Why Batman Might Not Be the Good Guy in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’
Warning: ALL the spoilers. Also politics.
So, The Dark Knight Rises. Pretty good, but also a bit of a letdown. Batman has a plane, which is neato. Catwoman shows up, although in all fairness she might as well not have, for all that she gets to do. The movie feels overwritten and stuffed, and I guess that we’re either going to get a Directors Cut in the future that gives the characters a little more room to breathe or that Nolan and co have been working on this property for so long that they simply got in too deep. There are almost twice as many important characters in Rises as in The Dark Knight, and almost half of them could have been easily dropped. I liked The Avengers better.
Now let’s talk politics. In particular, let’s talk fascism.
ZING! Winner by a Godwin! This is a popcorn movie, idiot, not a political statement! Let it go!
The thing is, I normally would have, but Rises really brings this on itself. Not only does it have several characters talk about politics, but it also employs images that so clearly refer to political events past and present (more on that later) that it’s sort of impossible not to think about what the movie actually means in this context. And with that, the creeping sense came over me that Batman in The Dark Knight Rises was a bit of a fascist.
Now, before we delve into why this is exactly, let me illustrate what I’m talking about here on this neat chart, appropriately enough called the Nolan Chart:
Okay, that might be a little abstract, but the basic thing to take away from that chart is that aside from “leftist” and “rightist” political views, there are also “authoritarian” and “libertarian” views. All four of these are legitimate political philosophies – whatever the internet might say – and have arguments for and against them.
Now, the main reason I am talking about all this is because of something Bane, the main villain in Rises, does around the halfway point of the movie. He takes over Gotham by blowing up all the bridges, trapping the entire police force underground (long story) and threatening to set off a bomb when someone tries to escape. But he presents this by saying the following: “Gotham, take control… take control of your city. Behold, the instrument of your liberation!” A quote that sounds a lot like political Anarchy to me.
Anarchy is a complicated bowl of soup, and I’m not going to delve into that right now, but suffice to say that the movie doesn’t seem to give much thought to what all of this means. Bane is presented as a Bad Guy without Batman’s strict moral code, and the whole bomb thing easily makes him a terrorist. He’s later revealed to have been Ra’s Al Ghuls disciple, and that character was apparently based on Osama Bin Laden, so there’s not much moral leeway there.
But this is only half the story. Besides terrorism, Nolan also uses imagery in its portrayal of the bad guys that alludes to Occupy and, more significantly, The French Revolution, which in its inception (SeeWhatIDidThere) was a populist uprising against an oppressive society. Look at the chart above again, and you can see that in both the historical conflict and the conflict of the film is essentially between the top and the bottom.
The problem with all this is where Batman stands. We’ve been told he is the good guy, and this was easy to accept when he was pitted against The Scarecrow (personification of madness) and The Joker (personification of gleeful destructive nihilism). But against Bane… I’m really not so sure. Sure, there’s the bomb, but that feels so shoe-horned in that it might as well have been labeled “Convenient Plot Device”. And without it, I’m not really sure Batman/Wayne has much more of a point than Bane. He’s a very rich guy who uses his money to beat up street thugs. I know this has always been sort of the problem with Batman as character, but it never really mattered before because the character was never meant to be political.
But now this film clearly makes him political, and I find it kind of hard to root for the guy who is basically fighting to keep his own money safe. Selina Kyle/Catwoman has a great moment in the beginning of the film where she warns Wayne that “You think this can last? There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you’re all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.” Looking at the current political landscape, I can’t be the only one who thinks she might have a point.
Batman seems to defend the status quo, and much is made of him helping or saving the police force. In the final battle they team up, and are supposed to be the good guys. But any political anarchist (or Marxist, really) will tell you that in their philosophy the police is essentially a method to keep the class differences in place (this refers to the police as an institution, of course, not to individual policemen). Gotham is shown to us a city where class differences are rampant, and at one point the city literally descends into armed class warfare. Batman has to stop this, with the help of the armed police. By beating the poor people back to their places.
In all fairness, I doubt Christopher Nolan intended this to be the message of the movie. He’s a pop filmmaker, and none of his other films seem to have much of a political message. Bane is really a silly character, and if he is supposed to represent political anarchy they got him just as wrong as that other movie about a guy in a mask beating up people. That’s a link to 2005′s V For Vendetta, in case you’re wondering, a movie that seems to believe that anarchism is best represented by all dressing up to form a faceless mob. Perhaps this is more a problem of Nolan overstretching the whole “realism” angle than anything else.
