FILMMAKER BLOG  Saturday, August 09, 2008
BATMAN FIGHTS THE NEO-CONS
 I was late to see Chris Nolan's The Dark Knight, only catching up to this astonishing and unexpectedly grim film this past week. It's probably the first action film I've ever seen that's exhausted me not by the intensity of its fight sequences but by its embedding of specific moral and philosophical dilemmas in all of its significant set pieces. Because I hadn't seen the film, I avoided reading a lot about it, which means I missed the various pieces that have either celebrated (as in Andrew Klavan's Wall Street Journal piece) or decried (as in Dave Kehr's review) the film for being a celebration of the policies of George W. Bush. Here's Klavan: There seems to me no question that the Batman film The Dark Knight, currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.
And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell.
The Dark Knight, then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror. And like another such film, last year's "300," "The Dark Knight" is making a fortune depicting the values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate for beans.
And here's Kehr: Is the Dark Knight just George Bush with a better outfit, demanding that he be allowed all of the available “tools” to combat terrorism, even if they include torture and eavesdropping? Like Bush, Batman has his own warantless wiretapping program, but Nolan is kind enough to assure us that, once his goal is accomplished, the superhero will blow it up. Is he suggesting that we can count on the Dark President to do the same?
Now, at his blog, Mark K-Punk examines this argument not by seeing whether Bush can be compared to Batman and the Joker to Osama Bin Laden but by examining the film's articulation of notions of justice, virtue and causality and contrasting its processing of these concepts to the worldview of the neo-cons. From the piece: There are many symptomatically interesting things about the right wing attempts to appropriate The Dark Knight that are doing the rounds at the moment. The idea is that the Batman of the film equals Bush - a misunderstood hero prepared to make 'tough choices' in order to protect an ungrateful population from threats it is too ethically enfeebled to confront.
In a couple of intricately argued posts, Inspersal demonstrates that The Dark Knight by no means presents 'tough choices' as 'hard but necessary'; on the contrary, whenever Batman resorts to torture, it either yields nothing or is counterproductive. What neocon readings of the film must overlook is that this is exactly the same in geopolitical reality: far from being unpalatable but necessary, the Iraq misadventure, Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition etc have either achieved no results or made things worse. What's interesting here is the doggedness of the neocon fantasy, which is precisely a fantasy of 'being realistic' -- astonishingly, elements of the American right appear to actually still believe that the Bush admininstration's policies are successful, and that the American public has rejected them on the grounds of highminded (liberal) ethical qualms rather than for pragmatic-utilitarian reasons (too many of our boys being killed).
... What's interesting about The Dark Knight is that is not really about Good versus Evil at all but 'good causes' versus aberrant modes of cause/ causality. Recommended.
Comments (7)
TDK's undeniable politics are intriguing if only because they made me think for several days afterward. The movie addresses all of the pressing political issues of the day; torture, surveillance, etc., and still attracts a mass audience. In the film, the Batman character is the instigator of all of the
above, and although he's a bit of a sad sack about it, he still goes through with it, and, like the
Republican Party, he is ultimately made to be the
scapegoat of such actions, and has to high-tail it out of the scene, just like the Republicans are preparing to do now, with their tales between their legs.
I don't think it was an accident that this film was
made in an election year. The movie delves into the
subconscious of the nation, and I'm sure that's why
it's so ridiculously popular. It twists the corkscrew
around many times - and apparently people are enjoying that. But what's truly fascinating in the way that it disguises it's agenda. This is to the great credit to the filmmakers who have truly made a dance-of-the-seven-veils film.
TDK ultimately vindicates Bush and the Republican Party by injecting it's methodology into a cardboard comic book hero (who could not possibly be a bad guy in the collective mind of the audience) and even making HIM think twice about his agenda, but then go through with it anyway.
I even wonder if the fact that the Batman mask looked so stupid onscreen was done intentionally to make him look more like our standing prez. Christian Bale plays the Bruce Wayne character as a fun-loving swaggering jerk who has to conceal his deepest darkest secrets to spare -- who else? -- himself.
