In Praise of Excess: Queer Maximalism in the Films of Joel Schumacher | Features

Excess is sorely needed in today’s cultural landscape. Maximalism in American cinema today is often regulated to a muted kind of spectacle, rendered in ugly computer-generated action sequences and amorphous color palettes that soften the impact of blockbuster films. There is a distinct absence of the kind of work Joel Schumacher mastered and brought to the masses. To enjoy Schumacher’s films is to revel in excess, to celebrate a distinctly queer sensibility that relishes maximalism, no matter what genre it was applied to. Across films like “Batman Forever,” “The Lost Boys,” and his adaptation of “Phantom of the Opera” (which turned 20 in December), one thing remains the same: an unabashed dedication to excess on screen. In costuming, performance, and style, few directors can match Schumacher’s taste for all things indulgent, and even fewer who can make it work as he did. 

“Batman Forever” has several of the most obvious of Schumacher’s campy, undeniably queer flourishes. After Tim Burton’s adaptations of Batman’s adventures, Schumacher’s approach was on the other side of the spectrum from Burton’s gothic vision of Gotham and its inhabitants. In “Batman Forever,” Bruce Wayne has to contend with new villains like Jim Carrey’s Riddler, Tommy Lee Jones’s Two-Face, and Nicole Kidman as an alluring love interest who is drawn to Batman’s duality. In Schumacher’s Gotham, the Batsuit is adorned with nipples and a pronounced codpiece, villains gleefully vamp about the city in loud outfits, and nothing is ever subtle. Schumacher luxuriates in the over two-hour runtime and never lets you forget that you’re here for a good time, not a boring one.

The costuming, in particular, is worth noting for the infamous Batnipples and the pure maximalism present in The Riddler and Two Face’s attire. When Batman and Robin team up for the first time, we get a good look at the silhouettes of each costume. Bruce suits up in a new costume that hasn’t been tested yet, and we’re treated to the details in rapid succession: chiseled pecs, a gloved hand, a utility belt, and the Bat’s backend. When Robin finally joins, the camera lingers on a pronounced “R” on Robin’s chest, right above one of two prominent Bat nipples.

These cuts and camera choices showcase the queer sensibility at work in the costume design: the silhouettes of the suits carry the legacy of Tom of Finland in their shape. The villains that populate Schumacher’s vision of Gotham are operating at high levels of camp in appearance and performance. Jones chews up every scene, with every sneer and outrageous act of villainous showmanship outdoing the previous one. As the Riddler, Carrey is giving Jones a run for his money, based on energy and presence alone. The costuming here heightens their performances: garish purples and greens dominate the screen when they appear, a swirl of beautiful tackiness that could only work here.

Even when working in the horror genre with “The Lost Boys,” Schumacher understood how to make a movie that was entertaining while keeping a queer perspective intact. The story of Michael, a boy who moves with his brother and newly divorced mom to the deceptively sunny city of Santa Carla, California and has to contend with vampires, the film takes a gleefully 1980s approach to the genre. The results are pure Schumacher in tone and taste: Michael’s brother has a poster of heartthrob-era Rob Lowe conspicuously plastered on his bedroom wall that’s never addressed, and the vampires at the heart of the story feel like the 1980s equivalent of a ‘50s biker gang — rebels with one cause that throbs just beneath the skin. While never explicit, the gestures towards the queerness of biker culture feel apt — like Schumacher wanted to update the mood and aesthetics of “Scorpio Rising” for a new generation. Perhaps one of the most potent moments in the film comes when Michael joins this brooding family of vampires.

When Michael takes a fateful sip of the vampires’ bottle of blood, we see images of him in ecstasy, drinking more, mingling with images of the teenage vamps frolicking around their cave, a flicker of their campfire cutting through the imagery. It’s an impressionistic and effusive visualization of what Michael is feeling, a marriage of delicious rebellion and rebirth in a new place. Feeling seen as an outsider by other outsiders can be intoxicating, a welcome reprieve from the cruelties of the world that many queer people know all too well. To embrace your fullest or newest self is not very different from letting go of the railway tracks you’re clinging to and plunging into the fog of the unknown. The red lights and inky shadows of Santa Carla’s nighttime sequences add atmosphere to the whole affair, adding some gravity to the horror comedy.

Schumacher’s “Phantom of the Opera” adaptation is a decidedly pitch-perfect marriage of director and material. The excesses of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s legendary stage musical and Schumacher’s appetite for indulgent filmmaking are a match that makes sense. There’s a commitment to the indulgent aesthetic Schumacher is known for, which moves the story forward and marries high and low cultural aesthetics. When the Phantom leads Christine to his lair in the bowels of the Opera Populaire, he reaches out a leather-gloved hand. He gingerly takes hers as they walk through a hallway adorned with candelabra held up by golden human arms, a callback to Jean Cocteau’s “La Belle et la Bête.” 

Even the staging of something like the “Point of No Return” sequence that happens towards the end of the film, drips with excess. The stage is doused in red as paper “flames” and deeply committed chorus dancers tango behind Christine and the Phantom. The lyrics are as unsubtle as the staging: “What raging fire shall flood the soul?/What rich desire unlocks its door?/What sweet seduction lies before us,” the Phantom croons. It’s an inelegant manifestation of the crossroads Christine faces with her forbidden appetites and an encapsulation of desire as an all-consuming, blunt force. Only a filmmaker as direct as Schumacher could make it work. It’s high melodrama all the way down to the performances, particularly Gerard Butler’s as the Phantom. The Phantom walks an emotional tightrope, and someone playing him has to be able to walk it, balancing the anger with the tragedy, the pathetic desperation with messy humanity as the foundation. 

In a world in desperate need of bombastic excess, revisiting Schumacher’s films can feel like a reminder of the kind of filmmaking possible when a director isn’t afraid to lean all the way into their boldest tendencies. As the world seems to turn toward the muted, the mundane, and the bland, it’s a necessary reminder and a gesture toward the future. Indeed, Schumacher’s influence on new and exciting filmmakers, like Vera Drew, the director of renegade hit “The People’s Joker,” is a pleasant sign that it’s not too late to follow in the footsteps of the director’s blunt, audacious approach to filmmaking. It’s an ethos that relishes maximalism at all costs but never feels forced or trapped. It’s a kind of freedom that is needed if we want to keep the medium moving forward to combat common dreariness with a blast of artistic expression.