The Dark Knight is not a political film. Rather, I should say that it is not JUST a political film. The movie could easily be categorized as a drama, an action/adventure, a psychological thriller, and above all, a horror flick. Studying all of the aspects, themes and questions provoked by Christopher Nolan’s epic sequel would take far more than just one review, but I believe the core of the film is a question.
How do you respond to terror?
The Dark Knight is not subtle (one reason I love it) about any of its subject matter, and the relevant themes to the war on terror are right out in the open. Several different characters refer to Heath Ledger’s Joker as a terrorist, which is exactly what he is. Outside of the realm of the screen, one reviewer dubbed the film a “Bush apologia,” and another called the Joker “Gotham’s Osama bin Laden.”
While I don’t entirely agree with the first characterization, it’s impossible to miss the similarities between the Joker’s reign of terror and the post-9/11 age. As opposed to Batman Begins, the word “fear” doesn’t appear in the script 47 times, but it still is the primary emotion that the action is intended to provoke. The moments of levity are few and far-between (a necessary flaw, given the driving force of the action) and the roaring pacing of the film create a paranoia in the audience that I imagine only a heavy dose of PCP can normally provide. (Think October 2001 during the Anthrax scare, and multiply it several hundred times.)
How each character copes with tragic events is the central, recurrent theme. It’s a theme that America has been dealing with for the better part of 7 years, and will continue to cope with for decades to come, given the fact that images of the World Trade Center falling are still such fresh, painful memories for most of the nation.
How did we respond to the terror of September 11? Let’s look at 3 different reactions to tragedy, each embodied by a different character.
While we never learn exactly how, or why, the Joker became the frightfully entertaining menace that he is, one can imagine that his formative years were filled with terror. The story of his facial scars changes with each telling and seems to be an inside joke that only the Joker is in on, but one fact we definitely come away with is that he hated his father. The Joker responded to the terror around him by embracing it in a way that 99.9999 percent of human beings are incapable of doing. The only real-life comparisons I can make are that of Adolph Hitler and Bin Laden. (Side note, a tremendous debate occurs in the current issue of the American Conservative about Hitler’s legacy on foreign policy and just how good the good war really was.)
One could debate whether the Joker is a nihilist or not for an eternity, but what is clear is that he is completely disillusioned with humanity. He sets out to prove throughout the film that people are just as bad as him. “I’m just ahead of the curve!” While America has shown flashes of deadly callousness during the Global war on terror, the idea behind it is still a noble one: that people must be protected from violent extremism, Islamic or otherwise.
Batman became a vigilante after watching his parents gunned down in front of him. He is obsessed with an alternative quest for vengeance or justice, depending on his mood of the evening. While he shows no qualms about breaking the law in order to bring criminals and terrorists down, Batman still maintains a code. He has a chance, towards the end of the film, to run the Joker down with his absurdly muscular motorcycle. Given the horror that the gleeful terrorist has caused, Batman has every reason to exercise capital punishment. But he doesn’t. The Joker later mocks him for his “misplaced sense of self-righteousness,” but Batman proves that he is a better man than the villains he fights precisely because he refuses to kill.
There are many similarities between our post 9/11 foreign policy and Batman’s vigilante crusades, but he has shown that there are lines he is not willing to cross. (If ever the threat of Jihad is abated, I sincerely doubt that we will show such honor to dismantle our domestic spying program the way that Bruce Wayne does.)
Which brings us to reaction number 3 to tragedy: the path of Harvey Dent.
Throughout most of the film, Dent rather than Batman is the main protagonist. He manages to successfully bring down half of the city’s organized crime leaders and starts to push Gotham back towards a relatively safe, secure place to live. With honesty, courage, and a dedication to the law he brings criminals to justice and earns the respect and admiration of the city, including Batman. One could juxtapose this rise to America’s global image following World War 2. We defeated the ultimate evil and set a new standard for the way a powerful, but moral nation should act. (Of course excluding Dresden and a host of other war crimes, but the image was still intact.)
SPOILER ALERT: Avoid next paragraph if you’re not familiar with the character of Harvey Dent in the DC Universe.
Then, towards the end of the second act Harvey Dent experiences a tragic loss. The way that he chooses to react is perhaps the greatest analogy to US foreign policy after September 11. While he had shown flashes of violence and vigilantism before, the terror pushes Harvey Dent over the edge and he develops a disfigured alter-ego, Two Face. Through this persona, Dent goes on a rampage against those that he sees as the culprits. Some of his victims are deserving; corrupt cops and mob bosses, and some of them are entirely innocent bystanders.
Revenge is not a precision-guided weapon. The anger that consumes Harvey Dent is quite similar to our overreaction to terrorist attacks. Several senseless acts of murder (although on a grand scale) have pushed America into absolute backlash mode.
