(no subject)

[lapsedmodernist]

I saw "The Dark Knight," and it was really dark and really good, and Heath Ledger was as amazing on-screen as every review says he is, and then I just laughed non-stop for five minutes, after reading this WSJ op-ed from the wacky reality of Andrew Klavan :

A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .

Oh, wait a minute. That's not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W."

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.

And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell.

This totally made me think of that SNL Celebrity Jeopardy skit, where Matthew Perry as Michael Keaton keeps buzzing in with the only reply "I AM BATMAN." Except with Bush doing that.

Comments

[missmimesis.livejournal.com]

I saw the Dark Knight with msmsgirl and apropos a few weeks ago and, while there was some awesome stuff in it and Heath Ledger was totally incredible, I kind of lost patience with trying to comprehend the more or less incomprehensible plot and ended up just really wishing that they had let Heath be onscreen the whole time and also that his final brilliant performance had been in, like, a movie with a plot. also that he wasn't dead, obvs.

BUT anyway, none of us had read or even knew about that article yet, but msmsgirl was convinced that the whole thing was an apologia for the Bush administration, and I was trying to argue that that was not at all the case and it's a total misreading of the character and moreover of the whole genre, because even if Batman is into, like, anti-terror vigilantism, there is something quite essentially incomparable between a comic book hero secret, tormented outside-the-law fight against the bad guys and a Republican President's hyprocritical, lying, self-promoting, for-profit, Above/in-charge-of-the-law war-waging...

...but I couldn't really figure out how to express this sense b/c I don't actually know enough about the genre or especially about the whole Batman mythology...

anyways. I love your latest photos and it looks like everything is so lovely over there -- ...I am pretty certain that backing out of the Germany thing is the right decision for a lot of reasons, but for sure the biggest downside is that I won't get to hang out with you a lot! I really really do want to come visit though...

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

you know, I had heard that the plot was hard to follow, but despite never having read the comic books, I didn't have the problem with it overall. There was one point in the movie--the whole sequence with the fake hostages and the SWAT team where everything was happening so fast and loudly, and from so many weird angles, that I was confused while watching it, but in retrospect it made sense. The other thing is, I didn't get right away that The Joker had switched addresses, but, again, then I figured it out. I am actually really curious why so many of my friends thought it was plot-challenged...what made you feel that way?

I don't even know what to think about the W apologia now...I mean, obv. the whole spying thing is a transparent commentary, but it's also all about how Wrong it is, and our moral superego of the movie (Lucius Fox) says that it's Wrong, not that it's Sometimes Okay...I dunno, I mean I feel like if it was the sort of W-apologia that 24 is, instead of the spying you'd have genital torture vs. imminent suitcase bomb, and eventually the Superego would okay it.

the other thing is, Batman is so anti-heroic in this film. This is actually funny, because the way in which he is an anti-hero reminded me of Angel and the Buffyverse, and the WSJ piece reminded me of this article someone wrote about season 7 of Buffy and how it was glorifying the war in Iraq and W's actions, when it was really doing the 100% opposite of that...sorry, tangent. Anyway, Batman is totally anti-heroic, and I dunno, that's where any potential parallel with Dubya breaks down for me, you know? He lies and he angsts about it, and he does unethical things and he never thinks he is doing the right thing.

I am disturbed, though, that maybe there is AUTHORIAL INTENT to glorify or "complicate" W, and I am willfully missing it, because I am eager to believe good things about the man who made MEMENTO.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

also it's a total bummer you won't be here...you should, though, totally come and visit. is that a possibility?

[theophile.livejournal.com]

oh my sweet god that is beautiful

Kill one little mayor? What about if you just kill his 2 dogs?

[flintultrasparc.livejournal.com]

That is entertaining. What Nolan intended as director is debatable, but what I got from the movie is that Batman insane. His responses are all out of proportion to the the threat.

It isn't until Joker escapes from jail, that the body count really starts to wrack up. Until then, most of the people killed were other criminals.

The level of resources that Batman devotes to countering some drug deals that are such small operations that the "kingpin" has to personally oversee them (see Batman Begins), is ridiculous.

The whole infiltrate China and snatch a prominent banker (and likely more influential in China, than the gangsters are in Gotham) should have sparked an international incident. The CIA and FBI should have been all over the case, and Lau wouldn't be spending much time in any City lockup! He's a foreign national who is probably high up in the Chinese Communist Party.

How much money are we really talking about here? The money was in cash! What kind of serious mobsters haven't diversified into at least property. Hell, even Al Qaeda atleast knows to transfer cash assets into gems.

I find Albert's character, the ex British special forces guy, the most believable. He doesn't have Batman's "virtue" of refusing to take responsibility for his own capacity to kill. His whole "we burned down the forest" story, with it's obvious "we had to destroy the village to save it" sort of idea... was atleast real.

The only person who makes any sense in the movie is the ballerina.

Batman is batshit insane. For a society to turn to such measures to deal with some criminals involved in drug smuggling and money laundering, has gone off the deep end.

Ofcourse, what do I know... there is a story here locally of a SWAT team raiding the house of the mayor of a DC suburb because someone mailed him a box of pot. They shot his two dogs. Over a box of pot. Ridiculous.

[congogirl.livejournal.com]

I hadn't read the article before I saw it, either, but lights_out posted it to my "review." I think my answer to him was, WTF WTF WTF WTF?