{"id":269,"date":"2012-07-21T12:05:42","date_gmt":"2012-07-21T16:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/?p=269"},"modified":"2019-03-24T07:17:25","modified_gmt":"2019-03-24T11:17:25","slug":"the-dark-knight-rises-is-too-good-to-be-either-liberal-or-conservative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-dark-knight-rises-is-too-good-to-be-either-liberal-or-conservative\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dark Knight Rises is too Good to be either Liberal or Conservative"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Is new Batman movie liberal or conservative?\u00a0 There’s already been a lot of back-and-forth on this.\u00a0 Like some idiotic Obama supporters<\/a>, the idiotic Rush Limbaugh<\/a> thinks that the villainous “Bane” is an obvious reference to the villainous “Bain Capital,” Mitt Romney’s old company.\u00a0 Meanwhile, others<\/a> have claimed that the film is unabashedly Reaganite.\u00a0 I\u2019m kind of sympathetic to conservatives on this one because the movie can\u2019t help but look pro-conservative in comparison to what Hollywood usually puts out. But it\u2019s simply not<\/strong> pro-conservative or pro-capitalist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/dd>\n

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Having seen the movie yesterday, I\u2019m happy to report that it is not particularly political one way or the other. Political values are shallow values, which is why overtly political movies usually just aren\u2019t very good. Good movies reach so far deeper than politics that although they may contain political commentary, they end up transcending that commentary and making it part of something far more important. Both conservatives and liberals will find some of their values crystallized in the film because ultimately conservatives and liberals are all humans and have the same law written on their hearts even if sin has twisted that law in different ways.\u00a0 Nevertheless, the film isn’t so myopic as to be blind to any deep value that isn’t clearly seen through a liberal or conservative filter.<\/p>\n

I’ve heard that the movie is inspired by A Tale of Two Cities<\/em>, and that certainly seems to be the case. But while some would impose modern notions of \u201csocial justice\u201d on Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities<\/em> is a classic work that goes way too deep to be boxed into modern partisan politics. The Dark Knight Rises <\/em>is similar. It is decidedly anti-occupy-wall-street in the same way that Tale<\/em> was certainly anti-revolutionary. In both, the \u201crevolution\u201d is undeniably ugly, brutal, and offers nothing but destruction and false hope.\u00a0 Any veneer of nobility in the revolution is quite obviously just that–a pretense that hides what’s underneath.<\/p>\n

This must not, however, be read to imply that either one is \u201cfor\u201d the other side. Tale <\/em>is not kind to the aristocracy and Dark Knight<\/em> is not kind to wall street or capitalism. Each work describes a corrupt society which is corrupt precisely because both<\/em> \u201csides\u201d are rotten. Virtue and decency are found in the individuals who know something deeper and pursue something more than what either \u201cside\u201d has to offer. If either \u201cside\u201d wins, everyone loses. Both Batman and Bane buck the trends of their natural \u201cside.\u201d But whereas Bane hates people because they\u2019re infected by the culture\u2019s wickedness and wants to destroy them, Batman loves people despite the infection and wants to pull them out of it.\u00a0 Regardless of what liberals and conservatives might want to believe, that particular virtue of Batman isn’t liberal or conservative.<\/p>\n

Conservatives and liberals will both find their sides represented in this movie somewhere and cheer when the other side gets zinged.\u00a0 Some will like that Gotham’s upper class are portrayed as snobbish, self-indulgent, and out-of-touch or that a wealthy corporate suit makes such a substantial contribution to Bane’s villainy for the sake of greed.\u00a0 Others will appreciate the unsympathetic treatment of the blatantly socialistic rhetoric of Bain and his thugs or the brilliant scene with where Catwoman laments that a seized apartment “used to be someone’s home” and her apprentice’s shallow response that “now it’s everyone’s home” only highlights that a place that’s “everyone’s home” isn’t really a home at all.\u00a0 If they\u2019re shallow, partisans will assume the movie must be on their side, where all goodness is located, simply because the movie is very good. But in the end, the movie is just too<\/em> good for that.<\/p>\n

Bonus Mini-Review<\/strong><\/p>\n

It amazes me that each film in Nolan’s Batman trilogy is so different from the others despite being so similar.\u00a0 That alone makes them hard to compare to one-another.\u00a0 I can say that this movie is excellent. \u00a0 Though not as<\/strong> good as The Dark Knight<\/em>, I think it’s better than Batman Begins<\/em>.\u00a0 Thematically, it’s greatest strength is that it desperately grapples with the one flaw I thought the second movie had–that victory in the battle for Gotham’s soul hinged on lying and manipulating the people of Gotham.\u00a0 Its greatest flaw is probably that, for a movie about the battle for Gotham’s soul, the people of Gotham are conspicuously absent as compared to the second movie.\u00a0 Rises<\/em> really needed a “ferry” scene.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is new Batman movie liberal or conservative?\u00a0 There’s already been a lot of back-and-forth on this.\u00a0 Like some idiotic Obama supporters, the idiotic Rush Limbaugh thinks that the villainous “Bane” is an obvious reference to the villainous “Bain Capital,” Mitt … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,22],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Dark Knight Rises is too Good to be either Liberal or Conservative - The 96th Thesis<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/the-dark-knight-rises-is-too-good-to-be-either-liberal-or-conservative\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Dark Knight Rises is too Good to be either Liberal or Conservative - 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