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TV Milestones
Batman: The Animated Series
It's possible that no other version of Batman has been more influential than the one that debuted as a children's cartoon in 1992. For millions of fans around the world, the voices of Batman and the Joker introduced in Batman: The Animated Series (BTAS) remain the default. The characters, designs, and major themes of the show went on to shape other cartoons, films, and bestselling video games. In this study, Joe Sutliff Sanders argues that BTAS is not only a milestone of television but a milestone in the public persona of one of the most recognizable characters in the world.
The series introduced a new generation to Batman and provided the foundation for a family of cartoons that expanded the superhero universe. It introduced or reinvented major characters including Mr. Freeze, Robin, the Joker, and Harley Quinn. In three chapters, Sanders pursues the intricate arguments that still energize BTAS. Chapter 1 explores the visuals of the show, the artistic histories and tensions that inform its revolutionary style, and what ideas-intentional and otherwise-its aesthetic implies. Chapter 2 turns to the task of defining a "good" wealthy person against a backdrop of "bad," getting to the heart of one of Batman's most problematic characteristics. Lastly, chapter 3 considers Harley Quinn, a character who emblemizes much of what made BTAS successful. From her first appearance, Harley has been both sexy and witty, victor and victim, and this chapter explains the duality that defines her.
Since its debut in 1992, BTAS has garnered multiple awards, launched or developed the careers of countless important artists, and created aesthetic styles-in terms of both visuals and voice acting-that continue to resonate. Sanders's book follows an informative and exciting path through the material and is designed to be accessible to aficionados as well as relative newcomers. Batman fans, popular culture enthusiasts, and media studies scholars will find within these pages insights and ironies to provoke endless conversations.
The series introduced a new generation to Batman and provided the foundation for a family of cartoons that expanded the superhero universe. It introduced or reinvented major characters including Mr. Freeze, Robin, the Joker, and Harley Quinn. In three chapters, Sanders pursues the intricate arguments that still energize BTAS. Chapter 1 explores the visuals of the show, the artistic histories and tensions that inform its revolutionary style, and what ideas-intentional and otherwise-its aesthetic implies. Chapter 2 turns to the task of defining a "good" wealthy person against a backdrop of "bad," getting to the heart of one of Batman's most problematic characteristics. Lastly, chapter 3 considers Harley Quinn, a character who emblemizes much of what made BTAS successful. From her first appearance, Harley has been both sexy and witty, victor and victim, and this chapter explains the duality that defines her.
Since its debut in 1992, BTAS has garnered multiple awards, launched or developed the careers of countless important artists, and created aesthetic styles-in terms of both visuals and voice acting-that continue to resonate. Sanders's book follows an informative and exciting path through the material and is designed to be accessible to aficionados as well as relative newcomers. Batman fans, popular culture enthusiasts, and media studies scholars will find within these pages insights and ironies to provoke endless conversations.
128 pages, Paperback
Published April 6, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 25, 2021
In Summary
BTAS was a milestone of television, and now it gets true highbrow treatment as a University of Cambridge scholar puts it through academic analysis. There’s no full-color illustrations or exclusive interviews here. Rather, it contains critical analyses about artistic, social, cultural, and political influences. So if you want an exposition on BTAS the way a university-level literature class might dissect a 19th-century Russian novel, Sanders’ work is worth a try.
The Review
Batman: The Animated Series (BTAS) was a landmark production. It was dark, dramatic, and possessed an innovative visual style that set it apart from anime and its mainstream American counterparts. As part of Wayne State University Press’ TV Milestone Series, Joe Sutliff Sanders delves into the different aspects of that hit show from an academic perspective.
Let me repeat–an academic perspective.
This isn’t a light read or a glossy coffee table book. It’s a text-heavy paperback slightly larger than my palm. It contains twenty black-and-white images (four of which are not from the TV show) that function as references, not splash art. While there are some behind the scenes anecdotes, like the Days of Our Lives sketch that led to the creation of Harley Quinn, most of the book is devoted to a detailed analysis of the series’ “Dark Deco” style, themes that shaped the characters and storylines, and how the cartoon both reflected and commented upon 1990s society. In other words, it’s the type of study normally associated with college-level literature classes.
Not that it’s a bad thing. When I was growing up, cartoons weren’t considered worthy of this kind of academic consideration. It’s a nice sign of the times that TV shows, comics, and cartoons have gained legitimacy in scholarly circles.
In terms of the actual content of the book, it opens with an introduction that lays out the state of the Batman franchise at the time BTAS was created, the talent and producers involved, and the shows that sprang in its wake. Sanders then delves into three topics in three separate chapters.
