Although I avoided spoilers in last week’s review, I note that novelist Andrew Klavan has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal examining “What Bush and Batman Have in Common”:
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.
Kyle Smith’s review at PJM similarly contends that The Dark Knight is a conservative film. Indeed, the review from Dana Stevens at Slate last week sees post-9/11 themes in the film, while arguing the opposite conclusion:
[T]he movie seems to arrive at much the same conclusion about Batman as Americans have about Bush: Thanks to this guy, we’re well and thoroughly screwed.
And hilzoy hints that Klavan is like Heinrich Himmler. Because of the Godwinian subtlety.
In a recent interview at Rope of Silicon, screenwriters Jonathan Nolan and David Goyer address the political questions in a a more politic manner:
Can you talk about the role that politics played in your writing and if it was used as a guide or something that was supposed to be picked up on while watching the film?
JN: To me any kind of overt political reference in a film is going to pull me out of it. I’m going to start thinking about that rather than about the movie. The fact that there were resonances in this film with contemporary situations to me suggests the fact that for seven years the comic book has been interested in really interesting questions. A lot of the stuff that in the film feels contemporary, Batman wrestling with the question of how far is too far in trying to catch someone? They are as old as stone in the books. They have been there since the very beginning. That question of Batman as a vigilante and what’s appropriate, what’s legal, what’s not legal, what does he do? That’s always been to me the driving question of the franchise.
DG: People say, “Oh there are references to 9/11,” and to the extent that we tried to paint a realistic portrayal of Batman, yes we are going to bump up against those, but if The Joker is an anarchist and when the anarchy movement began at the turn of the century they were blowing up bombs all over Europe and employing classic terrorist methods. So, if anything we were drawing from that as opposed to specifically 9/11 or anything like that. Also I think one of the distinctions that needs to be made between what The Joker is doing and the terrorists of today, is that The Joker doesn’t have a cause. He’s not trying to get the people of Gotham to do anything to release someone.
Goyer’s answer, imho, is semi-disingenuous, once you consider the various political associations of early 20th century anarchism, Osama bin Laden’s ever shifting grievances against the West, or The Joker’s actual demands in The Dark Knight. But it is artistically and politically smart of them not to concretely politicize the movie. Moreover, the screenplay leaves enough ambiguities and has enough differences from a purely partisan view of 9/11 (from any point on the spectrum) to be thought-provoking without being heavy-handed or didactic.
Plus, this video demonstrates how hard it is to distinguish Pres. Bush from the TV Batman. The icing is the appearance of the Moonbatman.
(h/t Memeorandum.)
BWHAHAHAHAHAH…
The video is priceless, especially for the spittle-flecked loon – guess it was a little too warm for him to be wearing his foil hat.
Honestly, there is no reason to “politicize” any film, unless you are trying to flog the public on your superior politics (see all the failed lefty anti-us-solider-in-iraq movies of late).
I haven’t see Dark Knight yet (next week, we’ve promised to wait until stepson is here to see it together) but a good film that will last more than the contemporary decade in which it was made is one that deals with universal values and the struggles that surround those values.
And that’s what the BDS suffers dismiss. They have never nor will they ever give the President, or by extension any Rethuglikkkan, Neo-zionist-con, etc, the benefit of good faith values. The only time you see the word “evil” gratuitously slathered around the proggsphere is in connection with Bu$HitlerCheneyZionistHaliburton, never with jihadists.
The metaphor seemed overt to me when I saw the film. Frankly, I expected to read a lot more criticism of the movie because of it.
Oh, and, “Moonbatman” — @#$%ing priceless.
– Lex Truther
“He (Bush) is a coke addict.”
We ought to run that segment everytime one of our trolls tries to make the point that there is no such thing as BDS.
I thought Bush was a lying heartless cretin, perhaps the only ape without PETA as an advocate?
I admit to a visceral dislike of a person I worked with over the years. His mannerisms and fractured English annoyed me. The only real resolution was to keep my distance, and wait for him to leave, which he did. You don’t have to like everybody.
