Bat An Eye — [Rich]
Posted by Rich on Friday, August 1st, 2008
Methinks the lady doth protest too much, but writing in today’s Variety, Brian Lowry fires another shot across the bow of “literal-minded” (read: “idiot”) right-wingers wishing to imbue The Dark Knight with a conservative ethos because they’re too “embarrassed to admit the truth.”
It had to happen: With Batman breaking box-office records, radio, op-ed columnists and TV news began looking for a piece of ‘The Dark Knight’s’ action. Yet because they’re embarrassed to admit the truth — and feel out of their element talking pop culture — they justify dabbling in such trifles by squeezing them through a political/ideological prism
The excuse to do so came via a jaw-dropping Wall Street Journal op-ed column by novelist Andrew Klavan, which completely misinterpreted the movie’s ‘message.’ Exhibiting the kind of literal-minded density that could give right-wingers a bad name, the writer opined that ‘Dark Knight’ 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.’
Blinded by the epiphany, Klavan somehow managed to miss the film’s obvious concerns about how far its hero should go in the name of security and still merit that distinction.
Mr. Lowry, rather curiously, summarizes by saying that his belittling of these positions doesn’t mean that films don’t often contain “subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle messages and themes,” but us rubes are just being “wholly disingenuous” in puffing up the importance of such “light” fare.
The rest here.
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Bubbaon 01 Aug 2008 at 4:01 pm 1I try to avoid obscenities, but Brian Lowry’s clearly full of shit.
Dylan Brunson 01 Aug 2008 at 4:43 pm 2Well, we have to admit that the movie wasn’t totally political, but its hard not too, with unpopular stubborn men fighting psychotic madmen. Its just that the hollywood subset of liberals are such sophisticated individuals (read, dumber than a drunken redneck on meth) that they think Batman, Bush, and even Obama shouldn’t have access surveillance equipment to track down terrorists or the will to smash them.
Sorry, I want Obama or McCain to have the ability to at least know what terrorists are thinking, and the will to beat the crap out of them. There is nothing extreme or right wing about that.
Stephanieon 01 Aug 2008 at 4:52 pm 3His last sentence is the one that just freaking makes me laugh…..does he not remember that Bruce destroyed the computer and survelliance system or was this idiot already out the door driving down sunset?
Its funny but it seems to me soemtimes these leftists either really didn’t see the movie or they did the twelve year old having a tantrum thing of holding their hands over there ears, squeezing their eyes shut so if any of the offending dialogue (Gary Oldman calling the Joker what he is A TERRORIST, the Joker funny enough calling himself a CRIMINAL..which is the same thing people like Brian Lowry call them) or scenes like Batman standing against a fallen beam in the wreckage of a building that well seemed so reminiscient of 9-11. I also find it hilarious that again he has to assault verbally the intelligence of Andrew Klavan and others. Why can’t he say this, I don’t agree I saw this. But no these leftwing poltroons have to go the next step and attack someones intellect. Basically Lowry is proving he himself is the brain dead mouth breathing knuckle dragger.
JohnFNWayneon 01 Aug 2008 at 5:23 pm 4Typical liberal response to Dark Knight reaction …
Yada, yada, straw man here, straw man there, yada, yada, blah blah ad hominem, ad hominem.
This is starting to look like Wall-E, Passion, etc. First the big denunciation of us right-wingers painting the movie with a political tone, then the admission. Someone soon will take a shot at Nolan. It’s all building up.
Mike18xxon 01 Aug 2008 at 5:56 pm 5“Batman: Gotham Knight” pOwns “Batman: Dark Knight”
(Saw GK today. Very introspective set of examinations, a la “Animatrix”.)
Carlitoson 01 Aug 2008 at 7:52 pm 6“subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle messages and themes,”
Yeah, as subtle as a lead pipe to the forehead.
ps., and this Lowry, what a moron.
