The 5 Most Politically Incorrect Ideas Smuggled into The Dark Knight Rises
After The Dark Knight, we already knew Batman was a Republican. In The Dark Knight Rises, this son of privilege who made a fortune in his own right stands up for free enterprise and individualism against the collectivist demagogues who stir up class warfare and vilify the wealthy. That’s right — this time he’s BatMitt.
Here are the political takeaways from The Dark Knight Rises:
5. Bane is not Bain.
Rush Limbaugh, who apparently hadn’t seen the new movie, initially wondered, “Do you think that it is an accident?” that the movie’s lead evildoer is named Bane in a summer of chatter about Mitt Romney’s former outfit Bain Capital.
But not only is the bad guy’s name a coincidence (it dates back to 1993), Bane is the opposite of Bain. The villain plots to destroy Bruce Wayne by attacking the Gotham Stock Exchange, then launches a Marxist revolution in which the lower orders strike down the financiers and the “oppressive” bourgeoisie. Bane even empties the prisons, though to his credit he doesn’t do what the Democratic Party would, which is to guide the mob to the nearest polling place and forbid anyone to check their IDs.
Of course the whole stock market destroying of Bruce Wayne and Marxist revolution are not the goals of the villain, who isn’t “really” Bane at all.
Part of the reason the revolution fails is that it was never meant to succeed in the first place, which is why Bane never actually leads it, leaving that to the lunatic Scarecrow.
So Sam #1, which of the Worlds Marxist revolutions would you consider a “success”? From the delightful new words like “Gulag” to the new concepts like Ukrainian “controlled famines” to the using of plastic bags to kill in Cambodia the history of Marxist Revolutions is a complete and utter failure. Size does not matter, from the decadence and rape and filth of the OWS protesters to the utter bankruptcy of Russia before the collapse.
As Ayn Rand said. “There are to ways to motivate people. You can appeal to people through the free exchange of goods and services, exchanging value for value or you can use force, the barrel of a gun.
Choose.
Actually, the stock market thing was part of the master plan – they had to somehow make Wayne not rich, and not in charge of his company.
But you are right – the populist uprising wasn’t the end goal – it was just a cynical means to the end, just like pretty much everything else Bane did until the big reveal at the end of the movie.
Your point #2 is especially well taken. In Europe the idle playboy seems to be something of an ideal; here in the USA, no one trusts such a guy. When the very interesting Spanish film Abre los Ojos was remade here as the equally interesting but more visually dazzling Vanilla Sky, they had to fix that: The original Spanish hero had inherited a family restaurant empire, and did nothing but amuse himself. In the remake, our hero ran the publishing business he’d inherited, and a subplot dealt with an attempt by the board of directors to supplant him (which made for a cool red herring in the plot). Quite simply, Americans admire hard work, while Europeans think that effort is best put into Living Well (if you’re lucky enough to afford it).
Europe is not a country, but a continent of ethnically and culturally diverse peoples. Do you really believe we all have the same attitude to work or the government? Obesity is a useful marker for indolence and many of your people are impressively rotund. Low academic achievement is a correlative of lassitude and many of your young people do not fare well in international academic studies. I’m not saying you are all lazy, just hopefully explaining to you that we can all pick out examples from hundreds of millions of people and extrapolate (wrongly).Regards.
Obesity is no more an indicator of indolence than your writing is a indicator of ignorance. Look again at the painting of Sir Edmund Burke. I don’t think Gov. Christie has missed many meals either. There are always exceptions to the general rule because we are humans.
Surely you can write a better and more coherent rejoinder to the article, or are you too busy doing nothing whilst cashing your govt check?
Also, remember that in Africa men choose women and women choose men based upon their amount of largesse. As in skinny men and women are a sign of poverty in Africa.
See we can all play that game and it gets us no where…
Sincerely, The Big Man
I was responding to “werewife”. My point was that it was odd to make assumptions about so many people. You then support her right to generalize about Europeans but then whine about my generalization of chubsters. You then in a later point generalize about Africa as if it’s one country,which it is not. It’s like me judging the US by what occurs in Mexico or El Salvador.
