Is The Dark Knight... George Bush?

[Bond]

This is an interesting article that was published in the Wall Street Journal last week:

What Bush and Batman Have in Common
By ANDREW KLAVAN
July 25, 2008; Page A15

A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .

Oh, wait a minute. That's not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W."

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.

Conversely, time after time, left-wing films about the war on terror -- films like "In The Valley of Elah," "Rendition" and "Redacted" -- which preach moral equivalence and advocate surrender, that disrespect the military and their mission, that seem unable to distinguish the difference between America and Islamo-fascism, have bombed more spectacularly than Operation Shock and Awe.

Why is it then that left-wingers feel free to make their films direct and realistic, whereas Hollywood conservatives have to put on a mask in order to speak what they know to be the truth? Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense -- values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right -- only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like "300," "Lord of the Rings," "Narnia," "Spiderman 3" and now "The Dark Knight"?

The moment filmmakers take on the problem of Islamic terrorism in realistic films, suddenly those values vanish. The good guys become indistinguishable from the bad guys, and we end up denigrating the very heroes who defend us. Why should this be?

The answers to these questions seem to me to be embedded in the story of "The Dark Knight" itself: Doing what's right is hard, and speaking the truth is dangerous. Many have been abhorred for it, some killed, one crucified.

Leftists frequently complain that right-wing morality is simplistic. Morality is relative, they say; nuanced, complex. They're wrong, of course, even on their own terms.

Left and right, all Americans know that freedom is better than slavery, that love is better than hate, kindness better than cruelty, tolerance better than bigotry. We don't always know how we know these things, and yet mysteriously we know them nonetheless.

The true complexity arises when we must defend these values in a world that does not universally embrace them -- when we reach the place where we must be intolerant in order to defend tolerance, or unkind in order to defend kindness, or hateful in order to defend what we love.

When heroes arise who take those difficult duties on themselves, it is tempting for the rest of us to turn our backs on them, to vilify them in order to protect our own appearance of righteousness. We prosecute and execrate the violent soldier or the cruel interrogator in order to parade ourselves as paragons of the peaceful values they preserve. As Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon says of the hated and hunted Batman, "He has to run away -- because we have to chase him."

That's real moral complexity. And when our artistic community is ready to show that sometimes men must kill in order to preserve life; that sometimes they must violate their values in order to maintain those values; and that while movie stars may strut in the bright light of our adulation for pretending to be heroes, true heroes often must slink in the shadows, slump-shouldered and despised -- then and only then will we be able to pay President Bush his due and make good and true films about the war on terror.

Perhaps that's when Hollywood conservatives will be able to take off their masks and speak plainly in the light of day.

Source: WSJ

I didn't read the film this way, but it's an interesting interpretation.

[BreakABone]

I really don't like the article. It paints the movie into a picture that it wants. I mean wasn't the point of the Dark Knight that Gotham didn't need a hero like Batman. They needed someone like Harvey Dent who could take back the streets with the public's support.

But not a political person, but do love me some Batman.

[The Germanator]

I did think about the "war on terror" aspect of the film and wondered if that was an intended commentary. I never thought that it was pro-Conservative or pro W though. If anything, I feel like the Dark Knight explains that a war on terror doesn't work.

[Bond]

Yeah, I definitely think with an abstract movie, such as The Dark Knight, it's easy to impose your own beliefs into interpretations of the film. The editorial raises an interesting interpretation, but he doesn't make much of an argument and just descends into right / left polarized psychobabble.

I tried to think of supportive examples, and I came up with three:

- Lucious Fox, against his better judgment, uses the sonar computer to track Joker, knowing that what he was doing is highly illegal. After Batman captures the Joker, the machine is destroyed.

- Harvey Dent issues the warrants for the five banks which Jim Gordon wants to search. Not sure on the legality here, but I doubt Dent had the legal authority to issue the warrants with the information which Gordon provided him.

- Batman kills Harvey Dent, compromising his virtues / values in a time of need.

[BreakABone]

-Depends on how you look at it, Batman was the one who built in the self destruct feature. Batman also trusted himself enough to know he shouldn't have given himself the power so he gave it to someone who wasn't as driven by one motivation.

-I don't think there was anything wrong with the warrants. The only problem was that Gordon was giving him very little information but I mean it seemed to be legit enough, but don't know the rules of Gotham.

-Batman doesn't intentionally kill Harvey as far as I read it. I think Batman made an impulse move which he generally doesn't and between being hurt by the Joker and rescuing the little boy, he didn't have time to save Harvey.

[KillerGremlin]

What the fuck does 300 have to do with the Bush administration? If you want to talk about flimsy segues into arguments, talk about starting off on the wrong foot by comparing 300 to a conservative viewpoint.

This dumbass can't grasp the simple nuances of Miller's 300...I wouldn't take any fluff he writes very seriously.

I don't agree with this article. At all. But, in response to the sonar:
Superman has super hearing, and no one gets on his case for hearing everything in the world. Batman only used the device in a time of need; in a ticking bomb scenario.

