Watch Michael Keaton Declare ‘I’m Batman!’ At Kent State Commencement Address
When I graduated from college in 2002, the commencement speaker was Mayor Rudy Giuliani. So ... yeah. Let’s just move on. The 2018 graduating class of Kent State University got a significantly better speaker: Actor and noted superhero Michael Keaton. And he did not disappoint. In fact, he bat-overdelivered.
Keaton hasn’t always seemed to enjoy his legacy as the star of two hugely successful Batman movies in the 1990s. But in recent years, he clearly has embraced his status as an iconic pillar of popular culture. (He even return to comic-book movies to play a supervillain for Marvel, in last summer’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, and I genuinely thought I would never see something like that happen.) So it was a little surprising, but not entirely shocking, to see that after a long and meaningful speech to the assembled faculty, staff, and students of Kent State University, he made sure to close his message with two extremely meaningful words: “I’m Batman.”
Guys, he even did the Batman voice. It wasn’t like a happy exclamation. It was a gritty, husky whisper. Watch for yourself:
I am fairly certain that is the greatest thing that has ever happened at an American institution of higher learning.
You can watch Keaton’s entire speech below. I can’t wait until next year where Christian Bale gives the commencement address at the University of Texas at El Paso and conclude it with “So you’re all graduates now.Oh gooooooood for you!”
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