By the way “exception to the rule” does imply that there is a rule, in this case, that obese people are generally indolent. The two personal examples you cite are good counter examples but hopefully you appreciate that statistically that’s a meaningless survey.Some people in Africa may like porkers but that’s becuase they are perceived as being wealthy and free from the obligations of work ie indolent. May I also suggest you look up the word “largesse”- it doesn’t mean what you think it does.
To the second responder I would say you appear to have seen words that I have not written. I never said work was solely physical so that’s a strawman.You also need to realize Europe is not one cultural or political area and what pertains to Greece does not relate to Finland. We are not one country. Are you aware that we are not all Marxists? I am sure you could give examples of the cultural atrophy of certain European countries but decay is not uniform and in some regards the US is more Marxist than France! The American elites obsession with Whiteness studies and the sinister race quotas is more leftist than “la belle France”. Banks are forced to loan money to people who can’t pay it back but that’s okay because they are from the left’s client groups!
When your society pursues policies of artificial scarcity it is hard to be obese. Wealthy societies don’t have the same problem. And free societies do not think that they should worry about whether their populace likes to overindulge in food or in exercise. Each person is free to decide for themselves. You also seem to think that most labor is manual and therefore you will lose weight if you have a strong work ethic but in the information age the opposite is actually the truth.
Education is very much overvalued in the sense that you mean it. The US finishes in the middle of the pack by your standards but we invent more and earn more than anyone else. If your education gave you the advantages you think it does you would be able to understand why that is. The Tea Partiers certainly understand it while the idiots in OWS haven’t the first clue.
Having a degree in Marxist studies has a negative value associated with it. The more people who are “educated” in that fashion the poorer the society will be and the less they will know about how the world actually works. In short a lot of the education you laud is a tremendous drag on European countries and contributes to a level of ignorance that is of a sort that was not common in the US before this current generation. To the extent we have bought into this propaganda we have suffered and will continue to do so.
Yeah, there are good and bad people everywhere but the difference is in the systems and who runs them. The bad people and the most ignorant ones are the ones who run the European system because everything has to be cleared through the central government. We did not have this burden to the same extent but Obama is working hard to “correct” this.
To the extent this Batman movie helps with the backlash it will be a tremendous boon to us when our media is dominated by petty leftists each advocating for their own brand of tyranny.
Damn.
THAT was awesome!
Well-said, Voluble.
“I’m not saying you are all lazy, just hopefully explaining to you that we can all pick out examples from hundreds of millions of people and extrapolate (wrongly).Regards.”
No, actually you are dead-on. The America of today bears no resemblance of the America of yesterday. We have grown stupid, fat, lazy, and entitled. In short, we have become Greece. And it is only going to get worse.
Do you think that it might be rather more Conservative than Capitalist? Batman as the defender of the existing social order, not withstanding its great problems, as it’s far better than the destructive forces unleashed by social breakdown? Or even the struggle between Batman and Bane as the struggle within each of our souls (notice how Bane is essentially a contraction of Batman, surely not an accident, and a moral comment in itself)
I observed something similar during our years overseas. For Europeans with noble ruling classes in their past (and sometimes present) they expect and accept a certain amount of idleness, playboy nature in their leaders. I think this is one of the reasons Europeans are often baffled by our expectations of moral character in our leaders. To them, powerful men have crazy private lives; that’s a occasional mark of a powerful man.
I know I myself am indulging in a generalisation by saying this, BUT CAN YOU BLOODY YANKS STOP GENERALISNG MY CONTINENT WITH YOUR IGNORANT STATEMENT?!?
Seriously, can you please stop implying that the entire continent of Europe is lazy/self-indulgent?
Generalisations rock they’re so much easier than thinking for all US BLOODY YANKS.
I’d also guess you’re not actually a continental.
Bane exists only by the good graces of Ra’s al Ghul (the mercenary)and his daughter. He was excommunicated by the leader of the league of Shadows (crap, should have kept the original, league of Assassins) for being too extreme? Really, too extreme for a cult that seeks the destruction of all mankind through bio-weapons and WMDs?
And it should be known that LoA is dedicated to the eco-terrorism movement.
