Batman carries on beginning in ... The Dark Knight

whether you're pro or anti-bush, if you watch tdk with an eye towards how the movie is supporting or violating your political beliefs, you're not going to get the full impact. this discussion gets a lot more interesting when we admit that there isn't a simple answer to the question of whose side this movie is on.

also, imagine christopher nolan walking into a room full of hollywood bigwigs and pitching his $180M-before-marketing-costs blockbuster as "the batman is dubya".

-- Edward III

For what it's worth, I didn't watch with "an eye towards how the movie is supporting or violating" my political beliefs. I just watched it, and I felt that The Dark Knight went out of its way to articulate a political point of view. The film's politics did rub me the wrong way, but I don't think they're something that I simply conjured up without any outside help. I mean, no one seems to be seriously arguing that this is an anti-dubya film.

(And no, I don't imagine Nolan pitched it as "Batman=Dubya". But then, I doubt he had to pitch it at all.)

it seems more like an admittance that there are politics to comic book heroes, & that nolan went a bit out of his way to engage with them to make the movie seem more close to the bone to his audience - you really seem stubborn about the idea that the movie justifying (more or less) its heroes actions is in any way equivalent with justifying bush's. it's playing off the national consciousness, & obviously doing it pretty well: it's not justifying wars or wiretapping or anything else, really, except its own main character.

this is probably the part where i stress again that that main character is a man who dresses up like a bat

And Aslan is just a really big lion.

i think the point is, the movie says that lawbreaking by the powerful is sometimes ok because the people doing it are fundamentally good, use wisdom, and the results are heroic, even if people are concerned about the details. it more or less has to say this, because it's an action movie about a superhero -- it's not just genre but drama itself that militates against obvious policy positions even as it demands "engagement with" hot-button topics of the day.

i think david addington believes that kind of thing about himself, the trouble is, he's not a man who dresses up like a bat, as far as we've been able to find out.

you never know

I think it says it is never ok, and those that do so are necessarily excluded from a lawful society because they undermine it. Batman's methods are not sustainable because he does not hold himself to any law.the aporia is common:law as such is ultimately sustained and protected by something outside the law.

Or, more pessimistically, that law and justice are illusions we subscribe to without recognizing their contingency.

the movie says that lawbreaking by the powerful is sometimes ok because the people doing it are fundamentally good, use wisdom, and the results are heroic, even if people are concerned about the details

i think the movie shows this kind of lawbreaking, speculates it may be heroic, but more than anything says: man, these questions are really troubling and hard to parse.

Batman & friends seem pretty fucking conflicted.

i've been mulling over a bunch of half-thought-through arguments for years that the essential political disagreements in modernity are between boredeom and excitement, and boredom is always the moral choice but a clear loser in the realm of popular argument. decent transit is godawfully boring, so the excitement of the "open road" gets us what we have today. education is boring as fuck, so let's spice up our solution set with vouchers based on the idea of "competition," that'll light a fire under it!

gaining information and working toward security are intensely boring affairs, too -- putting together an accurate picture of the economic patterns of waziristan and a cop walking the same beat for years are less exciting and infintely more useful than stringing a dude up by his nuts or a SWAT team taking the door of some shithole, but dude that's like homework.

so in the end there are very tight limits to what an action movie or really any drama at all can say about what we should do in the world, because the real status quo and any good change to it are just wholly undramatic.

lol this is what my insomnia is made of

Yeah. And it's worth agreeing with whoever said above that this is all part of the Batman mythos. Were this Superman we were talking about the context would be way different. Now there's a hero for Bush's self conception!

Speaking of the mythology...

Batman's methods are not sustainable because he does not hold himself to any law.

Connecting this basic character material to real-world situations that seem to echo the Bush administration is where things get tricky. And I do not for a second accept that the film condemns the Batman's tactics and/or overall course of action.

See I was thinking that if bush = Batman then we should chase bush out of office!

so in the end there are very tight limits to what an action movie or really any drama at all can say about what we should do in the world, because the real status quo and any good change to it are just wholly undramatic.

-- goole

Connecting this basic character material to real-world situations that seem to echo the Bush administration is where things get tricky. And I do not for a second accept that the film condemns the Batman's tactics and/or overall course of action.