JohnLockeon 01 Aug 2008 at 8:10 pm 7“Blinded by the epiphany, Klavan somehow managed to miss the film’s obvious concerns about how far its hero should go in the name of security and still merit that distinction.”
Right, because at the end of the movie the righteous police commissioner called Batman a lawbreaking monster who had no concern at all for civil rights.
“Yet because they’re embarrassed to admit the truth”
Project much?
David Marcoeon 01 Aug 2008 at 8:25 pm 8“Batman: Gotham Knight” pOwns “Batman: Dark Knight”
(Saw GK today. Very introspective set of examinations, a la “Animatrix”.)
I found GK very uneven.
Mike18xxon 01 Aug 2008 at 9:45 pm 9I found GK very uneven.
That’s to be expected, since each short is created by an entirely different production team.
[IMH]on 01 Aug 2008 at 9:51 pm 10What is absolutely hilarious to me, having sat through (in the mid ’90s) umpteen hours of film profs assuring students ad nauseum that any film that had any lefty screenwriter work on it in any capacity at all had secret, doubleplusgood communist double meanings in it, is how deliriously hypocritical leftists are.
Go back and read lefty reactions to the 1947 HUAC hearings on communist infiltration in Hollywood. They mock and deride the silly idea that lefty screenwriters tried in any way to insert leftist propaganda into anything they wrote.
Then read the paeans to the Hollywood Ten and how they ingeniously inserted lefty propaganda that nobody caught.
And now read lefties bitching that anyone at all might possibly interpret something in a movie, and interpret it against them!
High-larious.
Buck Turgidsonon 01 Aug 2008 at 9:57 pm 11” . . . feel out of their element talking pop culture.”
This about a guy who has had at least two novels adapted to the screen, has written several screenplays and co-produced a movie.
Kendamaon 01 Aug 2008 at 10:53 pm 12Just finished seeing the movie. I liked what I saw, and I definitely saw Dirty Harry’s point — and where liberals would go mad.
If you noticed, it seemed to mock the immature teeny-tweeny idea of “upsetting the establishment” as if it is some noble undertaking. Joker had the mind of a child, throwing deadly tantrums when something was getting in the way of his fun, and his “blows against the establishment” served no higher purpose at all. Batman, though he worked outside the law, had principles that he was willing to stand for, despite the Joker’s repeated attempts to make Batman embrace the savagery that the Joker himself had embraced.
Remember that leftists find “resisting the Establishment” — be it family, country, tradition, or religion, to be a good in and of itself. And this movie mocks that hollow notion of “resistance.”
For that reason, “The Dark Knight” is made of win.
David Marcoeon 01 Aug 2008 at 11:43 pm 13That’s to be expected, since each short is created by an entirely different production team.
Yeah, four major animators/animation studios from Japan worked on it. But it was supposed to tell about events between Begins and DK, but besides the wildly different takes in look and tone, there isn’t any through-line between them. After viewing them, even with a couple of really good ones, the overall viewing experience left me with a “Meh” feeling.
If you noticed, it seemed to mock the immature teeny-tweeny idea of “upsetting the establishment” as if it is some noble undertaking. Joker had the mind of a child, throwing deadly tantrums when something was getting in the way of his fun, and his “blows against the establishment” served no higher purpose at all. Batman, though he worked outside the law, had principles that he was willing to stand for, despite the Joker’s repeated attempts to make Batman embrace the savagery that the Joker himself had embraced.
The Joker had a brilliant mind, but for all the talk of being a “better criminal,” his view of the world was a small, dirty little window he stared out of. And the irony was, even if he did get people to do what he wanted, he was doing so most often by threatening their loved, so in trying to prove that everyone was really like him, he was pressing buttons he himself didn’t have.
James Frazieron 02 Aug 2008 at 1:16 am 14Every pathetic attempt I’ve seen on the left’s part to co-opt this film for themselves dissolves to ash before it’s out the gate. If interpreted politically, Batman is GWB, and the film is explicitly sympathetic to him. Whatever Morgan Freeman’s concerns about the cell phone spying may be, this is in no way anything even remotely left-wing.
billypaintbrushon 02 Aug 2008 at 5:10 am 15talk about spewing such inanities.