I couldn’t belittle the guy or sabotage him or anything like that. Morality, ethics, and what I owe my employer aside, I have a better self-image than that.
I wonder why these Bush bashers do it? What do they really think of themselves? Does anyone have a high opinion of any of the relentless critics? They never seem to be around when the tough choices have to be made. There are never any drawbacks to what they would have done.
MarkD,
Kyle Smith’s review addresses your last point directly.
Believe it or not, that isn’t the only Bush-Batman comparison making the rounds right now.
WWB,
Yes, that’s the last link in the post, just a different format.
Who obsesses over politics so much they can not watch a COMIC BOOK movie without drawing analogies?
Obama reminds me of Panthro from Thundercats.
http://www.cheezey.org/thundercats/gallery/panthrogallery.html
The Thundercats Zone is a ‘No Puritan Zone’. Don’t say you weren’t warned Puritans.
Having read Kyle Smith’s review, I see internet trolls as ineffectual Joker wannabe’s.
I haven’t seen this movie so I don’t know whether Ledger’s Joker can take a joke at his own expense; other versions of him couldn’t.
Normal, non-internet-navel-gazing humanoids don’t think about this kind of fucking stupidity when they go to the movies. If anything regarding the Chimp passes through their minds, it might be:
Christian Bale: Hot
George W. Bush: Not
Panthro? I wanna see Cheetara.
“The Chimp”…? Didn’t Milton Berle play him in the 1960s “Batman” TV show?
Karl — Whoops, I scanned the links, but missed that. Mea culpa!
Mr. Pink: The third picture down on the left column on your Panthro link is disturbing.
I’m not convinced that Dark Knight is a flat-out conservative film. I think it ends on a note of a highly costly victory for the forces of life and liberty over the forces of terror, but with enough ambiguity crafted into the script that it can be argued from both sides. That said, in contrast to the endless stream of preachy america-as-villain films, Dark Knight looks positively right wing, but only in that context.
I really appreciate that the Nolans went out of their way to keep direct references to current politics out of the movie. I remember watching Children of Men a few years ago, brilliantly filmed, well acted, and with an intriguing story. Unfortunately the director decided that the squares in the audience needed their world shaken, and threw in a few direct references to the current WoT, despite the fact that the film takes place 30 years in the future and the current war doesn’t factor into the milieu of the film. Completely removed me from the film, and I never got back into it. It was like eating a big cake with a piece of shit right in the middle. Doesn’t matter how good the cake is, all you taste is the shit.
Same goes for The Kingdom and the incredibly lame and mind-bogglingly shallow moral ambiguity ending that was tacked on. Watched that last night on HBO and really enjoyed it, wish I had turned it off about 5 minutes before the film ended.
Waves at McGehee. I was checking out your blog and see that you are a fellow native of Sackatomatoes! Yay! Hee hee, you probably grew up in the Jerry Brown/Willie Brown Era? Sweet. Many conservatives were forged from the fires of that era.
My how shallow of you Lisa, then again isn’t shallow what haute couture is all about?
One more thing about Hollywood, no matter how anorexic you may try to be, you are never going to be The Velvet Mafia’s type darling.
In any case, I am hot for men who appreciate Bush.
Pre-Marxist non-authoritarian fantasy-communists and Revolution-propaganda-nostalgic (and Revolution-hating) French expatriate porch-manifesto drunks? Batman looks bored.
So —
Leon Czoglosz, anarchist-by-alibi (as almost all “anarchists,” Jokers included, are), brought us the Progressive Era — at least what parts of it our next President, whoever he is, seeks to embody.
Way to go, jackoff.
“Didn’t really have to” Did the British in Northern Ireland, the French in Algeria, the Malays during their insurgency, did they follow the Geneva Conventions. What is the obligation when the other party doesn’t follow the rules, from the Colombian drug kingpins that take down airliners and court houses to AQ. The Anarchists wanted a certain degree of ‘social justice’, they thought the system was broadly unreformably. The Quellists I mentioned earlier are in that same tradition. That’s why they went after known targets, Sadi Carnot, Canovas, McKinley,back in the 19th and Early 20th Century
The Joker to paraphrase Alfred, “just wants to see the world burn”; extending the Tim Burton variant to the scale of a villain from Die Hard, specially
the middle films.
