okay, so i know this is a bit late, but i was hoping it would be brought up earlier. first, a warning to those who haven’t seen the dark knight, the following thread will include spoilers, so if you intend on seeing the movie later, you may want to leave. so with that done, on to the good stuff.
when i watched dark knight, my english major trained brain was working overtime. at points, i couldn’t believe how close the similarities were to certain contemporary political conflicts. undoubtedly, there was a “conservative” (though i use that term loosely) slant to the movie. let me go through a few points:
joker: the essential terrorist who uses gas and bullets to terrorize the city of gotham. he uses grainy videotape recordings of executions to instill fear in gotham. he turns the city against its leaders, including batman. see any resemblance?
batman: good guy with a twist. throughout the movie, there is a dichotomy presented - hero that gotham needs and the hero that gotham deserves. it explores the difference between being popular and ineffective vs. being hated but working in the public’s best interest. batman, in the end, sacrifices his good name in order to provide gotham with hope. he doesn’t mind being shunned so long as he works to rid the city of crime, fulfilling the forshadowing that took place earlier with harvey dent at the resteraunt. dent discussed the romans who would suspend democracy when there was imminent danger and appoint a single man leader. rachel responds that ceasar was the last to take power, which he never relenquished. dent says: “you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” anything yet?
cell phone sonar: batman creates an immense matrix of cell phone recievers which allow him to see and hear everything in the city of gotham. his friend, luscius, tells him that it is dangerous and unethical to have so much knowledge. batman says that he must find the joker at all costs, and when that is done, the cell phone program will be destroyed. picking up patriot act vibes?
batman is able to go to china to find the last money launderer in gotham. he is immune from warrants and jurisdiction claims, he is only limited by what is good for gotham. when he interrogates the joker, he ends up beating him in order to ellicit information that will save harvey dent. not really a specific there, but i sense something…
batman is not funded by government sources. everything he gets is from private industry. while dent and gordon flub around in the red tape of big government, batman is able to sidestep all of these concerns. his mentors, alfred and luscius are not voters, there is no transparency to the public. the people that inform batman are two privately employed individuals on whom the future of gotham depends.
okay, do we see the conservative twist yet? at the risk of over simplifying, i see the parallels as follows: joker - terrorists, batman - bush administration, cell phone - patriot act, lack of red tape - gitmo(ish), private industry - anti big government. if you see that, you will now see where i am going with this. the pragmatic view of conservativism present throughout the movie is, imho, what cost the movie the nomination for the oscars. even as a pretty left of center liberal, this snub pisses me off. i would hope that the nominations would reflect a more diverse range of political pov’s than it does. just because batman is a bush-like charecter doesn’t mean that this film isn’t deserving of a nomination. in fact, isn’t that what good art is about - giving a voice to the unpopular or disdainful elements of society? way to give ammo to the “liberal media bias” crowd.
The movie got 8 or 9 nominations, mostly in technical categories. Rather than going right to the liberal conspiracy theory, I would venture this guess,…The Dark Knight didn’t get tons of nominations because it’s a Batman movie.
The Academy tends to reward more serious fare. It’s not really surprising at all that a comic book movie doesn’t top their list.
The movie did not deserve a best picture nomination or any best actor/actress or supporting actor/actress nominations. It’s simply just not that good of a movie.
IMO the parallels you make are actually quite obvious and you come of a bit condescending in your post. Like you’re so much smarter then anyone else who saw the movie.
How about it was not nominated because it just was not as good as everyone makes it out to be? I’m a huge comic geek and thought it was good, but highly over-rated.
IMO the parallels you make are actually quite obvious and you come of a bit condescending in your post. Like you’re so much smarter then anyone else who saw the movie.
How about it was not nominated because it just was not as good as everyone makes it out to be? I’m a huge comic geek and thought it was good, but highly over-rated.
not trying to be condescending. i am genuinely sorry if you that was your take. i don’t think i am that much smarter, just starting a thread on slowtwitch…
The movie did not deserve a best picture nomination or any best actor/actress or supporting actor/actress nominations. It’s simply just not that good of a movie.
I agree… I liked the first one better. I liked the theme and idea of DK a lot, but after awhile the impossibility of everything the Joker was doing began to annoy me. I mean… he is just a guy right, no super powers… not even any cool hardware like Batman. And for most of his stunts he didn’t even have help. Yet he can secretly plant a massive amount of explosives anywhere he likes in a few minutes…
“I liked the theme and idea of DK a lot, but after awhile the impossibility of everything the Joker was doing began to annoy me. I mean… he is just a guy right, no super powers… not even any cool hardware like Batman.”