But be that as it may, words and images still mean something. I said before that the movie uses imagery of the French Revolution, and this is particularly striking in the scene near the end of the film where the police force storm Bane’s stronghold. Their attack is shown in a way that recalls the storming of the Bastille, and in particular that one famous painting made about it. So… the police force, literally people who are in charge with upholding the status quo, are visually equated with a revolutionary army? That’s… a pretty bad historical analogy right there, Mr. Nolan. I respect you as a filmmaker, but if you’re going to invoke politics, you should probably think about what your film means a little more in the future.
Phew, that was some heavy stuff. Have a puppy.
Max
P.S. Oh, also? Batman at one point straight up goes and shoots a dude. Seriously, pay close attention at the moment he saves Joseph-Gordon Levitt’s character. He totally does. There goes your entire first movie, Mr. Nolan.
26 Comments
Personally, i think on the surface banes new vision might have looked like a utopia, but i don’t think it actually worked that way. People were pretty much sentenced to die with no real way to defend themselves,and at least one kid had to steal a apple just to eat. Plus there were probably some truly dangerous criminals released, so there’s that.
I think what was most telling was when Selinas roommate came in Waynes mansion, and said “wasn’t this the storm you were looking for” or something to that effect. Selina didn’t look like someone who was happy with the state of affairs.
Also, i would have to rewatch that Gordon scene to comment on whether batman shoots anyone.
If Batman actually shot someone in this movie it would had been news long before this guys crappy short-sighted analysis of the movie.
He doesnt shoot anyone. A gun shot goes off in the scene but it wasnt batman that did it. He does however kill the driver of the truck when he is trying to get the bomb back into the reactor I think. Or the guy just got knocked out. so Yeah
I agree with ditywitchclass. As a League of Shadows representative bane was only having his social experiment with gotham city until he would blow it all up, just like he gave Batman/Wayne one last chance to climb out of his pitt of hell. Wayne also doesn’t seem to be any kind of icon foor the capitalist elite (or the one percent) since he neglects his company up to the point where he brings everything he wants in danger.
I do agree that most of the themes in the Dark Knight Rises don’t really ad up (or most details, really). The film does manage to bring themes from Batman Begins and the Dark Knight to an compelling conclusion though, even if it could be much more coherent.
But the convenient plot device of the bomb IS the whole problem, isn’t it? It completely negates the fact that Bane has sparked this apparent revolution because the whole lot of them are just going to go up in smoke anyway. I see what you’re saying, Max, and I would whole-heartedly agree that would have made for a murkier, more interesting and in all likelihood better movie. Not as big or popular, though. Hence, the convenient plot device to make sure that the lines in the sand are more clearly drawn. (Well, except for Selina Kyle. Which is why she’s so the best character in this film.)
i really love the the movie the various things people are getting from this movie, which to me makes the movie that more fascinating.
In addition to what other commenters have said, I think this interpretation would have more weight if there was any sense that there was a people’s revolution at all. Sure, Bane TALKED that way, but I never got the sense that any of the regular people of Gotham were siding with him (or doing much of anything except I guess try to stay safe in their homes as much as they could). He had his original gang members and the gangsters he let out of Blackgate, but we didn’t actually see much of anybody else. So it’s not Batman swooping in to restore authoritarian government against a revolution of the people, because the people involved are all baddies and gangsters, not the ordinary working class/poor that the article suggests.
Finally someone else who thinks the plot of this film draws heavily from the French Revolution. I would also say they combined that up with a bit of The Sum of Fears (convinent plot device).
One question I had was why just trap the cops underground when you could just kill them all with a nerve gas or something? That really makes no sense considering Bane is supposed to be some sort of terrorist.
Well I guess it makes more sense than being able to get Bruce Wayne/Batman out of the city and then his making it back to Gotham, with no money or identification through a military quarantine in the nick of time with 18 hrs to spare, by riding on puff the magic dragon or some such nonesense.
Sum of All Fears
The problem with the film’s politics is that it undermines them HEAVILY in the third act by revealing Tate as Ra’s daughter and by having her joint plan with Bane to be nuking the city. If their entire purpose is the vaporization of Gotham, then the political stuff is just maneuvering at best and outright dishonesty on Nolan’s behalf at worst. What are Talia and Bane gaining by espousing “common man” politics and expressing the belief that the ruling class of Gotham, corrupt to the core, deserves to fall? What do they get out of tricking the downtrodden lower class? Nothing, really, since all of Bane’s men are trained League thugs or prison inmates; the lower class never rises up as Bane implores them to, and besides that, he’s just going to kill them all anyways.