Hadlowe: I did not see that in Children of Men. Perpetual war and chaos was integral to PD James’s novel, which was written way before the current War on Terriers (he wrote it in 1992 I believe, but it is weirdly prophetic in parts). This kind of Perpetual War and war-for-the-sake-of-distracting-the-masses theme is a pretty universal theme in most dystopian stories. Alfonso Cuaron did not set out to insult your political sensibilities.
I really appreciate that the Nolans went out of their way to keep direct references to current politics out of the movie.
Agree.
I don’t like it when people search for parallels, either. (Yes, sometimes they are obvious attempts by the filmmakers and can’t be ignored.)
I really just want to watch the movie.
Syn: Meeeeeoooooooooowwwwwwwwwwww pfffffft pfffffft. I, unlike you, don’t have personal feelings about Hollywood and whether they would think I was the next Halle Berry or not. I am pretty value-judgement neutral on that issue. Sounds like there are some inferiority issues at work here that I am don’t have the training to help you with.
I don’t claim to know, but have always had the impression that PD James was(is?) a woman? Am I wrong about that?
To be fair, Halle Barry was more than willing to show us the goods. You can’t compete if you aren’t willing to play the game Lisa.
Did everyone get tired of arguing with Nishi in circles yet?
Yes, Perpetual War and its close relative, Distractive War, have been around for a long time. The Prince addresses the notions, and there have been many treatments since, notably Nineteen Eighty-Four.
What is notable in recent treatments is the exceptionalism, sometimes slipping over into full-throated jingoism. Apparently the United States (or, for some of the more cosmopolitan commenters, “the West”) is capable of such a thing. Jihad, in the form espoused by the disciples of Qutb and the Islamic Revolutionists of Iran, is precisely and unapologetically Perpetual War, and is used by its proponents specifically as a method of concentrating the minds of Muslims on externals so as to eliminate reflection upon the incompetence of their rulers.
What has never been commented on, so far as I am aware, is how to respond. The focus of all the analyses I’m familiar with is on the vileness of those who would wage Perpetual War, with no treatment whatever of what to do if one finds onesself on the other side. (If such treatments exist I would be grateful for pointers. I’m not nearly as well read as some may assume.)
ISTM that “proportional response”, in any guise including “treat it as a police matter”, is exactly the wrong way of going about it when one finds onesself attacked as part of Perpetual War. It plays directly into the tactics of the wagers of Perpetual War, keeping the cost low enough that they can afford to make it genuinely Perpetual, or at least dragged out indefinitely. Further thought required.
Regards,
Ric
Sdferr you are probably right.
Cheezit, Syn. You get into a bad pack of donuts last night? That was teh wrongness.
I can’t even spell Halle Berry right. I quit.
I think you are right, Ric. I don’t know that there has ever been an angle wasn’t “rebell against the machine” theme or “be crushed by the machine”.
Ric, I have long espoused in my weaker, more emotional moments such thoughts as “kill them all” and “grind the bastards to dust”. Didn’t get very far with that though. Such thoughts can and do pop in for a visit every once in a while.
Looks like the crazy Lisa showed up today.
As noted in the original post, I think the screenwriters here were pretty good about not making it an agenda film. And I know at least one man I consider brilliant who did not consider the the political subtexts until I mentioned them. That being said, they are certainly there, even if ambiguous.
Crazy DELICIOUS, maybe.
Rob you are always a dick. At least you are consistent though.
Sarah YOU are scrumptuous, girlfriend.
Lisa,
I must respectfully disagree with you re Children of Men. Cuaron played down the pro-life themes of the book, played up the immigration angle, stuck BDS propaganda on the sets and runs Jarvis Cocker’s “Running the World” over the end credits, just to make sure we get the point.
None of which precludes me from agreeing with Hadlowe that the movie was well made. I would add that the cinematography in particular was off the hook.
I can’t comment first-hand on the film….I’ve yet to take it in.
