Batman Begins: The Thread

batman grapples with this, it doesn't say 'vigilantes a-ok'

The film's stance on vigilantism is slippery, but in the end it does say "vigilantism's okay" by making the vigilante the hero. Batman clearly doesn't play by the book: he let's Ducard die, and says so himself, even though he could've saved him.

and they fail. hence: batman.

Also, nowhere in the film is it said that Batman enters the stage only because the police failed. Clearly there are deeper roots to his beliefs and his vigilantism.

It'd be a pretty short film though. I'm not being entirely facetious here, the rules of society have less of a hold in Batman's world than narrative rules. The police are corrupt and the criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot because this is the background against which the character exists: you could no more clean up Gotham than you could turn off gravity in Metropolis (in fact, it'd be a lot harder).

which 'rules'? again, your idea of gotham is weirdly rosy. it's not a stable soceity with basically ok but sometimes erring cops. the depression (like the 30s depression) isn't something that just precedes a new boom. it might be irreversible. this is how people thought in the '30s anyway.

it's just kind of off-base to talk about 'vigilanteism' as this absolute wrong in the context of gotham, where to some extent the moral order has broken down. you seem to have no range of attutudes to the film: either it 'approves' vigilantes' or it 'condemns' them. it's really boy-scoutish. you don't end the film liking everything about batman, but can you not see that what he did was basically necessary?

He couldn't really have puit this into significant effect until he bought back the company, which will give him a more legitimate public standing to do so, I reckon. "The billionaire buffoon who cares."

That situation perhaps applies in some of the comics, but the movie doesn't give enough information to interpret the situation so. It's exactly because the movie aims for realism that you feel compelled to judge it by real world rules, and in real life, no matter how corrupt a city, few would suggest vigilantism as the answer. (Of course, there are still some who do: take the death patrols in Brazil, for example.)

And yet they didnt see a wave of vigilantism back then, did they?

Yes, I guess it was necessary for him to beat stop the League of Shadows' evil plot - that's the fantasy part of the film, and I have no problem with that. But it's the idea of Batman, the idea of a vigilante, that I find disturbing, and that is something the film takes very seriously. As I said, the film's stance on this very slippery: it sorta condemns Batman, but in the end really doesn't.

batman is a (basically) *good* vigilante, though. he only punishes the bad. (aren't the death squads really state forces anyway?)

I'll say it one more time: this isn't Taxi Driver, this the first episode of a new Batman series, and the film certainly isn't bold enough to condemn Batman's actions and make him an anti-hero like Travis Bickle.

(x-post)

Ah, but the problem with vigilantes is exactly that: they have only their own morality to make the judgement on who's "bad", and therefore "worthy" of the punishment. No doubt the people in the death squads think they're doing something good too.

thinking about it, batman begins is far more critical of its protag than taxi driver.

On a surface level, maybe (in that it has a couple of critical speeches pointed at Batman), but Taxi Driver certainly doesn't claim Travis Bickle is a hero, and I hope it's viewers don't think so either. That isn't the case with Batman Begins.

I think I do, but the issue we're debating here is whether Batman Begins is a tragedy, or a "hero story". Or to be more correct, it's both, but I think it emphasizes the hero aspect too much, whereas others might disagree.

"I'll take 'Things That A More Aware/Intuitive Person Wouldn't Say To An African-American' for $800, Alex." Jesus Christ.

Why don't you tell everybody what the fuck you gotta say?

Fuck tha police
Comin straight from the underground
Young nigga got it bad cuz I'm brown
And not the other color so police think
They have the authority to kill a minority

Fuck that shit, cuz I ain't tha one
For a punk muthafucka with a badge and a gun
To be beatin on, and throwin in jail
We could go toe to toe in the middle of a cell

Fuckin with me cuz I'm a teenager
With a little bit of gold and a pager
Searchin my car, lookin for the product
Thinkin every nigga is sellin narcotics

You'd rather see me in the pen
Then me and Lorenzo rollin in the Benzo
Beat tha police outta shape
And when I'm finished, bring the yellow tape
To tape off the scene of the slaughter
Still can't swallow bread and water

I don't know if they fags or what
Search a nigga down and grabbin his nuts
And on the other hand, without a gun they can't get none
But don't let it be a black and a white one
Cuz they slam ya down to the street top
Black police showin out for the white cop

Ice Cube will swarm
On any muthafucka in a blue uniform
Just cuz I'm from the CPT, punk police are afraid of me
A young nigga on a warpath
And when I'm finished, it's gonna be a bloodbath
Of cops, dyin in LA
Yo Dre, I got somethin to say

Fuck the police (4X)

M. C. Ren, will you please give your testimony to the jury about this fucked up incident.>

Fuck tha police and Ren said it with authority
because the niggaz on the street is a majority.
A gang, is with whoever I'm stepping
and the motherfuckin' weapon
is kept in a stash box, for the so-called law
wishin' Ren was a nigga that they never saw

Lights start flashin behind me
But they're scared of a nigga so they mace me to blind me
But that shit don't work, I just laugh
Because it gives em a hint not to step in my path

