Batman ’89: Prince’s music had an incredible impact on these two scenes
By Mark Lynch
Prince’s songs made these two scenes from 1989’s Batman memorable.
Tim Burton’s Batman is a historic comic book moment. It was a complete 180-degree switch from the brightly colored and goofy Adam West Batman. But it worked. It can also be attributed to keeping the comic book movie momentum going after Superman IV. Batman had some incredibly iconic scenes throughout the movie. Among those moments were two fantastic moments with the Joker.
Two of the more classic moments were when Joker was “improving” paintings in a museum. Joker and his goons painted over and flat out destroyed the art. The second came when Joker and his goons drove down the streets of Gotham City to toss the citizens money…and gas them later. They masked it as a parade and the citizens ate it up. Besides the Joker being in these scenes they have something in common. Both of them had the late musical legend Prince singing the music in the background.
Prince did the entire soundtrack for the movie. And, in typical Prince fashion, he did it with style. The museum scene had a song called Partyman. The scene starts with Joker saying, “Gentlemen, let’s broaden our minds. Lawrence!” and Lawrence hit play on the boombox (very 1980’s). While Joker and his henchmen walked around the museum, they danced to Prince’s music while it played. Any other person singing in the background wouldn’t have seemed right. It had an uptempo beat that was easy to dance to.
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It also fit the Joker’s persona all the way down to the lyrics. The first thing Prince says is “All hail the new king in town” a significant line considering this is exactly what Joker was trying to be.
The next moment was in the parade. Prince’s song Trust blares as he tosses money to the people Gotham City. The first thing Prince says is, “Trust, who do ya?” This signifies everything that Joker wanted from the city. While the song was probably about an actual lover, it could be about the personification of the city. The lyrics, “Love, you cannot imagine/How much I want to give to you” The song later goes, “Money, how much’ll make you happy?/You can have it all if it’ll suit you right” as Joker is throwing bunches of hundred dollar bills.
This fits my theory because he is literally throwing money out into the crowd. Showing how much he was willing to give. Even after he purposely tried to kill thousands of people, he knew all it would take was some money and they’d forget and give him their trust. And it worked.
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The soundtrack fits the movie. You can tell that it was tailor made for this movie. The next time you watch the movie, really listen to the Prince songs as the scenes play. You’ll appreciate what’s going on more than you originally did.