Someone said that Batman was advocating torture when he started beating the crap out of the Joker in the confession room. Again, I disagree.

Sure, the author of this editorial brought up some good points; the new Batman movie is full of complexities on the subject of morals. But, again, I fail to see the connection to the conservative viewpoint or the Bush Administration's agenda.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by The Germanator

I did think about the "war on terror" aspect of the film and wondered if that was an intended commentary. I never thought that it was pro-Conservative or pro W though. If anything, I feel like the Dark Knight explains that a war on terror doesn't work.

While I agree that this article is a bit of an overstatement, I can't agree with your analysis on The Dark Knight's commentary on the war on terror. The only thing that saved Gotham was Batman breaking the law and violating moral codes by invading people's privacy to locate the man who threatened them. Batman invaded another sovereign nation to bring a foreign criminal to justice. He tortured criminals to get information, almost killing one of them.

The only things that worked were what the Dark Knight used to bring down crime, while the White Knight of Harvey Dent was simply a moral reflection to make people more comfortable with what "had to be done". Whether or not these actions were "right" or "wrong" is another matter than is left open to discussion, and believe intentionally so.

Agree or disagree with the message, but it was the brutality and illegality of Batman's tactics that saved Gotham in that movie.

[KillerGremlin]

Of course, the big difference is that when Batman invaded another nation he didn't do it under false pretenses or made up information.

Also, the movie made it pretty clear that spying on people is morally objectionable, as Morgan Freeman happily demonstrated when he destroyed the device and resigned.

But more so, I think this movie just took the theme that was already used in Spiderman 2 - the weight of being a hero and not being accepted by the people you are trying to help - and applied it to a more realistic scenario. And, it fits much better in the Batman universe, which is much much darker than Marvel's Spiderman.

I felt that the Dark Knight was more of a morality play than a political propaganda piece. It was nice to see, for once, a villain who did not want to take over the world. No, the Joker just wanted to watch the world burn. His interest was not in money or power, just in destruction and chaos. How do you combat a force like that?

[KillerGremlin]

...and before someone draws parallels to terrorists or suicide bombers...
Many of them are performing their act of terror under the pretense that there is some reward...just in the afterlife. Ledger's Joker was almost monster-like, an unstoppable force of evil that is almost impossible to combat.

The type of villain that makes you go, "hey...that guy is scary."

Had they not fucked up Spiderman with the awful Spiderman 3, I would have liked to have seen the appearance of Carnage. Carnage is a brutal serial killer, he could have easily rivaled the destruction of the Joker.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by KillerGremlin

Of course, the big difference is that when Batman invaded another nation he didn't do it under false pretenses or made up information.

I don't believe the film reference was about the Iraq war, but instead the act of special forces entering another nation and plucking out a protected citizen. I believe the act is called "extraordinary rendition" or something like that.

Also, the movie made it pretty clear that spying on people is morally objectionable, as Morgan Freeman happily demonstrated when he destroyed the device and resigned.

But that didn't stop them from doing it, and also didn't make it any less effective. Once again, my points have nothing to do with morality, just effectiveness. It raises the question: "Is morally objectionable activity justified if it facilitates a greater moral good?" I don't pretend to have that answer.

I felt that the Dark Knight was more of a morality play than a political propaganda piece. It was nice to see, for once, a villain who did not want to take over the world. No, the Joker just wanted to watch the world burn. His interest was not in money or power, just in destruction and chaos. How do you combat a force like that?

According to the movie, by using brutal and morally questionable tactics.

And while I agree that the motivation of the "suicide bombers" in the film wasn't the same as those of terrorists in the real world, the movie wasn;t about them... it was partially about a man who takes advantage of those people to meet his ends... just like the rich and educated terrorists are never the ones who strap bombs to themselves, they instead prey on the poor and uneducated. There is a correlation to be made.

OVerral, I think the message is that when faced with terrible, unreasoning evil, understanding is irrelevant. Action is necessary to stop it before the world is reduced to chaos, but also, does that action leave us with a world that is better or just a different kind of bad?

Thats why I think the film has a message, but it doesn't preach. It just poses difficult questions and says there are no clear answers, just choices we must make in a half-blind attempt to find the best result.

[KillerGremlin]

The bottom line is that the movie kicked ass. I think I need to watch the film 17 more times before I get into any serious nitpicking about semantics, because what really made me enjoy the film was Ledger's performance, the awesome cinema, the movie's fast pace, and the overall feel of it.

You are absolutely correct about the movie dealing with facing an unstoppable evil. I just wonder, is such an evil realistic in our society today, and if so who would be the hero to combat such evil?

[The Germanator]

Originally Posted by KillerGremlin

as Morgan Freeman happily demonstrated when he destroyed the device and resigned.

Speaking of Morgan Freeman...

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h...5yzQwD92BOAC00

[magus113]

I heard about that.

I wasn't too happy to hear that. What I'm not going to want to hear is that it's all related to TDK and people involved in it, which you know is gonna happen somewhere.