To the police I'm sayin fuck you punk
Readin my rights and shit, it's all junk
Pullin out a silly club, so you stand
With a fake assed badge and a gun in your hand

But take off the gun so you can see what's up
And we'll go at it punk, I'ma fuck you up

Make ya think I'm a kick your ass
But drop your gat, and Ren's gonna blast
I'm sneaky as fuck when it comes to crime
But I'm a smoke em now, and not next time

Smoke any muthafucka that sweats me
Or any assho that threatens me
I'm a sniper with a hell of a scope
Takin out a cop or two, they can't cope with me

The muthafuckin villian that's mad
With potential to get bad as fuck
So I'm a turn it around
Put in my clip, yo, and this is the sound
Ya, somethin like that, but it all depends on the size of the gat

Takin out a police would make my day
But a nigga like Ren don't give a fuck to say

Fuck the police (4X)

Police, open now. We have a warrant for Eazy-E's arrest.
Get down and put your hands up where I can see em.
Just shut the fuck up and get your muthafuckin ass on the floor.
[huh?]>

and tell the jury how you feel abou this bullshit.>

I'm tired of the muthafuckin jackin
Sweatin my gang while I'm chillin in the shackin
Shining tha light in my face, and for what
Maybe it's because I kick so much butt

I kick ass, or maybe cuz I blast
On a stupid assed nigga when I'm playin with the trigga
Of any Uzi or an AK
Cuz the police always got somethin stupid to say

They put up my picture with silence
Cuz my identity by itself causes violence
The E with the criminal behavior
Yeah, I'm a gansta, but still I got flavor

Without a gun and a badge, what do ya got?
A sucka in a uniform waitin to get shot,
By me, or another nigga.
and with a gat it don't matter if he's smarter or bigger
[MC Ren: Sidle him, kid, he's from the old school, fool]

And as you all know, E's here to rule
Whenever I'm rollin, keep lookin in the mirror
And there's no cue, yo, so I can hear a
Dumb muthafucka with a gun

And if I'm rollin off the 8, he'll be tha one
That I take out, and then get away
And while I'm drivin off laughin
This is what I'll say

Fuck the police (4X)

The jury has found you guilty of bein a redneck,
whitebread, chickenshit muthafucka.
Wait, that's a lie. That's a goddamn lie.
I want justice! I want justice!
Fuck you, you black muthafucka!>

Fuck the police (3X)

Dan, sometimes I hate your way of arguing. Of course I can watch morally complex films and understand them, but if I feel a film presents a morally condemnable character as the hero, don't I have the right to criticize it? There are lots of films where morally dubious protagonists are presented as just human beings, not heroes. And similarly, there are lots of fantasy films where good fights against evil, and that's okay too because you aren't suppose to take them that seriously.

What A Time to Kill is saying that it was ok for the Samuel Jackson character to shoot those two guy for revenge. And in my opinion it's never, never ok to kill another person, unless it's self-defence. Obviously the movie is saying that he had a just cause, and it does deal with issues like racism in a compelling way, but it's conclusion was so clearly against my basic values that I have no choice but say it's irredeemable. I'm sorry if that offends you, Dan, that wasn't my intention.

dan totally otm. you seem unable of handling any complexity whatever. your conception of movies is fucked-up anyway: if SLJ wins his case, therefore the film *totally absolves him*? it's cop-think. i don't think this squeaky-clean pacifism is up to the challenges of the real world, in which the rules are set by the winners (in this case, racists) and the people charged with upholding them corrupt.

Repeat: Finland, Finland, Finland.
The country where I quite want to be,
Your mountains so lofty,
Your treetops so tall.
Finland, Finland, Finland,
Finland has it all.

Fade: Finland has it all...

what if during his revenge, the kkk guys had got the upper hand and killed jackson. would that be ok in your book?

Remember that the League of Shadows is fully entrenched in the GCPD (or GPD, as they're seen in the film). Also, Ra's Al Ghul had already made intimations that he may indeed be immortal (as the character is in the comics), and you'll notice that he can be seen assuming some sort of mediation stance as the train goes down.

Yes, that little teaser of the Joker at the end certainly seemed like a serious plot point and not at all like a lame attempt to set up the sequel.
Are you shitting me? Gordon's bit about escalation quite pointed says, "You have fucked up the natural order, Batman."

and what about killing in the defense of helpless third parties? it's absolutely terrible that an innocent man was killed in london by the police, recently. but if he *had* been a suicide bomber, the police would have been 100% right.

xpost -- sorry, that's my last non-batman post

But Batman doesn't know this, does he? So as far as he's concerned, Ducard dies.

Yes, that is an exception too. But again, rarely is it needed to kill the potential murderer, if there are other ways to stop him. A suicide bombing is a case where that may be required though, obviously.

It is also the source of much soul searching recently in the comics when he kind of realises that the "he catches 'em, they escape from prison, they kill again" riff means he is partially responsible for future murder sprees.

(x-post)