-- contenderizer

what effort really has to be made to connect them? the connections are going to be there anyway - gotham is already giving batman way more power than any one man should have, right? why is it ok for him to have that power?

the movie bothers to ask that question, it answers as it should, (BECAUSE HES A FUCKING SUPERHERO) & now its catching flack from you for it!

also, remember the way the wannabe non-batman-batman vigilantes were treated by this movie? (not well)

I don't think that Batman is a natural, obvious parallel to the Bush admin. The metaphor I'm talking about isn't built into the character's basic mythology. Filmmakers had to drag in terrorism, torture, domestic surveillance and the nobility of lying to create the subtext.

gotham is already giving batman way more power than any one man should have, right? why is it ok for him to have that power?

The metaphor I'm talking about isn't built into the character's basic mythology. Filmmakers had to drag in terrorism, torture, domestic surveillance and the nobility of lying to create the subtext.

To the extent that it matters, the filmmakers don't have to go far -- all of that stuff exists in Batman's history in the comics to some degree or another. Most recently, he created a satellite surveillance system called Brother Eye to keep track of all other powered beings on Earth, because he stopped trusting them after discovering that the JLA had previously subjected him to a mindwipe. Unfortunately, Brother Eye was compromised by his enemies, causing many deaths.

He's also brushed up against torture many, many times in recent years, going so far as to put a loaded gun to a criminal's head with his finger on the trigger, only to be stopped by Wonder Woman from going through with it.

For what it's worth a lot of forgettable dialogue in the beginning addresses these issues.

And authoritarianism is brought up when Rachel mentions Caesar.

Pancakes: Yeah, I know that Batman has dealt with all/most of these issues before -- their presence in this context doesn't start with the film. But in bringing up Batman's "mythos", I was focusing more on the basic essence of the character than all the permutations he's been run through in this or that DC title (his history). But I can't deny that a taste for brutality and for snooping where the law might not allow are a big part of what distinguishes the Batman from most other DCU superheroes. Even the characterization of the Joker -- as the embodiment of a malignant nihilism that naturally opposes civilization-enabling order and faith -- has roots in the comics. Still, I think it would be easy to make a Batman film that doesn't function as a direct apologia (in roxy's words) for Bush/Cheney war-on-terror policies. And I'm not convinced that it's mere coincidence that The Dark Knight fills this role so well.

just for the sake of clarity: you do think that Nolan intended the film as an apologia for Bush?

Interesting things I noticed this time through:

-vigilante to Batman: "what's the difference between you and me?"
-the aforementioned bit about Caesar suggesting that Nolan knows full well that terrorism is often used as an excuse for authoritarianism, and that even good intentions can have that effect.
-that batman doesnt seem to recognize that the joker is the logical consequence of his own actions. stepping outside the law to protect it forces one to confront the utter chaos and nihilism that the law normally shields us from. it's strongly suggested in the film that batman "makes" the joker appear.

in other words, the joker is like what happens when batman upsets the natural order of cops vs criminals...and like some metaphysical entity made flesh he has to face the nihilism that his own vigilanteism implies.

just for the sake of clarity: you do think that Nolan intended the film as an apologia for Bush?

...batman doesnt seem to recognize that the joker is the logical consequence of his own actions. stepping outside the law to protect it forces one to confront the utter chaos and nihilism that the law normally shields us from. it's strongly suggested in the film that batman "makes" the joker appear.

While it's fair to say that Batman similarly "made the Joker appear", it isn't because he did anything wrong. He simply refused to accept the corrupt compromise between crime and justice that allowed the city to function smoothly. His only fault is the hubris that led him to think he might make Gotham/the world a better place. And while the film does suggest that we unbalance the status quo at our peril, it also argues that once the forces of chaos have been unleashed, we have no choice but to fight them on their own terms.

the joker is like what happens when batman upsets the natural order of cops vs criminals...and like some metaphysical entity made flesh he has to face the nihilism that his own vigilanteism implies.

And on another note Gary Oldman is sooo good in this.

Hokay, on second thought, I don’t believe that the film functions as the story of the consequences of lawless vigilantism. The Joker is created/necessitated not by Batman’s vigilante tactics, but rather by Gordon & Dent’s legitimate police actions: raiding crooked banks, invoking RICOH, etc. Therefore, The Dark Knight doesn’t show us the chaos that results when good men operate outside the bounds of the law, but rather the chaos that results when good men dare to stand against evil. And it suggests that a particularly cruel and lawless form of heroism may be the only recourse in such dire situations, even though polite society later repudiates the dirty work that saved the day. Again, the Bush apologetics.

