"...I won't argue with anybody who feels that Bane's (i.e. Tom Hardy's) Escape From New York-style imprisonment of Manhattan is like some loony Republican Fantasia of what could happen to this country if leftist hooligans and illegals were left to have their way entirely. " -Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere
"It’s no exaggeration to say that the “Dark Knight” universe is fascistic (and I’m not name-calling or claiming that Nolan has Nazi sympathies). It’s simply a fact." - Andrew O'Heir, Salon
"The Dark Knight = #12." - As ranked by The National Review on their list of The Top 25 Conservative Movies
So is Nolan's Batman a fascist ideal who would make Neitzsche proud? Is he a conservative hero who should charge into battle waving a copy of Atlas Shrugged? There are so many glaring political red flags dropped into the trilogy, there has to be some way to crack the code to find Nolan's not-so-secret political marching orders, right? Right?
Actually, no. The politics of The Dark Knight Trilogy are not a mystery to be puzzled out like the tattoos in Nolan's Memento or the dream realities in his Inception. Quite the opposite, in fact. Here's why:
1. Batman's Superpower
One of the most important parts of Batman's enduring greatness is that he is one of the few superheroes with no superpowers. No flying, no laser vision, no nothing. Just his fists, his brains and all the gadgets his bottomless checkbook can buy.
This is strictly true, but misses one crucial thing that sets Batman apart from regular men: He is incorruptible.
There is an early conversation in The Dark Knight where Harvey Dent argues that ancient Rome would suspend law in times of emergency and appoint one man to protect the city. To this Rachel Dawes rightly retorts that when they gave that power to Julius Caesar he never gave it back and ruled as a dictator for the rest of his life. This is echoed later when Lucius Fox sees the flagrantly unconstitutional surveillance web Batman created to catch the Joker and declares the whole thing a moral and ethical disaster
Not surprisingly, conservatives who choose to interpret The Dark Knight as a defense of Bush-era wire-tapping ignore how many of the film's good guys explicityly declare this practice evil, focusing instead on how the rule-bending was essential to capturing a mad terrorist bomber. They would have a point if Nolan weren't able to skate free from such ethical dilemmas because the one grabbing all the power is effing Batman.
The whole point to limiting the power of the government is the inherent risk of trusting too few people with too much power. Batman nullifies this problem by posing exactly 0% risk. Batman is never going to spy on his political enemies or use this power for financial gain. Sure enough, he destroys the device as soon as soon as the Joker is defeated, so no worries about sliding down a slippery slope to where Gotham's privacy is eliminated and an eccentric, reclusive billionaire gets to watch everyone having sex.
2. The Bad Guys Have No Politics
The Dark Knight Rises is catching heat with those who say that Bane is an analogy for the Occupy Wall Street movement, pointing to his invasion of the Gotham Stock Exchange and his attacks directed at Gotham's wealthy and powerful. This is a great way to fill column inches, but it ignores the fact that Bane's actual plan is to blow up the whole city. This is not a man concerned with economic inequality.
A Batman villain is only political to the degree that anarchy is a political position. Here are the evil goals of the villains of the Dark Knight trilogy:
Ra's al Ghul - Destroy Gotham because it is rotten and corrupt
Scarecrow - Possibly hold Gotham for ransom / Poison people / Be generally insane
The Joker - Terrorize Gotham just to show he can / Screw with Batman
Two Face - Revenge against corrupt people who ruined his life
Bane - Same as Ra's al Ghul, but mess with Gotham first
A real terrorist has political motivations. A real terrorist is trying to influence government actions involving religion or economics or military power or land. A Dark Knight terrorist is not interested in any of those things. They all, to borrow a phrase from Alfred, "Just want to watch the world burn."
So to recap:
Occupy Wall Street: Increase regulation of the economic system so it is no longer rigged in favor of the super-wealthy
Bane: Set off a bomb, killing everyone rich and poor alike.
Yes, Bane makes some noise about the people of Gotham taking their city back, but really, that's Villain 101. From time immemorial villains have seized control of society by attacking those in power and giving speeches glorifying themselves as the savior of the people. Where were the cries of class warfare when the Penguin attacked all of Gotham's wealthy back in Batman Returns, going so far as to attempt to kidnap and drown their first born children?
If you are equating Bane's actions with the left it says a lot more about your political worldview than it does the film's. Look at it his way - If Bane were really interested in waging class warfare he wouldn't have started by murdering hundreds, if not thousands, of poor people.
If you are equating Bane's actions with the left it says a lot more about your political worldview than it does the film's. Look at it his way - If Bane were really interested in waging class warfare he wouldn't have started by murdering hundreds, if not thousands, of poor people.
3. All Superheroes Are Fascist
When Brad Bird was being interviewed by the NY Times upon the release of The Incredibles he repeatedly insisted his goal was to give a new angle on the superhero genre not push a specific political stance. Yet since the release of his film in 2004, The Incredibles has been dogged by charges that it is some kind of love letter to Ayn Rand with its tale of small minded society holding back the truly exceptional individuals. The National Review placed it at no less than #2 on their countdown of the top conservative films of all time.
