*disclaimer- there are MANY versions of Gotham across and even within film and print and other medium. Characters have different backstories or personalities- sometimes are heroes or villains etc. and there isn’t a single continuity. So what I say applies to the general CONCEPT of Gotham and Gotham in general as it’s averagely portrayed. Not this version or that one.
Let’s look deeper. Gotham is a “city.” Not a state or a county. The primary source of tax revenue for cities comes from things like property tax, business tax, permit and use fees. To raise those into billions or millions would make it so no one else could afford them- and you can’t set taxes by business or by person. If Wayne paid it in income tax it would go to the Federal or state government and be distributed by their budget plan. Gotham is a hole. Underfunded and largely forgotten. With all its crime etc it isn’t often if at all the military or national guard step in even. It’s full of slums and decaying buildings and constructions. A city in decline and forgotten. It doesn’t seem to get a lot of federal or state funds.
Wayne could instead donate money to the city in other ways. But- Gotham is corrupt. The money rarely makes it to the people. Since the money isn’t legally earmarked the city can more or less allocate as it likes- leaving that money at the whim of of crooked politicians and mobsters etc, or for villains to snatch or misuse. Give it to the cops- the cops are corrupt. Hire more? Gotham PD isn’t the dream assignment of the cream of the crop. Pay more per cop? Yeah. That works to eliminate corruption in business and politics. Never heard of a CEO or Senator etc. being caught with a hand in the till or cozy to lobbyists.
Ok. So why not just use his company to renew Gotham? Well- a few reasons. Firstly- building all these great new places in Gotham would be like building a mall of America in down town Grozny at the height of the war. Gotham is riddled with crime and super crime. Plus Wayne would basically have to buy the whole town, own every business in it, have everyone on his payroll, hire his own PMC to keep security on every mall and bank and warehouse and convenience store.
And he’s still a private citizen so his security can’t shoot to kill or arrest people. Gotham courts and police and jails and juries are still in the mix- and as we covered- they’re corrupt and inadequate.
Not to mention that’s IF some fed or etc. didn’t come down and slap some sort of monopoly or other suit on him. He’s probably face quite a bit of heat and legal trouble, road block after road block, and likely need to pay people off to make things happen- which then makes him a criminal with the public eye on him and a lot of powerful enemies who would very likely set him up to fall for his pay offs etc.
Speaking of which- what do you think happens to Bruce Wayne- public figure. Lives in Wayne manner- listed address- when the mob and the cops and the junkies and the super villains and the crooked politicians and other tycoons see what he is up to? You don’t think people will try to kill.. Brice Wayne. Public figure. Wayne manner. Listed address?
You don’t think Jokers and Penguins and street toughs and more wont see him trying to take away their little criminal hamlet and leave no place in the dark they can do their dirt? In many version of his story- Wayne Senior was killed because he was trying to clean up Gotham. And you can’t exactly donate billions of dollars and baby sit it and manage projects to completion avoiding corruption anonymously. For decades while you clean up what has to be America or the worlds worst city. Epstein “committed suicide” over pedophiles. A news journalist “committed suicide” with two shots to the head in a hotel after exposing a decades old cover up most people already knew was there without hard evidence based on common sense.
The last guy to really ruffle up the feathers was a certain Wikileaks HDIC who- for obviously reasons isn’t dead- but functionally may as well be. So Wayne could do just enough good to is off the right people before they took care of him.
“Just- I dunnoh. Give the poor people of Gotham a stipend or something. A living expense...” Oh yeah. So the petty crooks and crooked cops could steal or “tax” it away? So local corrupt politicians could raise various taxes and fees since now they know people can pay, and land lords etc. can raise rent, and inflation can wipe that away too? And of those poor people of Gotham many are themselves junkies and criminals. Congrats on making drugs N even more booming industry in Gotham Mr. Wayne. Those dealers an certainly afford protection money to the corrupt cops now so the odds of them getting busted goes down even more since its profitable long term for crooked cops to leave them in business.
The thing about crime is it isn’t a problem you can just throw money at. By the time you live in a place like Gotham where “criminals” are basically- and in many cases worse than- real world terrorists, flinging around money and rev centers won’t cut it.
I mean- gee. Why didn’t we think of that with ISIS or others, North Korea? For the billions spent on bombs and troops and surveillance and all the other incidentals- why didn’t we load the cash on pallets and air drop it? Why didn’t we send construction crews and accountants into Somalia instead of Rangers? Surely if they knew those people were there to build schools and libraries they would have left them alone to better their situation no?