If Osama bin Laden is the Joker to America’s Batman, then so far he has been proven right. The bloodshed that we have visited upon hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and Afghanis is not a measure of justice: it is proof that the quest for vengeance has gotten the best of us. Our golden boy Harvey Dent image has been replaced by a grotesque embodiment of imperial hubris and outrage. In the war on terror, we have quite simply gone too far.
It’s high time that our nation stopped fighting terror with terror and returned to a more rational foreign policy that would make our greatest heroes, fictional or not, proud.
July 20, 2008 at 9:48 pm
[...] July 20, 2008 by freestone Watched Dark Knight the other night. I am not a big fan of Batman. I think if you like this kind of movie, Dark Knight should be a very good one for you. I just noticed the strong reference to terrorism and fighting against terrorism in the movie including reference to domestic spying program of the Bush administration. The movie is making big statements on all these issues. Curious to know how other people find about this, I googled internet and found this review: Dark Knight Review How Do You Respond To Terror [...]
July 21, 2008 at 10:57 pm
I don’t know that I agree with your assessment that Batman seeks vengeance vs. justice on a whim. I think because he never crosses that line (killing the bad guys), that he maintains some sense of honor, whereas Two-Face represents what he would become if he gave into those occasional desires.
Joker is just a psychopathic anarchist out to show that there is a *little* bit of that inherent in all of us. Ultimately, in this film, he fails, but it’s an interesting topic worthy of more exploration.
Overall though, this is a fantastic review of the film Tim, thanks for making us ask some interesting questions.
July 22, 2008 at 1:27 am
Cody- I agree it’s not on a whim, but Batman does cross into very ethically questionable territory a number of times in pursuit of justice. He clearly does occasionally lapse, such as when he tortures the mob boss and the Joker in order to get information.
I find that many people are saying that the film is nothing more than a talking point for the right on the war on terror, and I disagree strongly. Nolan never comments whether it’s right or wrong: he just shows it for what it is. Thanks for the comment.
July 22, 2008 at 2:06 am
Yes, Tim; he shows it for what it is in order for us to make a choice. The characters, though, I think can be argued, are choosing paths of vengeance rather than ways to cope with terror. Harvey Dent rationalizes his boundless vengeance by encapsulating it in a coin – chance. Batman checks his by staying within his rule. And The Joker creates more of it, broken.
I think, then, that Nolan, while certainly paralleling to the war on terror, is making a further point by offering three main characters dominated by vengeance. Will some quest for vengeance always lie in the response to terror?
Good stuff — glad Jazz pointed us this way.
July 23, 2008 at 12:00 pm
[...] cursory and shallow treatment gives me the chance to play Leibniz to their Newton, a chance other bloggers have gleefully taken. But let’s go them one [...]
July 23, 2008 at 4:39 pm
[...] a Neocon? I had originally planned on watching The Dark Knight a second time before writing my review so that I could collect my thoughts better, but wasn’t able to until last night. As I was [...]
July 23, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Great post; love the characterization of each figure in the movie as a response to terror. Yet each of these characters (let alone the others, like Rachel, the mayor & Gordon, who offer their own views on the situation) also have a difference world-view, which plays into how they respond to terror, coming from being dealt a “bad hand” (Batman’s parents gunned down, the Joker’s abusive father, Dent’s love loss).
Dent sees the world completely through the lens of chance, of fate and causality. By chance he lives another day and doesn’t get shot in the courtroom, and by chance he lives through the Joker’s attack on the armored van. He’ll take his chances. But what irks him is when those chances are coerced by people behind the scenes – as the Joker explains to him in the hospital bed – and then he feels cheated. He goes on a killing spree, but still leaves it to chance (a flip of a coin) whether they live or die; more of a way to absolve him responsibility of their deaths, and instead blame it on fate/the coin.
The other two characters respond different to the theme of free will and fate. Batman continually exercises his free will, fighting on behalf of the innocent/good versus the forces of evil. He believes there is always a choice to fight, yet all the while realizes that he could very well lose everything, and all his efforts might be in vain.
The Joker has the most interesting and terrifying response- he seems to see the world as a terrible place, having lost faith in people (like Dent) in being good. Yet he refuses to believe in fate either, choosing instead to control the situation before him (as Gordon says, the Joker wanted to be caught, wanted to be held in central command so he could blow it up). Ironically, the Joker’s amazing and careful planning ends up creating the most anarchy of all, and everyone else is left in the dust trying to catch up to him.
So as the US responds to terror, do we become controllers and believe that it’s better we’re in control rather than someone else (the Joker), do we become fatalists and believe it’s all just a matter of chance (Two-Face), or do we become believers in the good and choose to fight evil wherever we come across it, promoting good even in the face of staggering odds (Batman)?
