In one of the only times a serial killer would be the hero, Dexter’s titular character actually takes on a Batman persona for Miami — he’s just more psychopathic. The TV series follows Dexter Morgan, a blood-spatter analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department who also happens to moonlight as a murderous vigilante. Dexter has spent his life since he was a teenager hiding his violent impulses from those around him, although — like a typical masked vigilante — some find out his identity along the way. Unconventionally for a serial killer, Dexter operates under a strict code set by his policeman father where he can only kill deserving criminals who have evaded the justice system.
The magic of Dexter is that the series gets audiences to truly feel for a man who professes he has no feelings (even though his close interactions suggest the opposite). In a conventional story, Dexter Morgan would be his show's own villain, but he is always proven to be more morally bound and sympathetic than his victims — making him the perfect unconventional antihero. Even within Dexter, he’s positioned as a more gory, unhinged hero with a dark passenger. When his undersea burial ground is discovered by divers in Dexter season 2, sending his own coworkers on a manhunt for his Bay Harbor Butcher alter ego, policemen and citizens alike still praise Dexter for ridding the streets of dangerous criminals.
Dexter’s traumatic origin, withdrawn disposition, and vigilante hidden identity actually make him the Batman of Miami, he’s just far more psychopathic than Bruce Wayne. Both men masquerade under alternate personas given by their communities; for Dexter, the less noble Bay Harbor Butcher, and Bruce Wayne, Batman. Both hide their true identities from their friends, family, and society at large. Aside from their few close confidants, which for Bruce Wayne are Albert and Robin and for Dexter his late father Harry, infrequent sidekicks, and eventually Deb, Dexter and Bruce are always having to put on a show to hide their nightly pastimes. Dexter and Batman's protagonists task themselves with cleaning up the streets of Miami and Gotham from criminals, all of whom have to be deserving to become one of their victims.
Batman and Dexter also have day jobs that, while on the surface are both convenient cover-ups, give them access to the tools they need for their alter egos. Dexter Morgan working as a blood-spatter analyst for the police gives him easy access to blood slides, knowledge of how to evade police suspicion, and criminal files. Bruce Wayne’s inherited wealth and empire in Gotham gives him access to Batman's high-tech weaponry, batsuit armor, and vehicles to quickly apprehend his victims and flee without reproach.
The Gotham superhero and Miami vigilante are also their respective equivalents in the origins of their alter egos, both stemming from traumatic events involving their parents’ deaths in their early childhoods. Dexter Morgan’s “born in blood” origin story began when he was only 3 years old, found by officer Harry Morgan in a pool of his mother’s blood after she was murdered in a shipping container. For Bruce Wayne, he watched his parents get murdered by a mugger at a young age, fuelling his need to clean the streets of criminals, while also, depending on which Batman adaptation, having a traumatic experience with bats as a child.
The obvious difference is that Dexter is by far and large a killer, while Batman tries to avoid killing at all cost (though Michael Keaton’s Batman doesn’t necessarily follow this code). Dexter would go to jail for what he does, and is much less cooperative with the police than Batman is with the GCPD. Dexter explains the lovable serial killer to be a vigilante who believes he’s doing good for his community, he’s just not as flashy (or sympathetic) as Batman.
from ScreenRant - Feed https://ift.tt/3kjsB3O
0 Comments