Now includes my interview with Henry Jenkins, and a new introduction by me with insights like:

How does the mosaic that is Robin’s meanings change shape when we include, for instance, the reality television show American Idol’s eighth season? Adam Lambert, the consistently over-the-top, theatrical, larger-than-life glam rock performer who came second in the competition, was asked “Batman or Superman?” on the social networking site Twitter. His response was:

Batman fo sho. Him and Robin are real hot together. haha.

As well as being a highly visible pop figure in contemporary music, Lambert is openly gay, and so his response reinforces Batman and Robin’s relevancy in the cultural conversation of pop, glam, and camp. But as well as reinforcing, Lambert complicates and adds to Batman and Robin’s meanings: in one video appearance, he explains to the eighth season winner Kris Allen that Kris, due to his smaller stature, is the Robin of the pair, rather than the ‘Batman’ which his winning status might otherwise suggest.

Allen is straight, married to his teenage sweetheart, but both he and Lambert have spoken many times in the media about the deep friendship and respect they share, and often engage in lighthearted, flirtatious banter. This ease within complexly coded cultural dynamics echoes the examples of My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy, which I outline in the main text of this study, but Allen and Lambert’s popularity is more mainstream and occurred within a traditionally culturally conservative text – American Idol – and so the resultant complexities reflected back onto Robin are differently charged.

YEAH, YOU KNOW YOU FUCKING LOVE ME.

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