Now the same knives are out again, this time claiming Dark Knight Rises has fascist overtones. These theories point to the fact that the common corrupt rabble of Gotham need to look to Bruce Wayne, their benevolent, billionaire overlord, to save them from their own crumbling society.
People - all superhero stories are going to taste vaguely of fascism. Hell, the protagonists of Ayn Rands's books are often referred to as "Supermen". Superhero films get away with it because they are obvious works of fantasy which include all the benefits of having unelected, all-powerful individuals cure society's ills with none of the drawbacks. Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Peter Parker et al. operate outside the government but, hey, no problem because they would never abuse that power like a real fascist would. See point #1.
Bird and Nolan get tagged with these charges while others don't because they riffed on applying realism to the genre, thus bringing its buried implications into sharper relief. When Bird extended the logic of superheroes he found that they would be besieged by lawyers, bureaucrats and aggrieved common citizens just like the hero of a Rand novel. Bird was having some fun by adding logic where it wasn't welcome, not writing a fascist manifesto. Same with Nolan, except that he wasn't having a laugh so much as granting his story additional gravitas.
You'll notice there were no charges of fascism thrown around when The Avengers came out even though if there was ever a character out of an Ayn Rand wet dream it's Tony Stark. That's because The Avengers were fighting lizard aliens who shot lasers that went pew pew pew, so the story didn't encourage our brains to think about its political ramifications.
There is a story out there which deals directly with the fascist underpinnings of the superhero genre. It's called The Watchmen, not The Dark Knight.
4. Rorschach Test Politics
Nolan is a smart, talented guy who was never going to be satisfied just making your average superhero flick. So he made a trilogy that updates Batman to reflect the political themes of the day in order to give the Caped Crusader greater resonance. Some have called the politics of The Dark Knight Rises muddy but I think they could more accurately be described as neutral. There are no clear cut political messages because
A) there are no simple answers in life and Nolan enjoys complexity and
B) it's a huge Hollywood motion picture so why would Nolan risk alienating half the audience by pushing specific political views?
As a result, it is not a difficult trick to find evidence for any political interpretation you want in the trilogy. The prevailing charge is that Rises is right-wing propaganda but I could just as easily make it appear to be the work of a raging Lefty. Observe...
- Economic inequality is described as a major problem in Gotham. It is driving the city's poor into the sewers to work for Bane.
- Batman is adamantly anti-gun. Private gun owners who try to assist Batman are portrayed as bumblers who hurt more than they help
- Bruce Wayne is also staunchly against capital punishment, even when it is his loved one who has been murdered
- Selina Kyle is portrayed as mostly positive despite being a thief who specializes in robbing the wealthy.
- Corporations are portrayed as greedy, corrupt and inept. Wayne Corp. creates and then loses a weapon of mass destruction. The only businessman portrayed positively is Thomas Wayne who was a fighter for the poor.
- Banks are depicted negatively, to the extent of being in cahoots with the mob. The police don't come out smelling like roses either.
- Wayne is portrayed in Rises as a terrible businessman who is driving his company into the ground. He maintains his cover throughout the trilogy by acting like a lefty caricature of a rich asshole.
- Batman is pro-government. He is willing and eager to hand over all his power to elected officials.
Whoa! Who wrote these movies, Michael Moore?
The point isn't that I think Rises has a left-wing viewpoint. The point is that this is not a hard game to play. The Dark Knight Trilogy deals in universal themes, not specific political messages. Batman is a symbol designed to spur society towards its noblest impulses, not a thinly veiled conservative demigod.
I'll give Christopher Nolan the last word. He said this during a recent interview with The Guardian:
"It always surprises me when people sort of over-read political interpretations of the film without taking into account that other people have exactly the opposite interpretation. Everybody writes about the politics of the film as if their unique point-of-view was the only one. That surprises me because that's not really how we write the films. They're really written as narrative experiences - entertainments."
There's a reason the Batman debate caught steam and that blowhards are so eager to have Batman in their corner. One interesting facet about superheroes is that they're inherently fascist, as you pointed out, but at the same time are very often used as anthropomorphized stand-ins for America. Spider-man of a young superpower learning to use his power responsibly, Superman of an immigrant nation doing fantastical things, Hulk as a dangerous nuclear monster, Captain America, uh, punching Hitler. This is another case of superheroes being entrenched into the collective subconscious. We try to assign political meaning to Nolan's Batman interpretation because superheroes are by nature political beings and we feel deep down that political meaning should be there. Even the Man of Steel trailer is showing us a blue collar Midwest Superman falling on tough times. My question is: even if it could be avoided that Batman will be viewed as an American ideal, should superhero movies be politically neutral beasts in this day and age? Would you think any less of Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy if he came out tomorrow as a supporter of the Patriot Act? It's a question I don't personally have an answer to, because on one hand superheroes are best when they're allowed to be political, but on the other, shouldn't Batman be for everybody?
ReplyDeleteMakes a lot of good points, but overreaches in some areas and ignores others that don't help it's point.
