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Friday, June 27, 2014

George W. Bush Is The Dark Knight With A Nine O’Clock Curfew

Conservative film blogger Dirty Harry saw The Dark Knight, and divined something many less incisive critics missed:
The Dark Knight may well be the most conservative movie since 300. There’s just no arguing that the Joker is al-Qaeda and Batman George W. Bush. In between are the citizens of Gotham who have a choice: They can cave to terror, turn on their protector and blame his aggressive crime fighting for the rise of the Joker, or they can understand that appeasing a criminal status quo in their city doesn’t convince the Joker’s of the world to see the light and enroll at community college.
Well thanks for the spoiler, Harry (may I call you Dirty?)  I haven’t seen the movie yet, but if The Batman is supposed to represent George W. Bush, we can pretty much guess the plot:  The Joker unleashes a reign of terror, The Dark Knight vows to bring him in, dead or alive, then spends the rest of the film chasing after Kite Man.
(By the way, since the Bush Administration plainly can’t be bothered to hunt for bin Laden in Pakistan, maybe they should try looking for him in community college.  It’s just possible he was tempted by the lower tuition rates, flexible class schedules, and wide selection of vocational courses.)

Posted by scott on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 10:41 pm.

21 Responses to “George W. Bush Is The Dark Knight With A Nine O’Clock Curfew”

kudos to the makers Dark Knight for their record breaking opening weekend… it’s no wonder there’s talk of another one coming out ASAP
“There’s just no arguing that the Joker is al-Qaeda and Batman George W. Bush.”
Really? None at all? So this version of Bats is a drunken fratboy idiot who’s failed upward his whole life and is controlled by Alfred (who’s real, real evil) and sends others to fight the villains while he strums his guitar and/or clears brush?
And then in the big climax he bankrupts Gotham completely, and kills thousands of random citizens in order to bring in Killer Moth and Crazy Quilt, after which he declares “Mission Accomplished” as Joker, Penguin, Poison Ivy, and Two-Face loot and murder at will and the city burns?
AND THEN he accuses the citizens of Gotham of treason when they ask whether it was really worth it? And then they kick his sorry ass into prison and bring in Green Lantern of Wonder Woman to fix things. So it’s a happy ending after all!
Sounds like an…interesting interpretation of the character. It won’t be boring at least.
It adds to the analogy that the actor playing Batman was accused of assault by his sister & mom.
Well, the part where his mother and sister were trying to shake him down sort of takes away from it.
They can cave to terror, turn on their protector and blame his aggressive crime fighting for the rise of the Joker, or they can understand that appeasing a criminal status quo in their city doesn’t convince the Joker’s of the world to see the light and enroll at community college.
You know, all of those have happened.
In COMIC BOOKS!
Oh, Sweet Lordy-Gordy. Why must wingnuts read political agendas into esvapist pop culture? Can’t a movie like this just be entertainment?
Fucking buzzkills*.
*wait-is that the correct word?I’ve never thought to use “buzzkill” in the plural form.
“escapist”.
(Why is it I only spot those damn typos just seconds after I’ve hit “submit”?)
“There’s just no arguing that the Joker is al-Qaeda and Batman George W. Bush.”
I would agree. There’s just no way you can plausibly make that argument.
Hmm. How about the part *spoilers* where the hardened criminals on the ship opt not to blow up the civilians on the other ship to save their skins? Does that not demonstrate that people whom we so enthusiastically Other (as the civilians do in the film) are not in fact incomprehensible, irredeemable monsters? I mean, as long as we’re taking political lessons from fuckin’ Batman…
Gundamhead, I don’t know if you realized, but everyone in Gotham City thinks Bruce Wayne is, as you put it “a drunken fratboy idiot who’s failed upward his whole life”. Maybe if you don’t like movies that have an opinion other than yours, you should have seen Mama Mia instead. Proud Americans will take their 155.34 million to Dark Knight.
I think I can refute this nonsense with a single line from the movie (paraphrased, so excuse me if it’s not exact):
“I saw what I would have to become to defeat men like that.”
A major point of the film is that Batman has rules that he’s not willing to break. It would be useful for him to kill all the criminals he finds, but he won’t. Hearing this ethos lauded as conservative by the “Constitution is not a suicide pact” crowd is both funny and sad.
In fact, if anything Bush is most like Two-Face: a guy who, in his lust for revenge, kills everyone EXCEPT the guy directly responsible for his problems.
“Gundamhead, I don’t know if you realized, but everyone in Gotham City thinks Bruce Wayne is, as you put it “a drunken fratboy idiot who’s failed upward his whole life”.
The difference being, for Bruce it’s an act.
“Proud Americans will take their 155.34 million to Dark Knight.”
Major Blockbuster makes money=Bush vindicated? I’m sure all those Proud Americans are heading off to a fucking Batman movie for the political commentary.
There’s a very thoughtful discussion of this in the comments to Spencer Ackerman’s essay on the same subject. (Major spoilers, though.)
I saw and was impressed by the movie, which is much deeper than Dirty Harry and SoupSandwich realize. Most important, unlike W and Cheney and their cohorts, Batman is willing to except the consequences of his actions.
Aggh! “accept”,”accept”,”accept”!
