{"id":196,"date":"2016-10-17T01:12:07","date_gmt":"2016-10-17T05:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl-117-fall16\/?p=196"},"modified":"2016-10-17T01:12:07","modified_gmt":"2016-10-17T05:12:07","slug":"empire-looks-better-in-a-cape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl-117-fall16\/uncategorized\/empire-looks-better-in-a-cape\/","title":{"rendered":"Empire Looks Better in a Cape"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dark Knight <\/em>is \u201cclearly one of the top conservative films ever made,\u201d in the eyes of Breitbart, a news organization dedicated to satiating racists. (Shapiro) It identifies right-wing politics with a protagonist that \u201cutilizes full scale surveillance, beats up a terrorist during an interrogation, and takes heat while doing it, all in order to save civilization from monsters,\u201d placing the Christopher Nolan film at the center of authoritarian aggression-and delighting in it. Batman becomes a weapon of state authority against the Other, and does so while flouting liberal checks. Meanwhile, John Ip from the University of Auckland claims the film proves that \u201csociety ideally should not rely on heroic vigilantes, that the people themselves need to show resoluteness and courage, and that, in the long run, the law\u2014together with the legitimacy it confers\u2014is not a liability, but an asset,\u201d arguing the film\u2019s politics value civic virtue. (229) Ip refuses to valorize the vigilante, but rather finds the blockbuster\u2019s hero in unnamed civilians who refuse to give in to their baser instincts while finding refuge in civic institutions. These views fundamentally clash- Breitbart\u2019s demeaning of governing checks can\u2019t be reconciled with Ip\u2019s celebration of the rule of law. Each critic places a separate ideology across Batman\u2019s shoulders, conscripting the movie into political service. But the film itself doesn\u2019t buckle under the weight of varied political views. Rather, the movie accepts and promotes simplistic politics.<\/p>\n

Simple, partially because it\u2019s so familiar. Comic books and the accompanying film genre carry with them plenty of associations. Capes, chiseled chins and criminal masterminds ensure you don\u2019t confuse it with anything else. When critics praise The Dark Knight<\/em> as \u201cthe first superhero film that makes a serious bid to transcend its burgeoning genre,\u201d they mean that it retains genre trappings while seemingly filmed with minimal access to sunlight. (Orr) Or, alternately, that the movie concerns itself quite clearly with its own importance. The Dark Knight <\/em>refuses to accept being \u2018just\u2019 a superhero movie. Its plot is overlaid with overt political references.<\/p>\n

After all, Christopher Nolan can be accused of many things; subtlety isn\u2019t one of them. The Dark Knight <\/em>exults in brash symbolism. Harvey Dent\u2019s coin conveniently burns one of its two faces, and the camera rests, languorously, upon the altered side. Don\u2019t you get it? Now he\u2019s been turned into a different person, just like the coin has changed<\/em>. The movie\u2019s politics similarly shout to be noticed. I want to spend the next few paragraphs nailing down these images-not because of any inherent complexity, but because the sheer amount of effort devoted to the symbolism by Nolan.<\/p>\n

First, let\u2019s focus on the film\u2019s animating force: Heath Ledger\u2019s Joker. One critic came close to describing the essence of Ledger, who \u201cseems less the creation of a living self than the annihilation of one, an exercise in the center not holding,\u201d as he embodies an intentionally confusing evil. (Orr) The Joker\u2019s aims to disrupt the established order for the purpose of disruption. He employs suicide bombers and continuously jerry-rigged (or, say, improvised) explosive devices, importing the tactics of the Green Zone to Gotham. Shaky, handheld videos of hostages unnerve, and proclaim a kinship of style with Osama Bin Laden\u2019s video messages or hostage videos worldwide (take a look at the embedded image and video to see). Even when his violence doesn\u2019t fit neatly within preexisting categories, it fits the understanding of terrorism as aimed at terrifying the populace. Dead bodies slam into glass, pencils pierce eye sockets-the violence is used for shock value, as ways to distinguish him from any other criminals. After all, he just wants to \u201cwatch the world burn.\u201d In one unsuccessful attempt, the Joker impersonates an officer and launches an attack on an elected official. Of course, the infiltrator had a clear-as-day mark of his irregularity on his face. Not his skin color (this time), but the type of simple signifier that \u201cextreme vetting\u201d could notice. Harvey Dent names this threat accurately at the press conference-the Joker is a \u201cterrorist,\u201d which in America means a Muslim man. To make explicit what Nolan almost does, the Joker is a stand-in for Islamic terrorism. He\u2019s the sort of caricatured enemy that \u201chates us for our values,\u201d and delights in violence in pursuit of an anarchic ideology.<\/p>\n