There are a bunch of dissimilarities between the original story line and the movie. So much so that I was put off several times in the movie by blatant impossibilities and contradictions. Although I did like the creation of Robin in the movie better than the original story line.
My ultimate WTH moment was the street fight scene between the OWS crowd and the NYPD. Come the hell on, Automatic weapons and tanks against pistols and all them patrolmen lined up like toy soldiers. NONE of them would have made it within 100 yards of the OWS line. Give me a break!
That scene bugged me too but because I don’t think that the usurpers would have fought to the death. Taking VDH’s point about the most successful armies, they fight for ideas or for their home. I see why the police would fight against such odds–though they certainly would have used stealth and brains rather than the visually dramatic head on ranks favored by directors–but the occupiers, they are only brave against the disarmed. They would have cut and run at the first volley.
Guess what? It’s a movie. It was never supposed to be realistic.
That was sort of a rejoinder to the notion that terrorists, do what they do, because they don’t have heavy weapons, Technically, Bane is really supported by John Daggett, the one who facilitates the construction of his lair, who enables his planting the explosives, all around the city,
One of the most overrated movies I can think of off-hand but not bad enough to poke fun at like “Logan’s Run.”
Not bad enough to poke fun at? How shall I count the ways?
I can just see the script conference:
“I know! We’ll put Batman in a trap he needs to escape from while there’s a time bomb ticking!”
“Great! And how long should that go on?”
“THow ’bout… three months!”
“Now, THAT’S exciting!”
They left Batman in a trap so long he literally grew a beard! It’s like a parody!
What an utterly horrid film.
I was finally relieved to see that, unlike other Batman movies, this one did NOT have jumbled fight scenes that were edited by Trevor the enraged chimp. Wow! I can actually see what’s going on! …Only… nothing’s going on.
Bane and Batman, supposedly trained by super-secret kung-fu masters… and they just punch each other in the face over and over… and over… and over… and over. Hey! How ’bout a flying kick? Nope. Punch in the face again. Hey! How ’bout swinging on a… no. Punch in the face. It was choreographed by an 8-year-old schoolyard bully. Oh, and no music for the fight. Now THAT pumps up the thrill-o-meter!
I could write ten pages on how much I hated this film.
That was my impression as well. In the comics Batman is a terrific and eccentric fighter and athlete flying all over the place and here we see one of the screen’s most boring fights, perhaps only surpassed by Sarah Michelle Gellar barely getting a leg to horizontal week after week to kick some guy with modeling clay on his face across the room. Why people like this film is beyond my ability to comprehend. It should’ve been called “Batman Fails” because frankly he seems to be a super-hero who needs more help from others than they need from him. In the comics Batman is a winner and the star and in the movies starting with the first Burton has little camera time and is constantly on the run.
So then once again I’ll ask you, compared to what? Please tell me, in your opinion, what is a good comic book based movie? You must be able to point to something you like.
I’m sure you could do better. Idiot. Speaking of envious scumbags who want to tear down the success of others… let me guess you work in retail?
Well, there’s success and there’s success isn’t there? It’s a financial success and an artistic failure. Without getting into details because it would take a book, the fact you see so many people talking about this film in almost the exact same way one would talk about a book makes its own point.
I have positive and negative reactions to art. Your accusation posits that every time I don’t like something it’s in some fashion due to jealousy or some tearing down process. Where I work has nothing to do with anything. Even if I’d hiked the Inca Trail, motorcycled completely around the island of Bali, slept on top of erupting volcanoes and documented the Egyptian revolution the film would still stink.
And it does. The film is completely out of touch with its material and the screenplay a disaster. The art direction is bland to non-existent, the casting indifferent, the cinematography bland, the editing mere scene changes, the story boring and the script ranges from sad to stupid. There is no sign of bright creativity or inspiration within the precincts of this film.
But apart from that, how did you like it?
Even if I’d hiked the Inca Trail, motorcycled completely around the island of Bali, slept on top of erupting volcanoes and documented the Egyptian revolution the film would still stink.
And you would now be The World’s Most Interesting Man, even if you never drank Dos Equis beer.
