Batman is George Bush (despite what AVClub says). He tortures and spies on people with no regard to the law. (The torture was unnecessary and was a tactic by The Joker to get The Batman to sell out his values i.e. bin Laden got us to sell out American values). And the movie concludes saying The Batman is not going to be popular and is no hero i.e. Bush's extremely low approval ratings. However, we still need The Batman to do the dirty work i.e. Jack Baurer i.e.^2 Dick Cheney. So they are basically saying Bush superficially seems evil but he is doing the necessary work to protect us. An unusually conservative message for a Hollywood movie.
I would have preferred the movie ending with The Batman realizing his hardcore vigilantism actually does more harm than good despite his good intentions. TDK initially has this message with Alfred telling The Bruce Wayne that he created The Joker and his followers by "pounding them, and in their desperation they followed a man they didn't fully understand" i.e. our violent actions abroad have indirectly created more terrorists. As for Harvey Dent.... I guess in my interpretation he would be the left-wing trying to solve terrorism the legal route with diplomacy but we are basically hypocrites and if we were ever directly affected by terrorists we would sell out our values.
Yes, I watched it.
15 years ago
2 comments:
Totes agree. I don't like it when superhero movies have people be evil for evil's sake. Spider-man villains are all "when bad things happen to good people," and I think the Batman villains in other contexts have a lot of cool deformities and mental illnesses that explain some of their hatred for the world. But TDK was about undefinable EVIL, instead of injustice or revenge.
Anyway, you've given me inspiration for a great blog entry...
But you must enjoy when Daniel-Day Lewis is evil for evil's sake.
It would have been ultra lame if they did some kind of back story to The Joker and made him sympathetic.
Villains that are evil for evil's sake are creations of the right wing and do not exist in reality. But Alfred speech sympathizing with the criminals for "following a man they didn't understand" is trying to play it both ways. So TDK starts off liberal and ends conservative. Which is fine by me because the last 1/3rd is where the film loses its way (the Prisoner's Dilemma in real life! Batman has 3D spy glasses! Two Face looks like The Mummy! Philosophical meandering monologue on the nature of heroism!)
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