The first chapter, “The Shadow of the World’s Fair,” explores the visuals of the show. Branded “Dark Deco” by its creators, it draws heavily on the early twentieth-century Art Deco style. Sanders assumes readers have a high level of familiarity with the show, which becomes immediately apparent at the beginning of Chapter 1 where he spends eight pages deconstructing BTAS’s iconic opening. This section is fairly engaging and insightful, but in the second half of the chapter, Sanders insists upon pointing out a “mistake in these universal allusions to Art Deco.” Namely that the artwork featured in BTAS was not so much Art Deco as it was streamlining. Not having studied art history, I hadn’t heard of streamlining (though I recognized the style once Sanders put up some examples). He goes on to argue how Art Deco stood for elitist excess while streamlining embodied middle-class efficiency and how those two philosophies conflict through their on-screen representations in BTAS. At that point, Sanders’s discourse not only felt over my head but like he was making a mountain over a very small molehill.
I got a similar feeling from Chapter 3, “Harley Quinn, Victimhood, and Blame.” As you might guess, the subject matter is Harley Quinn, who is, according to one source, “more popular than every DC character except Batman.” The chapter begins with Harley Quinn’s creation and popularity, then proceeds to discuss female representation in the BTAS cast and the influence of the women who worked on the show. The first part of Chapter 3 is pretty fascinating from a layperson’s perspective. Midway through the chapter, however, Sanders purports Harley Quinn is a “feminist villain” and proceeds to discuss how her portrayal reflects the strife between left- and right-wing feminists in the 1990s. Despite being a female university student during the 1990s, this internal conflict within the feminist movement wasn’t one I had prior knowledge of (probably because I was toiling away in my engineering classes). To hear Sanders describe it, the feminists of that time period were a fractured group, consumed with quibbling over labels like victim and abuse, and he contends that Harley Quinn’s actions and personality highlights different aspects of that debate. That presentation of Harley Quinn didn’t particularly resonate with or interest me, but it might to someone more knowledgeable with the feminist history.
Chapter 2, however, is much more digestible and comprehensible for the casual reader. “Bruce Wayne vs. the ‘Simpering Elite'” discusses BTAS’s different representations of wealth and the wealthy and how Bruce Wayne with his particular childhood trauma stands apart from his monied peers. Unlike Chapters 1 and 3, you don’t need an art or political history background to understand the points of this discussion. If Sanders’ intent was to make the book accessible to more than just historians or media scholars, it would’ve behooved him to write more of the book like Chapter 2. As it stands, his work feels more like fodder for extremely hard-core Batman fans or media studies majors.
For more manga and book reviews, drop by my blog Keeping It In Canon!
BTAS was a milestone of television, and now it gets true highbrow treatment as a University of Cambridge scholar puts it through academic analysis. There’s no full-color illustrations or exclusive interviews here. Rather, it contains critical analyses about artistic, social, cultural, and political influences. So if you want an exposition on BTAS the way a university-level literature class might dissect a 19th-century Russian novel, Sanders’ work is worth a try.
The Review
Batman: The Animated Series (BTAS) was a landmark production. It was dark, dramatic, and possessed an innovative visual style that set it apart from anime and its mainstream American counterparts. As part of Wayne State University Press’ TV Milestone Series, Joe Sutliff Sanders delves into the different aspects of that hit show from an academic perspective.
Let me repeat–an academic perspective.
This isn’t a light read or a glossy coffee table book. It’s a text-heavy paperback slightly larger than my palm. It contains twenty black-and-white images (four of which are not from the TV show) that function as references, not splash art. While there are some behind the scenes anecdotes, like the Days of Our Lives sketch that led to the creation of Harley Quinn, most of the book is devoted to a detailed analysis of the series’ “Dark Deco” style, themes that shaped the characters and storylines, and how the cartoon both reflected and commented upon 1990s society. In other words, it’s the type of study normally associated with college-level literature classes.
Not that it’s a bad thing. When I was growing up, cartoons weren’t considered worthy of this kind of academic consideration. It’s a nice sign of the times that TV shows, comics, and cartoons have gained legitimacy in scholarly circles.
In terms of the actual content of the book, it opens with an introduction that lays out the state of the Batman franchise at the time BTAS was created, the talent and producers involved, and the shows that sprang in its wake. Sanders then delves into three topics in three separate chapters.
