Batman Begins: The Thread

Of course Batman's character can be in flux. That's why we're all free to look at a certain Batman and say: hey, I don't like that Batman. He doesn't represent what Batman means to me. That's not my Batman.

Who Batman is and what he means is the accumulation of all of the comics you listed above, every TV and movie representation ever made, and whatever crazy fantasies little kids make up about Batman when they run around the playground with a cape on. None of these are right or wrong.

STIPEMAN!

(the MLK thing is a bit of a diversion - I agree w/whoever said that real-life "heroes" are demonstrably different from fictional ones, and that they hew to different standards. and I stick by my assertion that, especially when it comes to fiction, violence seems to be a necessary component of the hero's identity. I think the key question we're wrestling with on this thread is how that violence is justified, to what degree, and to what end. obviously I think Batman is conflicted and not a straight-up fascist idol, at least as far as how he's portrayed in Batman Begins)

(as for protesting and MLK's legacy: blount this is probably worthy of a whole other thread, but many of the examples you cite - the war, Roberts' nomination, the anti-gay legislation - those protests were ignored by the media and by the political establishment. the tactic has been completely marginalized. I participated in a lot of anti-war stuff leading up to the invasion, and it accomplished nothing aside from clearing my conscience a little bit. at least I can say I tried. but do peaceful protests have any currency politically or socially or culturally? I would say not at all.)

someone is not the same as anyone

i cld be convinced by a well done fascist tendency reading cuz im almost paranoid abt tendencies and believe everyone has em, born w or born into. so i think here, where i guess its obvious to certain spectators, tho i didnt notice them by name, that energy wd be better spent on where it is hid, altho here im drawing on i think an implication by walter upthread

again, i only skimmed, but if this is the case, im disappointed that yall havent considered the inherent? difference btw comix and motion pictures. blount kind of alluded to it w, why does the villain always die in the batman movies? but i think theres also much more basic divides, drawing and photography etc, that are much more impt than deviations, and that, in fact, connect back to fascism, or whatever less uh loaded term im eager to see as a substitute

leon?

The story focuses on Punisher's fight against his old army superior Gorman, who's been a drug smuggler and criminal boss ever since the war. It's really quite a fascinating read, because it features almost every possible cliche that you could imagine in a vigilante/revenge story like this: a flashback to Punisher's past, when he was still happy with his family, an continous inner monologue where Punisher talks about his "war" against crime, saying things like "I am the flood that cleanses the earth.", etc. In the end Gorman lies wounded on the ground, saying that he's surrendering to Punisher, and mocking Punisher, telling how the law can't touch him: he'll serve some time in prison, and come back a rich man. But of course Punisher has nothing against killing an unarmed criminal; he shoots Gorman in cold blood, as he has already done to a bunch of folks, including a small army of Kambodzheans. The story ends with Punishers inner monologue (I'm retranslating this back to English from the Finnish edition): "They laugh at the law. The rich, who mold it and take advantage of it. And the others, who have nothing to lose, who don't think of themselves or others. All those who think they're above the law, outside of it, or out of it's reach. They know that the law keeps only the good people on the narrow path. And they laugh. They laugh at the law. But they don't laugh at me."

But the funniest part actually comes after the story itself. There's the letters page, where the Finnish editor, clearly a bit of a Scandinavian social democrat, tries to explain to his young readers why they've actually chosen to publish this thing, saying stuff like, "you realize that Punisher really fights just the symptom, not the cause, but this is really just a bit of action entertainment" (somewhat disingenous, since the whole story is extremely political in nature). It really is quite ironic: with Rorschach, Alan Moore thought he was writing a satire of the vigilante superhero, but almost at the same time Marvel was, with a straight face, putting out a character who's possibly even more extreme than Rorschach.

Er, I don't think pacifism means that: there are different shades of pacifism, just like with every other -ism. If you take the word literally, it means just striving for peace. I consider myself a pacifist, yet accept violence as means of self-defense, but not as means of defending your country/religion/whatever.