July 26, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I see The Dark Knight as probably the most intelligent movie response to 9/11 yet. The bombs on two boats scenario is based on `the prisoners` dilemma` derived from game theory. The idea being that two players in a game can choose between two moves; either `cooperate` or `defect`. The idea is that each player gains when both cooperate, but if only one of them cooperates, the other one, who defects, will gain more – but they can`t confer. (U can Google 4 more.) Joker wants to demonstrate that ultimately everyone is as murderous and ruthless as he is. The passengers could attempt to save their own lives by destroying the other boat, providing they act first. Joker expects one boat to do so. But there is also a moral dimension, by destroying a boat the survivors will also be mass murderers and both boats choose not to become so.
It`s telling this particular scenario was chosen for the film. On 9/11, if those in one tower could have saved themselves by choosing to destroy the other tower would they have done so? (But then becoming terrorists themselves.) Nolan is saying that no they wouldn`t have; they`d decide to take their own chances and someone else would have to take the moral responsibility as to whether they lived or died. The boat passengers decision not to blow up the other is a demonstration of basic humanity that is the real defeat of Joker and what he stands for.
Harvey Dent suffers greatly in the film and arrives at a mental state that believes everything is arbitrary, that there is no morality, good, bad, justice or fairness in the world. Everything is morally equivalent. Two Face crucially abandons being led by moral choices, letting the coin flip do the work. He`s thrown into a nihilistic moral wasteland between Joker and Batman. And that is where US foreign policy is now with Guantanamo Bay and Iraq whilst pretending to itself that it is the world`s White Knight; preferring to believe the legend of Harvey Dent rather than the reality of what he became. (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is referenced in TDK.) Another key plot point is about the use of surveillance technology (ends and means), immensely topical given the Patriot Act and UK`s anti terror laws. There’s obviously more, it’s a very dense, complex film. What I love about these superhero characters is that they’ve becoming a pantheon of modern mythical figures – similar to those of Greek, Norse or Arthurian legends – whose stories can be endlessly retold and refashioned.
July 28, 2008 at 1:31 am
[...] Tim Weaver writes over at Not So Subtle, perhaps Dent’s anger is more like our overreaction to terrorism – our white knight image has been replaced by a politically-fueled quest to “go it [...]
August 1, 2008 at 11:32 pm
[...] it also set up, if you wanna read into this way too much (am I right guy who thought it was an allegory for Iraq), then it was Lucious Fox who said that the new bat suit will protect him [...]
August 4, 2008 at 12:01 pm
I found this thread after reading a story on the NY Times website. Having been a fan of Batman as long as I can remember (the only other one that came close was Bruce Lee as Kato when he was kicking Robin’s butt on the old tv series), I not only drew no correlation between “The War On Terror” (sounds like a Wellsian novel) and “The Dark Knight” but I failed to see any connection after reading these same theories. It comes down to subtext.
I was around when Denny O’Neil made the first shift in the early 70’s to Batman as a flawed hero. Not a major flaw, but one that had to draw on his humanity to understand the new Joker that appeared with him. This same subtext exists in this version of the Dark Knight’s tale as well. To say the new movie is a commentary on terrorism is as ridiculous as saying the Batman movie serial from the 40’s was a comment on the rise of communism or even a comment on Hitler Germany. Both stories take place in morally ambiguous times… wars tend to blur what is moral per God’s standards versus what is “right” and “just”… and we, literally, see bats in the darkness.
A wise man once said “Wouldn’t it be great if movies were more like real life?” The response, from major producer of the time, was “Wouldn’t it be better if real life were more like the movies?”
“The Dark Knight” arrives at a time when vigilantism is the preferred method for people as law enforcement and governments fail to protect the very citizenry that put them in place. People video themselves beating others into submission, because to them it’s sport. Why not look at the real villains… why not take a look in the mirror? WE created the Batman, WE create the chaos, WE encourage the very behavior we are now condemning. Hey, here’s a great idea…!
Why not just watch the movie… ANY movie, really… and turn off your “I’m a better filmmaker then they are because I would have done this…” The bottom line is: If you could have made a better picture that you feel is without propaganda, then go ahead and make it. If not, then just sit quietly and let us enjoy 2 hours of suspension of disbelief.
August 20, 2008 at 2:15 am
[...] My first article on the film was a simple review, with a nuanced look at the terrorism themes within the film. Notice how I did not say that Barack Obama is like Batman, or that the film makes any explicit political points, aside from a very clear condemnation of domestic spying. [...]
August 20, 2008 at 8:56 pm
[...] My first article on the film was a simple review, with a nuanced look at the terrorism themes within the film. Notice how I did not say that Barack Obama is like Batman, or that the film makes any explicit political points, aside from a very clear condemnation of domestic spying. [...]