My Owner took me to see Dark Knight Rises a couple of days ago. It’s a fantastic movie. And, since I have had a Catwoman fetish since I was 13 I have to say up-front that Ann Hathaway rocked! Woof!!! (But Michael Phiffer is still my favorite.)
Chris Nolan is one hell of a writer/director. I love his take on the Batman character… even
if it’s not a character I, personally can entirely get behind. He definitely draws a lot from the Frank
Miller Batman. In the mid 1980s, during
the middle of the Reagan-Thatcher era, Miller re-created Batman as a violent,
gritty, neoconservative super-hero. The
elements were always there, but Miller brought them more to the foreground. Miller overtly drew attention to the
difference between Superman and Batman.
Superman was created in the Depression and spent his early years
fighting against slum lords, greedy industrialists, and corrupt
politicians. Michael Chabon called him
“FDR in a cape.” What’s more, Superman
was created by a couple of first generation Jewish-Americans as an allegory of
the immigrant experience. This was and
era when you had lots of different European minorities (Jews, Poles, Irish…)
arriving in America
and living in urban ghettos. Superman is
an immigrant w/ a Jewish name (Kal’el is Hebrew) who comes to America … and assimilates, wrapping
himself in the flag, the American dream, and mom, and apple pie.
Comics artist Dave McKean has said that he never liked
Batman b/c of this whole idea of, “a billionaire who uses his wealth and power
to beat-up on the urban underclass and the mentally ill.” (And it could be noted that most of the crime
victims Batman protects are upper-middle or upper-class socialites.) Batman and Superman represent very different
social philosophies… those of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke respectively. Hobbes, who endured the English Civil War of
1642-1651, had a bleak view of how human beings would act if they were
unrestrained by society and civilization.
He’s famous for his summation of the quality of life men would lead in
an anarchist “state of nature” (i.e. without the constraints of civilization):
“solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
(Think of Lord of the Flies
here.) He developed the notion that we
sacrifice individual freedoms in order to guarantee the wellbeing of the whole
community. Now, Hobbes believed that
human nature was so base, so greedy, and so vicious that only a totalitarian
state ruled over by an iron-fisted monarch could keep us out of bedlam. John Locke took a more sanguine view of human
beings, and he made it the responsibility of the government to legislate for an
uplifting environment for the improvement of its subjects… so his social
contract was a two-way street, and he argues for the right of the governed to
revolt if the government is not upholding its end of the deal (and we know what
Thomas Jefferson and his buddies did with that notion).
In Chris Nolan’s second Batman film, he really introduced
this neoconservative subtext by having Batman build a machine to illegally spy
on every cell phone in Gotham . This was an obvious parallel to the Patriot
Act’s warrant-less wiretapping and domestic spying. The film presents an authoritarian Batman
trampling on people’s rights b/c it’s the only way he can protect them from the
terrorist Joker. Even the end w/ Batman
slinking away hated and hunted by the people of Gotham
(in favor of the hope-inspiring, change you can believe in, Harvey Dent), I
thought it was a deliberate analogy of George W. Bush leaving office w/ the
lower approval ratings than Nixon had when he was forced to resign… and smugly
saying, “You might not like me, you might hate me and love Dent/Obama, but I
protected your asses from terrorist by any means necessary.”
In Dark Knight Rises
Chris Nolan continued to (I think correctly) portray Batman largely as a Hobbesian,
authoritarian, neo-con. The movie does
an excellent job of drawing on imagery from the French Revolution – which was
history’s classic example of liberalism run-amok… pushed too far the 99%
rose up and overthrew the 1%... and then degraded into a tyrannical
bloodbath. (It’s interesting to note
that one of the first masked superheroes was the Scarlet Pimpernel, an English
aristocrat who helped protect French aristocrats from the murderous thugs of
the French Revolution and reign of terror.) It was in reaction against the French Revolution
that Edmund Burke outlined the theory of conservatism Reflections on the War in France. In the new film, Bruce Wayne even looses his house, and I feel like we’re supposed to
feel bad for all those multi-billionaires who lost some of their vast wealth in
the financial crisis.
One of the most troublesome questions raised in this film
(particularly in light of the Colorado
mass-shooting) is the question of guns.
Batman is famous for his hatred of guns.
Dennis O’Neil even did a well known pro-gun-control Batman story in the
comics called “Seduction of the Gun.” In
Nolan’s film, Batman is still depicted as anti-gun but Catwoman is not, and
there’s a little debate between them about “the no guns thing.” Well, (w/o giving much away) at a climactic
moment in film, Catwoman saves Batman’s life by using a gun, and she even says,
“I’m not so sure about your whole no guns thing.” (I couldn’t help but wonder if the line was
specifically inserted to make NRA enthusiasts cheer.) The film seems to want to say that Batman is
wrong in his stand and w/o using guns then he would have failed to save the
city. Needless to say, I prefer my Catwoman with a whip... ;)
Neil Gaiman said about Frank Miller’s neoconservative,
authoritarian super-hero, “I don’t agree w/ those beliefs, and I don’t even know
if Frank holds those beliefs, but it made for an interesting story.” I don’t know about Chris Nolan’s political
beliefs… but I do think he correctly captured the political/philosophical
subtext behind the Dark Knight… and he told a damn good story! I give his films an A+. But I’m worried about the upcoming Superman
film written and produced by Nolan and directed by Zach Snyder (300, and Watchmen). It’s not the team
I would have chosen for a Superman film.
I just don’t want to see a dark and gritty Superman. I don’t want to see a bloody, violent
Superman. I don’t want to see a
realistic Superman. Superman isn’t
realistic – he’s idealistic! Superman is
the stuff of fantasy. And, while it
worked appropriately for the Dark Knight, I certainly don’t want to see a
neoconservative Superman. Please, no!
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