Is the Dark Knight stinking of imperialism?
Well, let me have the pleasure of introducing my close friend and comrade in the uncertain raft of ‘Film Studies adrift’ having his take on The Dark Knight, currently crashing box-office records and winning critical acclaim of similar proportions. Let me introduce you to…err…Mr. Hollis Brown (what is your name, HB?)
Consider his take on the film (click the title of the article below to visit his blog). Consider how damaging we become to common-sense ideology and discuss! I will abstain from my comments since I haven’t seen the film and HB has forewarned that I might turn out liking it since I like Batman.
Update @ 27/07/08: click to read my response: Speaking of the man trapped inside Gotham City
Batman: The Dark Knight!
Watch out Robert Mugabe they are coming after you. You don’t seem to behave cordially with western folks these days! Eh? Are you too big for your shoes? Have you heard about a dark knight? He is coming after you.
Iran, stop enriching uranium! You folks are a real menace to ‘western democracy’. Look at North Korea they are now, with ‘us’. The coalition of the willing! Want to know who else is there? Well our man from ‘Gotham city’- Batman alias Bruce Wayne.
‘With a fantastic collection of stamps
To win friends and influence his uncle..’
I see Donald Trump (in Christian Bale) wear his bat suit amidst the ruins of ground zero. He is busy punching digits on his i-phone; frantically calling his servant Pedro (Michael Cain). He wants to know if the Wall Street came crashing down? Or if his stocks are safe at the aftermath of the tragedy.
Discipline and Punish!
Capitalism has a new task in hand. It is called Disciplining. It is the first step. Punishment will follow in the next step and third is re- structuring. From the streets of Gotham to that of Iraq we have seen the ‘western democracy’ teaching truant street thugs like Jack Napier (Joker) how to behave.
By now all you ‘baddies’ have got a feel of how ‘we’ operate. The latest Bat-flick will tell you. We no longer care for international law. We violate your air space if we have to. We take prisoners right from your own door step. No, you are wrong: CIA is not part of this ‘operation’; in fact we retired those guys long time back. It s Batman we trust in and the rest is strictly in cash!
The City(Bank) and Batman never sleep at night!
‘Police doesn’t know how to make a man guilty or innocent
…against the repression of the police….’
Dear
Joan Baez,
I suggest you take a closer look at the brutal representation of violence in police custody (Batman beating up Joker right under the watchful eyes of police chief in a police station). Guantamo bay style of torture was on the surface!
Vigilante as the last man standing in the west (ern) democracy of nightmarish dystopia.
‘This city is like a sewer….. Some one has to clean it up…’
-Travis to a Senator Charles Palantine.
–Taxi Driver, 1976
Travis is a war –veteran from Vietnam. He wants to clean up the city! He is getting organized. Does he call Batman? No, he takes the onus on himself. Shoots his way out of the whore house after rescuing Iris. Applauds. – ‘Gary Cooper rides with Grace Kelly into the sun…you ********- John McClane, Die Hard, 1988.
‘There must be a way out of here …said the joker to the thief?’
This is what most of us in the third world are wondering.There must be a way out of this uni- polar world and its obscene representation. Christopher Nolan’s Batman – The Dark Knight is just an entry point into the heart of present day world order. It can be read as an allegory of things that just doesn’t seem right .The end doesn’t justify the means.
This is popular culture at its best. Thrilling experience for kids and right wing adults too.
A dark tale of popular culture degenerating into the political pedagogy of the far right!
The white man has to carry his burden for few more blocks. Passing through Baghdad, Tehran and Kabul…
The march continues…
Someone in his/her blog has called Dark Knight a tragedy of Nietzschian proportion. I agree. This is the tragedy of western modernity and capitalism.
i had the opportunity to go through the thing. but before getting into such intricate and weighty things like imperialism one should go through rather analyze Batman from the very beginning. First to point one flaw Jack Napier is only a name which was coined especially for Tim Burton’s version of joker. In the comic world this character does not exist. secondly, if u go through Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns u will find out the character of batman does not signify American imperialism or even its democracy. He is an independent entity all by himself, no rules in this world will stop him or move him . In any of the batman films till date u wont find the American flag fluttering at the end of the film, which u can perceive in other superhero films like Spiderman and Superman. The latters being the apostle of American Dream the former, Batman is just the opposite, the shimmering light of the American Nightmare.
