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ABSTRACT
Technology has made the brain both accessible and visible to researchers and the public at large. The threads connecting the neuroscience of criminality and its representations in popular culture are detectable in a variety of locations, including the Batman animated series, which historically parallel the expansion of neuroscientific technologies. Framed by insights from popular criminology and gothic criminology, this project traced how representations of crime in popular culture intersect with representations of the brain, analyzing how the brain is positioned as an explanation for deviance and criminality. In the series, the brain was vulnerable to external forces, causing characters’ deviance. The brain was also a source of power, a trait that was inherently criminal. Characters deemed capable, but who failed to control themselves, were culpable for their criminality, regardless of their “abnormal” brains. Such representations of dysfunctional and technologically-altered brains speak to the complementary nature of popular and scholarly approaches to deviance.
Notes
1 Although every effort was made to capture even the smallest detail, episodes with small or passing references may have been overlooked. This is a potential limitation to the study, but given the number of episodes reviewed, it is unlikely a few missed references would fundamentally alter the analysis.
2 SF, “The Menace of the White Dwarf”
3 SF, “The Brain Machine”
4 TB “The Big Dummy”
5 TB “Meltdown”
6 SF “The Mind Maidens”
7 SF “Wanted: The Superfriends”
8 BTBTB “Mayhem of the Music Meister!”
9 TB “Strange New World”
10 BTAS “The Last Laugh”
11 BTAS “Dreams in Darkness”
12 BTAS “The Last Laugh”
13 TB “Strange New World”
14 BTAS “Mad as a Hatter”
15 BTAS “Make ‘em Laugh”
16 BB “Spellbound”
17 BB “Hooked Up”
18 BB “Babel”
19 BB, “Mind Games”
20 BTAS, “If You’re So Smart Why Aren’t you Rich?”
21 TB, “Riddled”
22 TNBA “Cold Comfort”
23 Super Friends, “The Brain Machine”
24 JL, “Secret Society, part 2”
25 TB, “The Ultimate Criminal Mastermind;” When DAVE speaks, the camera zooms on one red glowing nodule, echoing the murderous H.A.L. 9000 from “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
26 BB, “Lost Soul”
27 JL, “Panic in the Sky”
28 This empty form is the same as the android Amazo Luthor engineered in a previous episode, “Tabla Rasa.” Amazo scans the heroes to mimic their powers, but becomes self-aware and realizes he is a tool. In escaping from Luthor, he draws on the positive, moral qualities of the heroes.
29 In a prior episode, “Twilight,” Brainiac wants to shed his cyborg body, which has “reached the limits of programmed functions.” He attempts to extract DNA from Superman (in a punishing, electricity-fueled process) to become “a true life from, the likes of which this universe has never seen.” His defeat fractures his robotic core from his body.
30 JL, “Divided We Fall”
31 BB, “Lost Soul”
32 SF, “The Super Friends Meet Frankenstein”
33 BTAS, “Mad as a Hatter”
34 BB, “The Brain Trust:
35 TB, “Meltdown”
36 SF, “The Brain Machine”
37 SF, “Professor Goodfellow’s G.E.E.C”
38 TB, “TB: Gotham’s Ultimate Criminal Mastermind”
39 TB, “Q & A.” The “thinking cap” used in the game show, titled “Think, Thank, Thunk” is a red metal cap, topped with yellow electrodes and light bulb on top, mimicking an old electric chair. As the villain Cluemaster, Arthur wears an executioner’s hood.
40 SF, “The Brain Machine”
41 Batman, Robin, Superman, and Wonder Women encounter and become the subjects of this very tradition in “The Super Friends Meet Frankenstein.”
42 Mary Shelley’s novel makes no mention of the specific origin of the brain – or indeed the other parts – Dr. Frankenstein uses to assemble his “creature.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Lisa Kort-Butler
Lisa A. Kort-Butler is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Her research examines media representations of crime and justice and their implications for public opinion. She also studies physical, mental, and behavioral health among adolescents and young adults.