And Wayne running for office or becoming a government official to change these things carries the same burdens as before. Many Batman plots involve the “good” public servant getting killed. Two face aka Harvey dent, Commissioner Gordon gets killed in several Batman lines for being a good cop, his daughter gets killed or paralyzed in various story lines. Mayors, etc etc. Wayne could try for governor or president or something- but the higher up he goes the more broad his constituents become. It would be odd to say the least to have a president fixated on micromanaging a single city.
My biggest gripe with Batman is the “no killing rule.” People gotta have their limits and philosophically I get where he’s coming from. Practically there is an argument that if he starts killing he goes from “technically outlawed but largely tolerated and even celebrated vigilante” to “psycho killer.” But when it comes to guys like Joker etc. who keep turning up like bad pennies, escaping jail, often killing, ruining lives of, injuring, or almost doing so to hundreds, thousands of people... it seems like Batman or the state should kill them.
You’re Batman. Night ninja rich boy. You can’t figure out how to do what people have been doing for millennia? Find the villain, no witnesses, never seen, kill em, make sure they are never found or the death looks like an accident? Joker practically pulls a 9/11 every other week- or attempts to. Osama got 1 and done.
So that’s one hole I legitimately see in Batman. Although... I guess he’s a symbol and his purpose is to show Gotham a better way and killing people doesn’t do that. But damn man. Don’t get caught then. Find their secret lair or go extrajudicial and make a second bat cave that is a black sight for wet work or something.
Well that’s just a cop out isn’t it? There’s a lot of fiction in the world. The fact something is fiction doesn’t give it a pass from coherency- there is (subjectively but in some metrics objectively) different qualities of fiction. A generally vital aspect in most coherent fiction is that it remains internally consistent. It IS fiction. That means the universe we are looking at- no matter how similar to our own- may not be our own.
When you watch a “popcorn” fiction you may say: “this is BS. Doctors/police/whatever: they have procedure. They (wouldn’t do that) (would be fired for that) etc!” You May see a person jump and grab a helicopter in flight or survive a gunshot, explosion, car crash; and say “they’d be dead or at least not be able to walk away!” But... in that particular reality of the fiction- no matter how identical it is to ours- it may have different biology or even physics in unseen and unknown ways. Perhaps here humans are tougher, or certain laws behave differently.
What IS somewhat important to creating a fiction considered “good” is that whatever the rules applied they are done so consistently for the most part, and in keeping with the internal logic of the world created. So- by and large Batman does this, or tries to, with the “no killing rule”- however on examination it looses much of its consistency when we examine the behavior of the criminals in Batman.
However- it doesn’t ruin the property- and suspension of disbelief has quite a wide range in a gothic, 1920’s future scape with shape shifting clay monsters and bat vigilantes and immortal body switchers and the like. But as I said- I don’t particularly like that element of this fiction.
Batman is fiction, this post is opinion. Both are to be taken with a grain of salt, but if we must give fiction a pass for its inaccuracies or that which we find disagreeable- why don’t we have to give opinion a pass for its inaccuracies or that we find disagreeable? You offer fact- fact may shape opinion but is not required for opinion anymore than fact is required for fiction.
If it is your opinion that my opinion (that certain facts invalidate the no killing rule), be invalidated based on the fact that Batman is fiction, then why would your facts counter my opinion? Your statement is in principal hypocritical, or at the least self defeating as you have illustrated that regardless of the substance of which we form opinions we may still form opinions.
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TLDR: We can form opinions and theorize about stories even if they're just fiction.
2Reply
deleted
· 4 years ago
Batman being an edgelord that can't stop crying about vengeance and never cracking a smile is done to death.
I want Robert Pattinson's version to be a chill guy who's got his shit together, preferably with a Robin already at his side and if possible wearing the blue and grey outfit with yellow bat symbol. It ain't gonna happen, but I can dream.
TLDR: Bruce Wayne's money likely won't get where it needs to go until Gotham is cleaned up.
TLDR: We can form opinions and theorize about stories even if they're just fiction.
I want Robert Pattinson's version to be a chill guy who's got his shit together, preferably with a Robin already at his side and if possible wearing the blue and grey outfit with yellow bat symbol. It ain't gonna happen, but I can dream.