ReplyDeleteSelina is portrayed positively, but well before the end it's fairly clear that she doesn't believe the slogans she was spouting about a coming storm. Note the scene in which she and her roommate are in a trashed out hotel filled with squatters. She complains that "This used to be someone's home." To which her friend replies "And now it's everybody's." Selina seems far from convinced.
The movie's view of businesses is also more neutral than suggested here. It is a greedy businessman who first hires Bane, but at the same time, the Wayne corperation is funding the city orphanages from it profits. At one point it is explicitly stated that if there are no profits, there can be no philanthropy.
Additionally, Wayne Corp did not build lose a weapon of mass destruction. They built a reactor that was converted into a bomb- after being stolen by a well equipped criminal gang that had spent months preparing. Nor was it Wayne acting like a rich a-hole that drove the company into the ground, it was the eight years he spent acting liked an aged Howard Hughes, never leaving his quarters of involving himself in the running of a company.
And Batman actually never comes out against capitol punishment. He never takes it upon himself to kill criminals, because that is not within the power of any private citizen, even one in a Bat costume. But he never says anything about the government doing it. And you'll notice that for a guy who doesn't believe in killing, he racks up quite a body count.
As for Bane, you're right. He is a psycopath and he's not interested in the people or inequality. He's not a stand in for the occupy movement. But neither is he acting the way all villains do. Sure, most comic book villians make self serving speeches and talk about how their taking back what's rightfully theirs. But Bane is the first, at least in the movies, to explicitly say that he's giving back to the people what's rightfully theirs. He's the first to say that he's acting as a liberator, not just for racial/ethnic group a la Magneto, but for all the little people who have supposedly been held down by those who are better off than them.
The Penguin robbed the rich, he attacked them, he nearly killed their children. But he didn't call himself a hero for doing so and exhort the people of Gothem to do the same. He did not have Scarecrow set up "peoples' courts" where people are put on trial for being rich.
But no, Bane is not Occupy Wall Street. He is Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Min, Pol Pot, and every other psycopath who came to power atop a sea of blood while spouting bull about helping the people. You're right, a populist who believes in equality would not start by killing hundreds of poor people, yet every man I've named rose atop the bodies of thousands or millions of peasents, either killed for not pledging loyalty or used as cannon fodder, all seen as necessary sacrifices to achieve their visions of utopia/ cementing of personal power.
Don't you think all those shots of empty store shelves, of round the block breadlines in knee deep snow look a lot like Moscow in the bad old days? Is there no parallel between Bane "liberating" the city only to nuke it, and the way Pol Pot "liberated" Cambodia, only to abandon all cities and kill half of its people in concentration camps? Of course Bane never believed any of what he said, neither did any of history's 'populist saviors.'
I still would say that this is not a thouroughly right-wing film (Batman does give his power to the government, his competitors and some of his board members fit the greedy businessman stereotype, the mob did run the banks, and he has a strong distaste for guns in most situations) but at several points it seems that the author doth protest too much.
" That's because The Avengers were fighting lizard aliens who shot lasers that went pew pew pew, so the story didn't encourage our brains to think about its political ramifications."
ReplyDeleteI'd add to that the fact that the Avengers are a paramilitary organization that has tacit if not official approval of the United States government, and several of their members are former CIA agents or U.S. super soldiers. My point being that "Conservatives" love to talk about the politics of Batman because it takes place outside normal power structures, whereas the Avengers are an extension of existing power structures and to call into question the politics of that is to call into question the actions of the United States military-industrial complex.
I'm glad you point out that talking about Bane's "politics" is absurd since he was using said politics as a smokescreen, because if people knew his actual goal they might try to stop it. He was doing exactly what he told Bruce Wayne he'd do... give people hope to keep them in line. In this case, he gave the United States government hope that he had some sort of demands that could be met, and therefore they didn't rush to action. Whereas if they knew a bomb was going off in 5 months regardless, they certainly would have done more than send in 3 dudes disguised as delivery men.
If anything, Bane's politics seem incredibly muddled and not particularly leftist at all, which makes sense when you consider that it's all a manipulation. He plays off Occupy sentiments so that the 99 percent won't rise up when he dismantles the cities power structure and eliminates the kind of people who have the resources and influence (like a Bruce Wayne would) to organize people. But once they're taken down, he simply takes the place of that power structure and continues to hold down the little people moreso than the rich were. Remember, the problem with Stalin wasn't that he was a communist, it was that he was a despot. Politics was just a red herring.
The thing that most bugs me about people reading politics into summer tentpole movies is that between the director's vision, the multiple writers, the studio notes, and the half-century of stories that the film is adapted from, trying to parse out a single, coherent political viewpoint is like reading the future in tea leaves. Sure, you can do it, but it's not necessarily going to be meaningful. Sure, some of the stuff Batman does is because Chris Nolan has an issue he wants to explore. But some of it he does because that's what Batman did in the comics and people would be made if it was changed. And some he does because Chris Nolan thinks it'll look cool and just needs some - any - explanation for why he'd choose to do that.