I’m sorry but, are you kidding? You’re ok with the billionaire vigilante and his memory fabric, ninja skills, and bat costume, but the Joker’s ability to plant explosives bothers you?
IMO the parallels you make are actually quite obvious and you come of a bit condescending in your post. Like you’re so much smarter then anyone else who saw the movie.
How about it was not nominated because it just was not as good as everyone makes it out to be? I’m a huge comic geek and thought it was good, but highly over-rated.
not trying to be condescending. i am genuinely sorry if you that was your take. i don’t think i am that much smarter, just starting a thread on slowtwitch…
I apologize. Dealing with 2 sick kids this weekend has me a bit on edge. Chances are you are much smarter then I, but that may not be saying much.
I’m sorry but, are you kidding? You’re ok with the billionaire vigilante and his memory fabric, ninja skills, and bat costume, but the Joker’s ability to plant explosives bothers you?
Batman has a R&D department so I am ok with that - one of the themes was even someone noticing that the batman technology seemed to come from Wayne Enterprises.
For someone who insisted they didn’t have any schemes, the Joker was able to plan ahead fairly well, so yes, I thought that was outside the supposed character.
"For someone who insisted they didn’t have any schemes, the Joker was able to plan ahead fairly well, so yes, I thought that was outside the supposed character. "
I can’t believe we’re having this discussion, but…
The Joker claimed to not be a “schemer” to help push Harvey Dent over the edge. The Joker is, and always has been (in the movies or comics) a tremendous schemer. He’s also a liar and a manipulator. Claiming to not be a schemer as an integral part of his scheme is entirely in character.
I’m sorry but, are you kidding? You’re ok with the billionaire vigilante and his memory fabric, ninja skills, and bat costume, but the Joker’s ability to plant explosives bothers you?
Sure… Batman’s stuff is in the realm of fantasy, but at least it is plausible fantasy, and we are shown how it is done. The Joker being able to walk around in broad daylight looking like a freak and planting tons of explosives in a hospital and some boats is just stupid. If he has some special super-human ability or technology that allows him to do it, then fine… but we are led to believe that he doesn’t. It just happens.
" The Joker being able to walk around in broad daylight looking like a freak and planting tons of explosives in a hospital and some boats is just stupid."
I don’t see how it’s any more stupid than the idea of a grown man dressed as a giant bat running around at night stopping crime.
"If he has some special super-human ability or technology that allows him to do it, then fine… but we are led to believe that he doesn’t. It just happens. "
all that political stuff is fine, but for me it comes down to this… I hated the movie and it doesn’t come close to deserving a nomination (although Heath Ledger does). After it ended my wife and I both said we wished we’d walked out early. Had we actually shared those thoughts we would have left, but neither wanted to spoil what we thought the other person might be enjoying. The last part of the movie is 45 minutes we’ll never get back. Everything before the last 45 minutes I’m ok with because I was eating popcorn.
IMO the parallels you make are actually quite obvious and you come of a bit condescending in your post. Like you’re so much smarter then anyone else who saw the movie.
How about it was not nominated because it just was not as good as everyone makes it out to be? I’m a huge comic geek and thought it was good, but highly over-rated.
not trying to be condescending. i am genuinely sorry if you that was your take. i don’t think i am that much smarter, just starting a thread on slowtwitch…
I apologize. Dealing with 2 sick kids this weekend has me a bit on edge. Chances are you are much smarter then I, but that may not be saying much.
no apology required. i hope the rest of the weekend went okay! also judging from the responses, i wouldn’t say that i was smarter than anyone.
Personally I think it sucked. Heath Ledger was really good, but the rest was BORING. Maybe its because my expectations were pretty high, but when it was over I felt like I had wasted my time.
As to your conspiracy theories, get a grip. ITS A MOVIE, and not a very good one.
IMHO I didn’t think it deserved a best picture nomination because the picture wasn’t that good. Ledger was great, but not the movie. As far as the noted parallels to ideology look no further then “V” for Vendetta yet for another movie that dealt with the Bush years. The odd part about V is it was written long before GW ever took office, 1982, so it could be logically construed that it was more about the Reagen years.
