"I don't believe in superheroes but I love Batman movies. There's a part of every person that is entertained by the idealistic, the fantastic"
About this Quote
Aisha Tyler’s line lands because it refuses the usual fan-or-skeptic binary. She starts with a flex of modern adulthood: I’m not naive, I’m not buying capes as a worldview. Then she immediately confesses the pleasure anyway. That pivot is the point. It’s a small, wry admission that disbelief isn’t the same as immunity, and it captures how pop culture works on people who pride themselves on being too smart for it.
“Superheroes” here reads less like comic-book characters than a category of comforting myths: saviors, moral clarity, power that arrives on time. Tyler disavows that as a belief system, which nods to a post-9/11, post-2008, post-everything era where institutions keep failing and the idea of a clean rescuer feels childish or politically suspect. But she makes an exception for Batman, the superhero that doesn’t demand faith in magic. He’s basically trauma plus money plus gadgets; the fantasy is still extravagant, but it’s dressed in enough grit to pass as plausible. That’s why the Batman franchise has been a cultural safe house for cynics.
The subtext is generous: wanting the “idealistic, the fantastic” isn’t a weakness, it’s a feature of being human under pressure. Not everyone wants escapism; we want rehearsal space for courage, order, and meaning. Tyler frames that hunger as entertainment, not doctrine, which is a neat defense against embarrassment. We can roll our eyes at heroes and still quietly audition hope in the dark of a theater.
“Superheroes” here reads less like comic-book characters than a category of comforting myths: saviors, moral clarity, power that arrives on time. Tyler disavows that as a belief system, which nods to a post-9/11, post-2008, post-everything era where institutions keep failing and the idea of a clean rescuer feels childish or politically suspect. But she makes an exception for Batman, the superhero that doesn’t demand faith in magic. He’s basically trauma plus money plus gadgets; the fantasy is still extravagant, but it’s dressed in enough grit to pass as plausible. That’s why the Batman franchise has been a cultural safe house for cynics.
The subtext is generous: wanting the “idealistic, the fantastic” isn’t a weakness, it’s a feature of being human under pressure. Not everyone wants escapism; we want rehearsal space for courage, order, and meaning. Tyler frames that hunger as entertainment, not doctrine, which is a neat defense against embarrassment. We can roll our eyes at heroes and still quietly audition hope in the dark of a theater.
Quote Details
| Topic | Movie |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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