10 Reasons Batman Animated Is The Definitive Dark Knight
8. It Didn't Shy Away From The Darkness
Batman isn't all doom and gloom, but it's certainly a huge aspect of his origins. Though there's definitely room for the crazy and zany (I'm looking at you, The Brave and The Bold), up until the show's debut the darker elements of the character had been neglected in animation. Considering what was covered in BTAS, it's pretty amazing how much the show runners were able to get past the censors. Murder, torture, horror, firearm use and more were all covered in the series, in turn producing some of the most terrifying imagery to have been associated with the mythos since. Often the censors actually had the reverse effect of impeding the show's darker elements, as what wasn't shown was equally and perhaps more terrifying than what could've been realistically portrayed on what was effectively a children's cartoon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tab9C3GW3U One particularly interesting result of the censors was the infamous 'Joker Grin'. As the show couldn't explicitly portray the clown prince's murders it instead chose to inflict the clown-like smile on his victims. It's remarkably ghoulish, and still has the desired effect of terrifying adults to this day.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