What Gotham are you talking about? There are several Gothams in Batman stories, and most of them don't appear as pits of chaos that would absolutely necessitate the existence of Batman. I'd say the Gotham in Batman Begins belongs to this category, but I guess you diagree. Also, whether or not vigilantism is "necessary" (and who decides that?), it has other problems: in a chaotic situation, eberyone of course wants to protect their loved ones, maybe even other innocent folks. But a vigilante takes a more dynamic role, actively fighting against "bad" people. But since he has only his own morality to guide him, those "bad" people can be whoever they choose. In superhero comics, of course, the vigilante obviously battles only the "real" bad guys, and without going to extreme measures (no killing), but in real life that isn't the case.

Yes, but it was even more wrong for the Russians and the Germans to attack. Also, remember that the individual soldiers aren't really to blame for wars, except that they chose to take up arms rather than become conscientious objectors (if, however, the other options are jail or execution, that is sorta understandable). I think soldiers often realized that the men on the opposite side are just as little responsible for the war as they are - hence, the famous "Christmas truce" during WWI, for example.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/books/12/11/review.mythology/story.batman.jpg

This covers the sodlier, but also the firefighter.

what is your problem with vigilanteism if the law is derived from something as 'abstract' as the nation state. if morality is personal, asit would be for you, then what's wrong with batman?

Anyway, a thought: (and, I'm not picking on you Tuomas, I admire your tenacity on this thread) in your form of pacifism, you would defend yourself, right? And let me know if I'm wrong, but you'd also defend your family? Friends? Now, using an old science fiction trope for a handy hypothetical, imagine we were aware of impending attack/invasion by extra-terrestrials. Would you join a military unit to defend Earth? If you would -- and I imagine most of us would if we are able-bodied -- why do you/we think it's alright to defend small localised groups of known humans, and (in this case) large abstract species-wide aggregates, and yet something in between (countries, nation-states, provinces, states, counties?) is verboten? I'm asking this less to dissect your own position than to confront questions around my own dodgy logic that keep surfacing as I follow this fascinating discussion.

I think the one unchangeable right is everyone's right to their lives. That's the individual part. But human beings also live in communities, and communities have to have some sort of common ethics to make them work. So I'm not an hyperindividualist in that sense. However, because the right to life overrides all other ethic principles, no community can force it's member to sacrifice himself for it. And that's what happens in war. But, except maybe for wartime, the right to life is also something recognized by most communities. And Batman violates that communal ethical rule (alongside others) by treating criminals like he does. That no one has died because of Batman beating him up is only because he lives in a fantasy world, and he still needs to be the hero of the story.

"I might try to defend someone's live if it's in immediate danger, but only then."

try and think of practical examples where this makes sense. at what point does it become preemptive? when the gun is drawn? when it's cocked? when?

The one you live in, for example. Or has Britain brought back the death penalty?

try and think of practical examples where this makes sense. at what point does it become preemptive? when the gun is drawn? when it's cocked? when?

You're trying to cross hairs here. As I said, it depends on the situation. There's no absolute principle: you have to make judgement whether someone's life is in danger according to the situation. But a gun cocked or a knife drawn out would be good examples, yes.

It's okay the defend all the individuals in a country, obviously. But war is rarely just defending the individual. The stage of war is often somewhere else than where most individuals are, and rarely the purpose of a war is to kill all the individuals on the other side: war has to do with politics, power, and other abstract things, and killing for those is wrong.

as for the 'in the given situation' gloss on when it's okay to kill in the defense of life, you haven't really clarified the moral issue at stake. killing someone because they have drawn a gun is questionable in your own terms: 'you can't make calculations like that: no one knows what happens in the future', apparently. i would agree that you have to leave it to the given situation, but that's a recognition that absolute moral strictures against killing just won't work in the real world.

While I liked many aspects of the film, I found it hard to work out what Ras' lot were actually trying to do. I mean, go to some dump of a city in the USA and smash it up, why?

Or maybe Ras is like the Ras from the comics, and has some hyper-intelligent long-run plot, and all that stuff about the fire of London and the Roman Empire was just fluff for the Bat.

He did say that, but as i) Ras is very clever and ii) what he said wasn't very convincing, I feel that it must have been a smokescreen for his real intentions, whatever they were.