It’s really just Nolan lying to his audience as part of his penchant for crafting cinematic puzzles, but it’s frustrating. Bane and Talia don’t represent the common man, and they don’t have a good excuse to put up that front in the first place, so I can only assume that it’s all for our benefit. It’s lazy, and it’s ultimately incredibly brainless. For everything that we can pull out of the politics on display here, there’s not an ounce of actual meaning since it’s all done in the service of viewer deception.
And really the movie doesn’t care about the lower class, anyways. It just cares about showing the upper class getting their asses handed to them. That’s a political statement on its own, but it’s not backed up by anything substantive in the film itself.
I’m with you, Max. I liked The Avengers much more. It’s consistent and far, far more engaging.
Christopher Nolan… Lots of serious brooding, little substance behind it all. I think that sums up all his films pretty well.
I would disagree really, really strongly with that– The Prestige, Memento, and The Dark Knight alone all say plenty of substantive things about the themes they explore. But I think this may be one of his worst films just by virtue of the fact that it really does say nothing whatsoever.
He doesnt shoot anyone. A gun shot goes off in the scene but it wasnt batman that did it. He does however kill the driver of the truck when he is trying to get the bomb back into the reactor I think. Or the guy just got knocked out.
It’s like Nolan wanted to draw from two big real-world issues, terrorism and revolution, and smash them together, thus turning revolution (against a police state, against extreme wealth inequality, against extremely high incarceration rates) INTO terrorism. Terrorism that can only be defeated by a massive police force and a few elite figures. In other words, yes, pro-fascism.
You are making the assumption that Bane was what Gotham wanted. Also you are making the god awful post-OWS assumption that all rich people are evil and all profits are bad. That sort of political mind-set is riddled with cliches and myths that seem to travel as word of mouth in the protest arena, but they lack any academic and intellectual scrutiny.
Rich people are not inherently evil.
Those people who wish to fight against rich people are not inherently good.
This one will blow your OWS mind. Rich people generally haven’t stolen anything from anyone. Ownership of property is a demonstration of liberty, if you can’t own something you are a servant to the state (taxes do this).
The fact of the matter is Bane represents your typical tyrant, and he does so with his own corporate backers (who are shown to be evil in the movie). While Wayne Enterprises may not be without fault, the fact that Bruce Wayne wanted to keep the free energy device secret because of it’s possible use as a bomb showcases the dramatic differences between Bane and Batman as to who is evil and who is good.
Perhaps you need to put down the Communist Manifesto and pickup the Bill of Rights.
I would suggest you stick with lower brow analysis of movies as your politics seems highly skewed in a red manner.
Okay, four things:
1. If we’re getting personal, I wouldn’t mind calling myself a political socialist, or at the very least a Marxist. I’m willing to discuss that opinion, but I’m not offended by being called so, if that was your opinion.
2. I am not even an American, but the Bill of Rights doesn’t have squat to say about the MORALITY of certain people. It’s not the Bill of Wrongs.
3. I am not sticking up for Bane in my analysis. What I am saying is that Wayne seems to represent a position that might be moral on the surface level but which is potentially problematic on a political level, at least in my view. I mean, if you want to talk tyranny, I think that a massive corporation (Wayne Enterprises) funding an impossibly wealthy dude to punch street thugs in the mouth a pretty good definition.
4. My main beef with this movie was not so much the politics inherent in it. What bugged me so much was that Nolan used certain imagery and allusions to the current political situation which I thought were problematic in the larger scope of the franchise. Popcorn and politics don’t necessarily mix, which I think we have succinctly demonstrated here
“1. If we’re getting personal, I wouldn’t mind calling myself a political socialist, or at the very least a Marxist. I’m willing to discuss that opinion, but I’m not offended by being called so, if that was your opinion.”
Well the writing is riddled with ideals of a utopia run by a strong authority that would likely require many policing devices. I see this as the antithesis of liberty.
“2. I am not even an American, but the Bill of Rights doesn’t have squat to say about the MORALITY of certain people. It’s not the Bill of Wrongs.”
Exactly the Bill of Rights enables the individual to be free from Bane style tyrants manipulating his words in standard dictator revolution fashion. History is clear on how this plays out on the world stage.
“3. I am not sticking up for Bane in my analysis. What I am saying is that Wayne seems to represent a position that might be moral on the surface level but which is potentially problematic on a political level, at least in my view. I mean, if you want to talk tyranny, I think that a massive corporation (Wayne Enterprises) funding an impossibly wealthy dude to punch street thugs in the mouth a pretty good definition.”
You wanted to remove the bomb from the equation to put Bane in a better light, how can you not be ‘sticking up’ for Bane? Clearly you wanted to put Bane in the best light and Batman in the worse light.