Noting that I do not get all that caught up in movies as seriously as some [It's storytelling for freep's sake. People will have different reactions to different stories.]; I can easily agree with Mr. Boot with one exception.
The Democratic Party commits vote fraud not as the end goal, but as a route to the show trials and executions. Buraq Hussein would do just as Bane did, on a national basis, if he thought he could get away with it.
Subotai Bahadur
That’s the part I agree with the most as well.:)
No, there is as in the first film, an alternate plot, in the first film Scarecrow (Crane) was the McGuffin, Ras Al Ghul, was the main villain, a similar thing happens with Bane, except a corrupt bankster facilitates the latter, instead of a mob kingpin.
And the desert fortress is partially a diversion, but an homage to the Count of Monte Cristo.
“Even the European press is much less antagonistic toward government than ours, which patrols the night restlessly in search of wrongdoing.”
You were kidding about this though, right?
I also wondered if that was irony.
Well, if you assume “the press” means just the compliant propagandists at the alphabet soup networks and the red-ink stained wretches at big city newspapers, then sure.
But PJM counts too. So does, for that matter, Limbaugh. Roger Simon may not wear a cape and a mask, but he’s doing what Batman does – step in where the “official” folks failed. It’s a reasonably American genre of story to have a corrupt police force in some podunk burg thwarted by a lone hero who stands up for justice when the authorities have become corrupted.
It used to be present in Europe too (Robin Hood, the Three Muskateers to an extent), but I don’t notice it so much any more. Maybe all the renegades emigrated…
I think you overlooked one other point: those who enable the collectivist revolution (in the movie) and the real-world collectivists (OWS) do so with ulterior motives to further their own political/financial/criminal-terrorist (in the movie) interests. Despite their rhetoric, “The People” are only useful idiots and tools to those elites in the vanguard of the “Revolution.”
“Even the European press is much less antagonistic toward government than ours, which patrols the night restlessly in search of wrongdoing.”
I think there must be a typo in this. Let me fix it.
“Even the European press is much less antagonistic toward government than ours, which patrols the Right restlessly in search of wrongdoing.”
There.
To drive the point of comparing Bane’s Gotham to Jacobin Paris during the Reigh of Terror Commissioner Gordon reads the ending of Dicken’s’ “A Tale of Two Cities”. I did notice the chair where the class enemies of Bane’s Gotham were tried could of been plucked out of Versailles.
Hopefully you do realize that almost nobody under 40 or so has any idea of what “A Tale of Two Cities” is or what it is about. Likewise, they wouldn’t have any idea of the confiscation of property and humiliation of property owners in the French or Bolshevik Revolutions.
I saw it tonight, Saturday date night, and I don’t have a clue what the mostly very young crowd saw in it. We have to remember that they simply don’t have the education to catch the historical references and literary allusions that someone older and better educated, as opposed to credentialled, might have.
Since I moved from Juneau to Anchorage I’m still in awe of theaters that have better screens and sound than I have at home, so the local IMAX screen was a visual and auditory treat. Production values aside, I’m ambivalent about the movie; trite devices, cliched plot line, foreshadowing that a ten year old could figure out. Cat Woman was hot, but if she and Batman “hook up,” their kids are going to glow in the dark. I can only suspend credulity so far, and the first Batman is the only one that allowed me to easily suspend credulity.
Thank you for responding. What a coincidence I saw it last night too. Really surprised the theatre was almost filled up considering this movie has been out for a few weeks. Sadly you really captured my thoughts about the mostly younger audience not getting the historical annd literary references. But hopefully maybe a person or two might be inspried from what Commissioner Gordon read and seek out the source.
Not all of us under-40s are so reliant on the failed English departments of our high schools and colleges to have not sought out things like Tale of Two Cities on our own. I caught the references, but personally, I think Batman has more to do with The Scarlet Pimpernel than Tale of Two Cities. Those elements of the French Revolution in the film ring true not because of allusion, but because of a basic resonance with human nature. The tyranny of the mob is an unfortunate reality in our history, from France to China.
