Saw The Dark Knight this afternoon. I loved it and fully agree with Andew Bolt that Batman character represents Bush, and Howard and Blair.
Bolt rightly points out that some people could and do interpret the movie the other way, but that's because the director allowed them to through deliberate ambiguity, and wanted them to. It got the movie past the script censors and probably kept the cast on board. I don't think Ledger understood he was lending weight to a conservative cause as he played the part of the anarachic joker. If he had he would have been much less convincing. BTW he does deserve a posthumous Oscar for TDK and I can almost forgive him for being such a druggie twat having seen his performance.
Where was I? yeah, TDK plays the audience (,cast and crew) with the same subtlety as Team America did (I bet that Matt Stone still thinks Trey Parker votes democrat). The ambiguity is ingeniously achieved by putting both messages out there and merely shifting the emphasis, or tempting the audience, in spite of themselves, to empathize more with one side - through a protagonist's struggle, or with "America! Fuck Yeah!". In both movies people who are looking for a message will find what they want to hear, but people who aren't get the director's intended messages. Whether that's "Bush is Batman" or Alex Balwin is a F.A.G.
The big difference between the two movies is that TDK is not comedy and so gets us to empathize heaps more with the hero and the serious choices he has to make. In 2005 when Team America came out, the pro-Bush line had to be a joke. Not anymore.
I consider The Dark Knight to be one of the great movies and a cultural watershed not just because it supports Bush, but because it's hugely popular.
I hate to say it but Ledger could have done conservatives a huge favour by dying. He made drugs look stoopid and a conservative movie popular with the lefty cinema goers. Cheers, mate. You're an Aussie Legend.
But Heath can't take all the credit. The Director's simple anti-terror messages is what people are tapping into. Hollywood has struggled to get bums on seats for as long as it's line or terror was represented by Lions for Lambs and other lefty Clooney/Cruise uberflops. Nothing succeeds like success. Expect more anti-terror films outta Hollywood.
Bolt's breakdown of how the movie seduced the viewer to the harsh realities of the war on terror is great. Read it here. But I disagree with his analysis on one point. The people of Gotham end up hating batman for saving them and thereby showing them up to be pussies, and Bolt asserts (probably with some license) that the people turned on Bush for the same reason. I personally think that the people of Gotham are meant to represent the media. The broader public (outside Western Europe) empathizes with Bush and not with terrorists, as demonstrated by the popularity of the movie.
There is also one episode which I thought was beautiful that Bolt did not comment on.
(SPOILER WARNING: Do not read further if you have not seen the film. Hurry up and see it and come back).
The Joker sets up a variation of what i think is the prisoners dilemma. Two groups of people, one law-abiding citizens, one crims, are stranded on two ferries that are wired with explosives. Each has the detonator for the other boat. Each boat has to decide whether to blow up the other boat or risk being blown up themselves. The joker says he will let the group who presses the detonator live, but if neither side presses the detonator they will all die. The law-abiders have a vote and democracy grinds it slow wheels. They vote against it, but as with opinion polling, they didn't really mean it. One law-abiding guy steps forth saying he'll take the rap for being the decisive one and takes the detonator. No one opposes him.
What we all expected was that the law-abiding guy would stoop to killing to save his skin, and that of course the Joker had rigged the detonators to blow up their own boats. Our man would blow himself up and scream, "if only i had renounced violence!" through incinerated vocal chords.
This would be the typical Hollywood message. The director wanted us all to expect it.
And it didn't happen.
The guy almost presses the detonator but can't. He realises that he would be playing the joker's game. If he killed the people the others boat, what reason did he have to believe the joker would keep his promise not to kill them too? (As it happens in the film the Joker makes two other such promises to spare people lives beforehand, and ends up killing everyone anyway. i'll leave them for the reader to spot). In the end it dawns on the everyman that the terrorist cant be bargained with. He relinquishes the detonator.
But The violins playing the tension in the moment of decision do not die away rapidly. They hang in the air as the man, long-faced, takes his seat again. There is no relief, no release. The tension never goes away. The director is telling us that there is no choice you can make that will let you avoid culpability and live. The responsibility to walk the line between freedom and fighting terror is one we all have to bear forever. Not just batman and Bush but the voters aswell. We little-guys are the ultimate masters of our own fate (in a democracy, that is).
When the Joker sees that neither the crims nor the law-abiders blow up the other boat, he goes even more crazy. It's the first time that the slide toward anarchy he inspired stops, or even slows down. And Batman had nothing to do with it. OK Batman thwarts The Joker's attempt to then blow up both boats and so does his fair share of day-saving, but the decision the little-guy faced and made did more to disappoint and deter the Joker than anything Batman does, or could do.
Democracy has never been more thrilling to watch. Back in the real world I'm on the edge of my seat.