“4. My main beef with this movie was not so much the politics inherent in it. What bugged me so much was that Nolan used certain imagery and allusions to the current political situation which I thought were problematic in the larger scope of the franchise. Popcorn and politics don’t necessarily mix, which I think we have succinctly demonstrated here
”
Well until I read this article it was clear to me and about 90% of the other movie goers out there that Bane was clearly a tyrannical style villain. Using people when needed to suit his needs and eliminating the fat when necessary.
Nolan just borrowed the look and feel of protest, OWS doesn’t own protest the Nolan movies didn’t really delve that much into the politics of Gotham other than the town was so crime ridden it was prone to corruption (often at the hands of police and other government types).
A madman manipulating a phoney revolution under the threat of death is not politics it’s tyranny.
“Clearly you wanted to put Bane in the best light and Batman in the worse light.”
I’m intrigued how you seem to have an complete psychological reading on my intentions with this article, even if they contradict with the word in it.
I’ll admit that the headline is perhaps a tad spectacular and misleading. But I’m not saying that Bane is the good guy in this movie and Batman was the bad guy. What I was saying is that, if you take the political allegories that Christopher Nolan used in shaping this movie, you can assign a certain political viewpoint to Bruce Wayne, and that political viewpoint might be considered problematic. I would really have preferred if Nolan just kept the whole political angle out of the movie, since he’s clearly a bit uneasy with it (as I point out in my analysis, some allegories that he makes [especially the French Revolution ones] are simply peculiar to the point of being wrong, no matter what your political viewpoints).
***
Now, since I don’t want to leave you hanging on this, allow me to explain my own personal idea of freedom here.
1. I believe there’s such a thing as class.
Note that this is something different entirely than saying “All rich people are evil”. Having money doesn’t make you malicious any more then liking ice cream does. HOWEVER, people tend to spend a lot of time around other people like themselves. This is not done out of malice, simply out of the human need for community and recognition. And since people tend to cluster together, it can be hard to form a truly informed opinion about people from different walks of life. This is a problem, but not one born out of malice. Much of the racism and sexism we encounter every day also stems forth from this.
2. There are two kinds of freedom: Positive and Negative freedom.
Positive freedom is the amount of choice you have. If you can choose between picking 15 flavors of jam instead of 3 flavors of jam, you have more positive freedom.
Negative freedom is the amount of freedom you have to make those choices. If you are, for instance, thrown in jail because you pick strawberry jam, even though that is still an option, that is an example of negative freedom.
Now, Negative freedom expresses itself in many ways. Social exclusion is one of them. If your sexual preference is vilified and discriminated against, making you afraid to express it, then that leads to negative freedom.
However, not having the means at your disposal to do what you like also constitutes negative freedom. Not being able to, say, have a job you like, or having the time to express yourself, simply because you have to work a crappy job all day, is in its own way just as limiting to your freedom.
3. Trough no malice whatsoever, our current society is class-based.
There are people born in almost every country on the planet who will never be able to do what they desire because their entire lives will revolve around keeping their head above water. Read this, if you want a great American example:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-nobody-tells-you-about-being-poor/
4. Freedom means a lot of different things.
And to me, it means living in a society which is fundamentally geared towards making sure that the people as a collective are free. Free from the trappings in which they might have been born, free from discrimination against who they are or want to be, free to do as they please AS LONG AS IT DOES NOT AFFECT OTHER PEOPLE.
And the fact of the matter is, when someone is very wealthy and doesn’t pay taxes? That affects other people. Is paying taxes a breach of his liberty? To a degree, yes. But are the poor who can’t be helped because the rich person keeps his money not equally robbed of the possibility to do what they desire? And if this the fault of either of those people?
This is Marxism.
I realize no-one has ever been convinced by an essay on the internet to change his political orientation, but let me just close by saying this. Rules exist for a reason. Namely, that everyone has to somehow get by alongside other people. That is the very essence of society to me. If we drop that, we don’t get freedom. We don’t get anarchy.
We get chaos.
“I’m intrigued how you seem to have an complete psychological reading on my intentions with this article, even if they contradict with the word in it.”
I made my point very clear before it wasn’t psychological, you said that the bomb was nearly immaterial…
“Sure, there’s the bomb, but that feels so shoe-horned in that it might as well have been labeled “Convenient Plot Device”. And without it, I’m not really sure Batman/Wayne has much more of a point than Bane.”
I am saying it certainly isn’t immaterial, the bomb was the gun to Gotham’s head it and Bane’s crony corporate backers were enablers for Bane’s Tyranny, he wasn’t running for office.
