7.30.2005
batman's weird politics
i was fairly excited at the prospect of a grittier batman. i like the darkness of batman, the way he always seems unsure about his own project, etc. and batman begins had all the makings of a more sophisticated superhero flick, which it delivers in heaps with its A-list cast and micro-managed "seriousness." but at the end of the day, it's still a comic book movie. at a certain point it has to split in two: good guy in silly suit vs. bad guy in silly suit. and the ideological process it takes to get there is pretty weird...
****spoilers ahead, and smarmy brain-noodling****
when we begin, young batman is a john walker lindh type-- privileged, pissed off, in a remote location, and involved in shit that's way over his head. he meets terror guru liam neeson, who treats him to the sort of paternalistic physical/psychological training we're used to from kung fu or prison flicks. as neeson's "daddy" status cements into place, we're invited into the trance of his fascist rhetoric. we thrill as batboy's "weakness" pounds its way out of him. we applaud his determination as well as his moral entitlement, and we prepare for a dirty harry-like gutter sweep when he gets back to gotham.
the fascist trance is then interrupted by a moment of ethical clarity. a sudden awareness of something resembling human rights triggers batman to turn on his terrorist clan. he leaves the mystical east confused and "in the right" (according to the movie's spell, at any rate), though it remains unclear how he got there, ideologically. legality, in the new batman universe, keeps changing its mind. batman declares to neeson that he "is not an executioner," and demands the need for trials and sentencing. back in gotham, we get good-cop-bad-cop in the courtroom, and both archetypes, to boot. katie holmes represents liberal idealism, stressing illness and circumstance over retribution. cillian murphy (the film's one cartoonish bad guy) gives form to the inevitable corrupt bureaucracy. his amoral sycophant "scarecrow" (complete with effeminate, euro-hipster fashion sense), slides past holmes' idealism as if he snuck out of a cop flick from the eighties. he marks the comic-book-pinnacle of the movie; where it turns into a cartoon. the goodies and the baddies take their appropriate sides and batman begins as a kinder, guiltier dirty harry.
then things get really weird. neeson (and co.) returns to gotham, now officially "bad" and as the terrorist mastermind of the entire narrative. the same cultish hate-mongering we had so much fun with at the film's beginning takes on al-queda-status from then on out. and what is their weapon of choice? fear itself. fear as chemical warfare-- a fog of psychological vapor, triggering one's worst personal nightmares, spreads across gotham city. if michael moore has suggested (in bowling for columbine, for example) that fear is what orchestrates our violent culture, in batman begins that sentiment is pushed to a topsy-turvy extreme: fear as a weapon of mass destruction. the irrational fear that moore would like to disgard returns as the ammunition of terror itself: destroy the terrorists before they attack us with our fear of them themselves. meta-terror, predicated upon its ability to make itself virial in the abstract, punished (eventually) by a guilt-ridden vigilante.
****spoilers ahead, and smarmy brain-noodling****
when we begin, young batman is a john walker lindh type-- privileged, pissed off, in a remote location, and involved in shit that's way over his head. he meets terror guru liam neeson, who treats him to the sort of paternalistic physical/psychological training we're used to from kung fu or prison flicks. as neeson's "daddy" status cements into place, we're invited into the trance of his fascist rhetoric. we thrill as batboy's "weakness" pounds its way out of him. we applaud his determination as well as his moral entitlement, and we prepare for a dirty harry-like gutter sweep when he gets back to gotham.
the fascist trance is then interrupted by a moment of ethical clarity. a sudden awareness of something resembling human rights triggers batman to turn on his terrorist clan. he leaves the mystical east confused and "in the right" (according to the movie's spell, at any rate), though it remains unclear how he got there, ideologically. legality, in the new batman universe, keeps changing its mind. batman declares to neeson that he "is not an executioner," and demands the need for trials and sentencing. back in gotham, we get good-cop-bad-cop in the courtroom, and both archetypes, to boot. katie holmes represents liberal idealism, stressing illness and circumstance over retribution. cillian murphy (the film's one cartoonish bad guy) gives form to the inevitable corrupt bureaucracy. his amoral sycophant "scarecrow" (complete with effeminate, euro-hipster fashion sense), slides past holmes' idealism as if he snuck out of a cop flick from the eighties. he marks the comic-book-pinnacle of the movie; where it turns into a cartoon. the goodies and the baddies take their appropriate sides and batman begins as a kinder, guiltier dirty harry.
then things get really weird. neeson (and co.) returns to gotham, now officially "bad" and as the terrorist mastermind of the entire narrative. the same cultish hate-mongering we had so much fun with at the film's beginning takes on al-queda-status from then on out. and what is their weapon of choice? fear itself. fear as chemical warfare-- a fog of psychological vapor, triggering one's worst personal nightmares, spreads across gotham city. if michael moore has suggested (in bowling for columbine, for example) that fear is what orchestrates our violent culture, in batman begins that sentiment is pushed to a topsy-turvy extreme: fear as a weapon of mass destruction. the irrational fear that moore would like to disgard returns as the ammunition of terror itself: destroy the terrorists before they attack us with our fear of them themselves. meta-terror, predicated upon its ability to make itself virial in the abstract, punished (eventually) by a guilt-ridden vigilante.