I would just like to quickly point out some of the allegories between Batman and our current political situation with the war on terror: wiretapping, torture, videotaping hostages, kidnapping foreigners without due process, covering up circumstances of someone death (lying to the public), blowing up buildings using 9/11 imagery, along with the Joker’s other acts of terorism and lack of motivation (other than pure hatred). There are also whole allegorical scenes in the movie such as the ferries (pre-emptive strike) and the public demanding batmans unmasking (Americans wanting an end to the Iraq War). If someone wants to respond back with an alternative reason why these themes would be present in the movie, I will keep an open mind to consider their point of view. As far as I can see though, all these plot points are used to justify Bush’s unlawful and deceitful policies. Bush is a bad president because he has lied about the threat of Iraq in order to go to war there, he has set up secret off-shore prisons to torture people for information, and he has broken the law by wiretapping American citizens. This movie is wrong because the allegory it presents praises Bush’s actions as a necessary evil, instead of criticizing him for his unconstitutional policies. Thank you for reading this and I would enjoy further dialogue on the subject.
I completely disagree with this allegory and I agree with your post. This whole Bush/Cheney thing, I think it’s a little comical. I have written an analysis on that subject in my homepage if you are interested at http://www.encefalus.com.
It’s a bit late for this, but I thought I should respond to Joe. Listen, I don’t know if you’re legitimately concerned or if you’re some sort of strange troll, but either way I’d like to handle your claims.
-Torture never works in the Dark Knight. The Joker flat-out lied after Batman beat him, and Maroni refused to talk even after Batman injured him.
-The Joker isn’t motivated by hatred. Watch it again and pay attention. You could make a plausible argument that Ra’s al Ghul from Batman Begins was motivated by pure hatred, but that’s neither here nor there.
-Batman’s surveillance apparatus is not depicted as a moral good. I think Lucius Fox spelled that out pretty bluntly.
-I’m not sure how the ferry scene reflects a pre-emptive strike. The whole sequence is based on a classic game theory puzzle. But even if you do want to put a political spin on it, how does it JUSTIFY pre-emptive war? Both sides won because they did nothing.
-The unmasking demand could represent a desire to end the war…OR, using the exact same allegory, it could represent the public’s reaction after 9/11. In fact, that makes more sense, doesn’t it? A terrorist attacks and the public overreacts.
Through that lens, the film is a repudiation of the Bush/Cheney doctrine. I could make an argument for that view and support it fully. However, that would be ridiculous as well. Why? Because it’s Batman we’re talking about here. This isn’t some ultra-dense Alan Moore agitprop graphic novel where every little thing represents something in real life.
Hello D Johnston,
I am not some sort of “strange troll”, as you put it. I see that Encefalus has posted on a number of other sites, but I still would not classify him as a “strange troll”. Otherwise, I think your post was, for the most part, intelligently written. I would like to comment on some of the issues you brought up.
-Torture is presented as a viable option for Batman/Bush when questioning terrorists. Though Maroni and Joker don’t tell him everything he needs to know, they do divulge some information. It sends a message of acceptance to the audience and desensitizes their reaction to torture when it is shown in real life. The film used the false ticking time bomb scenario to justify torture, and in the end Batman/Bush is never criticized for its use.
-I don’t think the Joker’s motivation is explained. The mobsters use him to take down Batman so they can continue their crime operations, but that’s not Jokers motivation. The Joker is driven by his hatred of what Batman represents and he uses terrorism (videotaping hostages, blowing up buildings)to fight back. He is portrayed as the neo-con stereotypical Islamic Fundamentalist.
-Batman’s spying apparatus is portrayed as a necessary evil to fight the Joker. This is the same arguement Bush uses to justify his unlawful wiretapping of American citizens.
-I believe the ferry scene was trying to call into question “who will strike first?”. The Bush policy of pre-emptive strike is shown as a viable option through the businessman character, whose choice to strike pre-emptively is based on a concern for the people on the boat. This gives us a false view of Bush’s decision. In real-life, the pre-emptive strike Bush engaged in was not based on concern for the public. We now know that Bush lied about the threat of Iraq in order to get us into a war there.
-I think the unmasking demand could be more aptly as a call to end the war, because that is the more relevant current event, but it could as you say “represent the public’s reaction after 9/11″. I remember there were many protests about starting a war in Iraq, but the government assured us they knew better. In both the movie and Bush’s case for war, the public opinion was seen as naive.
I am not convinced of your opinion that you can change the allegory to make it a “repudiation of the Bush/Cheney doctrine”, but I would like to read your comments about my response. You seem to recognize that there are real-world parallels here but in your last paragraph you dismiss these similarities because it isn’t written by Alan Moore. I think the filmmakers had a definite political point they wanted to get across, one that tries to turn Bush’s unlawful and deceitful policies and holds them up to be a noble, necessary evil. In reality, Bush has lied to senate and congress about the reason for war, set up secret off-shore prison camps to torture people and illegally wiretapped American citizens. I hope people will realize that Bush may be the worst president in American history.
[...] Unless, of course, you’re a Republican, in which case The Dark Knight is a parable for the war on terror with George Bush playing Batman. [...]
I have a question:
Why does the Joker wire Gotham General with hundreds of finely timed
explosives, in order that he can later set them off by remote control ?
Wouldn’t it be far more expedient to fly a small plane (presumably also by remote control) into the top floor of the building, initiating a ‘pancake collapse’?
I don’t think the Joker is meant to represent Bin Laden. If he were, wouldn’t he use the same methodology, rather than the methodology proposed by ‘Loose Change’, ‘Zeitgeist’, et al ?
I think you’re all missing the point.
[...] Unless, of course, you’re a Republican, in which case The Dark Knight is a parable for the war on terror with George Bush playing Batman. [...]

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