And, let's not forget The Joker's speech about he he prefers the knife to the gun, just like his terrorist brethren.
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posted by @ 8/10/2008 8:05 PM
I have to vehemently disagree with the Batman=Bush argument and go with "Mark K Punk," how "whenever Batman resorts to torture, it either yields nothing or is counterproductive." Batman beat the Joker up during the interrogation to get the addresses, and not only did Batman get the wrong addresses but he also lost time in which he could have saved both captives.
And another point that has also been made is that, unlike Bush, Batman operates outside the law. The same point was raised in Newsweek recently when it was revealed that the CIA has been taking inspiration from Jack Bauer on "24."
While these characters certainly get the job done in their stories, reality can be a bit more complicated. Unlike President Bush, both Jack Bauer and Batman work outside of the law. In the case of The Dark Knight, working within the law causes Batman problems in the beginning because of others trying to emulate his vigilante actions. By becoming the villain in the end, Batman is able to pursue his more unlawful practices like wiretapping without having to worry about inspiring such behavior in others, because he knows society needs to have a certain order.
And while President Bush is not well-liked at this current time, like it or not he is still a public figure. His behavior still represents the U.S. government and what the government does sets a precendent that others follow. Thus, if the U.S. goverment approves the use of torture, that weakens our argument in demanding fair treatment for out troops. It's Gordon who articulates the point at the end of the film when his son asks why the police are going after Batman: "because he can take it." Batman can torture criminals with full acceptance of the fact that it will be done to him as well. Unlike the Bush goverment, Batman does not expect special treatment because God is on his side, but actually takes responsibility for his actions.
Bush is more like Harvey Dent, blinded by idealism and far too easily corrupted. Bush is what Harvey's legacy would have become if Batman hadn't taken the fall.
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posted by RedHeadedWonder @ 8/11/2008 10:33 AM
RedHeadedWonder may be missing the point. Do they really believe "that unlike Bush, Batman operates outside the law"? Please think about that.
Also, the point that "Bush is more like Harvey Dent, blinded by idealism and far too easily corrupted. Bush is what Harvey's legacy would have become if Batman hadn't taken the fall." Yes, this is true in a way. But, in a great screenplay, it's the entire web of characters that make up the theme of the film together. The Harvey Dent character is both "the best of them," as Batman says of him several times during the film, and the worst, as his actions prove. Dent is, in a sense, both Batman and The Joker rolled into one, as well as the fight between good and evil within a politician.
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posted by @ 8/11/2008 11:38 AM
While the Bush-Batman connection is interesting enough, why has no one explored the striking similarity between Bush and Hancock? The surly drunk figure of Will Smith's Hancock who avenges wrongs and stops crime only at the expense of destroying the city he lives in -- and who can be 'saved' only through the tireless efforts of his PR flack, played by Justin Bateman -- is a far more obvious riff on our current president than Nolan's Batman could ever be. Of course that leaves unanswered the question: is Charlize Theron's character somehow a stand-in for Hilary?...
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posted by @ 8/11/2008 7:33 PM
One final note...check out the bat-cross: Go to the YouTube link to The Dark Knight trailer below and pause at 1:34, then play it again and listen to the line
reading, "The Dawn Is Coming". It's like Strawberry
Fields backwards...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GROmJWb-3wU
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posted by @ 8/11/2008 10:16 PM
Actually, I thought the Batman-wannabe in hockey pants at the beginning was Bush.
You guys, get over it. Batman doesn't represent jack. He's a guy in a ridiculous rubber suit with pointy ears and a cape. He's been in comics for 70 years. (Maybe he represents my grandfather on Viagra!)
There's nothing going on in this movie that wasn't done better in Minority Report or War of the Worlds -- only where they were criticized for using terrorist imagery, TDK has gotten a pass because we're far enough away from 9/11.
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posted by @ 8/12/2008 12:13 AM
Oh, and one more thing. If the movie is so pro-Republican, then what the hell is Patrick Leahy doing in it acting all badass and standing up to the Joker?...
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posted by @ 8/12/2008 12:57 AM
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