Wednesday, August 20, 2008

The Dark Conservative Knight

I just watched the Dark Knight today, (I know what took so long?) and I have to say it is an absolutely fantastic movie.

BUT, I approached it from the perspective of absolutism and conservatism.  From these angles the movie is absolutely an allegory for the war on terror.  The joker is the ultimate terrorist.  The only thing lacking from his perspective is bowing to Allah five times a day.  Batman is the ultimate conservative, there are times that he must do whatever is necessary to stop evil.  Including torture, and spying.  But at the same time, Batman goes to degrees that make Bush look moderate in comparison,  consider the following.

Think about this,  Bush has "tortured" only one terrorist, and compared to what Batman did it couldn't even be considered torture.  (I don't think waterboarding is torture)

Bush only spies on people communicating with KNOWN terrorists.  Batman was spying on EVERYONE in the city.  Yet we know from the movie, had Batman not spied on them he wouldn't have found the Joker.  And the Joker WOULD HAVE killed everyone on board the ship in cold blood.

You see that's one of the other things that absolutely struck me..  This movie presents the evil within human nature in a way that I've never seen in a movie before.  And a fact of human nature and the world we live in is that some beliefs perpetuate hatred and evil.

The striking fact that the Joker's videos paralleled Al Qaeda's in shock factor and style was probably completely intentional by the director to drive home the callousness of this evil.  Think about what the Joker did to that batman dress up, compared to what Al Qaeda did to the poor souls they captured.  The Joker looks like a saint in comparison.  Yet, he truly is the closest thing Hollywood has given us since 2001 addressing the evil with the souls of some of us.
Blogged with the Flock Browser

3 comments:

Zenrage said...

Yeah, yeah, yeah and Batman saved the day by utilizing warrantless wiretapping. Heard it all before.

Ever notice how these conservative comparison pieces also never quite make the connection of Bush holding and torturing prisoners in Guantanamo Bay to the Joker taking hostages and holding them indefinitely.

Its really a shame that you crackpots can only really feel validated in your actions unless you see the same actions being depicted by fantasy characters in fantasy situations.

I mean, fuck, there are liberal characters in movies, to be sure. But even then liberals don't just use these characters as a direct excuse for whatever they do. The liberals know enough about the borders between fact and fantasy that they still have to defend any actions with real world validations. This separates rational people from the crackpots.

I mean seriously.. are you actually saying that the War on Iraq is a good thing because Batman did it?? I mean using fictional characters like Jack Bauer and Jesus is bad enough, but the shit you're shilling out is just plain laughable.

Its like saying it would be ok for me to kill Bill O'Reilly because V killed a similar character in V for Vendetta. Just because a fictional character didn't have his actions expanded or brought into the light as unethical or criminal in a fictional movie, that doesn't mean that its suddenly ok for any conservative to champion similar notions in real life based solely on that work of fiction.

Grow up, little boy.

Unknown said...

you're funny.

Did you read my post? How I was discussing the nature of evil? It's not uncommon for stories to use allegory to relate to reality. It was often used in the middle ages to relate to children to stay away from strange older people that like to hang around children. (the wolf eating children allegory)

1) Bush is not TORTURING these terrorist scum bags. He only waterboarded ONE terrorist scum bag, and waterboarding is hardly torture at all. (look at Al Qaeda's manual for god's sake.)

2) EVERY terrorist we've released has been caught FIGHTING us and KILLING us and Iraqi's. IMO, these animals should be shot.

3) I'm not a christian and find your relativism typical of a liberal, you resort to name calling and swearing because your little mind cannot come up with ACTUAL replies to my statements.

4) the "warrantless" wiretapping was performed by Clinton as well. Bush just made it easier to get the bad guy from this action, and AND, he has ONLY wiretapped SUSPECTED TERRORISTS. Are you a suspected terrorist?

5) READ FOR GOD'S SAKE. STUDY ISLAM. It's an evil religion hell bent on KILLING YOU AND ME, regardless of our different world views.

Toto said...

The Left vehemently denied "The Dark Knight" had anything to do with the War on Terror. That's fine. The public knows better.