Lowery could hardly be more dismissive of the DK metaphor. He should have just saved some time and said “I fart in your general direction”, but no, he had to run down his laundry list of conservative bogeyman.
This article says more about Lowery than it says about the movie.
USS Benon 02 Aug 2008 at 5:29 am 16I concur with Bubba.
Outlaw 13on 02 Aug 2008 at 5:44 am 17
Stephanieon 02 Aug 2008 at 5:55 am 18I mentioned this before but it bears a closer look……..
How many times did the guys on the side of good call the Joker a terrorist? The Joker in turn refers to himself a criminal. The thing that tells me there is a whole statement being made about how people view things. We view terrorists as well terrorists and we take them out with all means nessasary, terrorists and their apologists call themselves criminal only under the juridiction of a free societys laws, hence they can use those laws against that society. Thats something that really got me. How that was slipped in.
Regardless of what anyone says, Nolan wanted us to walk out thinking. I told someone who doesn’t like “comic book” movies that this wasn’t a comic book movie. It hard to explain what DK is. I think that is the whole thing, we are still talking about it and thinking about it. How many movies can a person really say that about? There are people out there who don’t want to think. Apparently Lowry doesn’t want to have to actually think. He wants everything in his life to reinforce his own “beliefs”. Remember this brand of leftism is a religion. These are orthodox people. Nolan might agree with them but he wrote a movie that does not reinforce those orthodox beliefs. I think the whole issue is, a guy that is a very successful writer who doesn’t follow the crowd, is an iconoclast, saw perhaps what was actually being attempted, and the intentions of teh film makers and when he voiced that opinion via the WSJ the Left who so despretely and jealously guard what they feel is theirs, Art, Culture, Society etc. freaked bloody out. The bottom line here is Lowry, Wells and others have been shocked into using their brain power and they don’t want to. To actually think, and maybe have an issue put in their faces they dislike and see it for what it is instead of what they wish it to be is a tough thing. To me they are like alcholics or drug addics. Suddenly being forced to see things as they are and maybe themselves as they are. That is a hard pill to swallow. But this whole issue of attacking a column in WSJ is so pathological that is screams these people who have attacked Andrew Klavan, DH etc have some of those certain issues. To embrace the truth and admit that they are wrong would be devestating to them.
Jdespiritoon 02 Aug 2008 at 6:08 am 19And I think they missed the point that Batman’s monitoring system did in fact catch the Joker (terrorists). And was never used for anything beyond those purposes when its task was finished.
And I’m sorry, but he thinks conservatives are uncomfortable talking about pop culture? That’s a pretty broad (stupid) statement. I’m a conservative interviewed in books about pop culture (music specifically), I’m pretty sure I could talk circles around this guy about pop culture. Nothing to do with my politics. But I guess only liberals can be “cool” in the elitist world this guy lives in.
rrpjron 02 Aug 2008 at 9:05 am 20I was initially intrigued by the Bush-Batman analogy, so I saw the film again. I don’t feel this analogy holds any water. The most obvious inconsistency is in the personal nature of Batman’s (and the film’s) central moral “agon” over the question of how to fight evil. One could fairly say Batman is tormented by it, even nearly incapacitated by it. But this struggle is nowhere evident or even suggested in the persona of George Bush. I don’t mean to say or imply it should be. But in order for the analogy to work, there must be some kind of subconscious identification among the audience with actual personality. There isn’t, at least to me. When I watch Batman brood the last person who comes to mind – metaphorically — is George Bush. Now, one can say that Batman’s struggle is private, and that George Bush has also grappled privately with his decisions on wiretapping, torture and the Patriot Act, etc. but that too is a stretch given what we know. It does not rise to the level of resonance.
