The TV Addict 

Scanning Variety, I came across one of those things you hear about in life that are just so absurd, so outlandish and utterly insane that you just can’t help but think: “You can’t make shit like this up.”

So Mr. Huseyin Kalkan, the mayor of a southeastern Turkey city named Batman, is suing Christopher Nolan and Warner Brothers. He is demanding to receive royalties from THE DARK KNIGHT because apparently “[there] is only one Batman in the world… [the] American producers used the name of our city without informing us.”

Needless to say, the town of Batman obviously has a strong case on their hands. After all, Bob Kane – the creator of the superhero character of Batman – certainly didn’t come up with the name because Bruce Wayne is a man who dresses like a bat. No, Mr. Kane probably took a lovely vacation to sunny Turkey in 1939, stumbled across the town of Batman, and then decided “Hey, that’d be a great name for a comic book character.” Just think. Where would we be now if he’d taken a liking to Istanbul? Would we have gotten some bull themed superhero?

Now many will ask why the Turkish hamlet waited nearly seventy years after the creation of the character to step forward, let alone why they aren’t suing DC comics – who have been publishing Batman comics for decades. Others will wonder why the Turks didn’t complain when the first five BATMAN films came out, or why they only are singling out those involved with THE DARK KNIGHT.

Most would cynically point out this lawsuit not coincidentally is happing just as THE DARK KNIGHT is poised to hit the mark of $1 billion in worldwide box office sales. The optimist in me can’t accept that. You see, the residents of Batman (Batmans? Batmanians?) don’t care about the money. They just want to be compensated for the genuine negative social repercussions caused by having a film named after them. Apparently, “[the] mayor is prepping a series of charges against Nolan and Warner Bros., … including placing the blame for a number of unsolved murders and a high female suicide rate on the psychological impact that the film’s success has had on the city’s inhabitants.”

It’s really not a far stretch to believe that tons of Turks thought The Joker was so cool they started going on killing sprees (I wonder if pencil, grenade, and make-up sales have gone up?), and that (SPOILER ALERT!) the death of Rachel was so devastating to women viewers, they couldn’t bear living. The only thing that can heal those wounds is cold, hard, American cash. All the more so when it’s experiencing such a fruitful economic boom.

Sigh. All kidding aside, you know there’s something wrong with the American legal system and the outlandish lawsuits it allows when even other countries want to abuse it.