Budhaditya Chatterjee
July 22, 2008 at 12:26 am
Well, i just saw the newest batman film today. and i must admit that i loved every bit of it!! if white/american imperialism has to be an issue in the film, then i think we must remember that in today’s world,that IS a fact. in Foucault’s words, the civilization that rules politically,rules culturally. and now, one can include economic domination in that as well!!
so,yes, if Nolan has depicted the facts as they stand in the current times in one of the batman adaptations, then i dont think that should work against the film, as it obviously hasn’t. Besides, the entire character of Two-Face is a blow to an american idol/idolatry and hence its imperialism!
i dont understand film…yet. but i do understand a well-told story when i see one.
as i said, i dont understand film and cinema and hence,i did not understand some of the points under consideration here. howsoever,if i did come to full comprehension (for which i am depending on AS Sir),i can grant that they might be valid.but under no circumstances would my opinion of “The Dark Knight” as the best of the Batman films, change:D !!
Anindya Sengupta: AS isn’t actually commenting! God knows when I can find an opportunity of viewing this one. But I might turn out liking it.
On second thoughts…I might comment a bit without viewing it too
Shreyashi
July 22, 2008 at 12:30 am
we’d be lookin forward to that one,Sir!!
Shreyashi
July 22, 2008 at 12:40 am
i love Btaman, i even did a bloody term paper, an assignment on Batman and Arkhame asylum, can u imagine?
rest when i see the film myself, im DYING to.
Joanna
July 22, 2008 at 1:54 am
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
Patrick
July 22, 2008 at 3:54 am
I haven’t seen it yet either, however, like most popular western films, I don’t really have to see it to know the storyline. Not that that’s bad…even before moving pictures, western folklore had the same bones of storylines that got repeated over and over with only slight variations. The tortured hero who sometimes crosses the line of law or decency is a common theme.
As to say this is solely about American imperialism, I’m not so sure. I think the author takes this interpretation a little too far. However, it is an interesting thing to think about how popular sentiments in politics find themselves in popular movies, TV, and books. Unfortunately the theme of torture has wormed its way into many of these American cultural mediums and Batman is evidently not immune. Fear of anarchy (and Joker stands for anarchy) is also a theme in modern American culture particularly since the 1950s but also seen even earlier.
Basically, American imperialism has come to be through a process of cultural formation, this process has wrought itself on every piece of our culture. Even the activists who criticize American imperialism still think we are the ‘center’ of the world. Since this is the case, you had better watch for those bits of “imperial culture” in every bit of American (and for that matter Chinese and European) life. This is not a symptom of just one movie, but of having an “imperial culture”.
Anindya Sengupta: Hi Lou! Welcome to my latest lair! The earlier one…I’ll be posting there a bit irregularly.
Loubird
July 22, 2008 at 6:27 am
Dark Knight…great…one of the best Super-Hero movie ever made…its different from that of those Spiderman sequels and prequels and will be a strong contender in Next Year’s ACADEMY AWARDS…especially Heath Ledger…people like me who wants to be an actor in near future is very much influenced by the Joker’s performance…acting has different categories like physical, facial, speech etc etc…Heath was too good in physical stuff…his role and performance was all about physical acting and ofcourse the facial expressions was also very important…he has been fearless as mentioned by Christopher Nolan in one of his interview…i think the character of Joker is itself an mockery on the so-called American society or i would rather say the imperialistic society…with all his wit and grit Ledger has surely posted his name in the history books and i hope he becomes the only Posthumous Oscar winner next year…
Abhishek "El Fuser" Bhattacharyya
July 23, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Dark Knight is a brilliant and overwhelming cinematic experience. period. it is the best, darkest lot of the whole superhero franchisee… period even that.
with all due respect to tapuda, i beg my life to disagree with you and AS for copying it…
It has been constantly reminded how troubled the batman character is…what you deserve and how you get it and is that what you really deserve? these questions have been dutifully answered by the GREAT NOLAN himself… the film is not a wishful whim of an average filmmaker. it is an intense study of all that makes up the world so troubled….
my point is that the film does not teleogise anything….there are two kinds of films. one that proposes a solution to a problem and the other that holds up the problem itself… Dark Knight is the latter kind… it shows that the Dark Knight ( however infallible tapuda wants him to be) is actually a man of flesh and bone and that he too faces failure in his choices. it is a story of a superhero that was not to be…to me…this film is not stinking of imperialism but is just upholding the problem in the present world order and how imperialism is gettin scared to death at times too… it is not a solution but it is a problem faced by both first world and third world countries…
whatever one says to criticize this mammoth work, (maybe because it has broken the charts) i sincerely deny all such notions. why can’t one discuss lesser films and try to analyze imperialist undertones?
I am extremely sorry for the offense created all round. i loved the film as it is… but if one has to analyze it…i would say “are you watching closely”
Anindya Sengupta: Pritwish, my next post will be a comment. I am in the process of writing it. Its getting longer than usual.
Prithwish
July 27, 2008 at 9:25 am