C’est ce soir qu’aura lieu la première de la série Gotham, basée sur la franchise de Batman. Apparu en 1939, le Chevalier Noir et son univers continuent d’inspirer de nouvelles œuvres, qu’elles soient télévisuelle ou cinématographique. Œuvres qui ont, à leur tour, inspiré plusieurs études académiques.
En 2008, Kimberly Ann Owczarski a terminé sa thèse intitulée « Batman, Time Warner, and Franchise Filmmaking in the Conglomerate Era ». De Batman (1989) à Batman Begins (2005), Owczarski tente de démontrer que l’évolution de Batman en tant que franchise est une façon de comprendre la réalité d’Hollywood telle qu’elle est aujourd’hui. Une des sections se consacre à la collaboration avec les fans, qui a pu être facilitée grâce à Internet :
The use of the Internet by fans to express their thoughts and feelings about the Batman franchise has grown since Batman Forever became the first Batman film to have a Website in 1995. Certainly, this particular fan base has had an impact on how the films have been marketed, but it also points to a more direct relationship between the producers and the consumers of media products. As fans express discontent over casting rumors or over the direction of the franchise, representatives at Time Warner can react to these criticisms quickly and efficiently. At the same time, the positive aspects of the films receive inordinate amounts of attention by Internet-savvy fans and, perhaps as a result, within the mass media. […] While fans have no direct hand in the production of the films, clearly their input is a major consideration at all levels of the production process and they have an important role in the direction of the franchise. (Owczarski, 2008, p. 347-348)
Plus tard, en 2013, la maison d’édition Intellect publie Fan Phenomena : Batman, un collectif dirigé par Liam Burke. Ce dernier retrace avec fascination l’histoire de la franchise d’un point de vue d’un fan :
[…] many of today’s fans’ earliest recollection of Batman is not the comics, but rather Neil Hefti’s mantra-like theme song, Burt Ward’s spirited puns, and Adam West’s unshakable delivery. In this regard Batman the series was unique; it was the first time that the character had successfully ventured beyond his native medium and gathered groups of fans that had never read comics. For a brief moment in 1966 it seemed as if the entire world became Batman fans. (Burke, 2013, p. 14)
Dans ce même collectif, on retrouve une entrevue avec E. Paul Zehr. Ce professeur en kinésiologie et en neurologie a publié en 2011 un article intitulé « From Claude Bernard to the Batcave and beyond: using Batman as a hook for physiology education ». Par cet article, il souhaite inspirer ceux qui souhaitent intégrer la culture populaire dans leurs propres pratiques, comme il l’a fait avec son livre Becoming Batman : the Possibility of a Superhero.
Becoming Batman was originally written as a way to disseminate physiology to the general public. I had not thought much about the potential use in conventional education. Recently, it has been used as an educational tool. A middle school teacher in San Francisco, CA, is using the book as the text for her grade 7 biology course. Also, the University of Michigan offered in 2010 a freshman seminar called “The Movement Science of Batman” using my book as the course text. It now seems obvious to me that these kinds of efforts can be useful in many different spheres. (Source)
Il est intéressant de constater comment une icône culturelle a inspiré un livre, qui, en retour, a inspiré autre chose. Quant à savoir si la série Gotham aura le même impact, il s’agit d’une autre histoire.
