She savored a bite of crabmeat sprinkled with caviar… As sexy as Batman was, there was no denying that Bruce brought something to the party that the tightass crimefighter never could. She sipped the Dom… '85, she noted. Unlike most who just bought the name, Bruce knew the good vintages. She reflected, not for the first time, how few that thought they knew him, either as Bruce or Batman, really understood the first thing about his world. -The Gotham Post, Chapter 1There was a line in an ancient John Larroquette sitcom that went something like: "You get all your ideas about white people from a Spike Lee movie." There is a similar failing that a few professional comic writers share with certain fanfic authors: getting their ideas about rich people from, as near as I can figure, The Beverly Hillbillies.
To write every society woman like Gladys Ashton-Larraby is like writing every poor woman like Roseanne Barr. It's a type but it (a) isn't the only type and (b) is an extreme. To look at Barbara Minerva and say there but for the grace of seeing your parents blown away goes Bruce, that is just fucked in the head. It is perilously close to the idea that anyone whose last name ends in a vowel is connected to the mafia (I'm looking at you, Dark Knight ARG).
So, how do you fairly represent a social class that you probably know little about, beyond what you've seen in mainstream media that was written by outsiders who know little more than you do?
Some of it, quite honestly, is common f-ing sense. There is a fic out there that has Bruce scarfing down greasy carnival pizza while Diana behaves like Judy Dench when Rosie O'Donnell gave her an Oreo. It's not hard to see what's wrong with this picture, all you have to do is think about it for about ten seconds. Avoiding those pitfalls really isn't hard and I wouldn't know what kind of advice to give other than "pull your head out of your ass."
So, those stumbles aside, let's go to the next level. It's a very easy one: the little touches of conspicuous consumption that go beyond what a
plastic surgeon in an affluent Miami suburb is going to dream of. Like Gordon Gekko put it: "I'm not talking about some shnook flying first class and
being comfortable. I'm talking your own plane…" or yacht, or island. It may surprise some of you to learn that you don't have to actually have a
black AmEx to find out about some of the things you could buy with one. Pick up a Town and Country, a Gotham magazine or a Vogue once or twice a year and check out the ads as well as the
articles. Also, either Fortune or Forbes has an issue with lists of
"Bests" every year. If you don't know Beluga, Monte Cristos, and Pringle refer to caviar, cigars, and wool clothing, it's a quick and
painless way to find out. And the Travel Channel has a few specials on private planes and megayachts. They are several years out of date, but personally I
think it's nice to see the real thing at least once rather than a set designer's rendition in a movie.
Now, before we leave the easy subject of "rich man's stuff" and go on to the subtle character points, we need to get past the "if you have to ask you can't afford it" price tags and dig into what exactly, out of all those outrageously expensive options, Bruce Wayne is going to buy, compared to a generic rich guy. A hint: whatever Bruce is going to buy, build, eat, or collect probably not what you personally would buy/eat/build/collect if you had $8 billion.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but whatever reader it was that thought Spam and Tabasco was a better accompaniment to the late-night scrambled eggs
served by tradition after black tie events at the manor, BUZZ, I'm sorry, you should probably peruse Royal Style,
Rebecca, and maybe watch some Upstairs, Downstairs to acquaint yourself with
the menus and traditions of domestic establishments of this kind. If someone with your particular palate orders such a thing, then the staff will happily
prepare it. But the default is doing what has always been done, and if your response to asparagus is
"blech", then what has always been done will probably not to be to your personal taste. If you're writing you, enjoy your spam. If you're
writing Bruce - or more to the point, Martha Wayne, since it is largely her domestic arrangements that Alfred has kept in tact - you're going to have to
put yourself into a mindset very different from the one you're used to.
That's the challenge, and in my opinion, the FUN of writing Bruce's high net worth lifestyle compared to Joe "Also Richer-than-God" Smith. With Bruce, there is a magnificent duality at work that would make Two-Face weep with its sublime perfection, if only he knew.
Bruce is old money. There is simply no substitute, and no way to fake or manufacturer, being brought up by people who were themselves brought up with a vast fortune. Plain vanilla Bruce when he is not putting on the Fop act personifies the mindset and the value system. He has an incredible sense of connection to place. These people are not just "from" a city, they are of it. Their ancestors founded it in many cases. They made it as much as it made them. Bruce also has an incredible sense of obligation, of, literally, noblesse oblige. He's been born with a lot of advantages, and when fortune favors you that way, you give back. We actually saw that instilled in him in Batman Begins, and I don't think I ever once praised it. (Shame on me. A belated "Well done, Batman Begins!") Finally, Bruce has a very determined, take charge/shut up and do it my way attitude (I don't think any of you need examples there) and a dignified and insular sense of privacy that goes beyond the secret identity. He doesn't hang around the Watchtower talking about his personal life with Wally and Clark. He doesn't come right out and say "mind your own disgusting little middle class business", which is how that kind of separation is often written. It's simply that it would never occur to him. It's not done, not in the Gladys Ashton sense that it's a social faux pas, but in the sense that walking on your hands isn't done. It's not a natural behavior.
Okay, I've drifted far into the mindset when I meant to just dwell on the spending choices. No harm done, it will save us time in a future installment.
Back to money and the things it can buy. The perfect expression of the old money mindset was spoken by Bruce. I think it's in Perennials when he's explaining why he got the small yacht he wanted instead of the bigger, more expensive one that he didn't: "Who do I have to impress?"
It's essentially the Paul Allens of the world who buy megayachts, those who were not born to money and who have, on some level, something to prove now that they do. On his own, without a pose to protect Batman's secret, Bruce has absolutely nothing to prove, to the world or to himself.
But that Bat-qualifier is where it gets really interesting: he DOES have something to prove. He wants to prove he's not Batman. And he's decided that being a jaded, superficial snob is a good way to accomplish that. (That in itself is rather telling, actually. Being a spendthrift playboy is good camouflage for Batman? How interesting.)
Now, this is where the actress rubs her hands together in glee… Because this isn't an ordinary jet set playboy fop, it is Bruce Wayne playing the role of a jet set playboy fop. One of the best nuances in the play Noises Off occurs in the play-within-a-play. Because you come to know these actors offstage, so what you see onstage isn't a generic Phillip, it is Freddie playing Phillip. Freddie plays Phillip as only Freddie can.
Bruce designed his Fop from the value system instilled in him by Thomas Wayne, of the East Egg Waynes, and Martha, who was a Van Giesen and a cousin to the Bassets. It's like that episode of Seinfeld where George decides all his instincts are wrong, so he does the exact opposite. This isn't my idea of a decadent idiot with more money than sense, it is Bruce's. If he's going to buy a Porsche, he likes the black and gray one. He finds the gold one flashy and vulgar. So he buys that instead.
That duality between the true Bruce's old money values and the Fop's shenanigans is just a thing of beauty. The houses are a perfect example. Wayne Manor is Bruce's real home and displays the expected taste: the décor is what it has been for a century. Lots of European antiques, Georgian moldings from when the house was built, dark woods, parquet floors, Persian carpets, chinoiserie from when it was in fashion. We like what we were brought up with. Keep it as it was.
Flipside: the penthouse. The dwelling he designed for the Fop is as far away from that as you can get. Ultra-modern, ultra-sleek, plenty of glass and black graphite, so artificial in its exaggerated chic you could break out in hives.
That's just art!
That's also more than enough for one day. Next time we visit this subject, we'll delve into the hidden world.