But Plenty of folks do go to movies for light diversion and don’t invest heavily in metaphor. Seems like there is something for everyone in this version.
SarahW,
I agree about the crazy delicious, though it makes me sad all over again over the McGosling split.
Also agree with Hadlowe about The Kingdom. A well-balanced film except with the ending, which is crap (and that’s being charitable about the first 3 minute intro). Berg seems to have a problem with endings (see Hancock; or don’t).
That movie Sniper with Mark Walberg made me want to gag. He should have just put “I hate McCheneyHaliburton” in the end credits.
Me neither Sarah, I will probably check it out this weekend. I am sure that Bale will be HOT, Ledger will be brilliant, and the beer that I sneak in in my purse will be icy and delicious.
Karl who is McGosling?
Well, “to thine own self be true”.
What particularly struck me was your use of “Chimp” to refer to the President.
Lisa,
McGosling is (was) Rachel McAdams & Ryan Gosling.
It’s a Lazy Sunday reference for the crazy deliciousness.
If it makes you feel better Rob I said Obama looked like Panthro from Thundercats.
If only Obama was one one-hundredth as cool as Panthro, he’d be president already.
I went to see the movie on Wednesday, and the political implications didn’t even really register with me, even though I’d read a bit about them before going to see it.
To paraphrase Freud…Sometimes a movie about Batman is just a movie about Batman.
Comment by luagha on 7/25 @ 10:30 am #
If only Obama was one one-hundredth as cool as Panthro, he’d be president already.
Plus he would be able to use nunchuks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZaPsUfpqVo
#42: Mr. Pink, I agree that “Shooter” was a piece of shit. The book “Point of Impact”, by Stephen Hunter, on which the movie was (very)loosely based, was outstanding. As are all of Hunter’s books.
My bad on botching the name. Was a complete piece of garbage I saw on a 14 hour plane flight to Beijing in 2007. I would have definately turned the channel had I been able.
Lisa.
The perpetual warfare elements I had no problem with, part of the milieu and all that. If he had confined his political grandstanding to loose allegory, I would have stayed in the story completely.
I was referring to the several direct references to GWB, including a bumper sticker that says Fuck Bush displayed center screen for several seconds. Subtle as a jackhammer. It’s not a problem with offending my political preferences, it’s a problem with storytelling. Cuaron failed to see that including specifically anti-Bush propaganda in a film set 30 years in the future is a jarring anachronism, something along the lines of introducing a Kennedy/Nixon campaign item into Fight Club just to let us know what the director thinks of that villain Nixon. Disbelief unsuspendered, and for something as gauche as a throwaway political jab.
Hell they are even throwing McHitlerBurton conspiracies into video games now. I played a game called Army of Two recently and the ficticious private army was named BlackMountain. They started fake wars and basically were basically every leftist characiture of Blackwater you could ever imagine.
Ohhhhh. Thanks K-dog. That totally went over my head.
How about “Perpetual Revolution?”
Oh, wait, that’s Mao….
Lisa – How are you doing, sugartits?
We patiently await your linky evidence of same ;-)
Saw this movie on IMAX. Great flic. Entertained me. That is all I wanted. I ignored the underlying themes.
Speaking of Gosling, Lars and the Real Girl is currently my favorite movie.
Bale was hot but too infrequently shirtless.
Ledger was brilliant and it made me really sad.
One thing I love about seeing movies in LA is that people treat it like live theater. Ledger received wild applause when he first appeared on screen.
Well, not native, but I grew up there.
Jerry is one of those, along with Jimmah, whom I sometimes credit for turning me away from the Dark Side. McGovern gets some credit too, though, for being all “cut-‘n’-run” about Vietnam when he ran against Nixon in 1972 — which means even though I was only ten I had a more mature view of that war than a veteran Democrat Senator.
These days some Dem Senators have the excuse of being younger than I am, but…
JDizzle!!!! Shizzle my nizzle! (That means happy Friday in ebonics).
What goes on with the right margin?
Damn, Lisa. I translated that to mean “please lick Cool Whip off of my pointy nips”.
