Although he is now a myth and a pop icon, Adam West’s ‘Batman’ was what millions of people had in mind every time the character was talked about. The work to turn the character into the Lord of the Night was slow and tortuous, and although the comics succeeded, the mainstream public continued with the memory of the colorines, the bat-shark repellent and the flying onomatopoeia. It may now be seen as a bit of a camp movie, but Tim Burton’s ‘Batman’ it was vital for people to change the chip with the character.
In fact, the studio itself chickened out the darkness proposed by the director in ‘Batman returns’ and they fell back into sixties madness in the third and fourth parts of that saga. Before ‘The Batman’, Christopher Nolan and the crossovers with Superman, the topic of conversation always revolved around the same thing, one of the strangest choices ever made in the world of cinema: the bat-nipples.
The explanation of the nipples in the suit
This week, those bat-nipples that became infamy in the cinema have become topical again because At last we know who was responsible for them: Jose Fernández, a costume and special effects specialist who continues to work with superheroes to this day (we’ll soon see his work in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’, for example). But what exactly happened? Why did a reputable professional end up being The responsible of, well, that?
I added the nipples to Val Kilmer’s costume in ‘Batman forever’. It wasn’t a fetish for me, it was more inspired by Roman armor, like a centurion. And, in the comics, the characters always seem to be naked with spray on. Everything was based on anatomy, and I wanted to support that anatomy. I don’t know exactly where my head was at the time, but that’s what I remember. So I added the nipples. I had no idea this was going to turn out to be what it turned out to be.
As Fernandez told Mel Magazine, Joel Schumacher really loved nipples and that’s why they appear even more prominent in ‘Batman and Robin’. What we did not know until the other day is that they also wanted that Alicia Silverstone had bat-nipples on her suitbut they were removed because it was (even more) grotesque.
Holy bat-nipple, Batman!
This interview has coincided with another that Tim Burton has granted to Empire Magazine and where he talks, of course, about the nipples in question. It is not a direct question, it comes up that the director has not yet seen ‘The Batman’.
So they wanted it the other way. That’s the fun. But then I was like ‘Wait a minute. Voucher. Wait a second. You complain about me, I’m so weird, I’m so dark, and then you put nipples on the suit? Fuck you’. Really. So yeah, I think that’s why I never did a third movie.
It’s been 27 years since ‘Batman Forever’ and we keep going around batman’s nipples. I never thought I would write this sentence, really.