Plus, yeah, Gary Oldman. And Ledger in a wig.

I totally disagree!

But we can all agree on oldman thankfully.

i think this movie was bout eating crayons

Batman : cops :: joker : criminals

Ok we've argued in circles so ill let it rest!

Nolan's an English Literature graduate = he knows about Barthes = he's not going to be offended by how people read this movie, or have a 'proper' way to read this movie that he adheres to even, probably, beyond "It's a morally-conflicted Batman film".

Which also means the Batman = Bush analogy is not wrong; but also not right either. It's just a possibility; millions of subtly (and radically) different interpretations of this movie exist. I note that Nolan doesn't really do much in the way of interviews about his films that go beyond "we dreamt the Batpod up in my garage and asked the engineers to make it and they said 'unpossible' but we asked again and they did it lol".

Compare Batman to the protagonist in Memento.

The Joker is created/necessitated not by Batman’s vigilante tactics, but rather by Gordon & Dent’s legitimate police actions: raiding crooked banks, invoking RICOH, etc.

Yes, but it was only Batman's actions in the first film, and his continuing action at the beginning of this one, that made it possible for Gordon and the MCU to take on the Mob and the crooks in the first place. And it was Batman who provided the irradiated bills and the means of tracking them, since Gordon seemed to be running the whole op on the down-low, outside the eyes of the commissioner and the mayor.

I suspect this all actually makes your reading stronger, not weaker.

Perhaps I'm remembering wrong, but in the Tim Burton Batman movies, didn't Batman not have as many qualms about killing people?

I seem to remember him setting a few criminals on fire with his Batmobile in Batman REturns

(note: I know these are not part of the same storyline, just asking!)

Yeah, he also blew up the Joker's Smilex factory in the first one with absolutely no warning to anyone who might be inside. Frankly, his "no killing" rule has always kinda meant "no just outright shooting guys." Crippling and maiming, or putting them in the ICU, is perfectly OK.

those were the "can the end justify the means" portion of Nolan's movies, I s'pose. pretty sure IRL, law enforcement would have let Batman let the Joker fall...Batman must have one guilty conscience about things.

shouldn't have been a 12A

Batman isn't really given any power at all -- he simply does what he wants, operating outside the law. Gordon and the citizens of the city may condone or even celebrate this, but Batman is more free than he is powerful.

This is a big pile of horseshit. Batman is insanely wealthy, has an advanced technology company at his disposal, and has the support of the police force up until the end of the movie, where even still the head of the police force is covertly still supporting him. I defy you to name a more powerful individual in Gotham.

The point where the Bush analogy falls over is where Batman spends most of the movie looking for a way to stop his slide into authoritarianism via the proxy that is Harvey Dent; where is the analogue for Bushco? Who are they holding up as the legitimate power who should be handling these problems "the right way" (aka "the legal way" or, to be more blunt, "the liberal way")? Batman thinks due process can take over for him with a person like Harvey Dent spearheading the charge and spends most of the movie trying to make this transition happen; everything he does isn't so much in the name of stomping out The Joker as much as it is in eliminating his position and elevating Harvey Dent. How is that analogous to Bushco?

Similar actions can be used to drive vastly different agendas, particularly when comparing reality to fiction.

For what it's worth, I didn't watch with "an eye towards how the movie is supporting or violating" my political beliefs. I just watched it, and I felt that The Dark Knight went out of its way to articulate a political point of view. The film's politics did rub me the wrong way, but I don't think they're something that I simply conjured up without any outside help. I mean, no one seems to be seriously arguing that this is an anti-dubya film.

tdk definitely articulates political points of view, but to what end? I see the film as more conflicted than you do. it's not an anti-dubya film, but calling it pro-dubya seems like a gross misreading. should the us president be viewed as a shadowy vigilante? it that positive?

there are a number of places where the film diverges from a one-sided reading. for instance, if it were a wholesale endorsement of bush admin tactics then batman would've beaten the joker to a pulp, extracted the info he needed, and saved the day - yay, torture vindication. instead, he is fed false information which sends everything spiraling further out of control - he loses the most important person to him, dent is destroyed, and the joker is set free to cause more havoc and destruction.