Good grief, I get busy at work for a few days and Lisa starts channeling Snoop.
At least JD’s still got boobs on the brain.
MayBee,
It hits too close to home for me. I kid. ;-)
And people at the TDK midnight show in Chicago also applauded when Ledger first appeared. He had me with the magic trick.
As for the margin, I’m not sure, though I suspect something with the ads might be conflicting with the CSS occasionally. Hitting F5 usually fixes it for me.
It looks like the HP printer ad is messing with the margin, it’s also appearing very small on IE.
Hadlowe yeah that was pretty clumsy. It didn’t really stand out to me because of my general agreement with the sentiment. However, now that I look back at it, it was pretty overt.
I generally don’t catch such things because I figure I don’t have any desire to control what some director wants to stick in his movie even if it is overtly political. They have no obligation NOT to be overtly political if they want to be. Sometimes it is worth commenting on if it is really clumsy and ill-timed. But other than that, meh.
But I get your point now. I suppose the little jabs could be jarring if your political philosophy is constantly the butt of the joke.
You Americans and your movies. You know those people hate you and you just don’t care. It’s kind of sweet.
He’s a coke addict, his brain is destroyed, it’s the only way he’ll escape prosecution, it’s a horror this has been inflicted on our country, this whole thing is stupid, I can’t even answer these questions … HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA ha ha ha ha ha …
… ha ha ha ha ha … Oh wait. That’s NOT funny.
I asked a number of anti-war types in 2002 and 2003 if they’d never read a Batman comic book.
The Bat’s always been an exemplar of how to treat terror.
Hi. Lisa, ya bleedin’ heart radical, you! JD: you’re a sexist.
J Howard and I had a discussion several months back about “cartoon” movies; those that delibrately fantasize elements of the story to make some personal political point. Some are clumsier than others.
“Children of Men” is a terrific movie and I was able to move past the anti Bush stuff (I assume the director was trying to make the point that the conflict and immigration issues were a result of his policies. It was hamhanded.) It manages to avoid the cartoon tag because of the quality of the work, imho. “Shooter” was a “cartoon,” which is a shame because the Wahlberg character was cool and I really wanted to like the movie. Danny Glover “cartoonized” the movie all by himself with his over the top “greedy evil corporate spook.”
The worse one I can remember of the “cartoon” genre (and keep in mind that I haven’t seen any of the antiwar flicks of the last 2-3 years) was “The Good Shepherd.” I seriously thought about calling Comcast to get my On Demand money back. There was a really good reason why it was a “fictionalized” account of the history of the CIA. Every character in that pile of monkey crap was a cardboard cutout metaphor of a leftists “cartoon image” of the CIA. Everyone spoke in fertive whispers, looked glum and screwed each other at every opportunity (when they were not being quiet lunatic idealogues or doing Skull and Bones all male reviews.) The movie ends with the Damon character shuffling back to his office, his life in a shambles while he contemplates the misery of the rest of his days. Barf-O-Rama.
Over the top “cartoony” and unwatchable. “Dark Knight” will be seen next Wednesday at the Imax theater.
Any others come to mind?
Jim in KC – And that is different than any other day in what way?
BJ – Sexist. And a racist. You must not forget that I am a racist.
OT – But I really enjoyed Ledger in A Knight’s Tale. I just really enjoyed that movie. Plus, the chick was hot. I am really a very simple boy.
RTO: Frank Miller is supposedly working on Batman vs. al Qaeda.
JD: A Knight’s Tale is a guilty pleasure for me as well. Paul Bettany is funny, Shannyn Sossamon is teh hawt.
The last Die Hard movie was a cartoon in the sense that the action sequences were hopelessly unreal. However, I had fun anyway.
Ah, fine Shannyn. She was great in 40 Days and 40 Nights, another guilty pleasure.
JD,
40 Days is not as much a pleasure, with the exception of one or two scenes. You know the ones I mean.
I also second cranky-d on Live Free or Die Hard. Plus, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Maggie Q.
