was a film without hope, with a long and dreary narrative that never
loosens its grip. It leaves the viewer without a sense of answers.
I saw it and left confused. It saw it again, and left confused again.
All the while, I kept wondering if this interpretive effort would pay
off. Maybe it’s just another movie and lacks the ideological signifcance of the other two.
I too had read several reviews that had condemned the film from a
left-wing point view, arguing that it took at cheap shot at the Occupy
Wall Street movement, suggesting that it consists mainly of brainless
menaces who are easily manipulated by a strongman leader. The filmmakers
deny this.
Regardless, this was probably the best political feature of the film.
However, the merit of its warning about left-wing populism was
seriously compromised by the portrayal of the Gotham cops as saintly
guardians of the social order. Neoconservatives loved this part of the
film, made all the better to them because the prisons are full and
Gotham is ruled by a civilian-led authoritarian regime of tight law and
surveillance — the neocon dream come true.
What’s going on here? Why is the movie so full of mixed messages and, in the end, so unsatisfying?
Finally, it hit me. And this will be perfectly obvious once you hear it.
The problem is that the film gives Gotham (and us) a choice between
two forms of despotism, one “left wing” and one “right wing,” and asks
us to choose the lesser of two evils. We can have one of two systems:
bureaucratic/authoritarian or revolutionary/dictatorial. The idea of a
self-managing society is just out of the question. The film biases that
choice by showing one as offered by the evil villain and the other by a
corrupt, yet stable status quo.
Do you see now?
Dark Knight Rises replicates the choice that
the present political system presents to us. We look at the choices and
throw up our hands, knowing full well that neither really offers
answers to the problem. Watching this film is like watching the Sunday
talk shows that feature two flavors of the same poison. It’s the State
of the Union address and the response to the State of the Union address,
neither of which tells what’s true or gives us a way out.
It’s the two sides of the street fights between the Occupy protesters
and the cops. It’s the left versus the right. It’s Republicans versus
Democrats. It’s “law and order” versus revolutionary dictatorship. It’s
Italian fascism versus Soviet communism. It’s the two sides of the
Spanish Civil War. It is also the choice faced by old Rome in its late
stage: rule by a corrupt oligarchy of the Senate or a cruel imperial
dictatorship of Caesar.
It is the choice given to every nation in its late stages. No truly
informed citizen believes that this is all that should be on the menu.
But
Dark Knight Rises doesn’t show us another way. It never
shows us the option of a self-managing society where people are
permitted to shape their own destinies apart from the will of two gangs
of political elites. Whoever wins the great struggle over Gotham’s
future, the results will be imposed from the top down.
The result is that viewers are left with a sense of hopelessness in
the same way that the current political climate denies people authentic
hope. Whatever happens will come from the center and top, leaving the
rest of us unfree to manage our own lives, keep and use our own
property, mind our own business and cobble together our own human
associations. In
The Dark Knight Rises, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not even distant memories.
The film opens with Bruce Wayne/Batman in a long period of
retirement, living alone in his mansion during eight years of stability
in Gotham. But what is this stability, really? It’s not prosperity,
because the homes for orphans are full and they can’t get jobs once they
are too old to live there. The prisons are jammed with supposedly
violent thugs and the leaders of organized crime, swept off the streets
thanks to a new draconian law that unleashed government power.
The new law is named after martyred district attorney Harvey Dent. In
the first scenes of Gotham, the city is celebrating Harvey Dent Day.
The police are in firm control of the city, as led by the police
commissioner and the political powers of the city. From the perspective
of the elites, nothing is wrong. Life is blessedly boring. Crime has
fallen so low that police joke about soon having to chase down people
with overdue library books.
Is there corruption? Of course. This is Gotham. In fact, the
corruption is so deep and pervasive that the saintly district attorney
after whom the present order is named is a lie. He is actually the
villain named Two-Face — a perfect metaphor for every member of the
political class. In his tenure, he said one thing and did another.
People thought he was doing good, but he was secretly doing evil. Even
the best men of the current regime in Gotham are willing to spread the
lie of the greatness of Dent, solely for the purpose of maintaining
government power and immunizing the power structure from criticism.
The strongman dictator Bane sees the vulnerability of this seemingly
stable system. He perceives that people are seeking something, some form
of liberation, and that he can use this political impulse to solidify
his control over Gotham on his way to plotting its final destruction. He
recruits the unemployed to work under the city in the sewers to plot
his takeover.
Bane has plenty of people willing to risk death to work for him, both
because they are desperate and because Bane offers a radical
alternative to the present order. Meanwhile, the city elites go on about
their daily tasks, completely oblivious to what is happening beneath
the surface.
At the appointed hour, Bane initiates shock and awe in the form of
massive explosions throughout the city. At the football game where a
large portion of Gotham’s citizens are gathering, Bane blows up the
field, and announces to everyone that he is the new leader of the city.
Their elites have failed and now a people’s revolution is taking place.
“Gotham, take control,” Bane says, “take control of your city.
Behold, the instrument of your liberation! Identify yourself to the
world!”
The rich are looted. The prisoners are set free to become armed gangs
in the Bane regime. Show trials are established on the model of the
late stages of the French Revolution. Guilt is presumed and everyone is
sent to die, to the cheers of the workers and peasants. Meanwhile, the
bourgeoisie cower in their homes in fear.
This is when the Dark Knight rises to set the world right again. His
most-loyal allies in this army are the massive number of police who had
been recruited during the years of seemingly crimeless stability.
As audience members, we are being asked to cheer for Batman because
he opposes the bloody and ruthless Bane, who is a Stalin-like figure.
But the best possible result that Gotham can get out of this is a
restoration and intensification of the previous fascist system of
police, prisons, rule by corrupt elites and mandatory obedience to
Gotham’s version of the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland
Security.
As a result, it is hard to cheer. The choice is left or right
dictatorship. It is Occupy versus the cops. It is Stalin versus
Mussolini all over again. It is Hoover versus FDR. It is the Democrat
despot or the Republican despot.
This is the dreadful choice that political systems all over the world
have set up. You have to decide, based on your cultural identity and
ideological preferences, what form of top-down rule you desire. There’s
Plan A or Plan B, but no Plan C. There are two types of prison cells,
but there is no way out of the prison itself. Our choices are not really
authentic choices. All of us are inchoately aware that whatever the
results are, we will not be freer than we were before.
One of the most-compelling images of the film is a prison that is
considered the worst prison in the world. It is buried deep in a hole.
You can look up 200 feet in the air and see the light, but there is no
way that ordinary people can climb out. This is a chilling image of
where most people in the developed world are today. We look up and we
see a far-distant light, and that light is called liberty. But we don’t
see a way to get there.
This much we can see. There is no Dark Knight who will save us. We must save ourselves. "
Jeffrey A. Tucker
Article Original Source
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