The first chapter, “The Shadow of the World’s Fair,” explores the visuals of the show. Branded “Dark Deco” by its creators, it draws heavily on the early twentieth-century Art Deco style. Sanders assumes readers have a high level of familiarity with the show, which becomes immediately apparent at the beginning of Chapter 1 where he spends eight pages deconstructing BTAS’s iconic opening. This section is fairly engaging and insightful, but in the second half of the chapter, Sanders insists upon pointing out a “mistake in these universal allusions to Art Deco.” Namely that the artwork featured in BTAS was not so much Art Deco as it was streamlining. Not having studied art history, I hadn’t heard of streamlining (though I recognized the style once Sanders put up some examples). He goes on to argue how Art Deco stood for elitist excess while streamlining embodied middle-class efficiency and how those two philosophies conflict through their on-screen representations in BTAS. At that point, Sanders’s discourse not only felt over my head but like he was making a mountain over a very small molehill.
I got a similar feeling from Chapter 3, “Harley Quinn, Victimhood, and Blame.” As you might guess, the subject matter is Harley Quinn, who is, according to one source, “more popular than every DC character except Batman.” The chapter begins with Harley Quinn’s creation and popularity, then proceeds to discuss female representation in the BTAS cast and the influence of the women who worked on the show. The first part of Chapter 3 is pretty fascinating from a layperson’s perspective. Midway through the chapter, however, Sanders purports Harley Quinn is a “feminist villain” and proceeds to discuss how her portrayal reflects the strife between left- and right-wing feminists in the 1990s. Despite being a female university student during the 1990s, this internal conflict within the feminist movement wasn’t one I had prior knowledge of (probably because I was toiling away in my engineering classes). To hear Sanders describe it, the feminists of that time period were a fractured group, consumed with quibbling over labels like victim and abuse, and he contends that Harley Quinn’s actions and personality highlights different aspects of that debate. That presentation of Harley Quinn didn’t particularly resonate with or interest me, but it might to someone more knowledgeable with the feminist history.
Chapter 2, however, is much more digestible and comprehensible for the casual reader. “Bruce Wayne vs. the ‘Simpering Elite'” discusses BTAS’s different representations of wealth and the wealthy and how Bruce Wayne with his particular childhood trauma stands apart from his monied peers. Unlike Chapters 1 and 3, you don’t need an art or political history background to understand the points of this discussion. If Sanders’ intent was to make the book accessible to more than just historians or media scholars, it would’ve behooved him to write more of the book like Chapter 2. As it stands, his work feels more like fodder for extremely hard-core Batman fans or media studies majors.
For more manga and book reviews, drop by my blog Keeping It In Canon!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 2, 2022
I got into a mini-Batman curiosity this summer during all of the Discovery-Warner merger stuff (Learning the character of Harley Quinn was only created in the 90's, and that the Batman universe went through like five series, three networks, and all had the same canon both had me shocked) and this book was definitely great for this phase (Also, from quick research, I feel like most superhero franchise literature is about the movies/comic books, rather than the live action or animated adaptations). If you are familiar with this book series, you'll know that the books are concise, but the author picked a good three topics (Art, evil wealthy people, and Harley Quinn's agency) to focus on.
February 16, 2023
I enjoyed this book. I haven't watched the show (or at least have any memories of it) but I understood the impact and legacy of this show and how it's separated from other other Saturday morning or afternoon cartoon block programming through the author's writing. I liked learning about the art style, the themes about wealth, and Harley Quinn (I didn't even realize how popular she is or the political context she had). I liked the author's overviews of the characters, their backgrounds, and the episodes. As he said in the conclusion, there's a lot more to say about the cartoon but these books are a short overview rather than something more in depth.
February 25, 2023
Not what I expected. But once I realized it was an academic take on BTAS, I gave it a read. Still wasn’t taken with it. No heat insight. Really just quoting other’s works that I had hoped to get from my local library.
April 16, 2021
Loved it so much I wrote a really long review, which you can access through morgothzilla.com, if so inclined.
Joe Sutliff Sanders descriptively reviews the iconic art, scenes, and characters that made Batman: The Animated Series: The Animated Series (BTAS) not just an iconic work of art, but a lasting influence on television, animation, and storytelling for years to come.
This is a book that everyone who has an interest in storytelling should read. It separates all of the many ingredients that aggregated together to make BTAS an icon; and it does so in only 5 short sections, only 3 of which are actual chapters.
Sutliff Sanders points out that great literature facilitates great conversation; which BTAS has done for 30 years, and will continue to do for many more.
Joe Sutliff Sanders descriptively reviews the iconic art, scenes, and characters that made Batman: The Animated Series: The Animated Series (BTAS) not just an iconic work of art, but a lasting influence on television, animation, and storytelling for years to come.
This is a book that everyone who has an interest in storytelling should read. It separates all of the many ingredients that aggregated together to make BTAS an icon; and it does so in only 5 short sections, only 3 of which are actual chapters.
Sutliff Sanders points out that great literature facilitates great conversation; which BTAS has done for 30 years, and will continue to do for many more.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews