Previous essay about the first film.

Batman Returns is the bleakest meditation on sexual dysfunction in arrested adolescence ever to be licensed for a McDonald’s Happy Meal.

Against all odds, Tim Burton had turned the first Batman into a character study about artistic ego and sexual competition, in the guise of an action film. When given total freedom for the sequel he turned what could’ve simply been Batman II: The Adventure Continues into a whirlwind tragicomedy of feminism, class struggle and kinky fetishism.

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