And what, exactly, was the problem with this movie? It was slick, well-acted, decently plotted (had its issues, but nothing overly obnoxious), effective, and decently philosophical in the right places. It was not supposed to be some highly convoluted, deep, complex plot like Memento or Fight Club or Oldboy. Can you see a Batman story, a big-budget movie with a required PG-13 rating, being like those? Not every film has to be like that to be considered good. It’s not perfect – probably because it bit off more than it could chew in terms of thematic elements – but it didn’t pander. It was about Bruce Wayne’s story coming full circle, not an examination of evil, like the second movie was. Bane/Talia/OWS Gotham/the bomb are the supporting, not primary, elements here.
There are only a certain number of ways any story can be told and only so much time for it to be told in. Almost every story out there has tropes/cliches/plot devices in it – hell, at this point, The Godfather is nothing but a mass of cliches, but it’s still a fantastic movie. It’s all in how you use them. How we all got so cynical about things, I’ll never understand.
“Not all of us under-40s are so reliant on the failed English departments of our high schools and colleges to have not sought out things like Tale of Two Cities on our own.”
I am over 40 and English Lit during my years in public education and higher education were already in a decrepit state. But for some reason when I was in graduate school studying economics I started to seek these books out. Perhaps out of shame and a desire to improve myself. As I mentioned before perhaps of some of the millions who will watch this movie will look up Dickens and start their own journey.
My wife and I thought the judgement scenes looked like they were trying to invoke imagery from the French revolution and the reign of terror.
Could of been me. Both younger thirties for us.
“It was about Bruce Wayne’s story coming full circle, not an examination of evil, like the second movie was. Bane/Talia/OWS Gotham/the bomb are the supporting, not primary, elements here.”
Only in the context of the trilogy as a whole, where you get the subsequent contrasts of Ra’s al Ghul who wants to destroy the city for ideology, the Joker who wants to destroy the city out of nihilistic jealousy, and Talia/Bane who want to destroy the city out of love/hate of Ra’s al Ghul.
And then you have to contrast that to Bruce Wayne who wants to save Gotham out of vengeance, then destroys himself out of dedication, and finally “rises” to save Gotham then himself out of love.
“…almost nobody under 40 or so has any idea of what “A Tale of Two Cities” is or what it is about.”
I chose the words carefully to allow for a certain number of autodidacts and the remaining few good schools. These days one can become very highly credentialed with almost no exposure to the classical Western literary canon.
I am a conservative, but I have to say some people are confusing this film as some kind of glowing commentary on the conservative vision of America. It’s not, and it goes out of its way to make clear what its message is. Bringing Burke into the argument is on target, at least.
Dark Knight is a cautionary tale about the French Revolution. In it, we have the storming of the Bastille and the summary courts held by revolutionary citizens where class warfare takes its ultimate vengeance. If the viewer for some reason figured out this is Nolan’s intent, he gives a clear clue at the end when Batman’s final letter says “it’s a far, far greater thing I do now”…which is from Dickens A Tale of Two Cities, a story about the French Revolution.
The film suggests that society is creating the conditions under which a terrible whirlwind will emerge. It certain casts the modern Occupy movement in a poor and dangerous light, but it also points to imbalances in society which ultimately spawn this terrible plague of revolution. It makes constant criticism of our society as filled with “imbalance”, with corruption and lack of opportunity. Bruce Wayne loses his entire fortune to try to right this wrong, a wrong which is a condemnation of his personal lifestyle, and it still isn’t enough to purge his guilt. He may ultimately have to give his life.
These are not my beliefs. But this is the vision of the Dark Knight films.
Great point. The allusions in the movie are much more timeless and universal than some commentary on OWS, Bain-Romney, etc. Yes only point 5 made any sense to me.
I stated it up above, but yes, that’s exactly the point (French revolution) I was seeing, too. I knew I recognized the quote as well.
There is no way a Silvio Berlosconi type would never be elected in America, not even as a Democrat, yet there are tons of similar playboys all over Europe who seem to capture the voters’ imaginations and get elected over and over again.
The author wrote: “Rush Limbaugh, who apparently hadn’t seen the new movie, initially wondered, “Do you think that it is an accident?” that the movie’s lead evildoer is named Bane in a summer of chatter about Mitt Romney’s former outfit Bain Capital.