“But I’m not saying that Bane is the good guy in this movie and Batman was the bad guy. What I was saying is that, if you take the political allegories that Christopher Nolan used in shaping this movie, you can assign a certain political viewpoint to Bruce Wayne, and that political viewpoint might be considered problematic.”
The thing is this entire article is basically trying to do exactly what you are saying you aren’t. Your ‘assignment’ of political viewpoints is off base when you consider all the facts about each of the characters. It only demonstrates you are stretching this to draw more meaning into it to showcase your political cliches of success and wealth.
I appreciate the academics you have presented it doesn’t change the fact that I think you have allowed your politics to infiltrate your perception of this film.
“I would really have preferred if Nolan just kept the whole political angle out of the movie, since he’s clearly a bit uneasy with it (as I point out in my analysis, some allegories that he makes [especially the French Revolution ones] are simply peculiar to the point of being wrong, no matter what your political viewpoints).”
What part of tyrant generated protest don’t you understand? A madman trying to take over a city by the threat of death is not delving into politics. That is not a campaign to win hearts and minds that is just ‘do as I say or die’.
I can’t even respond to the rest of your comments because it’s not germane to this discussion. I appreciate your recital of academics it’s not necessary for this discussion.
The fact is the reason Bruce Wayne / Batman stands head and shoulders above Bane is because Batman sacrifices Bruce Wayne’s normal life (which would be a billionaire playboy) in order to save the streets of Gotham and he does so without killing people. Something you can’t say for Bane.
Perhaps you need to read the final line of this essay, because Max isn’t remotely suggesting that rich people are inherently evil. Rather, he’s saying that one particular rich person– Wayne– might be a little more self-motivated than meets the eye.
I feel like you read a very different essay than the one I did. You’re practically responding to another piece entirely.
Everyone is self motivated, at the end of the day Bruce/Batman is motivated by his inability to save his parents. Bane is motivated by the lack of validation from the League of Shadows.
I read the same article as you, I just completely disagree that tyranny = politics. If that is what is being taught in schools these days, God help us.
Everyone else being self-motivated doesn’t invalidate the claim that Wayne is himself self-motivated, though, so I’m not sure what kind of point you think you’re making. That’s tu quoque in the flesh right there.
I also think you’re having a hard time reconciling content versus subtext. Bane being a tyrant in the film does not negate political subtext one can draw out of the “stuff” of the plot. The essay, and Max’s responses here, don’t assert the “tyranny = politics” claim; really, it sounds a whole lot more like “Bane’s politics = tyranny”, which is true.
It is clear to the vast majority of the audience that Batman is clearly a good guy. The author’s attempted manipulation of the story line doesn’t change that.
Bane’s politics don’t even really play here. He is just carrying out the League of Shadow’s tyrannical plan. I don’t see tyranny as politics because politics is a process which takes many sides into consideration, tyranny is just 1 A-Hole at the top issuing fiats (kind of like our President). Tyranny (or Anarchy or Both) is what you have when there is little to no politics.
You’re not doing much to make me rethink the assertion of the second paragraph here.
Honestly, the more I think about your rebuttal, the more it astonishes me. You really clearly have no grasp on the mechanics of interpretation and analysis or even a half-functional understanding of concepts like “subtext”. Max isn’t “manipulating the storyline”. He’s interpreting the events and the plot of the film through political and social lenses that suggest Batman’s goodness might not really be that “good”, even if he’s objectively identifiable as the “good guy” of the film.
There’s also no definition of “tyranny” that agrees with your assertion that tyranny is itself apolitical, so I don’t really care what you see tyranny as, because it doesn’t represent the absence of politics. Bane can be a tyrant and still have a political bent and be motivated by political ideology. Which is what Max is reading into here.
“The French Revolution, which in its inception (SeeWhatIDidThere) was a populist uprising against an oppressive society.”
This is a common but objectively false scenario. It was an elite attempt to coupe the State by uses of mob tactics and demagoguery. The majority of the revolutionaries were wealthy businessmen, aristocrats and priests.
This is just another liberal myth, when in reality all modernist-liberal regimes are terrorist and suicidal.
Bane was the good guy. Because Gotham doesn’t deserve Batman’s protection. They’re moral cowards (refusing to blow up the prisoners in Dark Knight), they’re idiots (every scene) and they’re intellectual nobodies who exist solely for their own herdish breeding.
Occupy Tardstreet and the French Revolution were both evil and insane, and Bane’s use of them is really just ‘speeding u[‘ the sort of liberal ideology Gotham has sold its soul to.
And that is how you hate Occupy Tardstreet and support Bane. Also, Batman is a social democrat who’s pity supports a mass of worthless nobodies. He ought to let them burn and go read some Julius Evola.
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