 Starring: Michael Keaton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Danny DeVito, Christopher Walken, Alfred Gough
Director: Tim Burton
Year Of Release: 1992
Plot: In the sewers of Gotham City lives The Penguin, a deformed criminal who was abandoned by his parents. He decides it’s time for him to become better known to the public, and so teams up with crooked industrialist Max Schreck in a bid to become mayor. However Max has inadvertently created his own nemesis by throwing his assistant, Selina Kyle, out of a window, who them re-emerges as Catwoman. The only person who can possibly sort all this out is Batman. |
I feel like I may have missed out on something in life, but I don’t quite get why people think rubber and PVC are so great and erotic. Can anyone enlighten me?
The image of Michelle Pfeiffer dressed in her figure-hugging PVC costume as Catwoman has become iconic. In fact at the time of the film’s release, so many life-size posters of her were stolen from adverts on bus stops that in some areas the police had to step up patrols, in order to try and stop people smashing the glass to get at them. Likewise Trinity in The Matrix and Selene in Underworld have got people all hot under the collar, but rubber and PVC really aren’t as good as they look.
While I can sort of get the fact that it accentuates someone’s figure, I think I must be too utilitarian, as my mind immediately goes to how impractical and probably unpleasant it’d be in real life. This is especially true for superheroes and villains like Batman and Catwoman, who you’d think would have come up with something a bit more sensible. Surely they’d have realised pretty quickly that rubber and PVC would restrict their movements and also get horribly hot and sticky. And quite frankly when you’re planning crime-fighting adventures where you might be needed at a moment’s notice, any costume where you need to get out the talcum powder before you can put it on, ought to be an immediate no-no.
You may think I’m overstating the problem, but throughout film and TV history, the ridiculous impracticalities of superhero costumes have proved enormous, mainly for the actors involve. For example with the 1960s Batman TV series, the makers were terrified of the backlash they’d get if anyone noticed a bulge in Robin’s tights and so not only were the costumes redesigned to try and hide the Boy Wonder’s bits, but Burt Ward was given special genital-crushing underwear and pills, so that he’d appear like a eunuch on the screen.
And if you think we live in a more enlightened age and that this wouldn’t happen nowadays, you’re wrong. After Brandon Routh was cast in the lead role in 2006’s Superman Returns, they spent months deciding quite what they were going to do with his man parts, and whether western civilisation might fall if he had a full-on bulge (they ended up with a small bulge compromise). That’s how bad these costumes are – you have to be virtually castrated to wear them.
With the first Tim Burton Batman film, once Michael Keaton was in the Bat-suit, there was no way for him to easily go to the toilet. To ensure he had to pee as little as possible, he was only allowed to drink small amounts of fluids, while sweating profusely because of the rubber. If he did need to go to the toilet, it would take him half an hour to get out of the suit, go to the bathroom and get back in the suit again, holding up the movie. In fact it was one of the conditions of Keaton signing on to the sequel that they installed a zipper in the suit, as he ended up suffering terrible headaches and discomfort while filming the first one because of the lack of fluids and his over-full bladder.
The Bat-suit also weighed about 55lbs, which is about the same as a medieval suit of armour. Surely in this day and age a superhero would have come up with something a bit lighter and more space-age that that, which actually allowed them to move and go to the toilet. However, to get the right look for the film, Keaton had to wear something that weighed the same as a seven-year-old child.
Michelle Pfeiffer had it just as bad as the PVC-clad Catwoman. To get the desired figure-hugging look, her costume was so tight that she was pretty much stitched and then vacuum packed into it. As a result she could only wear it properly for short periods, because it restricted her breathing and she ended up feeling faint after only few minutes wearing it.
The headpiece was also incredibly tight and had no earholes, so that much of the time Michelle Pfeiffer couldn’t actually hear herself. Tim Burton had to constantly tell her to stop shouting her lines, as she had no way of telling how noisy she was. If that weren’t bad enough, the costume itself was so flimsy that Michelle Pfeiffer got through 60 of them during the six-month shoot. Surely these are all rather fatal flaws in a superhero/villain costume. You’d be a pretty crap criminal if you kept passing out every five minutes, couldn’t hear anything and were constantly having to get new outfits because they were always breaking.
I also can’t help thinking that if you’re trying to be a stealthy hero or villain who sneaks around in the shadows, it’s probably best not to wear something that squeaks with every step you take. Oh, and with all the sweat it’d probably stink as well.
Now I know these costumes were just for a movie, but it does show that while a lot of people may like the look of rubber and PVC, it’s insanely impractical for a superhero unless they want to sweat a lot, be unable to pee, pass out, constantly break their outfit, smell and have their genitals squished out of existence. Actually stuff the superheroes, it just goes to show what actors have to go through so that people can perv at them wearing tight-fighting but immensely unpleasant outfits.
Like I say, other than it shows off the figures of skinny and buff people, I’m not entirely sure what’s so fantastic about rubber and PVC. It just seems uncomfortable to me. In fact its main attraction seems to be that it ensures we don’t have visions of Adam West in his wrinkly 1960s tights.
TIM ISAAC
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