I understand the argument that merely by conflating bush/batman a situation is created that implicitly confers hero status upon bush. but there's no triumph or glory in this story. there's only a bitter, pyrrhic victory. if you see tdk as a celebration of bush policy then your standards for celebration must be pretty freakin' low.

I guess you can object to the film as a wish-fulfillment scenario for persecuted bush supporters, but I don't reject the film on those grounds anymore than I would reject a clockwork orange for inspiring gang hooliganism.

Right. I agree with all that.

And that batman's final gesture can be seen as analogous to either dostoevsky's grand inquisitor or plato's "noble lie" in the republic I find very interesting! At first I found it to be authoritarian but it could also be Batman rejecting it.

What's really cool about is that is that it's clearly Batman trying to find some way to handle what he's created, and the inadverdent mess he's created with his hubris.

And it's really some kind of scandal that it's not R rated.

its funny; dent spends the whole movie wishing he was batman; batman spends the whole movie wishing he was dent--the only person happy with who he is is the joker

I didn't get the impression the Joker was a really personally fulfilled dude. I think upthread was more accurate in saying he hates everything, just himself a little less than the rest of it.

i just mean that hes not constantly trying to be something or someone else

i mean the way i imagine it, until batman joker didnt really have any idea who he was--he has so many different stories about his scars--but then he finds this guy who gives him a semi-stationary place, a better-defined identity. frankly the joker is the only person in the movie who seems happy!!

batman, meanwhile, sees in dent everything he wishes he was--and is crushed at the end of the movie when he realizes that his counterpart isnt harvey dent (i.e. the duality isnt white knight/dark knight but at least theyre both knights), its the joker--good crazy and bad crazy, but theyre both crazy.

The point where the Bush analogy falls over is where Batman spends most of the movie looking for a way to stop his slide into authoritarianism via the proxy that is Harvey Dent

Don't you think the film undermines this, tho? What with Rachel's letter (you can never stop being Batman) and Dent's eventual transformation into Two-Face? Even if Batman initially wants to place Dent as the true hero (and even tho he does so under false pretenses in the film ending) too many things seem to subvert that as to make it less than self-evident that this is Nolan's "message."

crushed at the end of the movie when he realizes that his counterpart isnt harvey dent (i.e. the duality isnt white knight/dark knight but at least theyre both knights), its the joker--good crazy and bad crazy, but theyre both crazy.

That's really interesting. Because Dent also ends up as his duality counterpart (also bad crazy). Do you think that Batman's attempts to make Dent into his counterpart force him into this actual duality?

i dont know--i havent thought that far--but if youre thinking 'duality' dent turning into two-face is obviously important

Right. I just meant, Batman tries to force Dent into being his counterpart (Caped Vigilante V Public Hero), but arguably, by forcing Dent into being the Public Hero, he sets him up for the Joker's response (which is very much a Chigurah'esque force of nature) which turns him into Batman's actual counterpart... another crazy person.

Dent does "pretend" to be Batman...

from an interview with nolan:

Newsweek: You also seem to be commenting on the impossibility of heroism in a brutal world, because any hero will inevitably be faced with unthinkable choices, and simply by choosing, the hero becomes a monster to many.

Nolan: The Joker gets pleasure from taking somebody's rule set — their ethics, their morals — and turning them against each other. Paradox is the way you do that. Giving people impossible choices. What Batman is doing is heroic, but it can be seen in another way: as vigilantism, as a dark force outside the law. That's a very, very dangerous road to go down. He's always riding a knife edge in moral terms.

Newsweek: The film implies that Gotham's latest wave of psychos exist partly because of Batman, not in spite of him. His presence has unintended consequences in the same way that the U.S. presence in Iraq has consequences.

Nolan: At the end of the first film we introduced the idea of escalation. Batman creates this extreme response to crime in Gotham—putting on a mask and jumping off rooftops. Well, what's that going to inspire from the criminals he's fighting? Batman has changed the world, but not all for the better. The use of force against an enemy is a tricky and fascinating thing to have in a story. And the film tries to make the point that everybody loses in these situations.