But not only is the bad guy’s name a coincidence (it dates back to 1993), Bane is the opposite of Bain.”
It is hard to take someone seriously when he can’t even get simple facts right. No doubt, the author probably included Rush’s name in his article to try and get it mentioned, however, either purposely or through incompetence, he misrepresents what Rush said. I checked the transcript (available on Rush’s site) for what he actually said. And, sure enough, Rush noted, before the quoted material above, that (1) the Batman villain of this movie had been around a long time; (2) the movie had been in production long before President Food Stamp launched his failed Bain Capital attacks; and, most importantly, (3) Rush was reading from an article in the Washington Times from the day before(http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/not-your-average-read/2012/jul/16/mitt-romney-bain-capital-bane-batman-bruce-wayne/).
It should also be known that Mr. Nolan and Mr. Limbaugh have a history that predates the Batman Rises movie. Mr. Nolan makes note in an interview (before the movie came out in theaters) that Mr. Limbaugh will once again attack him for being a Hollywood leftist liberal.
?
Not sure a man born with a silver spoon in his mouth would have been my number one pick for a hero. That reeks of European privilege. Self-made, fine. Of course Nolan doesn’t have the latitude to change a well-known action hero’s bio, but I certainly do not see that as part of the American conservative creed.
In the British forces, a “batman” was an officer’s personal servant, the one who among other duties carries the bats at cricket.
Hence John Lennon’s famous line playing batman Trooper Gripweed in “How I won the War” to his officer on the cricket field (his officer is bowling, i.e. pitching) “May I rub your balls, Sir?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEZFe94xpkk
I have never been able to take “Batman and Robin” seriously.
Seen the same movie dozens of times. Didn’t like that in the end they were living in Europe. What’s with that?
I’m kind of a geezer but I grew up with “Batman” in the pre-Frank Miller days before DC decided to make the character into a semi-unhinged psychotic. I liked him best when he was billed as “The World’s Greatest Detective” where most of the comics presented a clever mystery put n motion by one of Batman’s usual foes. The dialogue was always intelligent and interesting and the artwork crisp and well-drafted.
I doubt if Mr. Nolan is trying to push a conservative agenda in “Dark Knight Rises” (although I hope so.) It may just look like he is because he doesn’t seem to be following the Batman-playbook as it has existed for the last twenty years – That would be tons of moral relativism concealed underneath a veneer of shallow pop psychology.
This film actually spurred a serious conversation on the way home about the French Revolution and the Bolsheviks – with a 12 year old son who up to now hasn’t found anything interesting to talk about besides baseball and video gaming. For this I am grateful.
Don’t forget that Wayne Enterprises was twice part f the plot that went wrong, since in the first film they had an illegal weapon that was used against the city and we have a nuclear reactor that can be removed from it’s place and become a bomb and thus threaten the whole city. So when I heard reports that is was a pro capitalistic movie, I looked to see if any thing was done to show it wasn’t that way. It is just a movie to watch and not a political statement, although the director doesn’t like the Occupy people.
I find all the movies tedious.
Batman is a fine comic book icon, talking golden age comics here I haven’t read a new Batman comic in fifteen years (other than the outstanding “Judgement on Gotham” by Simon Bisley), and he’s a well-meaning vigilante, and that’s about it. Speculation about why a well-meaning vigilante might be needed or more effective than the regular police, has no canonical answer, and Bruce Wayne’s wealth is more a convenient explanation for Batman’s resources than a social commentary.
So if the movies have decided to move in any of the directions you suggest, well, I suggest they just dilute the underlying mythic power. Batman, karate? OMG. Even the rubber suite aping muscles, good grief. And the plethora of bat-devices was already a joke in the 1960s tv series.
Actually I think the message of the film is that both extreme capitalism and extreme anti-capitalism are bad for society. Bruce Wayne is a rich man but he is also a philanthropist. In other words, he uses his wealth not just for himself but also to help his fellow human beings.
The writer of this article, using the alias John Boot, wrote:
“More than any other superhero, Batman is a reflection on America. He is the only masked marvel whose movies consistently earn tens of millions more in North America than in the rest of the world combined. (Sole exception since 1989: Batman and Robin. Maybe it was funny in Italian.)”
