Batmusk: Why I Had to Drag the Bat
I used to love Batman. He was broody. He was broken. He dressed like a fetish priest at the Met Gala. He didn’t play by the rules, and he had more emotional repression than a Catholic boys’ school.
But the older I got—and the queerer I got—the more that cape started to itch.
Batman isn’t a rebel. He’s a billionaire in trauma cosplay. He doesn’t fight crime—He privatizes justice. He’s the guy who puts body armor over his feelings and calls it civic duty. Somewhere along the way, the Bat stopped being a fantasy and started looking like a libertarian LinkedIn post.
Welcome to the age of Batmusk: your friendly neighborhood surveillance capitalist in vinyl drag. A tech overlord with a Batcave full of tanks, trauma, and tax loopholes.
So I stopped grading Gotham. I rewrote it.
Arkham A$$ylum: An [After Dark] Knight Burlesque
It’s my glitter-drenched exorcism of the Bat myth. Premiering at the Denver Fringe Festival, it’s part drag cabaret, part courtroom drama, part padded-cell dance party. Think: Batman on trial—with the villains as the prosecution and burlesque as the cross-examination.
This isn’t a spoof. It’s a jailbreak.
Catwoman claws back the narrative and purrs, “Same crime, different zip code.” Poison Ivy spills the tea on WayneCo’s eco-violence and corporate greenwashing. Harley Quinn lays bare the mental health-industrial complex with a glitter bat and a PhD. And Bane? He’s not a brute. He’s a muscle queen who survived conversion therapy and now serves vengeance in leather straps and six-inch boots.
Even the Riddler—neurodivergent, gender-defiant, and done with playing by Bruce Wayne’s rules—gets a verse. Gotham’s outcasts aren’t just reclaiming space. They’re staging a full-blown rhinestone coup.
Why Drag? Why Burlesque? Why Now?
Because drag is resistance in sequins. Because burlesque doesn’t ask permission. Because when the world sells you sanitized superhero stories, sometimes you need to reply with fishnets, fog machines, and a little righteous fury.
Drag strips the myth down to its jockstrap and makes it answer for itself. Burlesque throws the Bat Signal up not as a call for help, but as a spotlight on hypocrisy. If Batman gets to play god in a cape, then we get to put him on trial in heels.
This show doesn’t ask, “What if the villains had feelings?” It demands, “Why were they the only ones telling the truth?”
Fan Fiction as Survival Ritual
I was cracked wide open watching The People’s Joker, Vera Drew’s beautiful, banned trans coming-of-age remix of Gotham. It made me realize: the Bat myth has never belonged to us. But we can steal it back.
So I wrote my first play. I staged it in drag. I built it for the weirdos who saw themselves in villains because the heroes never looked back. I made it for anyone who’s ever been told they were too much, too loud, too queer, too off-script.
I didn’t want to fix Batman. I wanted to ruin him—with love. With glitter. With choreography.
Rainbow Cult was Built for This
My immersive queer cinema collective isn’t just about watching movies. It’s about confronting them. Transforming them. We turn screenings into rituals. Laughter into survival. Spectacle into strategy.
We don’t just throw popcorn—We throw shade, throw roses, throw open the doors to a cinematic sanctuary where queerness isn’t tolerated. It’s worshipped.
So Here’s Your Invitation
Come to Arkham A$$ylum. Bring your trauma, your mascara, your inner villain.
And watch us drag the Bat.
SHOW INFO:
???? ARKHAM A$$YLUM: AN [AFTER DARK] KNIGHT BURLESQUE
???? Cleo Parker Robinson Dance (119 Park Avenue West, Denver)
???? June 5 @ 8 p.m. | June 6 @ 9:30 p.m. | June 7 @ 5 p.m.
????️ Part drag cabaret, part musical tribunal, all glitter-fueled reckoning.
???? More at denverfringe.org | #DragTheBat
By Dr. Andy Scahill
Associate Professor of Film, University of Colorado Denver
Founder, Rainbow Cult: Immersive Queer Cinema
All images courtesy of Rainbow Cult
