To change around a famous saying, nurture trumps nature.  As a Catholic, the idea that the care a person receives is somehow more revealing of a person’s character than that with which he or she is born is not one to which I can subscribe.  To be sure, upbringing can help.  Yet, God does not make bad people.  Our circumstances can twist us, but God will always accept us back if we come to Him with a contrite heart.  In other words, we may do bad things, but that does not make us permanently bad.  These thoughts immediately came to mind in the opening scenes of Batman Returns(1992).  This Prolifer was horrified as Esther (Diane Salinger) and Tucker Cobblepot (Paul Reubens) decide their deformed son is better off being left for dead in an abandoned zoo than face the shame of raising a so-called freak in a wealthy socialite family.  There are other problems with the film from a Catholic perspective, but we will get to those in a moment.

Thirty-three years after the aforementioned baby dumping and we are still waiting for Batman Returns.  It is around the same time of year as evidenced by Christmas decorations being in both scenes.  As the citizens of Gotham gather for the annual tree lighting, powerful businessman Max Schreck (Christopher Walken) is preparing to accept the Mayor’s (Michael Murphy) invitation to speak at the ceremony.  Hovering around pouring coffee is his secretary, Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer), trying to impress with her prompt service but evidently being taken for granted.  Max is dismissive of her as he heads down, but the crowd is hesitant since there is a new threat being whispered among them: a mysterious new villain known as the Penguin (Danny DeVito).  The Penguin lurks in the shadows while his henchmen disrupt the festivities, taking Max hostage before Batman (Michael Keaton) can intervene.  While in the Penguin’s lair, Max begs for his life, asking what the man with flipper hands could want.  The Penguin seeks to know his parents, and to no longer be treated by society as an outcast.  With a bit of threatening, Max agrees to help.  Besides, men like Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton) and the Mayor stand in Max’s way of some of the nefarious things he wants to do with his companies, like constructing a power plant to steal energy from the city.  With a criminal ally like the Penguin, he can get the people on the side of change by allowing their antics to increase and blaming it on the city’s government and its Caped Crusader.  Max also takes care of a potential threat to his operation when he catches Selina looking at a file containing information on the power scheme.  He pushes her out of a window of his office building several stories up.  She lands on her back, seemingly dead, put is tended to by a small horde of alley cats who lick her wounds.  Somehow, this revives her, but also makes her a little crazy.  Returning to her apartment in which she lives alone, she creates a black leather costume with crude stitching, taking on the persona of Catwoman.  In this guise, she uses her feline agility to stop muggings and commit crimes at the same time.  Doing so brings her into contact with Batman, and she does not like it when he gets the best of her.  Still, her goal is to get revenge on Max, but he is busy with his project with the Penguin.  After successfully revealing the Penguin to the city by staging a rescue of the Mayor’s baby, Max takes this successful public relations boost and sets up Oswald Cobblepot, the Penguin’s real name, as a challenger to Gotham’s chief executive.  Noticing the Penguin’s newfound promise, Catwoman goes to the diminutive deviant seeking help in contending with Batman.  Together, they set a trap for the Dark Knight at the next attempt to turn on the lights for the city’s Christmas tree.  At the same time, Bruce and Selina meet each other separately, and she agrees to have dinner with him at Wayne Manor.  In the middle of it, they both have to leave to make it downtown.  During the struggle, the Penguin frames Batman for murdering the model (Cristi Conaway) who was supposed to flip the switch, as well as briefly taking control of the Batmobile.  Catwoman is not pleased with the death of the model, and the Penguin tries to kill her, too.  The Penguin appears triumphant until Bruce, with help from his butler, Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Gough), manages to tap into speakers at one of the mayoral hopeful’s rallies and plays audio of Oswald making threats towards Gotham’s citizens.  This is a boost to the incumbent’s campaign, and he decides to host a fundraising masquerade ball.  Bruce goes as himself because he knows Selina will be present.  As they dance, they learn more about each other, not just the fact that she is there to assassinate Max.  They whisper lines to each other they had said in their costumes, revealing their true identities.  However, before anything more can occur, the Penguin crashes the party, warning that he is going to take hostage the children of the city.  Hoping to spare his own son, Max instead offers himself.  Before following the Penguin down into the underground lair, the hero makes sure Gotham’s young are safe.  In response, the Penguin unleashes a horde of his animal namesakes with missiles strapped to their backs, but once more Alfred is able to not only jam the signal, but send the aquatic birds back to their human counterpart.  The resulting explosions kill the Penguin eventually, though Catwoman survives.  She is there to finally avenge herself on Max, which takes the rest of her remaining nine lives to accomplish, or so we are led to believe.  The final scene is of Bruce thinking he has seen Selina’s form in an alley, but instead gets back into his limousine with a stray feline.

I have a heart for strays, a sympathy born less of watching movies like Batman Returns than of my growth in my Catholic Faith.  Matthew 25:35-36 says it all: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, (36) naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.”  What Jesus is saying here is that He can be found amongst the weak of society.  Therefore, when you care for these so-called least among us, you care for Him.  I take this teaching seriously.  When the Cobblepots opt for dumping their child in the sewers, I feel for that little one even if I know he will turn out to be a criminal.  I have been an outcast, too, particularly as a child in grade school, eating lunch by myself most days.  Yet, this treatment does not justify becoming a criminal.  It may explain it, but there is a choice.  What the Penguin is in need of is healing.  This is not just a Christian film reviewer projecting principles into cinema.  The movie actually uses this phrase, it being set during Christmas and the Mayor mentioning how it is a time of reconciliation.  This is one of the missions Jesus came into the world to do, to reconcile God and man, which is the source of all true healing.  What makes this piece of cinema hard to discuss in a serious way is the fact it is cartoonish.  In a sense, this is a positive because it is difficult to imagine impressionable young people looking at such a film and being inspired to become like the Penguin.  He makes it harder when he says he wants to punish all God’s children.  If nothing else, perhaps some good will towards men will prevent such things from happening.

If there is anything I could prevent, it would be you watching Batman Returns.  Then again, if you love Tim Burton films, there is probably little I could say to stop you from doing so.  It does have all his usual trademarks.  Yet, is that worth sitting through this silliness?  I am not so sure.