Grumble Grumble Grumble Politics in the Dark Knight Rises Grumble Grumble

thesargebag:

Massive Dark Knight Rises Spoilers

I’m having a weird time dealing with the (pretty blatant) political message in Dark Knight Rises because as much as I disagree with it, I’m pretty sure it was the right thing to do for this movie.

Batman is a fundamentally conservative, if not outright Randian, superhero. He’s a rich white dude of utter privilege who, through kindness and insane effort, trickles justice down onto the less fortunate inhabitance of Gotham City. He’s a goddamn Republican poster child.

So if you’re making a multi-million dollar Batman movie, what the hell else could you do right now? Ignore occupy Wall Street? If you’re going to be reflective of the times you’re going to have to show Batman laying the Bat-Smack-Down on a collective movement because that’s exactly what Batman would do. If you were out participating in the OWS movement (respect), and Batman were real, he probably would’ve punched you at one point. 

Of course, the characterization of OWS members as gun toting maniacs is slightly offensive, but by that same comparison the characterization of rich people as crime-boss-punching anthropomorphic rodent-men is pretty weird and fetishistic too.

On a slightly related note, have you ever seen a movie before where a bunch of cops charge a bunch of civilians and the movie expects you to root for the cops? That really felt weird, and pushed me out of the movie more than anything else, and I’m not sure why. I don’t hate cops (I think they’re frequently tools for an oppressive system, but I don’t hate them) because for the most part, in my experience, they’re really brave and honorable people. So why did I feel so weird rooting for them? Was DKR intentionally alienating to me because I’m on the left? 

Anway, the worst part was definitely the whole “environmentalists are secret terrorists!” angle that got hammered in at the end. 

13 Notes/ Hide

  1. meisterj reblogged this from thesargebag
  2. sweetsweetsweetdivinething reblogged this from thesargebag and added:
    See, for me the message was “anyone can be evil” and “any movement can be twisted into something horrifying”. Take the...
  3. rambleonsingthatsong said: Are you concerned that the movie didn’t show some sort of Occupy Gotham movement? Frankly, I think if it had been added, those Occupy supporters would have been lumped in with the anarchist villans of the movie and that would hardly be flattering.
  4. assbaka reblogged this from thesargebag and added:
    The cops charging the protestors was pretty uncomfortable to me too. I had to rationalize it by thinking of it as The...
  5. crazykatebites said: I think a sign of a successful and powerful movie is that it makes you feel uncomfortable and question it. I found it interesting to watch a movie where I agreed (a LOT) with the villain but was rooting for the hero the entire time.
  6. thesargebag posted this