It was a typical Council meeting
until Batman showed up.
Have you seen this Batman City Council video? It’s great.
Recently Batman stood up at a Santa Clara City Council meeting and demanded action. The Super Bowl was being held in Santa Clara and Batman was obviously concerned about the other masked vigilantes in town: ICE.
Millions watched the video because of the outfit, but stuck around because of his deeply impassioned, authentic speech. Watch it and you’ll feel it too.
I’ve been thinking about this video since and I think the outfit served two purposes.
- It’s a spectacle. It’s a quality outfit! I learned in art school that attention to detail commands the audience’s attention in return. It’s why we’re watching this city council comment and not thousands of others that you can find online.
- Masks give us courage. Sometimes a costume or a persona can give us the courage to say and do things we wouldn’t otherwise.*
*Note: that second point cuts both ways – it’s part of why people are calling for ICE to show their faces.
Batman captured our attention and held it. That mask and cape gave the person behind it the power to speak freely and perform boldly.
It’s just one of many examples of people using the venue of public comment in government proceedings to their advantage. I love this stuff and have been collecting it on our site for years. If you know of other good examples, send them my way!
Steve Lambert, Co-Founder & Artistic Director
Actions are Performances
Excerpted from our Unleashing Creative Campaigns Toolkit:
“Not just artistic activism, but all parts of campaigning involve performance. Whether you’re registering people to vote in front of a supermarket, phone banking, or doing something absolutely innovative, you’re doing it for an audience, so thinking about it as a performance will help. Assigning members of your team roles to ensure engagement, creativity, and fun means that people are accountable to keeping those creative and performative elements alive and thriving through the whole creative process.”
Go further with our Unleashing Creative Campaigns Toolkit!
Clever, little changes get big, lasting results.
It’s true. Thinking holistically, like an artist – about audiences, story, staging, and what makes a performance work – is what’s needed for impactful activism. We’ve been teaching ideas like these for over fifteen years.
When you bring the power of art into these spaces, you can see that meetings are more than bureaucratic rituals. They are stages, and everyone is eager for a good show.
And make no mistake – we’re not talking about hollow theatrics or media stunts. The power of the arts, creativity and innovative thinking are what create moments that can shift conversations, inspire communities, move decision-makers, and make real change.
These aren’t random stunts. They’re strategic interventions that understand the power of using spectacle, humor, sincerity and creative thinking to win.
This is what we do.
Let’s work together! Or support us working with those who need it most.