I saw “The Dark Knight” the day after opening day. I’m not one to go to a movie and see politics, unless the director is force feeding them down my throat. This didn’t really force feed anything, it just turned up the amps on a lot of the issues that we’ve been dealing with recently and has been around for a long time. Nolan probably turned the amps up to 11 with “TDK”. I don’t see the “Bush is Batman”, what I did see is that we’ve become to ‘sanitized’ to the reality that surrounds us. I still love the ending and premise for the next movie; the hunt for “Batman”. If you’re a comic book fan, or a long time cartoon show fan, this storyline has major legs. I can’t wait to see what Nolan does with it. Oh and Heath Ledger’s ghost? I am so gonna kick your butt!
Hey BJ!!!! I was bored to death by The Good Shepherd. My sister and I went to see it and we were snoring our asses off. Could be that when anyone starts mentioning Skull and Bones I go into a deep dissociative fugue.
BJ, the worst political movie in the WORLD was that stinker with Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, and Tom Cruise. Oh. My. God. That was AWEFUL. Stanktastic. Horrific. I illegally downloaded that movie and I still wanted my money back.
BWAA HAHA, I would think so! You mean to say that there were no “sistas” in the Skull and Bones? :-)
The Good Shepherd was not only stultifyingly boring, none of the characters were the least bit sympathetic. By the end of the movie I just wanted all of them to be swallowed up by an open pit to the earth’s core. Bleah!
Oh my daughter warned me off of that one, saying it was the preachiest, most unpleasant movie she had seen in the last five years. I thanked her.
Then again, she didn’t like “Atonement,” a movie I loved.
Yes, Miller describes it as “A piece of propaganda in which Batman kicks al Qaeda’s ass.”
What’s not to love? And he even knows that “propaganda” is not a dirty word.
Hmmm. Not going to be Batman now…
“I have a bunch of drawing I want to do,†he said. One project, which began as “Holy War, Batman!,†a series with a post-9/11 context, has shifted. “As I worked on it, it became something that was no longer Batman. It’s somewhere past that, and I decided it’s going to be part of a new series that I’m starting.â€Â
Y’all like that highbrow kind of stuff. Me? Talladega Nights, Old School, Jackass, Billy Madison. Oh, and Tombstone.
RTO: Miller’s movie adaptation of The Spirit looks to be full of teh hawt women. Here’s the new trailer at Yahoo! movies.
JD,
Someone going to Stepbrothers, I would guess.
BJ ha ha ha! I agree. They could have all gotten tossed out of that plane for all I cared.
I agree with your daughter. A more annoying movie has never been made. Seriously. What was it called? Like Lions for Lambs or something like that. Redford should be embarassed. When even the left Proggosphere pronounce your anti-war movie boring, you can put your ass in the FAIL column.
I agree with Cranky-d about Live Free or Die Hard: That movie was over the top, and it was unabashedly and happily in the “America Will Tap That Ass if You Fuck With Us!” theme – which was pretty nice (even for someone like me, who prefers the moody, dark themes that are supposed make me question my identity and what it means to be an American). The bad guy was lame as hell though. I am mad that you didn’t listen to me and now I am going to shut down the United States infrastructure?! Somewhat of an overreaction to being underappreciated at the office. I preferred the elegant German bastard who just wanted a bazillion dollars wired into his account by midnight or else….but it was pretty awesome to see a car crash into an in-flight helicopter. WTF?!?! Sweet!
yep, we just watched that a couple nights ago. I was rolling, but it was fun.
Interesting how Spiegelman, another one of those edgy New Yorker cartoonists, has a slam against Miller, for his interpretation of the Spirit. Speigelman was one who felt he was “trapped between
Bush and Bin Laden” guess who he hated most. Miller who used to be pretty left, see his Reagan manque in the Dark Knight tales, wins no praise with his “Batman vs, AQ tale.Miller’s also working on an adaptation Phillip Chandler tale with Clive Owen “Trouble is Our Business”
As the king of an amoral universe, as a purveyor of unrestricted evil for fun, Ledger’s dastardly villain, attired as sort of a rotting Clarabell, has chosen his own damnation. He’s jumped into an abyss he has dug himself, and he wants to pull us along.
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