand glimpse into how media can influence a student’s life.  Today, our students are influenced by all things digital.  For some of the high-school students I tutor in the evenings, if it isn’t on their phone, they can’t be bothered with it.  Almost 50 years ago a generation was surrounded and influenced by a burgeoning new form of media, television.  Batman was one of those early serials that a majority of the population tuned into weekly to follow the escapades of the dynamic duo.  Throughout the course of this text, I will review the essays in regards to how the show influenced students of that era and attempt to draw comparisons to the various forms of media available today.

Giant Lighted Lucite Map of Gotham City: An Introduction by Jim Beard

            In the introduction to the book, Beard lays out his reasoning as to why Batman matters.  Rarely has a show been both adored and despised with the same amount of fervor.  He expressed an emotional response to someone criticizing the fight sequences as being “totally fake”.  To Beard, they were as real as everyday life.  Here is where I find my first parallel to digital natives.  Too many times have I seen students take what they see, hear, or read on the internet at face value and as being true.  This is scary as a teach when I think that my students can be so easily influenced and swayed because something was on the internet.  This is where adults and teachers need to step in and help to clarify the line between reality and fantasy to avoid disastrous results in our students’ thinking and life in general.

Bats in their Belfries: The Proliferation of “Batmania” by Robert Greenberger

            The first essay of the book deals with the sudden boom of Batmania.  This of course is a take of the term Beatlemania, which happened just a few years before.  When Batman debuted it was almost at the same time as the arrival of large color TVs.  Though Batman was not the polled public’s first choice, Superman was, the debut episodes took in 49% of the viewers in the top 50 U.S. TV markets.  Greenberger states, “Everyone watched it.  Then they came back the next night and watched it, and then they talked about it.”  The appeal of the show reached overseas to other countries and fizzled out in two years almost as soon as it came about.

            Greenberger offers a point that during this time, just a few years after the assassination of JFK and while the military was going deeper into Vietnam, people were looking to escape.  “Escape to Batman.”  Immediately I drew a connection to the increasing popularity and use of digital media with our students.  If they are constantly hearing about unemployment, a shaky economy, turmoil at home and the fear of school violence, perhaps they are escaping to the world of facebook and twitter just as earlier generations donned capes and fought the Joker in their back yard.

The 1960s Batman TV Series from Comics to Screen by Peter Sanderson

            Through the majority of this essay, Sanderson describes in great detail how despite being 27 years its junior, the Batman television series greatly influenced changes within the Batman comics themselves.  The reach that Batman was exhibiting by finding a new media was unlike anything anyone had seen before.  The influence spread across different mediums from tv to music and comic books.  Today, we are seeing internet memes pop up everywhere from news programs, to our very own classrooms.  Rather than pretending to be Batman, my students were singing the Harlem Shake today during recess.  The Batman television series set precedence for all mediums to follow in an effort to attract more participants.

Such a Character: A Dissection of Two Sup-Species of Chiropter homo sapiens by Jim Beard

            Unfortunately for the graduate student in me, this essay has little value to my academics.  But the life-long comic book fan appreciated the comparison between the television version of the caped crusader and the print version.

            Despite the dud in this last essay, the overall theme of the book still permeated the screen, digital media is a powerful force to be reckoned with whose reach extends far beyond its intended audience.

            Until next time…same blog-time, same blog-channel…