If the point is that Batman’s techniques are the only correct and effective ones against terror, and that he has suffered for them, and that George Bush has similarly and effectively employed these techniques and also suffered, that is an analogy of cause and effect. I happen to agree with it, but don’t think it is served – or that either art or politics is served — by stretching it beyond that.
Indeed, I think a better argument could be made that Batman mines a traditionally liberal vein of storytelling having to do with the conscience-burdened hero, albeit in a refreshing and visceral new way. This hero in fact has more to do with the Byronic origins of comic book heroes. Presidents are not usually Byronic, and that is probably a good thing.
Robert Lindseyon 02 Aug 2008 at 3:05 pm 21“literal-minded density”
Does this mean Klaven’s interpretation is the “literal” and therefore correct interpretation? A literalist does not make anologies or see subtext, only what is right there in plain view. Lowery needs to decide which way he is going to argue, he’s trying to have it both ways. Oh, why isn’t Logic taught anymore?
Danilaon 02 Aug 2008 at 3:28 pm 22rrpjr, I have to disagree. Bruce Wayne does tend to brood sometimes, but I never saw him struggling with the idea of fighting against evil. He wasn’t hesitant at all to wiretap, in fact, it’s made clear that he’s been working on the technology for a while and kept Lucious out of the loop. I remember a shot of him from on high, listening in on cell phone conversations and hearing the Joker say where they could find “Harvey Dent” (turned out to be two dead guys in an apartment). So Batman/Bruce was already using the technology and moved forward without hesitation. He also did not hesitate to use torture, not at all.
If Batman ever wavered or worried, there was Harvey or Alfred to bring him back to the point. Harvey telling him sometimes a hero has to be the villain; Alfred telling him to burn down the forest. We don’t get to see the inner workings of GW’s mind but he clearly is surrounded by advisors. I think leftists give his advisors a little too much weight, but they are highly influential, no doubt about it. The same with Batman/Bruce. He is very malleable and open to the advice of others, in both TDK and Batman Begins. His whole character and mission is highly informed by others. He is not a lone wolf and neither is GWB.
So where you see hesitation and doubt in Batman, well, we don’t know if GWB has ever experienced those things. We do know that from the very beginning he’s being accused of “presidency by proxy” and called an idiot, with everyone thinking that Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, Rice, etc. are more powerful and smarter than him. I recently read a review where someone said the same thing about Bruce Wayne, that everything he did was guided by someone else wiser than him. Well that may be, but I thought it made him very wise indeed.
I didn’t see where Batman was so burdened by his conscience. He had no problem kidnapping Lau from China (aka rendition), torturing multiple people, using wiretapping technology. All those things liberals have doubts about he never had doubts about. The only thing he ever doubted was whether it was worth it to risk lives by not giving in to the Joker and he didn’t wonder for very long. That’s where Harvey Dent’s example helped him. We don’t get to see GWB go through this process by since he’s surrounded himself from the very beginning with so many wise and powerful people, I’m pretty sure he’s no lone wolf and must question and wonder what is the right thing to do in a given situation, although like Batman I’m sure he never loses sight of right and wrong and the need to fight evil. But to America and the world he must be strong and single-minded because he’s a symbol every bit as much as Batman.
Nick1970on 02 Aug 2008 at 4:00 pm 23Yes, the WSJ article by Mr. Klavan has gotten the lefties’ panties in a bunch — just check the comments over at the Journal’s OpinionJournal forums, as well as the Letters section in today’s print edition (including one howler from a director of Human Rights Watch). It’s obvious that a lot of KOS kids and AICN nerds decided to go over there and vent all their BS liberal talking points, which only proves Klavan’s point.
I myself commented that they need not worry — if their superhero Obama is elected, he will immediately solve all of our problems once and for all, and we will all live Happily Ever After. After all, who needs Batman when you can have The Messiah ™?
Stephanieon 03 Aug 2008 at 6:36 am 24Danila
The President like any other leader would have doubts and worrys. Leadership is a place where your doubts can be amplified by the position of being the leader.