This Post Is Not About Batman

August 02, 2019


Disclosure: This post is not about Batman.

The other day I was poking around in the Birth.Movies.Death. archives when I stumbled across an interesting statistic: over the years, this website has published over 300 articles that are, in one way or another, related to Batman, the vigilante crime-fighter who dresses as both a bat and a man (those of you who remain unfamiliar with the character are encouraged to look to the top of this page, where you will see a photograph of Batman from Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, a movie about Batman). It is with profound regret that I must inform you that this post - the one you're reading right now - is absolutely not about Batman. 

Some of you are probably expecting a twist here, perhaps the reveal that this post is, in fact, about Batman. Nothing could be further from the truth, and continuing to insist as much is hurtful to me, the rest of the Birth.Movies.Death. staff, and indeed the DC Comics character Batman, who has appeared in any number of television shows, radio dramas, syndicated comic strips, feature films, stage plays, video games, breakfast cereals, VR experiences, ad campaigns, theme park rides, theme park stunt shows, novels and short story collections since his very first appearance in 1939's Detective Comics #27. Batman's omnipresence in pop culture indicates that there is a great and insatiable hunger for all Batman-related content, but this post will do nothing to satisfy that hunger, as it is not about Batman.

It is easy to understand why you thought this post was about Batman, and we can sympathize. The name "Batman" is in the headline. There's a photo of Batman at the top of the page. We have, as I just mentioned in this post's first paragraph, written hundreds of posts that are Batman-related over the nine years this site has been in operation. It's a reasonable mistake to have made. But it is a mistake - your mistake, if I may be so bold - because this post is not about Batman, nor will it become a post about Batman. And let me be clear: the confusion you're feeling right now is nothing in comparison to the confusion we feel over your continued belief that this post is about Batman.

Given the ongoing demand for Batman-related content, it's entirely possible that we might run a post sometime today that has something to do with Batman. Maybe not. Depends. You don't know, and we don't know, but that's the journey we're on together (The Batman news cycle is unpredictable in most ways, but it never shuts down completely). Perhaps we can use this time to grow closer, to learn more about one another and to consider our other shared interests. Perhaps, in time, we will forget all about whatever's going on in Batman's world, only to be reminded when the next Batman-tangential story falls into our collective lap. But it will not be happening here, in this post, because this post is not about Batman.

What is this post about, then? An excellent question. A fair question.

I suppose when you get right down to it, this post is about a lot of things. But one thing this post definitely isn't about - not even accidentally! - is Batman, the superhero who may sometimes be referred to as the "Caped Crusader", the "Dark Knight" or the "World's Greatest Detective". If this post were about Batman it wouldn't have been titled "This Post Is Not About Batman", as that would have been an egregious lie. We're a lot of things here at Birth.Movies.Death., but we're certainly not liars. If we told you a post wasn't about Batman and then, boom, made you read a post about Batman, guess what? It would completely undermine both our credibility and every ounce of trust that you, the gentle BMD readers of the world, have placed in us. We would never betray you by making this post about Batman.

With that in mind, this post was not about Batman. 

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