The part about Italy is an incredibly bigoted and ignorant statement; especially if you know anything about the history of film.
Did the batman movie earn more in N. America because it did more business there, or simply because foreign earnings were less than other superhero movies?
Lest we forget what Hollyweird is REALLY about. Left wing Multi Culti propaganda has been the stuff of virtually ALL Hollywoods and Televisions outpourings for DECADES .
Ocean Protection – Not
The oceans were total protection for America for every year through 1491. Then it turned into a vast freeway with no obstacles to anyone who built ships. Anyone landing anywhere would have superiority over the natives.
After 1491, protection of America and the US was on other terms. President Washington knew that firearms freedom in two centuries to manufacture and use guns resulted in rifles (very expensive) of a radical new design being developed and used in the exurbs, with users doing enough shooting to make the long plod to Proficiency. Proficient Washington knew that with no rifle users elsewhere (and not even settled areas of the US or in Europe), the anonymous, Proficient rifle-users would emerge to eradicate invaders.
America is like the imperial eagle with two heads. One is Plymouth Colony and the New England patricians. The other is New Amsterdam. The first boatload of immigrants, united only in their urge to sail on it, debarked at Manhattan. The leader, learning of the mutual defense treaty system of the lower Hudson River living groups, bought into it with beads and stuff, being sort of like just another tribe of Indians. With freedom do to what you want and suffer the consequences, and guided only by a list of rights from the United Provinces, no one died of starvation and in fact the place slowly grew to the only economic colossus on the Atlantic Coast, fiercely coveted by the British king.
Read of daily live in New Amsterdam, one thinks oh my, no TV. Read of daily life in Plymouth Colony and you realize you would rather go through Parris Island, twice. The New Amsterdam culture of freedom spread everywhere, and quickly exploded the constricted immigrants into taking up freedom. Plymouth Colony never would have allowed the Big Gulp.
Well without a doubt this is a conservative movie. Conservative in that we, the audience, pull for the good guy. There is good, and there is bad; there is right, and there is wrong. There is, refreshingly, no “gray area” in this movie. We have a vested interest in people keeping what they work for, such as their homes. We feel the same regret that Catwoman felt when she realized that her actions (and inaction) led to someone being thrown out of their home for the sake of “fairness” and entitlement. We empathize with her realization, understanding that we would feel the same if we took something that was not ours. This movie exposes the mood of too many – many of them critics – who themselves are trying hard to stoke resentment and anger among those that have to eat hamburger and who sweat at their jobs (oh dear!) rather than have steak and wear a tie everyday. Being one of the former, I have no such resentments. We have mobility in our society, and I have mobilized from Ramen noodles to hamburger and I like that. Might not ever get to steak, but that’s okay. I’d personally rather save the money and go to Disney every year with the wife and kids than waste it on such luxuries. The left’s resentment and that which many of this movie’s reviewers seem to be attempting to foment among us poor misguided powerless “proles” will, in the end, do nothing but destroy. Check out history, that which inspired this movie: the French Revolution; check out literature: The Tale of Two Cities. The left should, but will never, realize that not everyone has the same drive to succeed and their lack of success is largely the fault (gasp!) of their own lack of initiative and hard work. More importantly, they should collectively (!) take a breath and look at things from a different perspective: that our economic pie is not static; it grows and as it does we all benefit and self-made millionares abound – they are all around us. And finally, too many left-leaning critics seriously need to watch the movies they review. All of their political score keeping and class-war-colored glasses prevent them from fully understanding that America is a wonderful place full of life and opportunity and realized dreams rather than a cold brittle sphere perpetually rotating on an roiling axis of resentment and envy. And TDKR is a absolutely fantastic movie. God bless.
Batman, never did think much of the concept, or the comic. The conjoining of a winged nocturnal communal flying rodent with an earth bound life form more attuned to daylight hunter gathering, afterwards whiling away the hours huddled around the cave based communal fire at night for safety. I grant you both species do share the same rat like tribal violence for doing in strangers.